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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—May 4, 1955—PAGE 3
Missouri
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
O NE Missouri area where school de
segregation was expected to prove
m ost difficult is the central section
known as “Little Dixie.” This bloc of
counties along the Missouri River to
th e west of Jefferson City, about mid
way across the state, was settled by
southerners from Virginia, Kentucky
and Tennessee, and the section has
retained some of the flavor and feel
ing of the South, including a strong
tendency to vote straight and usually
conservative Democratic.
Since the Supreme Court opinion
last year, school districts have suc
cessfully and quietly carried out in
tegration in “Little Dixie”, just as
they have in other sections of Mis
souri. Not all districts acted during
the first year, and the number of Ne
groes still attending segregated
schools in this area exceeds the num
ber in mixed schools. But enough ex
perience has been gained, principally
in high school integration, to suggest
that the transition in this part of the
state may not be much different from
the general Missouri pattern.
SLATER'S EXPERIENCE
The following report comes from a
teacher in Slater, a town of 2,900 in
Saline County, of which the county
seat is Marshall:
“A few years ago anyone would
have doubted that integration could
work so smoothly and so rapidly in
Little Dixie. There was an impression
among some of the leading business
men that the Negroes preferred seg
regation and felt that their children
were better off in separate schools.
This interpretation has proved to be
false.
“Negro high school students from
Slater formerly traveled 80 miles a
day to attend the Dalton Vocational
School in Chariton County, which is
under the supervision of the Board
of Curators of Lincoln University,
Jefferson City. Negroes also attended
Dalton school from Brookfield, about
40 miles away, Carrollton, 40 miles,
and Norborne, 50 miles. All four of
of these towns are now keeping their
Negro high school students at home,
and have successfully integrated them
in their local schools. The towns of
Brunswick, Keytesville, Salisbury
and Glasgow still send Negro stu
dents to Dalton.
“In Slater, when school began last
fall, Negro mothers brought their
children to have them registered.
There had been no official announce
ment from the board of education,
|\ “ ut word had been passed that Negro
students would not be refused and
that the board expected no trouble if
hey applied. The superintendent
simply took the stand that integra-
*on was now the law and should be
f espected.
fill integration
. The Negro students were taken
m to the full life of the school. One
j was elected reporter of the Fu-
Jf re Homemakers for the local paper,
of t 6 ^ e ® ro Sirls became members
“ le P e P squad. Two of the boys
e ^ e re gulars on the football team
team° ne 3 re ^ u ^ ar on basketball
senM 6 Parent-Teacher Association
letters to the Negro parents in-
Kentucky
Continued from Page 2
a . ., We don’t have enough teachers
^ It is.”
“\vh r talker urged those teachers
• jig 0 W *N be teaching children of a
“ Dr ren *- ra ce for the first time” to
Pare carefully for the job ahead.”
^ l ’TH ASSEMBLY
O, , nkfort on March 31 the 10th
ity v . ■y Youth Assembly by major
ity;. , e Ur § e d that Negro youths be
Som e sec attend the 1956 assembly,
ulated k 5 dogates were congrat-
boiver- ; y their president, 18-year-old
P. Stew* ty Louisville student John
art > on their decision.
Wcrn^rt had initiated the idea and
“cabinet su PPort of his 16-man
gram i , for the “governor’s” pro-
Sembly ef ° re Putting it to the as-
by tb e is sponsored annually
viting them to attend PTA meetings
and become members. Parents of the
Negro students now report better at
tendance and better study habits on
the part of their children. The child
ren without exception seem to be
well satisfied.
“A stir was caused last year when
some of the schools in this area with
drew from the sub-regional basket
ball tournament because teams were
entered from the Dalton and Moberly
Negro high schools. This year, the
same schools which had withdrawn
before participated in the tournament
with the Negro teams. One of them,
incidentally, won the sub-regional
tournament and in the regional was
defeated by a Columbia Negro school,
which went on to become the first
Negro school to play in the Class B
statewide tournament at Cape Girar
deau.
PROGRAM AT MARSHALL
“Marshall, a town of 9,000, is an
other Little Dixie community that is
ending high school segregation. All
Negro students from Marshall for
merly made a 60-mile round trip to
Sedalia every day. Nine of them now
attend the Marshall high school and
have been totally accepted into the
life of the school. Sixteen Negroes are
still transported to Sedalia, but inte
gration is to be completed next year.
The Catholic high school in Marshall,
Mercy Academy, has had a Negro girl
enrolled for three years.
“A Korean war veteran has become
the first Negro student at Central
College in Fayette, in adjoining How
ard County. Five Negroes attended
last year’s summer session there.
“The good racial relations that have
prevailed in our schools during this
period already have begun to have an
effect in adult relations and everyday
life. The Slater Ministerial Alliance
has held two inter-racial meetings
and in February it included all
churches in an evangelistic meeting
which was a great success in human
relations even though there was but
one convert. Negroes and whites sat
where they pleased throughout the
school auditorium where the evan
gelistic meeting was held.
“At the Saline County music con
tests in March, Negroes participated
for the first time, and one received
the top rating for piano solo. Negro
competitors had been denied admis
sion to the contest in prior years.”
REPORT FROM STURGEON
Another Little Dixie report comes
from Sturgeon, a town of 600 in Boone
County north of Columbia, where the
high school has been integrated.
There are 45 white students and three
Negroes, all girls. Supt. Charles H.
Koelling reports the program “going
along very nicely, although the Negro
students do not enter completely into
school activities. They do, however,
come to some parties and are treated
very graciously by the other stu
dents.”
Few eating places in Little Dixie
will serve Negroes, and this some
times creates problems for school
groups. A group of Sturgeon seniors
including one Negro girl went to Co
lumbia to sell ads in the school an
nual. When they entered a restaurant
at noon, the owner asked the Negro
girl to eat in the kitchen. The white
girls politely said they would find
some other place where they could all
eat together, and quietly left. “I was
very proud of them,” said Supt. Koel
ling.
Some schools in this section con
tinue to stay out of athletic contests
with Negro participants. Although
none of the Negro girls made the
girls’ basketball team at Sturgeon
high school, Sturgeon withdrew from
an invitational tournament when the
host school voted against letting Ne
gro students play on its court.
Sturgeon school officials take the
attitude that law is law, and that seg
regation is now against the law, says
Supt. Koelling. Some local citizens
are reported to be bitter about the
change, but if so they do not voice
their feelings very widely. The ma
jority appears to have accepted the
change. The PTA invited Negro par
ents to become members. Says Supt.
Koelling:
“I expected some problems in con
nection with this matter, but they
have not been forthcoming. Kids, if
left alone, are very likely to get along
nicely.”
In Moberly, 36 miles north of Co
lumbia, school segregation was re
tained this year, and community at
titudes may be indicated by an inci
dent reported by the Kansas City
Call, a Negro newspaper.
According to the Call, a visiting
student of education from Panama
came to Missouri under auspices of
the State Department. The Missouri
State Department of Education as
signed him to Moberly after first in
quiring whether the board of educa
tion and the superintendent of
schools wished to have a visitor from
Panama spend a month in Moberly
studying methods of teaching Eng
lish. Says the Call:
“The Moberly officials gave an en
thusiastic ‘Yes’ and set about to pre
pare for the coming of the visitor. But
when the student from Panama ar
rived, his skin was darker than Mo
berly anticipated. Quickly, the city
pulled in its welcome mat. Nobody
would give the visitor from Panama
lodging. No restaurant would serve
him food. After one night in the city,
the Panamanian left, puzzled and be
wildered.”
In Chillicothe (pop. 9,000), which is
80 miles southwest of Moberly and
just outside the Little Dixie area, the
board of education announced in
April that the Garrison high school
for Negroes will be closed at the end
of the current year. The 11 pupils will
be transferred to Chillicothe high
school which will thus cease to oper
ate on segregation lines. However,
Garrison elementary school for Ne
groes will continue as it is now, the
board announced.
BUTLER’S INTEGRATION
In Butler, a town of 3,500 about 70
miles south of Kansas City not far
from the Kansas line, the board of
education voted unanimously last
summer to admit Negroes to the high
school during the current year. Four
were expected to enroll, but 10 ap
peared. The explanation, according
to Supt. Paul Greene, was that sev
eral youngsters above normal fresh
man age had entered with the fresh
man class once segregation ended.
Previously they had felt they could
not afford a high school education
away from home.
“The Negro students enter fully in
to school life,” says Supt. Greene.
“We had Negro boys playing on our
football team. Negroes play in our
band, are in our girls’ pep club and
the girls’ glee club. They are not seg
regated in any class, but sit here and
there wherever they choose.
“So far as we have been able to
note, there have been no problems of
any kind. One thing noted downtown
is that where Negroes used to go into
the drug stores, make their purchases
and leave, now they are inclined oc
casionally to occupy a booth and stay
a while as the white youngsters do.
Although some persons have looked
askance at this, I think in due time it
will be accepted and commonplace.”
SPRINGFIELD’S PLANS
In Springfield, the state’s fourth
largest city (pop. 72,000), integration
of Negro pupils has been two-thirds
completed and no separate school for
Negroes will be operated next year.
In April, Supt. Willard J. Graff an
nounced plans for integration of Ne
gro teachers in the public school staff
next year.
The $450,000 Lincoln school will be
remodeled during the summer and
opened next fall as an integrated two-
year junior high school. It will have
a student body of about 250 including
25 Negroes.
Three former teachers at Lincoln
school will be assigned to the elemen
tary division of the school system in
a special capacity. Each elementary
school will have the services of one of
the teachers for approximately two
weeks during the year. Each teacher
will work with small groups of pu
pils who show the need for additional
work in any subject, but especially
in reading or arithmetic, according
to an announcement by Miss Alice
Pittman, director of elementary edu
cation.
In the secondary division, two Ne
gro teachers will be assigned to each
of five high school faculties, and will
fill regular full-time teaching assign-
Georgia
MACON, Ga.
the U. S. Supreme Court held
hearings prior to issuing decrees
in the school segregation cases, there
was no discernible change in Geor
gia’s position, as expressed by state
officials, that mixing of the races is
unacceptable.
But April, 1955, was a quiet month
in that comparatively few officials
publicly reiterated their opposition to
integration.
Two exceptions were noted. Atty.
Gen. Eugene Cook and former Gov.
Herman Talmadge have continued to
remain in the public eye with their
utterances on the segregation issue.
Cook has challenged the authority
of the Supreme Court to name a date
for implementation of its decision,
saying only Congress has the authori
ty to implement an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States.
The Georgia attorney general re
fused to appear before the Court
when it heard briefs on how and
when the ruling may be implemented.
Because of his non-appearance, he
contended, Georgia can ignore the
ruling when it is made.
An appearance on his part, Cook
said, would have officially conceded
the right of the Supreme Court to
usurp the prerogative of the Congress
and the people. The attorneys gen
eral who did appear, Cook said, were
obligated by the Court to insist that
citizens of their respective states
comply with the implementation in
structions.
CONSTITUTIONAL POINT
“Constitutional lawyers are unable
to find any precedent in which the
U. S. Supreme Court said to the
President of the United States and to
Congress that an amendment to the
federal Constitution could not be
enforced until a given date,” Cook
said.
The attorney general said he had
“saved” this point “for future use,”
but he brought it up in making public
a letter written to W. J. Robertson,
editor of the Savannah Morning
News. The Morning News had edi
torially questioned Cook’s wisdom in
deciding not to appear at the April
hearings and the attorney general’s
letter took issue with the editorial.
Cook repeated his earlier statement,
made at the time he—with the back
ing of Talmadge, governor at the time
—decided not to file a brief: “To offi
cially appear as attorney general
would be like participating in the
funeral ceremonies of the best friend
the Negro and white man ever had—
segregation.”
Noting that “in his first brief U. S.
Atty. Gen. Herbert Brownell Jr., de
manded that the Court enforce its
decision forthwith, and that in his
second brief twelve months later he
completely reversed this position and
begged the Court to proceed with
caution, for fear enforcement would
result in violence,” Cook said “this
reversal of position by Mr. Brownell
is an admission that the Court’s de
cision and its enforcement may well
destroy the very essence of the states’
constitutional authority to exercise
police power by the enactment of ap
propriate laws.”
OPINION ON FEDERAL AID
At the request of Georgia Con
gressman Phil M. Landrum, a mem
ber of the House Education Commit
tee, now serving on the subcommittee
considering proposed federal aid for
education measures, Atty. Gen. Cook
rendered an advisory opinion on the
merits of six pending federal aid bills.
He advised Landrum that enact
ment of federal aid for education
ments. Seven will teach English and
social studies, one mathematics, one
science and one home economics.
At the new junior high school, no
Negro teachers will be assigned, but
the former Lincoln school librarian
will serve in that capacity at the jun
ior high.
Two other members of the former
Lincoln school faculty will serve in
city-wide posts, one as assistant to
the music supervisor and one as as
sistant to the athletic director.
legislation could provide the Supreme
Court with “a very effective way” of
implementing its decision outlawing
segregation in the public schools.
Cook held that even the inclusion
of a “non-interference clause” in
federal aid legislation through which
all federal agencies and officials
would be prohibited from exercising
any degree of control over the public
schools would not prevent the use of
such funds as a means of forcing in
tegration of the races in classrooms.
Cook explained as follows:
“In all contracts entered into for
the expenditure of federal funds in
any fashion, there are provisions
against discrimination. These clauses
were not placed in these contracts
pursuant to statute, but are the result
of an executive order issued several
years ago...
“In view of Mrs. Oveta Culp Hob
by’s statement that federal funds
would be withheld from any state
refusing to comply with the Supreme
Court’s decision, there is little doubt
but that the regulations promulgated
by the U. S. Commissioner of Edu
cation, pursuant to provisions in all
the bills, will make such a require
ment. Neither should we assume that
the Supreme Court, in view of its
present attitude, would hold such
conditions void as contrary to the
‘non-interference’ clause . . . The
Court could well be expected to jump
at the opportunity of upholding a very
effective way of implementing its de
cision.”
In a speech before the Southern
Regional Conference of Attorneys
General in Charleston, S.C., Cook,
speaking on public authorities, said
that Georgia finds herself in a su
perior position from which to resist
integration because of having pro
vided for “absolutely equal school
facilities” through the State School
Building Authority program.
The report of retiring chairman
Fred Hand, recently issued, revealed
that three bond issues totaling
$127,909,000 have been sold to pro
vide money for needed construction
of white and Negro school buildings
since the creation of the Authority
in 1951.
TALMADGE SPEAKS OUT
Meanwhile, former Gov. Talmadge,
who is reliably reported as preparing
to run for Sen. Walter F. George’s
U. S. Senate seat next year, has been
making numerous speeches over the
state and denouncing the Supreme
Court decision in many of his ad
dresses.
Talmadge has also taken a strong
anti-integration position in his po
litical paper, The Statesman.
The Statesman declared in an edi
torial that it is important to the
Court’s prestige that the May 17 rul
ing be enforced as far as it is possible
and added: “The line is drawn. The
time has come when all must get on
one side or the other.”
Commenting on the April hearings
in a signed column in The Statesman,
Talmadge said of the Supreme Court
justices, “For the first time publicly
since they handed down their psycho-
sociological decision, the enormity of
the task they have cut out for them
selves and the federal government
seemed to dawn upon them.”
Talmadge concluded by saying,
“The elected representatives of the
people can be depended upon to see
that the rights of the states and the
individual citizens are not abro
gated.”
The former governor has not men
tioned Sen. George by name in the
speeches in which he has attacked the
Court’s decree but political specula
tion is that he will take issue with
Georgia’s senior senator for not
strongly denouncing the desegrega
tion ruling.
The state board of education, meet
ing in Atlanta, rejected a student
song book entitled “Of Thee We Sing”
for use in Georgia schools. The rea
son given was that a word had been
substituted in Stephen Foster’s orig
inal version of “Old Folks at Home.”
The rejected version used the word
“brothers” for “darkies” in the line
which went, “Oh, darkies, how my
heart grows weary.”