Newspaper Page Text
3(5
5^7
LS
Factual
Southern School News
Objective
VOL. I, NO. 9
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
MAY 4, 1955
SERS To Continue For Two More Years
★ ★★ ★★★ ★★★
Supreme Court Hears Arguments On School Case Decrees
When the U. S. Supreme Court
called for further arguments in the
school segregation cases, it asked in
terested parties and friends of the
court to submit answers to two ques
tions:
1. Whether the court should order
“forthwith” admission of Negro chil
dren to schools of their choice, or
whether the court, in the exercise of
its equity powers, could “permit an
effective gradual adjustment ... to a
system not based on color distinc
tions.”
2. Whether the Supreme Court
should issue detailed decrees, appoint
a special master, or remand the cases
to lower courts with directions to
frame decrees there.
Last month, attorneys representing
10 states and the District of Columbia
and counsel for the Negro appellants
and petitioners argued the questions
for four days, beginning April 11. The
official transcript ran to 440 type
written pages. With all the qualifica
tions and variations stripped away,
the court was left with these three
broad alternatives:
1. To issue “forthwith” decrees,
setting September, 1955, or at the
latest, September, 1956, as a deadline
for desegregation in the five cases.
This was the position taken by coun
sel for the appellants and petitioners.
2. To remand the cases to lower
courts, without a time limit, but with
broad authorization for federal dis
trict judges to weigh local problems in
(A large section of this issue of
“Southern School News,” begin
ning on Page 11, is devoted to
excerpts from the official tran
script of the arguments by coun
sel in the five cases before the
court. The June issue will carry
further excerpts from the argu
ments by “friends of the court.”)
Squiring adjustment to the decrees,
riris was the position broadly taken
y the attorneys general and private
Dwyers representing the states.
■ To permit discretion for district
c°urts, but with guarantees that dis
cretion would be used to encourage
c° m pliance “as soon as feasible” and
not to accomplish frustration. This
the “middle-course” outlined by
hcitor-General Simon E. Sobeloff
t ^ resen ting the Department of Jus-
This term of court is scheduled to
nd on May 31.
Notice
Southern School News is the
r, c ' a l Publication of the Southern
l9*l. Ca, ' 0n Reporting Service, 1109
I t . Ay e., South, Nashville, Tenn.
• 18 currently distributed free to
rested individuals and organiza-
io u P°n request, but a small sub-
'PJ'on fee will be charged effec-
' ® July 1, 1955.
S "luiries about SOUTHERN
I .' “ 11 News should be addressed
Sh,.- S - P - O. Box 6156, Acklen
Nashville, Tenn.
tahl' l Reporting Service was es-
atu | K rieri by the southern editors
0n educators whose names appear
e masthead on Page 4. It is
c n ced hv a f--.ii the Fund
Education,
established
F SERS pol-
he a j'R a bo be found in the mast-
ior »l . - ■
a„ . ® Advancement of
by 'P'-ndent agency
^ e Ford Foundation,
is* "o/ficial statement o
Notice To Subscribers
Here Is The Subscription Plan
Effective July 1, 1955, a small subscription fee will be
charged for Southern School News.
The charge is necessary because of the skyrocketing
circulation of Southern School News (currently more
than 30,000) and the resulting increases in printing and
mailing costs.
The Fund for the Advancement of Education will con
tinue to underwrite all basic overhead costs for the
Southern Education Reporting Service. Subscribers are
asked to pay only the final cost of printing, mailing and
bookkeeping.
A complete index will be furnished to each subscriber
at the end of each volume year. The index will be highly
detailed and cross-indexed for quick and easy reference.
It is included in the subscription price.
Checks or money orders should be made payable to the
Southern Education Reporting Service, and mailed to
SERS, P. O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville, Ten
nessee.
A subscription blank is enclosed with this issue.
A prompt reply will insure the uninterrupted continua
tion of your subscription.
Subscription rates will be:
One Year (July, 1955—June, 1956) $2.00
Two Years (July, 1955—June, 1957) 3.75
Bulk Annual Subscription (5 or more).... 1.50 each
Single issues 20 cents each
Single issues in bulk (10 or more) 15 cents each
Letters Explain Details Of Grant
(Here is the exchange of corre
spondence between Chairman
Virginius Dabney of the South
ern Education Reporting Service
and officials of the Fund for the
Advancement of Education cov
ering a two-year extension of
Fund support for the SERS.)
Mr. Clarence H. Faust, President
The Fund for the Advancement
of Education
655 Madison Avenue
New York 21, New York
Dear Mr. Faust:
On July 5,1954,1 wrote to you out
lining in detail a proposal for an im
partial and objective reporting serv
ice which would provide accurate and
unbiased information concerning the
adjustments which various commun
ities in the southern region made as
a result of the Supreme Court’s opin
ion and forthcoming decrees in five
cases involving segregation in the
public schools. As a result of that
letter, a grant of $99,200 from the
Fund for the Advancement of Educa
tion was made available to establish
the Southern Education Reporting
Service, with headquarters in Nash
ville, Tennessee.
SERS has been in existence for ten
months, during which eight issues of
its monthly publication, Southern
School News, have been distributed,
on request, to an ever-growing list
of interested public officials, news
paper editors, and lay citizens in all
sections of the United States, but
primarily in the 17 southern and
border states and the District of
The Reporting
In less than 13 months, Southern
School News has developed from an
idea in the minds of a group of South
ern editors to a monthly publication
with a circulation of more than
30,000.
Its purpose was a new journalistic
assignment: to tell the story, factu
ally and objectively, of what happens
in education as a result of the Su
preme Court ruling that segregation
in public schools is unconstitutional.
In April, 1954, several southern
members of the American Society of
Newspaper Editors met in Washing
ton with representatives of the Fund
for the Advancement of Education to
discuss the establishment of a report -
Columbia whose laws required seg
regated schools prior to the May 17,
1954 Supreme Court opinion.
In the judgment of the SERS Board
of Directors, the Reporting Service
has succeeded beyond our hopes and
expectations. In the thousands of
letters and postcards received at the
Nashville office, in the many refer
ences to SERS in newspapers, maga
zines and other media of communica
tion, there is overwhelming and un
contradicted testimony to the success
of the Reporting Service in achieving
high standards of impartiality, objec
tivity and factual accuracy. More
over, there is abundant evidence that
SERS is meeting a major need by
supplying a documentary account of
developments, as they happen, state
by state, and that Southern School
News is being used extensively as an
authoritative and unique source of
detailed information about events in
the wake of the Supreme Court opin
ion.
Quite early in the project, it be
came apparent to the members of the
SERS Board of Directors that the Re
porting Service could not fulfill its
objectives in one year, especially
since the Supreme Court delayed is
suing formal decrees implementing its
decision. It became apparent, also,
that unlimited free distribution would
eventually involve costs far greater
than foreseeable financial resources.
The members of the SERS Board
of Directors, therefore, undertook a
study of several means for making
the Reporting Service partially sell
ing service that would handle this as
signment.
The following month a group of
southern editors and educators met in
Nashville and constituted themselves
a board of directors for SERS, elect
ing Virginius Dabney, Editor of The
Richmond Times-Dispatch as chair
man and Thomas R. Waring, editor of
The Charleston News & Courier, as
vice-chairman.
On June 6, the board held a second
meeting in Nashville and elected C. A.
McKnight, then editor of The Char
lotte News, as executive director, laid
down broad policy directives, and
designated George Peabody College
for Teachers, Nashville, to act as
fiscal agent for the project.
supporting. Of the several alterna
tives, the charging of a minimum an
nual subscription fee seemed most
promising as a way to stabilize costs,
and least likely to change the char
acter of the Reporting Service.
Early this year, SERS sought the
advice and counsel of others. Letters
were sent to a large and representa
tive number of subscribers in many
sections of the southern region ask
ing these four questions:
1. Have we really been completely
objective? If you have found de
viations from objectivity, will
you give specific examples?
2. To what uses have you put
Southern School News? Can
you suggest specific ways in
which Southern School News
could be of greater use to you
(and your staff)?
3. Our project was originally set up
for one year, until June 30,1955.
Do you think it important that
the Reporting Service continue
in existence longer than that?
And if so, for how long?
4. In your judgment, is the in
formation brought to you by
Southern School News impor
tant enough to warrant our con
sidering a modest subscription
fee in the second or third year?
This would not change the non
profit character of our agency.
The replies reinforced the convic
tions of the SERS board members.
They were virtually unanimous in
stating, many of them enthusiastical-
See LETTERS on Page 16
On July 5 formal application for
the initial grant of $99,200 was made
to the Fund and ten days later the
Nashville office of SERS was opened.
Within two months a central head
quarters staff was employed, corre
spondents in 17 southern and border
states plus the District of Columbia
were hired, a mailing list started,
SERS became incorporated under
Tennessee law as a general welfare
corporation, and the first issue was
prepared, printed and distributed.
The response to Southern School
News far exceeded its board’s hopes
and expectations. Today it is well
established as a unique and author
itative source of information on one of
the biggest issues of our time.
A two-year extension of the South
ern Education Reporting Service and
a plan for a modest subscription fee
for Southern School News effective
with the July issue were announced
today.
The announcement was made by
Virginius Dabney, editor of the
Richmond Times-Dispatch, and SERS
board chairman.
The Reporting Service was estab
lished in Nashville in June, 1954, by
a group of southern editors and ed
ucators to report factually and ob
jectively developments arising from
the Supreme Court ruling against
segregated schools.
The project was originally set up
for one year, ending June 30, 1955,
under the direction of C. A. Mc
Knight, former editor of The Charlot
te News.
GRANT FROM FUND
The extension was . made possible
by a grant of $213,884 from the Fund
for the Advancement of Education,
Dabney said. The Fund, an independ
ent agency established by the Ford
Foundation, made an original grant
of $99,200 last year to underwrite
SERS expenses for the first year.
In announcing the new grant,
Dabney also revealed that the Fund
had supplemented its original grant
by $33,822.31 to enable SERS to com
plete its first year.
He explained that the supplemental
grant was made necessary by the
“tremendous demand” for the SERS
publication, Southern School News,
which has been distributed free, on
request, to public officials, educators,
newspaper editors, libraries and in
terested lay citizens, mostly in the
southern region.
He also said that the subscription
fee ($2 for one year, $3.75 for two
years) would become effective with
the July, 1955, issue of Southern
School News. (Full details on the
subscription plan will be found else
where in this issue).
The fee will cover the cost of print
ing, mailing and bookkeeping, with
all other SERS costs being covered
by the Fund’s grant, Dabney ex
plained.
PEABODY FISCAL AGENT
The grant was made to George Pea
body College for Teachers, Nashville,
which serves as fiscal agent for SERS.
The decision to charge a small sub
scription fee in order to stabilize the
skyrocketing cost of distributing a
free publication was made by the
SERS Board of Directors in April.
The decision was reached after a poll
See EXTENSION on Page 16
Index
State Page
Alabama 8
Arkansas 2
Delaware 9
District of Columbia 5
Florida 9
Georgia 3
Kentucky 2
Louisiana 10
Maryland 7
Mississippi 8
Missouri 3
North Carolina 10
Oklahoma 4
South Carolina 6
Tennessee 10
Texas 5
Virginia 6
West Virginia 4
Service . . . And How It Grew
