About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (March 3, 1955)
* PAGE 6—March 3, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Florida MIAMI, Fla. ^ITH local delegations and spe cial committees holding hear ings throughout the state to discuss bills for consideration by the Florida legislature in April, there has been a complete lack of demand for action on school segregation. Florida has an unusual system by which the legislators meet in public with officials, civic and welfare groups to receive their suggestions for new laws. Over the years these sessions have been a sounding board for public sentiment on taxes and other government problems. They have had a great deal to do with sub sequent action in the legislature. There have been no reports of delegations asking action for or against segregation. The question has not come up. Even the school officials in pre senting their needs and concerns have shown deepest interest in find ing money to build more classrooms needed by a skyrocketing school population, up about ten per cent over last year. School costs will be increased about 60 million dollars the next two years by this growth, school offi cials estimate. This indicates the form in which the question of segregated schools is most likely to come before the legislature—the continued building of separate schools for whites and for Negroes before a clearcut decision is made on integration. RESURVEYING FORESEEN School officials have already said that when racial segregation is ended, the entire school system must be resurveyed and building plans revised to serve the highest needs of all children. The Florida Conference of the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People took the lead in clarifying this situation. The NAACP asked the state to stop building segregated schools. The group suggested that Congress re fuse federal aid for construction of schools to serve only one race. Francisco A. Rodriguez, legal re dress chairman for NAACP, wrote Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin that AUSTIN, Texas r J 1 HE Texas legislature went into the second month of its sched uled four-month session without any mention of changes in the laws pro viding for racial segregation. Much other legislation affecting schools was being considered, in cluding a plan which sponsors said would increase by 45 per cent the money available for school buildings. This has little bearing directly upon the problem of segregation, how ever, but rather was an effort to meet the steadily increasing enroll ment in all Texas schools. The Texas Council of Organiza tions, representing various Negro groups, met at Austin on Feb. 14 and adopted a resolution pledging to fight for implementation of the U. S. Supreme Court decision that com pulsory racial segregation is uncon stitutional. Judge Hubert T. Delany of a New York City domestic relations court, addressing the Negro assembly, com pared Texas Gov. Allan Shivers to Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Shivers advocates continued separa tion of the races in school. SCHOOL FUND MEASURE In the legislature, Rep. Barefoot Sanders of Dallas sponsored the pro posal for more school construction funds. Teachers’ and administrators’ associations both were supporting the bill. The measure would let districts issue bonds equal to 10 per cent of assessed property valuations for tax purposes. At the same election, voters would decide whether they were willing to increase taxes enough to pay for the additional bonds. “unless the present system of con structing segregated schools is ended, the conference could find no other alternative than to seek the inter vention of a higher jurisdictional body.” This meant, he explained, that the NAACP might seek court interven tion to halt school building programs in those circumstances. “It is the opinion of our legal minds that the question of a dual school system was settled as of May 17, 1954.” This is the date of the Supreme Court’s ruling ending school segregation. “Laws formerly intended for the building of separate schools for Negro or white students are no longer in effect and cannot be used to support the school building pro gram as is now the practice,” he added. He said the NAACP is aware of the serious shortage of classroom space and is in sympathy with efforts for relief. “However, it is impossible for the official family of NAACP to stand idly by and watch segregation as it is perpetuated while the state awaits the final decree of the United States Supreme Court to be put into effect.” APPEAL TO SENATORS At the same time Rodriguez put the NAACP on record in this letter, the Tampa NAACP group wrote Florida’s U. S. senators, George Smathers and Spessard Holland, ask ing them to support a proposal that states seeking federal aid for school construction must comply with the segregation ruling of the Supreme Court. Matthew Gregory, president of the Tampa body, said this appeal was “the initial step in the branch’s pro gram to end racial segregation for the people we represent. “We intend to acquaint the voters with the records of those politicians who fail to abide by the decision of the court so that they will have ad ditional information on how and whom to vote for. “This program will be designed es pecially for the Negro voters of Hillsborough County (Tampa).” Reaction came from state officials. Atty. Gen. Ervin, whose Supreme Districts now are permitted to levy up to a 50-eent tax on $100 valuation for bond servicing ($1.50 for all pur poses). The Sanders bill would keep a $1.50 general tax limit, but would not restrict the levy needed to fi nance schoolhouse bonds. After public hearing, the measure went to a subcommittee for further study. This was not considered an unfriendly act, since the subcommit tee members include author Sanders and others who indicated favor for the idea. Sponsors said the bill would make Texas school bonds more attractive to investors by removing the tax ceiling. The result will be a substan tial saving in interest payments, they said. E. N. Dennard, superintendent of Waco schools, figured that his district would have saved $395,000 if it had been permitted to use the new plan on seven million dollars worth of bonds issued in recent years. Rep. Sanders said Texas must build more schools to take care of its booming enrollment. Attendance —now estimated at 1,440,000—will be increased by 320,000 by 1959, Sanders said. SOME OPPOSITION The principal opposition came from Kenneth McCalla, attorney for Texas railroads. He called it “a whopping big tax bill” and predicted school taxes would increase 75 per cent if the bill becomes law. “I’m surprised to see the railroad industry fighting this bill unless they have some reasonable alternative to offer,” Sanders replied. L. P. Sturgeon, official of the Texas State Teachers Association, warned legislators that unless local Court brief in behalf of Florida urged a gradual approach to segrega tion and a wide latitude for local school officials, said the NAACP’s ac tion was premature. “Until the implementation of the decision is rendered, there is no way to foresee how the existing dual sys tem of buildings can be adapted to meet the situation at that time. “It is premature to contend that present school building construction cannot be adapted to an integrated system on a gradual basis as has been suggested.” Ervin pointed out that the Florida Supreme Court already has turned down an attack on a school bond issue in Manatee County, in which the identical contention was made. The court held that bonds could be issued for segregated schools be cause the United States Supreme Court has not yet implemented its May 17 decision. LAKE COUNTY INCIDENTS The incidents in Lake County, where children of two families were forced from white schools on the grounds that they had Negro blood, remained unresolved. One of the fathers involved, Allen Platt, who said his children were part white and part Croatan Indian, appealed to Gov. LeRoy Collins for an investigation. Collins sent an un identified representative to Lake County. He reported he was unable to determine the truth of the charges. Collins advised Platt to seek relief in the courts. “Through the recorded history of the people legally designated as Croatan Indians in North Carolina, there runs a controversy over whether they should be regarded as having Negro blood,” the governor wrote Platt. “Under the constitution I am di rected to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Elsewhere our constitution states that white and colored children shall not be taught in the same school. This provision remains despite the much-publicized decision of the United States Su preme Court. “If you wish to pursue the ques tion in our courts I am confident that you can get a speedy and impartial trial. I shall use the fullest power of the office I hold to enforce the final decree. Further, I will urge the people in the area in which you are living to be tolerant of your ambi districts are given more generous taxing powers they will (1) seek federal aid for buildings or (2) ask state aid for construction. The state now pays most of the cost of operat ing public schools in Texas, but building expense is borne entirely by the local districts. The bill to provide for appoint ment of a majority of Negroes to the nine-member governing board of Texas Southern University at Hous ton won approval of the State House of Representatives. NEED FOR NEGRO COLLEGES A well-known Negro educator, speaking at a Methodist Church gathering in Austin, said that col leges for Negro students will be needed in the South despite the Supreme Court ruling. “While Negro citizens today com prise 10 per cent of the total popula tion, they represent only 3 per cent of America’s college enrollment,” said Dr. M. S. Davage, president of Houston-Tillotson College, operated at Austin by the Methodist church. Dr. Davage said that opportunities for educating Negroes in college will become greater as the quality of elementary and secondary education improves. He predicted that sociologi cal and psychological integration will come slowly and that colleges like Houston-Tillotson must con tinue as “stabilizing influences in the adjustment of Negroes to new condi tions.” Tom Clark of Dallas, associate justice of the Supreme Court, pre dicted at Austin that the segregation decree will be forthcoming this year. “However, the date for the final segregation arguments has not been set,” Judge Clark reminded a re porter. The jurist was in Austin to attend a relative’s wedding. At Tyler, U. S. District Judge Joe tions for your children and to co operate fully to permit you and your family to enjoy your lawful rights whatever they may be declared to be. “I would like to suggest that what ever action you take come only after you have searched your own mind to find the course that is most likely to bring happiness. Your children will not enhance their opportunities for the future in any school if they do not have the peace of mind and the comfort of friends while getting an education. A legal victory alone would not assure these things.” WARREN CONTRIBUTES No decision about court action has been indicated, but some persons have donated to a fund to finance a suit. Among contributors was former Gov. Fuller Warren. In a letter to Platt that accompanied his contribution, Warren was critical of Lake County’s sheriff, Willis V. McCall, whose complaints led to the ouster of the Platt children. “Florida cannot afford to let a sheriff, a school board or any other non-judicial official eject a child from public school simply because his complexion or nose may be similar to a Negro’s,” the former governor declared. “The Platt children are not only denied the right of every American child to attend a public school, but they are forced to violate Section 232.01, Florida statutes, which re quires that every child between 7 and 16 years attend school or their parents are subject to criminal prose cution and fines or imprisonment. “To tell their poor father who picks oranges for a living to hire a high-powered lawyer and go into court and prove his children have no Negro blood is about like telling a pauper to start clipping coupons,” Warren declared. In explanation of his statement and contribution, the former governor said: “I am not in favor of white and Negro children going to the same school. I am not in favor of social equality between the white and black races. But I am in favor of justice and fair treatment for everybody, white, black and all other colored.” While these developments bore directly on the issue of school seg regation, several incidents in Florida W. Sheehy declined to enter judg ment in a school segregation case pending the Supreme Court decree. The case involved 11 Negro high school graduates seeking admission to Kilgore Junior College. Judge Sheehy said he would act in the case after the Supreme Court gives its directive, if the college still refuses to admit qualified Negro ap plicants. Several public junior col leges in Texas already have admitted Negroes. Most of these, however, are in areas with few Negroes, while Kilgore Junior College is in an area with a large Negro population. The Houston Informer, a Negro newspaper, quoted this comment from an unnamed regional field sec retary, National Association for Ad vancement of Colored People, con cerning Judge Sheehy’s ruling: “If this ruling has any meaning at all, it has very significant meaning: it tells us that our fight against racial segregation has not been won. Rather it is just beginning. The ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States has given us a new position of advantage in the fight, but we must be prepared to carry on until the right of Negroes in America not to be segregated in public education, public housing, public transportation and in all other phases of our public life is an accepted truth—even by our federal judges.” STATEMENT ADOPTED The Feb. 14 meeting of Negroes at Austin by resolution called on “the public officials of this great state to take all necessary action to implement the spirit and purpose of this decision in a manner consistent with the most lofty tenets of our national concept of office.” The statement said also: “We shall appeal to all ministers of God, to our governor, our attorney general, our judges, our educators, school officials Texas during January concerned race re. lations in general. A Lincoln’s birthday dinner 0 f Republican leaders in Miami’s down, town Urmey Hotel was disrupted when the hotel management de manded that 24 Negro guests be ejected. After loud arguments dur ing which some of the Republican officials sponsoring the dinner in- sisted they were “pushed around," the Negroes and about 150 white guests left the dining room. Those who remained heard Congresswoman Cecil N. Harden, Indiana Republican, predict progress toward a two- party system in the South. On the following day, there were threats of suits against the hotel management, and a contention by the management that the whole affair was a planned attempt to exploit the Negro Republicans. Mayor Abe Aronovitz of Miami said: “The occasion is a desecration of the name of Abraham Lincoln. As mayor I wish to apologize to the memory of Lincoln and I hope the nation will realize that this attitude (of the hotel) is not the attitude of most Miamians.” Management of several other hotels said they have been serving Negro guests at private functions without incident for many months, Without fanfare, the Carpenters District Council of Greater Miami, one of the largest AFL unions in Florida, voted to wipe out the color line. This does not mean that the union wall accept Negro members. But it abolished a “gentleman’s agreement” that Negro carpenters would work only on construction jobs in the Negro area and white carpenters in the white area. Over the years this agreement was a point of controversy, both groups charging it frequently was violated Officials of the union said that crafts men of both races would in the future work side by side on the same scaf folds. Negro and white ministers of Fort Myers formed an interracial group to work for better race relations under the auspices of the Fort Myers Min isterial Association. The Rev. A. H. Harris, pastor of the St. Philip Methodist Church, a Negro congregation, proposed the discussion group. Its principal aim will be to improve housing and edu cational opportunities. and. the press to make public state ments to the people of this state that the May 17th decision of the Supreme Court which outlaws state enforced racial segregation in our public schools is final, that there is no ap peal from it and it must be obeyed.' The statement concluded with: “Segregation breeds fear and whet the barriers of segregation are at last removed from American life, wc will wonder why we feared it. • ■ It is our firm and unanimous betid that the implementation of the de cision will strengthen the South and the nation morally, economically and spiritually. “We, as Negro citizens, stand ready to cooperate wholeheartedly in the progressive fulfillment of these democratic objectives.” REPORT FROM CATHOLICS The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio reported that MJ Negroes had been integrated with white students in 18 parochial schoo-' of southwest Texas. Three family removed their children because Negroes attended, the archdiocese reported. t “It’s working very well with us said Msgr. James M. Boyle of tn c church’s desegregation program. The San Antonio archdioce“ started integration upon order 0 Archbishop Robert E. Lucey eve* before the Supreme Court announce its decision of May 17, 1954. Fifty-five of the 101 Negroes ^ attending Catholic colleges and w others are in elementary and bH schools. The archdiocese covers ' . large portion of southwest Te* 35 with a high percentage of Span^ 1 speaking people. Three all-Negro parochial scho° 1 are maintained by the Cath 0 ' 1 church in the San Antonio area-
