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PAGE 8—April 7, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Kentucky
JNCREASING Negro participation
in desegregation discussions
marked recent weeks in Kentucky.
Speakers or consultants of the
Kentucky Council on Human Rela
tions, with an interracial board of
prominent Kentuckians, were active
in 19 counties of the state. Their aim,
under the chairmanship of Dr. Hugh
A. Brimm, Carver School of Missions
sociologist, is “working together for
better communities for a better
Kentucky.”
Council representatives urge white
and Negro leaders in various com
munities to get together for indi
vidual discussions of desegregation
problems, then encourage mixed-
group discussions of problems and
plans at the grassroots level, and
offer consultative services and writ
ten material on community self
surveys.
Vice-chairman of the council is
Dr. Charles H. Parrish Jr., Negro
sociologist on the University of
Louisville faculty. Consultants in
clude white and Negro professors,
school administrators, and P.T.A.
leaders. The board of directors has
similar representation as well as
lawyers, bankers, ministers, writers,
businessmen, and lay representatives
of church groups.
BROTHERHOOD MEETING
White and Negro students from
18 colleges in Kentucky and Indiana’s
Hanover College met in Louisville
during Brotherhood Week, sponsored
by the Kentucky chapter of the Na
tional Conference of Christians and
Jews, to discuss racial and religious
tensions and means of erasing them.
The panel discussion of 42 students
was moderated by Dr. Gordon W.
Lovejoy of Guilford College, N. C.,
at the Seelbach Hotel.
Some of the conclusions reached
by the panelists, as reported in The
Courier-Journal, follow:
“Prejudice begins at home. Many
racial and religious hatreds that
have no basis in fact today exist
because they have been handed down
NEW ORLEANS, La.
^ITH virtually no significant de
velopments in the segregation
issue during March, public attention
continued to be focused on the strug
gle over revenue from Louisiana’s
tidelands oil revenues—estimated to
be worth some 500 million dollars.
Late developments were high
lighted by a seeming split between
two forces seeking the oil moneys.
Last month it appeared as if pro
ponents of using the oil money for
education, and those who favored a
big highway program, had resolved
their differences in a compromise
which appeared equitable to both
sides. However, in recent days the
pro-highway group declined to go
along with an immediate division.
NEW OPPOSITION GROUP
Some political observers have
pointed out that the rise of a new,
third pressure group has caused this
change. This new group opposes both
highway and education plans on the
grounds that they both call for heavy
bonding of the state’s financial fu
ture.
The new “pay-as-you-go” group is
asking for a slowdown of all spend
ing until:
o An adequate survey is made of
the state’s tidelands potential.
• A comprehensive “pay-as-you-
go” program, including both high
ways and education is drawn up.
SCHOOL BUILDING PLANS
Meanwhile, education forces, head
ed by State Sen. W. M. Rainach,
chairman of the Joint Legislative
Committee on Segregation, have gone
ahead with their plans for a giant
school building program to equalize
facilities.
They are asking for a total of 225
million dollars for primary and sec
ondary school construction over the
next 10 years. The money would be
divided this way:
from generation to generation.
“Young people must recognize
this and base their opinions on their
own experience. And, when they
become parents, they must be care
ful not to influence the opinions
of their own children.
“The students agreed that most of
the resistance to desegregation in
the nation’s schools comes from par
ents, not students. About half the
students said their parents were
prejudiced in some degree.
“Some minority groups that are
victims of bias are themselves guilty
of discrimination, the students de
cided. These include sororities, fra
ternities, and other groups that
limit membership to one race or re
ligion, they said.
“Most of the students agreed that
fanatical action on racial problems
would create more tension than it
would prevent. They recommended
that the problem be attacked steadily
through schools and civic and other
organizations.”
PARENTS ORGANIZATION
In Louisville a white organization
called “Parents on Our Block,” with
a citywide membership of 40 or 50,
invited two Negroes to its March
14 discussion of “What We Can Do
to Smooth the Path to Desegrega
tion.” The two were Mark Anthony,
deputy tax commissioner of Jeffer
son County, and Ike Ferguson, an
undertaker.
The group decided that its mem
bers should (1) use personal in
fluence in parent-teacher associa
tions and other organizations to en
courage calm discussion of desegre
gation problems; (2) establish rela
tionship with Negro leaders; and (3)
engage in person-to-person discus
sion with those worried or apprehen
sive about desegregation.
The group, which devotes itself
to study of moral and spiritual
values in the home, normally meets
in the home of a different member
each month. Mr. Anthony invited
it to meet in his home in April, to-
• A total of 99 million dollars to
be spent over the next three years
to equalize school systems.
• Some 33 million dollars to be
divided equally between the state’s
67 parish and city school systems, ac
cording to average daily school mem
bership.
• An additional 126 million dollars
for providing the school districts
$50,000 each for the next seven years,
with the remaining money to be
shared according to enrollment in
creases.
In addition, education forces are
asking for another 25 million dollars
for colleges and trade schools.
BILLS TO BE OFFERED
It is expected that bills appropria
ting such sums to the state depart
ment of education will be presented
to the next session of the Louisiana
legislature, which opens May 9. The
30-day session is prohibited from
considering any but fiscal matters,
unless authorized to do so by a two-
thirds vote of both houses.
It is expressly prohibited from con
sidering tax increases, and the gov
ernor is prohibited from calling a
special session of the legislature dur
ing the period 30 days prior to the
opening and 30 days after the close.
Meanwhile, highway forces, headed
by Sen. James Sparks, chairman of
the Joint Highway Committee, have
also drawn up a series of bills which
will be introduced at the May session.
They call for:
• Dedication of 15 million dollars
per year for the next 20 years from
tidelands oil to the state highway
department, the money to be bonded
on a year-to-year basis to take care
of spending needs as outlined by a
survey conducted by the Automotive
Safety Foundation. In those years
when money is appropriated directly
to pay for the program, the highway
department would be specifically
prohibited from issuing any bonds.
Courier-Journal Photo
VICE-PRESIDENT STRICKLER
Relates University of Louisville’s
Experiences
gether with some Negro parents, and
the invitation was accepted.
Another Louisville organization,
the Eastern Council on Moral and
Spiritual Values, invited Negro par
ticipation in its March 31 meeting
to discuss “Adequate Financing for
Our Schools.” Speakers scheduled
were City School Supt. Omer Car
michael, Jefferson County Supt.
Richard Van Hoose, and Dr. Kenneth
P. Vinsel, executive vice-president
of the Louisville Chamber of Com
merce.
CARMICHAEL’S REPORT
Supt. Carmichael, after 12 ap
pearances before church groups,
civic clubs, and P.T.A.’s in his year
long effort to “create a favorable
climate of opinion” for the change to
desegregation, reported that his au
diences had raised “many a frank
and to-the-point question,” but that
“no one has yet asked me an un
pleasantly aggressive or antagonis
tic question.”
Mr. Carmichael said on March 28
that he had collected from school
principals and Parent Teacher As
sociations more than 100 lists of
problems to be considered in the
impending change to desegregated
• Appropriation of 25 million dol
lars immediately, to go along with
20 million dollars appropriated by
the January special session of the
legislature, to be spent on a pay-as-
you-go basis.
RIFT DEVELOPS
The apparent rift between educa
tion and highway forces is still sur
rounded by some mystery. At one
time last month the two groups had
patched up their differences, and ap
peared to be heading to a quick solu
tion.
In fact, reports have it that Gov.
Kennon was on the verge of calling
a special session for mid-March, in
which the actual division of the
state’s tidelands moneys would take
place.
Suddenly, however, the highway
forces dismissed the idea and declined
to request the governor to call the
special session. (Gov. Kennon had
previously announced he would call
such a session if requested to do so
by the Joint Highway Committee).
When Sen. Rainach’s committee
then requested on behalf of the edu
cation forces that the governor call a
special session, the governor said one
was not necessary.
FEDERAL AID SCORED
Meanwhile, Sen. Rainach’s com
mittee met in Baton Rouge in mid-
March and scoffed at the idea of pro
posed federal aid to school construc
tion as “too little, too late”— and too
likely to put strings on segregation.
In the words of Sen. Rainach:
“It was the sense of all present that
we should not accept federal aid for
public school construction if it means
federal control.”
Another important event on the
Louisiana political scene has been
the alignment of Sen. Rainach with
State Supt. of Education Shelby
Jackson.
Jackson has consistently refused to
make any public comment on inte
gration-segregation, saying instead,
that his department was “consider
ing the matter but was not ready to
schools. From these, he said, a mas
ter list will be compiled and mimeo
graphed for use in schools and dis
cussion groups throughout the city.
The master list is expected to be
ready for distribution sometime in
April.
Mr. Carmichael “guessed” that the
Supreme Court would hand down its
next school ruling before the sum
mer recess, and would call for a five-
year pattern of change. In that event,
he said, Louisville schools would
initiate desegregation in September,
1955, and would complete the process
considerably ahead of the expected
schedule.
UNIVERSITY’S EXPERIENCE
On March 1, Vice President
Woodrow M. Strickler of the Uni
versity of Louisville, first university
in the South to enroll Negro under
graduates and to hire a Negro faculty
member gave a five-year summary
of the university’s experience with
desegregation. He spoke to the 10th
National Conference on Higher Edu
cation in Chicago.
The University, Mr. Strickler said,
was “pretty worried” in 1950 when
it decided to admit Negroes, but
that its “trepidation” was totally
unwarranted; it never had the
slightest trouble in changing over
into an interracial school.
Excerpts follow:
“Negro fraternities and sororities
have been organized. Negroes have
attained positions of campus leader
ship. They live in the dormitories,
attend university classes, and play
on varsity athletic teams.
“The only difficulty the university
has faced has not been the fault
of the Negroes. The institution rents
a swimming pool for swimming
classes and uses parks for botany
classes. The organization owning the
swimming pool prohibits attend
ance of Negroes; City parks are op
erated on a segregated basis. Con
sequently Negro students must be
prohibited from these classes or
classes abandoned.
“The problem has been solved
satisfactorily by simply asking Negro
students not to enroll in classes
using rented facilities, or by asking
them to be certain to work out
substitute measures with their
teachers, as in the case of the botany
make a statement.”
While Jackson has still not made a
public statement on the matter, Sen.
Rainach’s committee has been work
ing in close harmony with the state
department of education.
Attending the recent series of
closed meetings in Baton Rouge in
which the overall financial needs of
the giant school building program
were ironed out, were representa
tives of: The Louisiana Education
Association, Louisiana Classroom
Teachers Association, Louisiana
School Board Association, Louisiana
School Superintendents Association,
and Supt. Jackson.
PEREZ BACKED
The education forces of Sen. Rai
nach have also recently announced
their support of Louisiana political
leader Leander Perez.
Perez, who is district attorney of
two Deep South parishes (counties)
below New Orleans, has been a vig
orous backer of segregation at all
costs and for extension of Louisiana’s
tidelands boundary. He was also a
leader of the now almost-defunct
States Rights political party.
It was Perez who originally wrote
the constitutional amendments upon
which Louisiana’s fight to maintain
segregation is being based. The
amendments — themselves amended
on the floor of the state legislature—
allow the state to invoke its police
power to maintain segregation for the
public good.
Sen. Rainach’s education group
recently met with Perez and en
dorsed Perez’ claim that Louisiana’s
tidelands boundary extends three
leagues—rather than three miles—
into the Gulf. The state legislature at
its session last year, adopted a reso
lution, also authored by Perez, which
defined those limits to its seaward
boundary.
In the course of the recent meet
ing, N. B. Hackett, Baton Rouge,
executive secretary of the Louisiana
Education Association, termed the
tidelands boundary question “of vital
classes.
“Evidence has been presented in
some institutions that Negro students
have been handicapped by an infe
rior educational background... In
the experience of the University of
Louisville this problem has had
little importance, because a vast
majority of the Negro students come
from a large Negro high school which
is equipped and staffed in every way
to prepare qualified students ade
quately for college-level work. This
condition has operated to prove that
there is no racial basis for inferior
performance.
EFFECT ON STUDENTS
“For the average white student,
the appearance of Negroes as class
mates and participants in student ac
tivities has had little, if any, sig
nificance. They have been sym
pathetic or indifferent. Negro stu
dents have been accepted in direct
proportion to their capacity for con
tributing to student life.
“When the process of desegregation
is as abrupt as it has been at the
University of Louisville, where al
most overnight a Negro college was
closed, its property sold and its stu
dents absorbed in other schools of
the university, it can be expected
that Negro faculty members will,
for an interim period at least, very
likely lose their jobs as teachers....
“If Negro schools are abolished,
it seems inevitable that some quali
fied faculty members will be forced
from the teaching profession, be
cause it is likely that colleges and
universities will continue to lag in
adding Negroes to their faculties in
the same proportion as they add
white jeople. On the other hand, it
seems plausible that, as the demand
for qualified teachers continues to
grow, the displaced Negro teacher
will find a proportionate increase in
the number 1 of job opportunities
available to him. . . .
“Negro citizens will continue to
contribute in increasing measure to
the planning and operation of pro
grams of higher education. It is
necessary that this be so, because
only in this way can many of the
complicated problems of desegrega
tion be solved intelligently and with
out incident.”
importance to the state government.”
He added:
“The needs for education far ex
ceed what we have been able to pro
vide in the past.
“If something is not done to provide
additional funds for the schools, we
must ask that additional taxes be
levied for support of the schools.”
The political alignment of Sen.
Rainach with Perez and Education
Supt. Jackson has thrust the soft-
spoken upstate legislator into the po
litical spotlight.
VIEWS ON SEGREGATION
His name has been mentioned late
ly as a possible candidate for g° v '
ernor in the 1956 election. However
Rainach has said he has no intention
of seeking the post. Discussing seg
regation, Rainach said: "J
“It is our feeling that we should
preserve segregation, but we thin*
that in preserving segregation tn
state has a high moral obligation
provide adequate and equal facility
for every school child, both whi e
and Negro.
“Provision of facilities for then
educational opportunity is a pad 0
our program of work.”
Rainach has also reported to G°'„
Kennon that the “most critical ne e
of the state at this time is not o
the equalizing of school facilities
the raising of all schools to minin'
standards of adequacy.
NEW TERMINOLOGY SEEN
Meanwhile, in other happ en j n ^
around the state, the presiden
Dillard University in New O r * e
predicted that the phrase “equa
cilities” would pass by comP le '
during the lifetime of the y 0 ^ D ujs
generation. Dr. Albert Dent made^
statement during dedicatory cere ,
nies for a new Negro grammar s
in New Orleans. -•
Dr. Dent predicted that the
terminology would be “schools 0
See LOUISIANA on Page 9
Louisiana