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Arkansas LITTLE ROCK, Ark. T j£E most significant development in Arkansas during March on the subject of racial integration in public schools was the action of the Ar kansas Senate in turning down a House-approved bill designed to preserve segregation with adminis trative red tape. There were many other develop ments, meetings and statements in volving school integration and re lated subjects. In chronological order, this was the March picture in Arkansas: panel discussion On March 4, racial integration in public schools was one of several subjects discussed by eight high school pupils at the annual state wide conference of the Arkansas Council on Children and Youth. When school integration was brought up, Joyce Smith of Marianna, one of three Negroes on the panel, said she thought that everyone was entitled to a good education because all people are created equal. A. Walton Litz of Little Rock, rep resenting the Arkansas Economic Council-State Chamber of Com merce, said at that point: “I feel that teen-agers would handle in tegration very, very well.” Joyce replied: “It’s not up to teen agers.” Flo Jean Perry of Hot Springs, a white student, said: “We can’t solve it without you [adults]. You created it.” SENATE KILLS BILL On March 8, the Arkansas Senate in effect killed a bill designed to preserve segregation in the public schools. The Senate did this by amending the measure to delay its effective date two years. Two days later, the General Assembly ad journed without having taken fur ther action on the bill. The segregation bill (House Bill 488), guided through the House Feb. 21 by a group of East Arkansas representatives, did not specifically require non-integrated schools. In stead, it provided that every school district must appoint an assignment officer to place each child in a school. The assignment officers would have had wide leeway in making their de cisions, and the measure provided ® implicated procedure for appeals rom the decisions of the assignment officers. Sponsors of the measure said that e administrative and appeal pro cedure was designed to delay the entrance of any Negro child into a de school for months or years— not forever. Under present law, ny Negro patron can go straight 0 ederal court to charge discrimi nation. ^!f n House Bill 488 came up for nsweration in the Senate, Sen. u . Long of Forrest City, who the c. mtro ^ uce d an identical bill in jl en ate, served as floor leader for measure. (The Senate had taken ty-i^Y 1011 on Long’s bill and had , * or a House action on the sub- !, OWELL leads opposition Wto”' Max Howe11 of Little I to t , ma de all the motions whicl officer CHpplin g °f the assign! be r mea sure, was the only n str ° *^ e Senate to speak against it. feetiv aaien dment delayed the 1, i,l date of the bill from ti me 1 to Jul y 1. 1957. By Court 1 United States Supi states v k ave ruled on how Vision ° Uld carr y o ut the Co school. against segregation in ■*mse rn i- il and the Arkansas Gei *essi on y wd l have held anc As the aS ^ en ' Long callet r ead ^ ’ Howell moved that' i After an un usual procei hong b ms was done, Howell t®ry .®an a series of parliar C: !ma x neuvers which came ^tidiy,the adoption of J*®Ve tb en *i . ff° we ll first trie< av ® kib jtil tabled. This w R^ded i'll h outri g ht - Long J 16 mm; d §ot a r oH ca H v °t ^ated i°? to table, which J 12 to 13. Howell then moved that the bill be placed back on second reading so it could be amended. This pro duced the significant vote, with 17 senators supporting the motion and 15 opposing it. The motion caused a three-way discussion among Long, Howell and Sen. W. E. (“Buck”) Fletcher of Scott, a staunch supporter of the bill. REALISM URGED Howell argued for the two-year delay so the Supreme Court could act. “1 am against the bill very strongly and will vote against it,” Howell said. “We are supposed to have equal rights in a democracy. Just because Alabama or some other dyed-in-the- wool southern state jumped in haste to preserve something doesn’t mean Arkansas should. Don’t be impet uous. Be realistic about this.” Howell said he had received one letter favoring the bill and more than 50 letters and telegrams against it. Long spent most of his time fend ing off the attempts to kill the bill by indirection. He said other south ern states had acted on the subject and he warned that “the Supreme Court may not rule in favor of us.” Fletcher said that 99 per cent of the white persons and 95 per cent of the Negroes in Arkansas were for the bill. SCHOOL FUNDS CUT On March 10, the Arkansas Gen eral Assembly adjourned without in creasing taxes to provide the addi tional $12,500,000 a year in state aid which school forces had requested when the 60-day session began. Instead, the schools will receive an estimated $1,600,000 a year less from the state than the $29,500,000 they now receive. The reduction will be caused by declining state revenues and the action of the legislature in voting to exempt commercial live stock and poultry feed from the two per cent sales tax. School forces had sought the extra money primarily to increase teach ers’ salaries and to take steps to ward equalizing the school program between urban and rural districts and between white and Negro schools. SHORTER TERMS FORESEEN To provide an increase in state aid to schools, Gov. Faubus had pro posed to increase the sales tax from two to three per cent and to in crease the income and tobacco taxes. All were turned down by the legisla ture. On March 10, after the legislature adjourned, State Education Com missioner Arch W. Ford said the education department would admin ister “willingly and cheerfully” the money voted to it by the legislature. But he said he believed the failure of the legislators to vote additional money would mean shortened terms in some school districts. Before the legislature adjourned, it passed legislation designed to force local school districts to raise more money by increasing and equalizing property assessments. ASSESSMENT REVISION SET The assessment measure gives the state a club it never has had before to force assessments upward. The act provides that the state can with hold a portion of state aid from any county, city or school district which fails to get its assessments up to 18 per cent of actual value. Most prop erty in the state now is assessed be low that figure although the state standard—previously without any practical way to enforce it—has been 20 per cent. The new assessment plan won’t be effective until Jan. 1, 1957, when all the property in the state will be re-assessed on a local level. In a related action, the legislature placed on the November, 1956, general election ballot a proposed constitu tional amendment to limit the school tax rate to 30 mills. It would not affect millage already pledged to retire bonded indebtedness. There is no limit now on the school millage rate. Sponsors of the measure to put the 30-mill limit question on the general election ballot argued that SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—April 7, 1955—PAGE 3 SEN. MAX HOWELL Fought Arkansas Bill assessment reforms could not be made without a limit on school mill- age. On March 14, the state board of education agreed to try to keep teachers’ salaries at present levels— even if it meant cutting school terms by a month or two. The board voted to check the en tire state education program to see what services and workers could be dropped to provide the extra money for salaries. MORE INTEGRATION SEEN On March 15, Education Comis- sioner Ford told the Arkansas Asso ciation of School Administrators at Little Rock that finances and in tegration were the two big questions facing Arkansas school leaders dur ing the coming year. He said the failure of the legisla ture to provide more school revenue meant that “there will be no state assistance to help meet the impact of a United States Supreme Court decision on integration.” “We must be realistic on integra tion,” Ford said. “I don’t take either extreme view. I think Arkansas is going to have more integration next year than it had this year. When you have six Negroes living in an area of 650 white children, the Ne groes are going to the white school.” Ford said, “We’re not going to have any trouble out of the children” on integration “if the parents will just leave them alone. “Integration can only be worked over a long period of years on a district-to-district basis. Conditions are not the same in the various dis tricts of the state and they never will be.” 1955 GOAL IMPRACTICAL Ford said the speed with which the pupils were integrated would depend on the leaders of both races in the districts. “I do not agree with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in reference to a September, 1955, target date for com plete integration,” he said. “I don’t think it’s practical.” Ford said he also disagreed with the view of other extremists that “we’ll never have integration in pub lic schools.” “When considered in the light of a generation or two,” Ford said, “I think it is apparent that the Consti tution of the United States will be enforced. This does not mean the end of segregation is in sight, but only that we must work in a spirit of understanding toward solving the great social problem, and we must take as much time as is required by the people to accomplish the task.” LEGISLATORS THANKED On March 15, a group of Negroes sent a message of gratitude and ap preciation to the legislators who voted against the bill designed to maintain segregation in schools through assignment officers. The message praised the legislators for their “statesmanship and cour age” and said the defeat of the bill (House Bill 488) was valuable to the fight against communism. It was signed by C. H. Jones, I. S. McClinton, T. W. Coggs, Mrs. L. C. Bates, Ozell Sutton, the Rev. E. C. Dyer, the Rev. J. C. Crenshaw, Thad D. Williams, the Rev. C. C. Walker and Frank W. Smith, all of Little Rock. He said he had not known the talk was to be given at a public meeting and that he was not pre pared for an address that would be reported. Caldwell said he had asked Wylie “I thought politely and graciously not to report it.” “I have great respect for the press,” Caldwell said. “I regret the incident very much. I have the high est opinion of the function of the free press, but in this case I thought the interests of the university would be served by not having the talk widely publicized.” He said Wylie was a “wonderful fellow” whose newspaper “means a whole lot to the university.” But he said he was “sure my motives were misunderstood.” The integration question, Caldwell said, has been “wisely handled at the university—so successfully, in fact, that I think a continuation of this wise handling without any fan fare or public crediting of statements is the best policy.” GRISWOLD APPOINTED On March 17, the Arkansas Coun cil on Human Relations, an inter racial group concerned with work ing out practical solutions in the field of race relations, announced that it had hired Nat Griswold of Austin, Texas, a former associate professor of religion at Hendrix Col lege at Conway, as executive direc tor. Fred K. Darragh Jr. of Little Rock, council chairman, also an nounced that Christopher C. Mercer, Jr., a Negro attorney at Pine Bluff, had been hired as assistant execu tive director to work on a half-time basis. Darragh said Griswold and Mercer probably would begin duties April 15 at Little Rock. The council, affiliated with the Southern Regional Council with headquarters at Atlanta, Ga., was organized in December, 1954. It will operate the first year under a $13,000 grant from the Fund for the Republic and funds raised by the state organi zation. YOUTHS DISCUSS PROBLEM On March 21 at Little Rock, about 120 white and Negro high school students, joined by a sprinkling of adults, discussed youth problems that will come with racial integra tion in the schools at a meeting of the Youth Forum at the Dunbar Community Center for Negroes. The audience, about 90 per cent Negro, reached no conclusion unless it was that the real problems lie with the adults and not with the youth. Lawrence Joyner, Youth Forum chairman and a student at Dunbar High School for Negroes, said, “In tegration means more than going to the same schools—it means accept ance of each other as individuals.” The adults, although in the minor ity, dominated the discussion and several made speeches which had little bearing on the subject, “Youth Problems in the School as Centered Around Integration.” At one point, a Negro youth said: “I think the real problem lies with the adults. The youths probably will take integration in their stride. So I want to ask, how can the adults be reached?” A white high school student re plied: “I don’t think we can ever reach the adults. We eventually will be the adults so it doesn’t make much difference whether we reach them or not.” COURT CRITICIZED On March 25, at England, Ark., at a meeting of Lonoke County resi dents opposed to racial integration in the public schools, an Indianola, Miss., businessman said that the United States Supreme Court was “a packed group of so-called law yers” and was “subversive.” Dave Hawkins, one of four repre sentatives of the Mississippi Associa tion of Citizens Councils who spoke at the rally, said the court delayed its decision five years “to bring com placency and spring it on us when it was unexpected.” About 500 persons attended the meeting, held in the England high school. “Why should nine men think they can tell us who we must allow into our schools, churches, picture shows or what have you?” Hawkins asked. “I want you to understand that I’m not anti-black or anti-nigger. I work niggers. I have five who have worked for me 32 years. But they’re still niggers. “We’ve given them everything they have, and they’ve made much more progress than any race in history. They have all the privileges we have. They can have their own farms, cars and service stations—as long as they stay where they belong. In Missis sippi we want to help them. The Citizens Council can be one of the greatest humanitarian groups we’ve ever had.” Hawkins said, “We wouldn’t be in this trouble” if Southern senators and representatives had “kept a hand on those Supreme Court judges.” COUNCILS’ PLAN TOLD Herman Moore, an Indianola bank er, said, “It will take numbers to convince our politicians who got us into this trouble that we don’t want integration in our schools.” He said it took a Supreme Court decision “to awaken us from a slumber of about 30 years.” A. E. B. Britt, a youthful planter from Indianola, explained the work ings of the Citizens Councils. He said he made the explanation “be cause you won’t read it anywhere; the newspapers have a unique way of getting it twisted every time they try to print it.” Britt said the Citizens Councils were operated “strictly on a com munity level.” He said the group had a Political & Elections Committee to screen candidates for office. He said the committee took no part in elections in which the candidates did not take a stand on segregation. But, he said, it “takes a hand” when one of them “starts playing for the off-color vote” and, if necessary, would “organize a white primary.” DOSSIERS GATHERED The Information & Education Committee, Britt said, “gathers in formation on people who are giving trouble—agitators and groups—and, in general, educates the people of the community.” The other committee, he said, is the membership and finance group. He said membership was open to “white people who are determined to fight to the life, if it means it, to preserve segregation—men deter mined to remain white men and de termined that our children shall re main white people.” Britt said charges that the Citizens Council is “a highfalutin’ Ku Klux Klan” were wrong and that the group advocated no violence. AD ASKS ELECTION On March 27, a political adver tisement for White America, Inc., signed by Poynter, C. E. Garman Jr., secretary, and Bruce Taylor, treas urer, appeared in the Arkansas Democrat at Little Rock. It listed the White America mail address as Postoffice Box 597, Pine Bluff, Ark. (White America was incorporated as a profit organization, but Poynter said that had been a typographical error in the incorporation papers. He said the papers had been amended to make it a non-profit organization.) The advertisement said: “Notice . . . “To the citizens of Arkansas who desire to retain our present system of segregated public schools in the state of Arkansas: “The recent ‘brave’ action taken by our state legislature in the han dling of this question leaves no doubt in our minds that the wishes and desires of the majority of the white citizens of this state have been dis regarded by our state legislature and that we have been abandoned by those in whom we placed our trust and depended upon to protect our interests. “It is now clear in our minds that we are strictly upon the defensive, and that it is now up to the citizens to defend themselves by the only means left to us: that of our consti tutional privilege of the use of the ballot. “You are invited and urged to enlist with us, the only organized body now in operation in this state who are prepared to voice your views for you. The only way we can obtain our objective is to let our views be known. “Remember: A silent vote is a vote for integration.”