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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—June 8, 1955—PAGE 13 North Carolina RALEIGH, N. C. RIOR to adjournment on May 26, the North Carolina General As sembly enacted a revised school law. Major changes made in the old law flowed from the desegregation deci sion. Principal changes: 1. Elimination of any mention of race. 2. Transfer of authority over en rollment and assignment of pupils from the state board of education to the 172 county and city school ad ministrative units. (Purpose: to make individual units, and not the state as a whole, defend ants in any school litigation so one lawsuit will not be binding upon all units. Appeals from assignment and enrollment rulings, in the past taken to the state board, under the new law will go directly into the courts.) 3. Transfer of title of the state’s 7,200 school buses (largest fleet in the nation) to the counties. This supple ments the enrollment and assignment feature. The General Assembly will appropriate money for operation of the buses. 4. Substitution of one-year con tracts for teachers and principals in lieu of “continuing” contracts. The latter type of contract meant that a teacher, unless notified during the year the contract was terminated, had a contract automatically for the following year. CHANGE IN CONTRACTS (Reason: state school districts will be realigned because the attorney general has said that present dis tricts—drawn on a bi-racial basis— are unconstitutional. School districts are employing agents of teachers and principals. Under continuing con tracts, the teachers after redistrict ing still would have contracts with the old—and non-existent—districts. Lawsuits could result.) While the stated purpose of trans fer of authority over enrollment and assignment of pupils is to resist inte gration, it was pointed out during hearings on the bill that this step also will permit local school boards to integrate if they so desire. Gov. Luther Hodges headed off one measure proposing a more extreme approach to the school problem. This was a bill by Rep. Sam Worthington of Pitt County to permit the use of state funds for private schools. Gov. Hodges promised to call a special session of the General Assembly if he considers the implementation de cree “drastic,” and Worthington let his bill die. Another bill, by Rep. B. I. Satter field of Person County, would have denied state funds to any integrated school. The attorney general told Satterfield the bill violated the state constitution, which calls for “a uni form system of schools” and Satter field killed his bill. During the committee discussion preceding unfavorable action on the Satterfield bill, Rep. Byron Haworth of Guilford County asked, “. . . Isn’t it time some of us were beginning to think of ways” integration can be accomplished without violence. AUTHORITY DECENTRALIZED “If we have done all we can do,” Haworth said, “isn’t constitutional government at stake? Isn’t that more important than how we feel about the segregation decision?” Haworth said that although author ity was being decentralized, the state still was paying the lion’s share of the cost of school operations. “When the Supreme Court looks at any of these things they are going to look right back at who’s paying the money and throw them out.” Meanwhile, three Negro students (Ralph K. Frazier, Leroy Frazier, John Lewis Brandon) who are gradu ating this year from Hillsboro high school in Durham applied for admis sion as undergraduates to the Uni versity of North Carolina. Director of Admissions Roy Arm strong rejected the applications in a letter to Attorney C. O. Pearson of Durham, NAACP counsel. Armstrong wrote, in part: “The trustees of the university have not yet changed the policy of admission of Negro students to the university.” He added Negroes at the graduate and professional level, who cannot obtain the same training in a Negro college in the state, could be admitted. “Negroes are not eligible at this time to make application for admission to the un dergraduate divisions of the univer sity,” he concluded. Pearson appealed to university President Gordon Gray, citing the court decision and adding Arm strong’s refusal “is not in keeping with the type of leadership which a great university should provide . . .” Pearson said he was prepared to go to court. Soon afterward, Gray called a meeting of university trustees. He said two other Negroes also had ap plied for admission to the undergrad uate school and another had applied for admission to a summer session at a UNC unit, Woman’s College in Greensboro. Gray said he knew the policy about undergraduates, but that he awaited instructions. LEGAL GROUNDS UNCERTAIN Trustee Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount then informed the trustees that Gray was “uncertain of the legal grounds on which he stands.” The uncertainty arose, Pear sall said, because neither the state constitution, the laws nor policy statements of the trustees specifically prohibited admission of Negroes as undergraduates — although no Ne groes have ever been admitted as undergraduates. At that point, the trustees unani mously adopted this statement: “The state of North Carolina, hav ing spent millions of dollars in pro viding adequate and equal educa tional facilities in the undergradu ate departmenets of its institutions of higher learning for all races, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Consolidated University of North Carolina that applications of Negroes to the undergraduate schools at the three branches of the Consolidated University not be accepted.” Several trustees thought the word “equal” should be deleted. Trustee Herman Weil of Goldsboro moved to delete the word, but the motion failed for lack of a second. Gray had told the trustees, “It would be very diffi cult to prove that facilities through out the Negro institutions are the equal of facilities at the University.” Twelve white students at the uni versity supported the request of the three Negroes for admission in a statement which said acceptance “will serve the best educational interests of both races . . .” The statement added, “The University of North Carolina, if it accepts this challenge to leadership, has an opportunity to preserve and make clear its position as a great liberal institution . . . The ideal of human equality and freedom of association is one that can no long er be relegated to some future time.” White students who signed the statement included YMCA and YWCA presidents, former and pres ent editors of the daily student news paper and the vice president of the student body. CALLED A KEY STATE At a meeting in Raleigh, Roy Wil kins of New York, executive secre tary of the NAACP, told a “Freedom Day” rally that North Carolina is one of the key states in the NAACP drive for full and complete equality. The state, he said, is not as progressive as it used to be and is “farther down than Arkansas and Texas” but not so far down as Mississippi. In Asheville, Bishop M. George Henry of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina said south erners had to bury “pride and self- seeking” while tackling the problem of school integration. The bishop, a native southerner, said, “The prob lem will not be solved by leaving it to someone else or to some group.” “Some are still arguing whether we should have unsegregated schools,” Bishop Henry told delegates from 62 parishes and missions of the mountain area. He said it seemed to him the court already had solved that question. He added: “We are Chris tians and, as such, should be leaders in solving this problem. May our gen eration show itself to be a great one, as we solve this problem in the fight of Christian brotherhood.” William T. Polk, associate editor of the Greensboro Daily News and author of Southern Accent, said on an editorial writers’ panel in Chapel Hill he thought there is “practically no chance that the South on any large scale will integrate its public schools in the near future. It is more likely to abandon or abolish them. “By and large, much of the South is willing to admit that Negroes ought to be given a fairer chance in many fields—civic government and medical groups, for example—but the South looks on public education as a spe cial case: as a state, not federal, mat ter; and as a question not of equality under the law, but of attainment of excellence by each child in accord ance with intellectual qualities.” At a meeting in Pinehurst, mem bers of the House of Delegates of the N. C. Medical Society voted 104- 37 to allow Negro physicians full sci entific membership in the society with full privileges of membership. The action culminated a five-year study of the issue. Dr. James P. Rousseau of Winston- Salem, new president of the society, said the action was “for the good of humanity” and “. . . if, by our action, we help one Negro physician to serve humanity more effectively, then our action was well worthwhile.” FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS Other developments during the month: Dr. Ralph D. Wellons, president of Pembroke State (Indian) College, was elected chairman of the N. C. Council on Human Relations. An interracial seminar on “The Re sponsibility of the Christian in the Problem of Racial Tensions” was con ducted in Rocky Mount by the N. C. conference of the Methodist Church. Eighty persons attended. Four ministerial associations in the state have integrated. These are lo cated in Chapel Hill, Lexington, Wil mington and Cabarrus County. Greensboro and Salisbury will inte grate later this year, and four other cities are laying the groundwork for such a step. Arkansas LITTLE ROCK, Ark. PRIVATE college for Negroes at Little Rock graduated its first white student in May. The Arkansas Council on Human Relations opened an office at Little Rock. One of the world’s richest men said in an Urban League speech that the Supreme Court’s May 17 decision on segrega tion in schools was an important step in progress. The attorney general of Texas told the Arkansas Bar Associ ation convention that the May 17 de cision was “demoralizing” to lawyers. And the University of Arkansas Graduate Center announced an inte- § r ation-in-reverse move. These were the major develop- me nts in Arkansas during May. In date order, this was what happened: On April 29 at Fort Smith, 1,000 delegates to the annual convention of Arkansas Christian Churches (Dis ciples of Christ) voted to survey the Possibility of racial integration in congregations, the state convention and the state missionary society. Rev. Colbert S. Cartwright, pastor of the Pulaski Heights Christian Church at Little Rock, chairman of *be Social Education Action Commit- ^ e ’ said the results of the survey would be submitted at the conven- hon next year. Philander Smith College at Little Rock, a Methodist-supported institu tion for Negroes founded in 1868, graduated its first white student on May l. social science major The white graduate in a class of 29 1 V ',? S Dorothy Martin, 32, of Mabelvale, Majored in social science. Doro- y Martin is her maiden name, re- ced after her divorce in 1953 from a Methodist minister. MGien Miss Martin enrolled in 1953, or two years of study at a private le ge for white students, she said she was waging a “one-man battle against segregation.” Dr. M. Lafayette Harris, Negro president of the College, said that when he received her application for enrollment, he could not turn it down. “Across the years we have been a Christian institution,” he said. “We have felt that the Christian concept had to be big enough for all people to work together in a Christian enter prise.” He said that when she enrolled, economy had been of prime impor tance to her and that the cost of at tending Philander Smith probably was lower than that of any white school in Arkansas. When Miss Martin enrolled, she said that a married sister of hers, who fives at Little Rock, was so against it that she went to the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney. But that offi cial said there was nothing she could do to prevent it. Miss Martin was not the only white student at Phliander Smith College this year. Wayne Detloff of Little Rock, a white student, has been studying chemistry there this year. THIRD OF FACULTY WHITE About one-third of the college’s 40 faculty members are white. On May 7, the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, affiliated with the Southern Regional Council, opened an office at 211 South Izard Street at Little Rock with Nat Griswold, a white man, as executive director, and Christopher C. Mercer, Jr., a Negro, as associate executive director. Segregation in schools will occupy most of the Council’s attention, Gris wold said in an interview. “But,” he said, “the school problem can’t be separated from other problems of segregation. The satisfactory solu tion of one involves at least the par tial solution of the others. We can’t FIRST WHITE GRADUATE AT PHILANDER SMITH DOROTHY MARTIN (third from right) at Philander Smith College com mencement exercises at Little Rock May 1 is the first student to receive a degree from the Methodist-supported college founded in 1868. have a satisfactory integration in schools unless there are changes in other areas.” Mercer entered the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1949, two years after the board of trustees vol untarily voted to admit Negroes. “I don’t think Arkansas will ever be ready for integration in the schools,” Mercer said. “People never are ready for a change. More than a state of readiness we need a state of willingness to do the right thing.” ROCKEFELLER SPEECH On May 8, Winthrop Rockefeller, a member of the board of the National Urban League and now a resident of Arkansas, spoke at the 18th annual public meeting of the Urban League of Greater Little Rock, which he serves as a member of the Advisory Board. “The Supreme Court’s decision on segregation in the schools and elimi nation of armed forces segregation are important stepping stones in our current progress,” he said. “Those things didn’t just happen. People of strong beliefs eliminated those stum bling blocks to a united citizenry.” Rockefeller, who has worked with the League more than 15 years, said that improved housing for Negroes should be the next area of effort for the League. He also said he thought integrated housing could work. On May 12 at Hot Springs, in a speech at the Arkansas Bar Associa tion convention, John Ben Shepperd, attorney general of Texas, said the Supreme Court decision on racial segregation in public schools was “de moralizing to the legal profession.” “The most recent and the most thunderous edict uttered by the Court was its decision in the segrega tion cases handed down almost one year ago,” Shepperd said. ‘BOOT AND SPUR’ “In its ruling the Court rode boot and spur right across 105 years of legal precedent and 150 years of social tradition repeatedly upheld under the Federal Constitution,” he said. “School segregation has been up held by federal courts in 77 cases, at least 13 of which were before the United States Supreme Court,” Shep perd said. “When the Court junked the fine of cases, it was demoralizing to the legal profession whose every legal concept must be based on prece dent.” Shepperd said that there was “nothing sacred and all-wise about the judiciary; it is composed of falli ble human beings. To assume that nine men in Washington can solve the problems of all school districts in the United States better than the thous ands of school board members and legislators is the worst kind of irre sponsible day-dreaming.” He said that the big problem before the nation’s lawyers was what they could do about federal encroachment. “We seem to be approaching a con dition of complete instability under which we will be governed by the ca price and whim of the individual jur ists,” he said. CITES CASES Shepperd cited several cases in which he said that the Supreme Court had ignored all precedent and that “later courts can just as casually ig nore present decisions and legislation, with the effect that the rock-like Constitution becomes a lump of clay to be remodeled by each generation of court justices, under the pressure of sociologists and politicians.” As one remedy against federal en croachment, Shepperd suggested that the states extend their system of in terstate compacts to “keep quarrels in the family and out of federal courts. REVERSE ORDER On May 20, integration-in-reverse was announced by the University of Arkansas Graduate Center at Little Rock. University officials said that white students would be allowed to See ARKANSAS on Page 23