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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.”