About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (March 3, 1955)
1 PAGE 8—March 3, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Kentucky LOUISVILLE, Ky. MARKED increase in public dis cussion of desegration prospects and problems, with whites and Ne groes joining in panel-type and audience-participation meetings, has highlighted recent developments in Louisville, where one-third of Ken tucky’s Negroes live. It is largely the result, directly in some cases, indirectly in others, of a planned drive announced last year by the Louisville Board of Education and Supt. Omer Carmichael to create “a favorable climate of opinion” for a transition deemed inevitable. Aside from staff-level discussion and preparation of ten tative plans, it has involved requests that Parent Teacher Associations and other groups begin talking about and planning for the day of nonsegregated schools and give school officials “the benefit of their thinking.” A Presbyterian pastor, Dr. William A. Benfield Jr., told the Belknap PTA on Feb. 8 that he believed Louisville is now ready for deseg regation and urged no postponement. (The Belknap PTA, which is white, voted unanimously to invite all par ents in the area, white and Negro, to their annual visiting day in May.) Dr. Benfield said the question is not whether white and Negro chil dren would attend school together, but how. The responsibility for “working out this new relationship,” he said, “is upon us as parents and teachers. All men are children of God. They all stand equally in need of His saving grace. There is no difference among God’s children.” As for the possibility of inter marriage as a result of desegrega tion, Dr. Benfield said Negro leaders are just as much opposed as whites. LEGAL ROADBLOCK Reaction of state and Louisville officials to this demand for im mediate desegregation was to point to a legal roadblock. State Atty. Gen. J. D. Buckman has held that the Day Law forbidding integration remains in effect until the Supreme Court implements its May 17 ruling, and the state board of education last July advised local school districts to take no action in the meantime. Louisville may take some action toward integration in September, 1955, by mixing white and Negro pupils in “certain grades,” Board of Education President Morton Walker said on Feb. 9. But this “guess,” Mr. Walker said, was pre dicated on new word from the Su preme Court by that time, since the Day Law still remains in effect. Not minimizing what he termed the “ruggedness” of the problems involved, Supt. Carmichael said on Feb. 13 that he hoped the Supreme Court would allow at least five years for putting public school desegrega tion into effect—but added he hoped “we in Louisville will not use the five years.” The long period, he said, would be needed in some states in the Deep South. “If it is to be done well,” Mr. Carmichael told some 70 persons at the Fourth Avenue Methodist family-fellowship night, “it probably needs to be handled as most big problems are—by gradually working toward the goal.” He stressed that his policy was not the “gradualism” opposed by many foes of segregation: “It will be my purpose,” he said, “to implement the decision with no effort to side step, no effort by subterfuge or sharp practices to defeat the purpose of the court . . . We will never do anything to thwart the law of the land.” POINTS UP PROBLEMS Before the Methodist audience, as he has been doing for other church and civic groups, the Louisville su perintendent discussed some of the problems he expects to encounter in desegregating the schools. (1) Local studies of scholastic rec ords have shown that the average Negro sixth-grader is a year and two months behind the average white sixth-grader in educational achieve ment. The difference is “socio-eco nomic” rather than racial in basis, he said. But when Negro and white sixth graders are mixed, “Negro parents may feel that teachers are being partial to white students; white parents may feel that scholastic standards will be hurt.” This educational gap between Ne groes and whites of the same grade level widens until at the college level, Mr. Carmichael said, “it is so great as to be almost alarming.” (2) That poses a teacher problem: Under testing methods used in Louisville, Negro teachers of appar ently superior training and experi ence may be passed over for white teachers seemingly less well equipped—and it may also happen that a white teacher “from an in fluential family” will lose out to a Negro of greater ability when both seek the same job. “But,” Mr. Carmichael said, “as far as I can determine, the best teacher, Negro or white, is going to get the job. You’re going to have Negro teachers teaching white chil dren. That is what the Supreme Court decision means and that is what we will do.” But mixing of the races, he added, would not be “pushed abnormally” for its own sake. (3) Negro children, Mr. Carmi chael said, “are the group for whom we need to have the greatest con cern,” because those entering pre viously all-white schools will be “under a psychological handicap.” But the Louisville schools, he said, “will undertake to create that kind of climate in which they will have a minimum of insecurity and a max imum of feeling of belonging.” (4) One listener asked if some schools wouldn’t continue to have all white pupils “because of loca tion.” Mr. Carmichael said such cases would be few, but that some Negro schools in the central part of Louis ville would probably continue all- Negro because no white pupils live in their districts. FUTURE OF COLLEGE Another Kentucky desegregation problem was posed in a long feature article in The Courier-Journal on Feb. 18, based on the writings of Dr. R. B. Atwood, president of Kentucky State College, in The Journal of the Kentucky Teachers Association. Its gist: That Kentucky State, the only senior four-year col lege for Negroes in Kentucky, fully accredited as a “Class A” institution by the Southern Association of Col leges and Secondary Schools, should become an instrument for the mass education of people of both races. Kentucky’s need is not for fewer colleges, but more, Dr. Atwood wrote. He suggested that Kentucky State continue to fulfill its mission as a land-grant institution, with a four-year program in liberal arts, teacher education, and vocational- teacher preparation, and in addition offer: (1) A two-year course of general education for students who are de ficient on account of poor elemen tary and secondary school prepara tion; (2) Two-year terminal courses for students who want to stop and work a while before completing the last two years, these courses to be in such practical fields as construction, maintenance, farming, dairying, etc., and secretarial training; (3) Standard two-year courses leading to advanced study elsewhere in such fields as farm management, animal husbandry, and business. Four recent panels on desegrega tion reflect what The Courier-Jour nal editorially termed “the useful and increasing ferment of community discussion and preliminary or tenta tive planning” in Louisville—ferment which gave hope, the newspaper maintained, that the transition to desegregation in Louisville might be “a model of smoothness and demo cratic good sense.” STUDENT PANEL At the white Theodore Ahrens Trade high school, the Ahrens stu dent council has six students from Ahrens and Central high school (for Negroes) join three civic leaders in Discussion Groups At Work STUDENTS AT A midwinter seminar of the Southern Police Institute, University of Louisville, heard the four panelists above in a day-long dis cussion of the background, effect and implications of the Supreme Court decision against segregated public schools. The panelists, left to right: Weldon James, editorial writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal; Robert L. Carter, attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Mark F. Ethridge, publisher of The Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times; and Hodding Carter, Greenville, Miss, author and newspaper publisher. ANOTHER LOUISVILLE discussion of desegregation problems, attended by PTA representatives and officials of white and Negro schools, featured these four speakers. Left to right: Mrs. Houston Baker, teacher; Dr. Hugh A. Brimm, chairman of the Kentucky Council on Human Relations; Dr. Herbert S. Waller, assistant rabbi of Temple Adath Israel; and Dr. C. H. Parrish, Uni versity of Louisville sociologist. Louisville Courier-Journal. Times Photos THESE STUDENTS from Louisville’s Theodore Ahrens Trade high school (white) and Central high school (Negro) were among six to stage the first public discussion of the Supreme Court decision in a Louisville school. The meeting was arranged by the Ahrens Student Council. Three local civic lead ers joined with the student panelists in the discussion. Pictured above: Mary Perry of Central, Russell Sexton, Bill Catlett and Sandra Nieser of Ahrens. discussing desegregation before an audience of about 100 persons. “The main cause of friction be tween Negroes and white is prej udice,” said Russell Sexton, Ahrens student. “We have to educate adults and parents to see that it is right to have Negroes and whites in the same classrooms.” Mary Perry, Central student, said that segregation is contrary to the U. S. Constitution and hinders the economic, social and educational de velopment of the individual. It re sults in unequal expenditure for Negro and white schools. Sandra Nieser, Ahrens student, argued that separate schools are not equal, that Negro schools have in ferior buildings, and that Negro teachers salaries are lower than those of white instructors. Central student Julius Price warned against the “gerrymander ing” of school districts in an attempt to evade the high court’s decision. Adults must be educated, he said, to combat “these causes of problems —prejudice, ignorance, domineering parents, and troublemakers.” “The best thing is to assume a natural attitude with people of other races,” advised Jack Denna, execu tive of the Louisville branch of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. “Integration is a fact. It will probably go into effect here in the fall.” New Albany Schools Supt. Glenn Barkis said that no white students left New Albany (Indiana) high school when races were mixed in the classrooms there, but that three or four Negro teachers lost their jobs in the consolidation. Mixing of the races is “a process of trial and error,” said Charles T. Steele, executive director of the Louisville Urban League. Summarizing the discussion—first of its kind to be sponsored by any school in Louisville—Ahrens Prin cipal Alfred Meyer said that “a gen eration or two from now people will probably wonder what all the fuss was about.” Louisville’s Eastern Council on Moral and Spiritual Education, with a membership composed of white parents and school instructors and officials, had white and Negro par ents and school officials at a desegre gation forum led by four civic leaders. Audience participation was marked. One man, speaking from the floor, got murmurs of approval when he said that “It isn’t so much what is said at these meetings that counts—it’s the fact that they are being held. People with a common purpose can strengthen that purpose by getting together and talking it over. They, in turn, can interest others.” “The philosophy is more important than the technicalities,” said Dr. Charles H. Parrish, one of the panel ists and professor of sociology at the University of Louisville. (Other panelists include Mrs. Houston Baker, a Negro parent and teacher; Dr. Hugh A. Brimm, chairman of the Kentucky Council on Human Relations, and Dr. Herbert S. Waller, assistant rabbi of Temple Adath Israel.) Asked whether it was better to begin integration with a few grades at a time or do it all at once, Dr. Parrish said that this was an admin istrative problem. The Negro edu cator added: “I think procedure should be very flexible. Each community and lo cality is unique. Each should work out what is best for that commu nity.” POLICE INSTITUTE The Southern Police Institute of the University of Louisville on Feb. 9 had an all-day seminar on de segregation. About 200 persons, rep resenting the general public as well as the university undergraduate corps, attended the open morning session, which was covered fully by press, radio and television. The after noon session was limited to police officer-students. Panelists included Robert L. Car ter, attorney for the National Asso ciation for the Advancement of Col ored People; Hodding Carter, Pulit zer Prize-winning newspaper editor and author from Greenville, Miss.; Weldon James, of the Louisville Courier-Journal; and Mark F. Eth ridge, publisher of the Courier- Journal and the Louisville Times, who served as moderator. James described the historical background of the Supreme Court’s May 17 ruling, said it was “evolu tionary, not revolutionary” in terms of other decisions in recent years. Atty. Carter said he was confident that the Supreme Court decision “will be implemented and imple mented soon. And make no mistake about it,” he continued, “segregated schools will disappear in South Car olina, Georgia and Alabama—for they are part of the United States.’ He said many efforts are being made to circumvent the court’s de cision. One of these, he said, is the “state instrumentality thesis,” under which a state sets up a “private school system. “Here,” he said, “even though a private agency or corporation may be performing the function (of edu cating children), the Court will look to see whether the agency is acting independently or is controlled by the state. If state control is estab lished, the agency is treated as 3 state institution subject to the four teenth Amendment . . . This seems to defeat the private school but scholarship-aided plan. “On the other hand, the Supren* 3 Court may act on a determination that what is involved is a govern ment function without regard to the question of state control . . . “In the final analysis, the speed o implementation will be determine® by how much the Negro is willing t° accept with respect to the evasion of his rights. “The Supreme Court has now sai^ that equality under the law mean® equality in fact. . . . The notion th a the white skin alone is suffici en warrant of superiority has long h a no support in morality. Now it b* 5 no support in law. “This is the beauty of the decision Morality and legality have merg®^ as one, and that, I believe, const* tutes an irresistible force.” . . Editor Hodding Carter, discuss*!*” Continued On Next Page
