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PAGE 6—April 7, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Maryland
BALTIMORE, Md.
FIELD test of the full-public-
discussion approach to the ques
tion of school integration is being
carried out in Montgomery County,
for the first time in Maryland.
No other Maryland county has had
anything like the free and open de
bate going on there. Most other
counties, on the contrary, have de
cided that it is better to defer the
whole subject until after the
Supreme Court has taken final ac
tion. And even in Baltimore city,
where a desegregation policy has
been in effect since schools opened
last fall, the “when” and “how” of
integration never had such a public
airing.
So far, at least, the discussion in
Montgomery County has been an
orderly one, directed almost entirely
to the question of how best to im
plement the Supreme Court’s
opinion, rather than to proposals to
circumvent that opinion. Hostility
toward desegregation is presumed
to be a motivating force among some
advocates of a “go-slow” approach
to Supreme Court compliance, but
in most instances the hostility has
not been openly expressed.
As the Montgomery County.
Sentinel, published weekly at the
county seat of Rockville, has com
mented editorially, the Montgomery
countians who have entered into the
debate “have done so in a thought
ful, reasonable manner that does
credit to them and gives promise of
a handling of this question in a way
that will react favorably on our
ability to govern ourselves with
fairness, intelligence and justice.”
Montgomery County, it should be
explained at the outset, is unusual as
Maryland counties go. Lying north
and northwest of the District of
Columbia line, its “down-county”
area is a booming aggregation of
Washington suburbs, while its “up-
county” area is a predominantly
rural, dairy farming section. It is
the county with the highest per
capita wealth in Maryland, due
mainly to its down-county concen
tration of white-collar workers. It
is the only county in the state that
has obtained home rule for itself,
and it is the only one to have an
elected school board.
POPULATION VARIED
With 37,362 pupils in 1953, Mont
gomery stood third highest among
Maryland counties in total school
enrollment, but its proportion of
Negro students was one of the
smallest—6.7 per cent. The figures
for the county as a whole, however,
do not tell the full story. Two-thirds
of the colored elementary school
pupils and three-fourths of the
secondary pupils are in the up-
county area, where the proportion
of Negro school children to white
children runs around 25 per cent.
Some down-county school districts,
in contrast, have few or no colored
pupils.
The “go-slow” philosophy of in
tegration is centered in the up-
county regions, but no hard and fast
dividing line can be drawn. Some
“go-slow” advocates may be found
down-county, and some proponents
of integrating all grades in all schools
at the same time may be found in
the upper reaches of the county.
The discussions are complicated by
the presence in the county of some
sub-standard schools that most peo
ple agree must be replaced or
abandoned, but any action on them
hinges on the question of how chil
dren henceforth are to be assigned
to classes.
The county board of education last
June appointed a citizens’ advisory
committee, subsequently enlarged to
19 members, which had as its pur
pose “advising and conferring with
the board and school administration
on matters of policy for the imple
mentation of the recent decision of
the Supreme Court concerning seg
regation.” This action followed a
public statement of the state board
of education that local school au
thorities should not delay in “making
plans for implementing the decision
of the court.” Only one other Mary
land county has appointed such a
committee, and that county only re
cently.
The Montgomery County citizens
committee was headed by John R.
Reeves of Bethesda, formerly Mary
land’s secretary of state, and was
about evenly divided between down-
county and up-county members.
Five members of the committee
were Negroes. The group worked
quietly without publicity until mid-
February, when Washington daily
newspapers broke the news, not of
ficially released, that the committee
was split 10 to 9 with the majority
in favor of recommending that all
grades of all schools be desegregated
at one time, following final action of
the Supreme Court.
Immediately following accounts of
the split position of the advisory
committee, the executive committee
of the Montgomery County Council
of Parent-Teacher Associations
issued a recommendation that “pub
lic school integration, at all levels
of the school system throughout
the county, be put into effect at the
start of the 1955 fall term and that
the school construction budget be
planned in terms of this policy.”
PTA GROUP TAKES STAND
The PTA executive committee
emphasized that it was making its
recommendation “as a basis for dis
cussion in local units.” Its state
ment said in part: “Although the
Supreme Court has not yet issued
formal decrees for implementing its
decision, many communities have
already acted to comply with the
Supreme Court ruling that public
school segregation is unconstitu
tional. Trained investigators report
that integration worked most
smoothly and with least disturbance
when it was effected completely,
quickly and without undue delay,
whereas piecemeal integration led
to confusion and uncertainty.”
In support of its call for integration
next fall, the PTA committee re
leased with its statement a legal
opinion prepared by C. A. Horsky,
a down-county attorney, which said
that Maryland’s school segregation
law is “now certainly unconstitu
tional under the recent decision of
the Supreme Court.” His opinion
was directly contrary to that of
Maryland’s attorney general’s office,
which advised the state Board of
Education last May that Maryland’s
segregation law remained legally
binding until the Supreme Court
handed down decrees.
Concurrent with the PTA state
ment, the county superintendent of
schools, Dr. Forbes H. Norris, made
a public statement favoring a grad
ual approach to integration and
warning that immediate integration
would disrupt the planning for class
room allocations. And in answer to
a question put to him at a Rockville
PTA meeting, Dr. Norris said: “If
it [integration] came too quickly, I
fear it would be met by open re
sistance in the upper part of the
county. I may be wrong.”
REASONS CITED
Asked to verify the latter state
ment, as quoted in a county news
paper, and to give a little of his
background and basis for his fear,
Dr. Norris wrote the Maryland re
porter of the SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
that the quotation was “in the main”
accurate and that his opinions had
been “formed after rather wide con
tacts and discussions with people
pretty well distributed over the
county.”
Dr. Norris’ statement that immedi
ate integration would disrupt class
room allocations is reported to have
had a bearing on the final report
of the citizens’ advisory committee,
which reversed its tentative 10-to-9
position of favoring integration of all
grades at the same time. The final
report, approved by 13 of the 19
committee members, was delivered
to the board of education on Feb.
28 and made public by that body on
March 5. It recommended that inte
gration await either final Supreme
Court action or a change in Mary
land’s segregation laws and that:
“The board of education shall
adopt as a policy that all schools in
PRINCIPALS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY STUDY
Washington Post Photo
WILLARD G. McGRAW
President, Montgomery County
School Board
JOHN R. REEVES
Advisory Committee Chairman
In Montgomery County
Washington Post Photo
DR. FORBES H. NORRIS
Superintendent, Montgomery County
School Board
Montgomery County be integrated
beginning on the kindergarten and
first grade level, depending on which
level the elementary school in a
given area begins operation. Thus
integration would increase gradually
on a year to year basis—adding a
grade each year. In areas where a
school will remain segregated due to
the area of population, and where a
Negro or white child may move into
such an area and desire admittance
to the nearest school, the board of
education and school administration
may decide in which school he is to
be placed. However, there shall be
no deliberate mixing of races for the
purpose of creating an integrated
school.”
12-YEAR PLAN VOTED
While the final report, received 13
votes, the crucial section calling for
one-grade-per-year integration was
approved by only a 9-to-8 vote, with
one member absent and one abstain
ing. Four minority reports were sub
mitted with the majority report. All
five Negro members were reported
as having favored the early, tenta
tive recommendation of simultaneous
integration of all grades. In the final
vote, two were reported as going
along with the majority on gradual
integration over a 12-year period,
and three signed the minority report
submitted by the committee chair
man, Reeves, and one other white
member.
The Reeves minortiy report said,
in part, that:
“1. I believe the [12-year] plan
will be administratively unworkable.
“2. Such a plan multiplies the
problem over a period of 12 years
instead of meeting the issue force
fully and with reasonable dispatch,
in order to bring about the desired
result.
“3. I think that this will result,
in many instances, in children in
the same family going to different
schools, and this, I think, is unde
sirable.
“4. There is a necessity for elimi
nating present sub-standard schools
at the earliest practicable date, and
such a method of integration would
delay, or make very difficult, the
abandonment of these sub-standard
schools.”
MINORITY RECOMMENDATIONS
Having thus criticized the 12-year
plan, Reeves and the four who signed
with him said that “it is just as
unworkable to suppose that we can
accomplish full integration in Sep
tember, 1955, in all schools of Mont
gomery county.” The Reeves group
recommended that, upon state legal
advice that no barrier to integration
exists in Maryland, the following
steps be taken:
1. The Board of Education take immediate
action to abandon sub-standard ele
mentary school buildings so that in the
September following the receipt of such
advice, facilities will have been provided
and no child in the Montgomery County
school system will be in a sub-standard
school building thereafter.
2. That in the September following (but not
earlier than 1956) all elementary schools
in Montgomery County shall become
fully integrated schools.
3. That in the September following inte
gration in the elementary schools, all
secondary schools in Montgomery County
shall be fully integrated.
The Reeves recommendations be
came known as the three-year inte
gration plan, in contrast to the 12-
year plan of the committee majority.
There was also a one-year plan
submitted by Paul C. Howard, an
employe of the federal Department
of Health, Education and Welfare
who headed the advisory committee’s
subcommittee on “community as
pects.”
OTHER DISSENTS
A third minority report was sub
mitted by two down-county mem
bers, Mrs. Margaret E. Nolte and
Mrs. Marjorie H. Garfield, and dis
cussed at some length the building
and transportation problems involved
in the 12-year plan. Their report
urged the board of education to
consider such problems in relation to
the 12-year, three-year and one-
year plans submitted by committee
members and added that “on the
basis of our study so far, we believe
that the advantages for integration
all at one time are very great.”
FOURTH REPORT
A fourth minority report by Mrs.
George Monk and Mrs. John Wolfe,
also from down-county sections,
followed in general the 12-year plan
of the committee majority but put
emphasis on the possible ill effects
of integration on white children and
added some recommendations not
included in the majority report.
LEGAL STATUS REVIEWED
In releasing the majority and mi
nority committtee reports to the
public, the board of education re
viewed the legal status of school
segregation in Maryland and added:
“The board of education of Mont
gomery County does not believe
that it has the legal authority to
integrate the public schools of the
county at this time or to set or de
signate an effective date for such
integration until the United States
Supreme Court has issued its decree.
In the meantime, the board intends to
continue its study and analysis of
the problems involved in integration
and to develop a plan for implement
ing the decision of the court, and
will from time to time release factual
information and its statements of
policy for the information of the
public.”
PETITIONS FILED
The majority and minority com
mittee reports and the board of edu
cation’s statement indicating that
the integration question was still
wide open were given full coverage
in the Washington papers of Sunday,
March 6, and the following week
brought a variety of reactions. First,
petitions bearing some 3,000 sig
natures, according to their sponsors,
were presented to the board of edu
cation as representative of predomi
nantly up-country feeling on the
integration subject. The petitions
urged the board to “move slowly,
economically, efficiently and reason
ably” and the preamble of one set
said, in part:
“We hereby subscribe to and sup
port a system of gradual integra
tion to be started after receipt of
the final decision of the Supreme
Court and the revision of the neces
sary laws of Maryland now pertain
ing to the school system.”
On the same day the petitioners
met with the board, the Montgomery
County Farm Bureau declared that
“rural Montgomery county does not
accept the eventualities of integra
tion and will not do so until the
Supreme Court implements its de
cision or the General Assembly of
Maryland repeals laws pertaining to
segregated schools. Therefore, psy
chologically it is imperative that no
move be made towards desegregation
at the present time.”
PTA’S BALLOT
During the same week that the
up-county petitioners and the Farm
Bureau were making their state
ments, PTA units throughout the
county were meeting to pass on the
recommendation of the executive
committee of the Montgomery
County Council of PTAs that inte
gration of all grades in all schools
should take place at the start of the
fall term, this year. PTA groups
were to continue taking positions
for many weeks to come, as the
varying dates for monthly meetings
fell due.
In general, early returns showed
down-county PTAs favoring “fast”
integration and up-county PTAs
favoring “slow” integration. Not all
of the “fast” groups felt that a one-
year integration program should be
started this fall. Some indicated that
Supreme Court implementation
should come first, and others that
the program should be inaugurated
“as soon as practical.” Nor were all
the “slow” PTAs for the 12-year
plan. Some expressed a preference
for the Coleman petition groups
“gradualistic” approach with no set
time sequence.
‘OBSTRUCTIONIST TACTIC’
The 12-year integration plan was
scored as an “obstructionist tactic
by the Montgomery Civic Unity
Committee, an interracial anti-dis*
crimination group. The Montgomery
County chapter of the American
Veterans Committee challenged the
board of education’s position tha
integration must await Supre 111 ®
Court implementation by cd 1 ™ j
court rulings in Washington 33
Baltimore that upheld immedia®
desegregation programs. Vario B
“citizens associations” also took ^
tegration positions which
the prevailing pattern of f 3 **
down-county and “slow” up-coun.
The League of Women Voters °
Montgomery County got out a ,
tailed “fact sheet” which review
the positions taken on integration •
the state board of education. ®
torney general’s office, school co
missioners of Baltimore city
county board of education and
viewed the majority and rati 10 *'
reports of the county advisory c ° a
mittee. The League did not tak®]
position in releasing this f aC
material but at one point m
report noted: i
“Figures have been released ^
the school administration on ^
effects of integration in terms^
overcrowding if integration
to be effected in Septemebr, ,
The figures do not allow f° r
redistricting to relieve overC j°'\iiey
of the white schools nor do ^
show any white pupils ir ^j e gro
new up-county consolidated
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