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.iERN SCHOOL NEWS . Arkansas LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -mg April, Arkansas Atty. Gen. y T. J. Gentry appeared before the United States Supreme Court in the school desegregation cases and on his return to Arkansas said the justices appeared to be interested in the sug gestion that Congress be asked to en act legislation on the subject. Integration was discussed at vari ous meetings. A representative of the NAACP assigned to Arkansas said the state was a “bright prospect” for integration. The formation of a Little Rock chapter of White America, Inc., was announced. In chronological or der, these were the happenings: On April 1, nearly 3,000 Negro school teachers held eight district meetings of the Arkansas Teachers Association. The theme for each of the district meetings was “Facing Ed ucational Issues in Arkansas,” and one discussion topic based on that theme was “A Realistic Look at In tegration.” BRIGHTEST PROSPECT’ On April 2, an “educational special ist” assigned to Arkansas by the NAACP said in an interview that Arkansas “represents perhaps the brightest prospect among the south ern states for integration, and it is ex pected to follow its previous pattern of pioneering.” Vernon McDaniel, 49, a Negro, said he had been assigned to Arkansas be cause the NAACP regards it as a “favorable” area for integration. Mc Daniel and two other specialists, one in West Virginia and one in North Carolina, were hired by the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., financed by a $75,000 grant by the Phillip Murray Fund of the CIO. McDaniel, born at Calvert, Texas, attended Bishop College at Marshall, Texas, and Atlanta University, and is a candidate for a doctor of educa tion degree from New York Univer sity. He now is on a year’s leave of absence as head of the Department of Secondary Education in the Tuske- gee (Ala.) Institute’s School of Ed ucation. Before he went to Tuskegee LOUISVILLE, Ky. N apparent green light for inte grating Kentucky schools this fall —without waiting for the Supreme Court’s next ruling—was flashed in Frankfort on April 6. But it is mov ing no traffic yet, or none that can be seen. The reason is clear. Atty. Gen. J. D. Buckman Jr. an nounced that his office would initiate no prosecution (under Kentucky’s segregation laws, still on the books) of any school districts deciding to integrate. But, he added, if any local citizen objecting to integration should bring suit, he would by his oath of office be required to prosecute “until our Day Law is specifically declared to be unconstitutional by the Su preme Court.” “Of course, as lawyers,” Mr. Buck- man said, “we know that the Day Law would meet the same fate from the Supreme Court as have the laws of the other states that decree seg regation. But, until . . .” This modification of Frankfort’s an nouncement last summer that the Day Law remained in force (with the in ference that the state of its own voli tion would prosecute any violations), some educators said, might tempt a few smaller districts to speed up their integration plans. But the prospect of “contentious” litigation, and the be lief that the Supreme Court soon will remove this prospect, tended to pre serve the status quo. LOUISVILLE TO WAIT Two days after Mr. Buckman had spoken, Louisville Supt. Omer Car michael said, “We have no intention of taking any action until the Su preme Court finishes its delibera tions.” This reaction, a check of school officials elsewhere in the state indi cated, was general. In Louisville the month saw an easing of park segregation rules as a seven years ago, he had been at Washington high school at Pensacola, Fla., 16 years and served as principal the last 10 years. REACTIONS MEASURED He came to Arkansas in October to measure community reactions to the idea of racial integration in the public schools and to stimulate Negroes to talk and act on the subject. He has attracted almost no public attention and has experienced “no unpleasant incidents.” As examples of pioneering, Mc Daniel cited the voluntary admission of Negroes to graduate level courses at the University of Arkansas in 1947 and the integration of white and Ne gro students last year by the Fayette ville and Charleston school districts. ’’Arkansas presents a variable pic ture,” McDaniel said. “There are ex tremes in terms of resistance and in in favorable reactions. There are va riations in how long it will take for integration.” NEGROES LETHARGIC He said that Negroes in some com munities “have not aroused them selves to take action” and that he attempted to stimulate them through small group meetings. “There are some anxieties and fears on the part of the Negro com munity which account for the indif ference and lethargy,” he said. “Once these are described and understood, there can be action.” As an example, he said some Negro teachers have feared that integration would mean their dismissal. “We explain that security can be maintained if they are competent and organize to prevent discrimination,” he said. “We point out that other or ganizations in the community will come to their aid. And we point out that the geographic distribution of the school population will make it difficult if not impossible to displace Negro teachers.” McDaniel said he had discovered “only a few instances where intimi dation has been attempted against direct result of educational difficulties encountered by the University of Louisville, interracial since 1950, and of demands for interracial athletic contests. Most of Louisville’s public parks are segregated—but not its 82 tot-lots and play-lots, two municipal play grounds, its five public golf courses, and its outdoor theatre in Iroquois Park. The segregation of the park system as a whole, however, as re ported in Southern School News last month, had made it impossible for Negro students at the University of Louisville to do botany field work in the parks with white students. This was called to Mayor Andrew Broaddus’ attention by Dr. Philip Davidson, U. of L. president. And on April 6 Mayor Broaddus ordered all city parks, Negro and white, to be opened to college botany classes hav ing Negro and white students and desiring to use the parks for field studies and research “for properly supervised study activities.” In addition, two Negro parks were ordered opened to “regularly orga nized classes” from any school having both Negro and white students or teachers, and to permit “regularly scheduled competitive athletic events involving both white and colored players.” This was in response to a long-standing Negro complaint that Central high school baseball teams had no baseball diamonds or playing fields on which to meet white teams from the Louisville area, neighboring Indiana, or elsewhere—or to meet visiting teams having both Negro and white players. COUNCIL ESTABLISHED The Kentucky Council on Human Relations, whose personnel and ac tivities have been reported on in Southern School News, filed incorpo ration papers in Frankfort on April 8. Negroes who assume a leadership role on integration.” “One teacher was dismissed be cause her husband was a leader in the NAACP,” he said. “And a princi pal was pressured into accepting so- called equal facilities instead of inte grated facilities.” McDaniel said that many Negroes weren’t talking about racial integra tion in the schools “for fear or other reasons.” “That’s one of my jobs,” he said, “to get our people to talk about it.” On April 2, Virgil T. Blossom, su perintendent of Little Rock schools, discussed racial integration at a state meeting of about 250 members of the Y-Teens and the Hi-Y at Hot Springs. On April 6, L. D. Poynter of Pine Bluff announced that a Little Rock chapter of White America, Inc., had been formed the night before at Pine Bluff. DETAILS WITHHELD Poynter, president of White Amer ica, an organization incorporated Feb. 3 in Arkansas to promote the contin ued segregation of whites and Ne groes, declined to give details of the Little Rock group or to name the offi cers. He said the Little Rock chapter included “prominent professional men and women.” Poynter said delegates from six counties attended the meeting. On April 10, Jefferson County school officials said they would con tinue the plans to open Townsend Park high school for Negroes at Pine Bluff in September, although a small group of Negro residents had op posed construction of the school. The school will take care of 220 Negro students, most of them child ren of workers at the nearby Pine Bluff Arsenal. A group of Negro leaders earlier had protested construction of the school. They said they were inter ested in integration for all Dollarway District schools and they were afraid the new school would not be ac credited. Mrs. Carl Watkins, superintendent of the district, said the school would be accredited. Heading the opposition were Wil liam Dove, C. W. Dawson and Charles Its objective: “To assist private and public bodies in research and educa tion for intelligent, planned, and con structive integration of the schools in Kentucky . . . professional help will be provided upon request from the staff of 11 trained consultants, the ex ecutive director, and other staff mem bers.” The interracial group is affiliated with the Southern Regional Council in Atlanta, which, from a Fund for the Republic grant, has allotted the Kentucky Council $25,000 for the three-year period beginning Oct. 1, 1954. This fund will be supplemented by state membership fees ranging from $2 to $25. The council’s execu tive director is a Louisville teacher, Mrs. Margaret W. Dagen, who has taught in Kentucky for nine years and who in 1952 and 1953 received awards in St. Louis for betterment of human relations and racial under standing from the Urban League and B’nai B’rith. Assistant executive di rector is Mrs. lone G. Stanley, wife of the publisher of The Louisville Defender. TEACHERS MEET During the same week in April Kentucky’s two segregated teacher organizations held their annual con ventions in Louisville. Mrs. Dagen, addressing the Negro group (Ken tucky Teachers Association), called for integration of white and Negro teachers into a single professional or ganization. “How,” she asked, “can we expect the schools to integrate successfully if the teachers’ organiza tions aren’t integrated?” Mrs. Dagen criticized the white teachers’ group (Kentucky Education Association) for having refused earlier in the week to cooperate with KTA on a legislative program deal ing with integration. (Instead, KEA had said it would be glad to have KTA “unite with us” on a three-point program to increase funds for public education.) “As a teacher,” said Mrs. Dagen, “I am very embarrassed and frankly rather angry that the KEA should take this non-professional attitude Knott. Dawson is an instructor at Ar kansas A M & N College for Negroes at Pine Bluff, a state-supported school. Fred Moore, superintendent of county schools, said he thought oppo sition to the construction of the school probably was temporary. NEGRO RESPONSIBILITY On April 16, a Negro labor leader said at Little Rock that the responsi bility for bringing about racial inte gration in the United States rested principally with Negroes. A. Phillip Randolph, president of the International Union of Sleeping Car Porters, told a meeting of a local of the union that “Negroes will have to learn to fight and pay dearly for what they want, just as men of all ages have done.” Randolph urged the union mem bers to support the National Associa tion for the Advancement of Colored People in its fight against racial seg regation. “Regardless as to how liberal a white person might be, he is not a victim of segregation and discrimina tion and can’t feel as keenly about them as a Negro,” he said. “Thus, a white man can’t be expected to fight with the same interest and vigor.” On April 18, after returning from the Supreme Court hearings, Arkan sas Atty. Gen. T. J. Gentry said he thought the justices “seemed inter ested” in his suggestion that Congress enact legislation for desegregation of the public schools. Gentry noted that the justices used most of the hour allotted to Arkansas asking him questions. On April 21, Nat Griswold, execu tive director of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, an affiliate of the Southern Regional Council, said Arkansas was a fertile field for inter racial work. The council, an interracial group concerned with working out practi cal solutions in the field of race rela tions, hired Griswold last month and will open an office at Little Rock. “Arkansas has an excellent leader ship in the matter of inter-group re lations and is more ready to do that which is right than any other south ern state,” Griswold said. On April 22, a psychology professor toward integration. The statement of refusal to cooperate is not a profes sional attitude.” Next day a department represent ing 85 per cent (16,000) of the KEA membership, the Department of Classroom Teachers, voted approval by a 3-to-l majority of the Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling as being “a reaffirmation of our fundamental belief in the principles of a democratic society,” and as carrying out “prin ciples clearly defined in the preamble of the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights.” JOB WORRIES MINIMIZED Negro teachers were told not to worry about keeping their jobs in integrated school systems by Dr. J. Rupert Picott of Richmond, Va., vice president of the National Education Association and executive secretary of the Virginia Teachers Association. “They can’t find enough teachers anywhere,” he said. “Why should you be disturbed for fear that somewhere in this integration process you will lose your job?” Dr. Picott said that he had “come to believe in the fair-mindedness of all our citizens.” He predicted that the South will learn to accept deseg regation: “The South can really re join America through its acceptance of the responsibility that is the South’s.” KTA concern over teacher-tenure was marked, however. The associa tion, which voted to remove race re strictions on membership, approved resolutions (1) that the KTA “use every reasonable means” to persuade boards of education to keep all quali fied Negro teachers currently em ployed, (2) that when teacher-force reductions are necessary in any dis trict teachers with the highest quali fications should be kept regardless of race, (3) that districts employ a Ne gro teacher for each 27 Negro pupils in the district who were formerly transported to schools outside the di strict, and (4) that Negro teachers be included in a district’s teaching force on the basis of Negro pupils in Kentucky from Philander Smith College at Lit tle Rock told members of the Arkan- sas Academy of Science meeting at Harding College at Searcy that segre gation was more sharp on buses than in any other phase of southern life and that there it does the most harm, i The speaker was Dr. Martin Gross- ack, one of several white persons on the faculty of Philander Smith, a pri- vate college for Negroes attended by two or three white students. “Awareness of differential treat ment is at its most obvious point with the segregated bus. You can’t usually see two separate schools, two waiting rooms and other facilities at the same time and compare,” he said. “But social comparisons are easily made for the Negro in the bus situa tion. The segregated bus is the ideal situation to promote inferiority feel ings since you can compare yourself with both groups at once, check your comparisons and recheck them as you ride the bus.” Grossack said that the segregated bus often played an important role in the Negro child’s first lesson that he is a Negro. He said many Negroes “first learned their racial differences when ‘Mother yanked me to the back away from the whites’ or when ‘I was slapped for wanting to go up front.’ ” CORRECTION Through a makeup error, the April issue of Southern School News con tained only the last portion of an ac count of an incident involving Dr. John Tyler Caldwell, president of the University of Arkansas, and Ted E. Wylie, editor of the Northwest Ar kansas Times at Fayetteville. Briefly, the missing portion con tained these facts: Dr. Caldwell was speaking March 15 on “Problems of Integration” at a meeting of the Council of Church- women of Arkansas in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at Fayetteville at tended by about 100 persons, white and Negro. Dr. Caldwell asked Wylie not to report the meeting. Wylie told the group he would like to cover the speech if the meeting were not closed. After a few minutes of discussion which produced no decision, Wylie left and Dr. Caldwell completed his talk. average daily attendance, the sug gested ratio being one teacher for from 14 to 27 Negro pupils, and up to five teachers for from 109 to 135 pupils. TEACHER POOL URGED Another KTA proposal, sponsored by Dr. Rufus B. Atwood, president of Kentucky State College, called for establishment of a state hiring pool - of qualified teachers, with the state board of education required to refuse to issue emergency certificates to teachers lacking full qualifications so long as any qualified teachers—Negro or white— remain in the pool. Elaborating this point on April 24 at the 8th annual convention of the Kentucky State Conference of the NAACP, Dr. Atwood said that emer gency certificates are issued to teach ers having less than two years of col lege training. Currently Kentucky employs 3,385 such “unqualified teachers, he said, including 2,384 ffl regular positions and 951 as substi tutes. Of the total he had reason to believe, he said, that only six to 1- were Negroes—the remainder 0 Kentucky’s Negro teaching force o 1,400 being qualified. Even if the Supreme Court’s nex { ruling is issued in June, a representa tive of the state department of ediica' tion told the NAACP convention, 1 may be too late to change the ( se ® regated) setup of most schools *n time for the 1955-56 school year.’ T speaker was Sam Taylor, assistant di rector of the division of supervision- who said he had “nothing °ffi c ' a , report,” but was personally convince , that “great progress will be made the next few years in this state. On the same point Louisville Boat of Education President Morton Wal ^ er a week earlier had expressed lief that integration in Louis' might begin this fall but would P r °^ ably begin in September, 195®- gration, he said, definitely woU < 7fl e <l result in dismissal of any 9 uall ^ e , teacher in Louisville, “white or See KENTUCKY on Page 3