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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—June 8, 1955—PAGE 19 Missouri ST. LOUIS. Mo. /YNE Missouri community which ^ can appraise a full school year’s experience with racial integration at the elementary level is the St. Louis County town of Kirkwood. This is a largely suburban, partly rural com munity of 20,000 population about 18 miles from downtown St. Louis. It has a combined senior-junior high school and 8 other elementary schools. A new $4,000,000 senior high school is under construction, to be ready for occupancy next September. After the Supreme Court an nounced its decision against school segregation in May 1954, the Kirk wood school board was one of the first in Missouri to announce that it would begin integration immediately, without waiting for the court to hand down final orders. Today some of the school officials say they regret this decision. They think it might have been better to wait until the court’s orders were fi nal, then end segregation in accord ance with the procedures recom mended in those orders. Because the Kirkwood system chose to proceed without delay, it has aroused some community resistance which, accord ing to this opinion, would not be en countered ofter a final and irrevoca ble court order. ELABORATE PLANT Because of lack of space, Kirkwood during the 1954-55 school year con tinued sending Negro high school pu pils to the neighboring suburb of Webster Groves, which operates an all-Negro high school. But it ordered elementary schools to be opened without regard to race immediately. This spring, the board voted to com plete the desegregation process in the secondary schools when the new high school is completed in the fall. The new building, one of the most elaborate high school plants in Mis souri, will become a three-year senior high school with an enrollment of 70 Negroes in a total of 1,000. The build ing which formerly housed the white senior-junior high will bcome a three-year junior high with 120 Ne- §noes in a total enrollment of 1,400. The former Negro junior high will become an elementary school, serv- *6 a district populated almost en- ufely by Negroes. Integration of secondary t< as been proposed by Supt. I endricks and unanimously .® v ®d by the school board. T be five Negro teachers at the . r in a total of 52—one in p ec * Ucat i°n, one in English, o] a _ em atics and science, one in i tea anc * one librarian. Three Is k rs ^ ave keen assigned to th in p faculty at the senior high glish and two in social scie: ? eachers have yet The - k to m ‘ xe< T elementary sch signm 01 officials feel that sucl sitjT entS now mi ght provoke o; high o? 0I ? g w h‘te parents wher< ofwhif 10 ? 1 teacher who is in ch the a 6 C asses T° r only one peri< would not create a r, been J?’ Negro teachers ] n dismissed. > e »°mes IX district dem °nstratedV Kirkwood has bee Parents ' t6d unrest among whi souther T a new subdivision in tl element Pa j? of the district. Whe re draw ary . district boundaries wei "hitek Wlthout regard to race, the: served K eS landed in the distri c *’iidren r tbe Negro school. He '-Tided *k ^is subdivision a We Vvp e ^ e Sro school, they wou! ®0 in en a white minority of aboi Parent, - aI enrollment of 300. Tl special jf^ediately petitioned for VhoQj actl °n to permit the neigh khooi cp °. m ° ve into an adjoinir ■jjj strict which has no Negroe specmj ^Paration was defeated at •sspe had 6 k ti0n last Au gust, but' th ‘boot a f aeen Temporarily rendere “dioolk eW days before, when th to r.„ ard v °ted to permit all child Vharl ue atten ding the schoo: ^ a Previously attended. Nd amf *1°.®’ a sec °nd election we ? r hood tais Time the white neigh ^l r kw 0r ,,!’'"'° n The right to leave th district. The result is the Kirkwood now has one all-Negro school serving a Negro neighborhood, a scattering of Negroes in three or four formerly white schools, and one formerly white school with a Negro minority of 70 in a total enrollment of 484—about 14 per cent. FIRST YEAR “A SUCCESS” School board president Burton Sawyer, a St. Louis salesman by oc cupation, says he regards the first year’s experience as a decided suc cess, and proof that integration will gain acceptance despite a communi ty’s initial reluctance to approve it. Today, says Mr. Sawyer, he knows of no significant sentiment for revers ing the decision and most citizens now accept it. The secession of one subdi vision does not in itself represent a serious loss to the district, he says, but the school board opposed it be cause of the precedent it might set. “Taking the year as a whole, we feel integration has worked remarkably well,” says Mr. Sawyer. “There have been no disturbances like those in Baltimore, Washington and Delaware. Such incidents as have occurred be tween white and Negro students are no different from incidents between white students. I believe the commu nity is now completely prepared for the completion of integration in the high school and junior high next fall.” At John Pitman school, which has the 14 per cent Negro minority, Mrs. B. A. Compton, principal, and the teaching staff say the biggest prob lem has been the scholastic disparity between Negroes and whites. FEW ABOVE AVERAGE Few Negro children are rated by standard tests in the above-average group, says Mrs. Compton. Most are low average or below average. For example, the year-end tests in the third grade showed one Negro and 18 whites above average. In second grade, the grouping was: no Negroes and 19 whites above average; 2 Ne groes and 26 whites average; 7 Ne groes and 15 whites below average. The Negro pupils are easily dis couraged by this disparity, says Mrs. Compton, and need constant stimula tion to face up to competition which is tougher than they have experienced. They tend to lack ambition and ini tiative, she says. She wonders whether poor nutrition and poor home environment are to blame. They find it particularly difficult to follow verbal instructions. Reading problems are severest among the Negroes. The remedial reading teacher finds herself spend ing most of her time with them. Other teachers, also, find it necessary to de vote more than average time to the Negroes since they are so often the slowest in the class. Hence, Mrs. Compton believes, some of the white children may be neglected. GENERAL LEVEL DOWN The general level of scholastic per formance for the school has definitely come down, says Mrs. Compton, as a result of the influx of low-ability Negroes and the departure of some high-ability whites who were dis tricted out when new boundaries were drawn. Some teachers feel that this matter will adjust itself in time. They find a smaller differential be tween Negro and white pupils in the kindergarten and first grades, and believe that several years of joint training may bring the groups closer together. Socially, the whites and Negroes have got along famously. During the first two months, says Mrs. Comp ton, each group was curious about the other and anxious to make friends. After the novelty had worn off some of the Negroes tended to associate more with each other and the rela tionship became more natural. There is little self-segregation, however, and no discrimination. Children of both races play together on the playground. The teaching staff is under strict rules to see that every dispute between a Negro and white is quarantined at once, and settled before the children go home in the afternoon. No significant instances of racial friction have been encountered. Mrs. Compton asked the teachers to Tennessee report on their year’s experience. Here are highlights from the reports: PHYSICAL EDUCATION: The Negro children are quick to take of fense and are on the defensive when among themselves. They tease each other more than whites, tend to be quarrelsome and fussy—but mainly when they are among themselves. They show little initiative. They do what they are told, but must be told. After the first few months of self- conscious mixing, the Negroes seem to drift more to themselves, though racial lines are not sharply drawn. TEACHER'S EXPERIENCE THIRD GRADE: Integration is definitely wrong. Negro teachers can better understand children of their own race and do them justice. The Negroes are losing sympathy with their own children by being mixed with whites. (This teacher added that before integration began, she felt that she could not bear to teach mixed classes. Her colleagues say that though she still opposes integration in principle she probably has more real affection for her Negro pupils than anybody on the staff). FOURTH GRADE: The children of both races have mixed well. Some of the Negroes are hard workers, but need leading, and others are quite lazy. Most are well-behaved and clean, the mothers being anxious that they should appear well at the new school. Three are making good prog ress in school work. Some are a little too aggressive, loud and fussy, with not enough respect for authority and a tendency to take too many privi leges. SIXTH GRADE: The white child ren have made a more positive effort to get along. The Negroes are cross and fussy among themselves. Some are less sincere and quick to prevari cate. Most of them are definitely slow to learn. They lack reading skill and show marked inertia, possibly due to poor nutrition or lack of proper rest at home. One girl’s school work suf fers for lack of new glasses, but her parents have neglected to supply them, though both are working. In such matters the parents seem to be willing to shift responsibility to the school. The Negroes make their best contributions to the group in story telling and music. BREAK INTO GROUPS THIRD GRADE: After the novelty wore off, the Negroes tended to break into the same two groups as white pupils—one well-behaved and the other not. Negroes listen politely when criticized, but pay no attention so far as correcting their behavior is concerned. The white children are more impudent and assertive but do try to correct themselves when disci plined. Three of the Negroes in this class are studious, three play all the time, and two need to be watched al ways. The Negroes generally are slower physically and mentally. FOURTH GRADE: There is no question that the year’s experience has benefited the Negro children so cially. They have learned to be ac cepted or rejected as individuals, not as members of a group, and kindness has modified any belligerency in them. The scholastic differences are “dreadful.” The individual needs of the very inferior Negro students just cannot be met in a class of this size. The Negroes seem to learn more by mimicry than do whites. They have trouble following detailed instruc tions. SECOND GRADE: It has been a very difficult year. The Negroes have been helped, especially by getting a sense of belonging and by developing a sharper feeling of right and wrong. Some of the white children may have lost something. They have done naughty or foolish things in order to gain attention. In time perhaps all these things will level off. FIRST GRADE: The five Negroes are all below average, and the lowest in the class. Two of them try very hard but the other three seem to have no desire whatever to work. Gener ally they are careless and destructive of school property. They are inca pable of working alone but need con stant help and encouragement— which the teacher also needs. KINDERGARTEN: The experi ment has worked very well. Negroes See MISSOURI on Page 23 NASHVILLE, TENN. HE first year of racial integration in two previously all-white schools here ended in late May with the schools’ officials reporting the transi tion a success. Both are Catholic parochial schools. Officials of each were quick to em phasize that while integration worked well in their schools, they did not want to be placed in the position of trail blazers who say, in effect, “it worked for us, it will work for you.” Said Father Francis T. Shea, prin cipal of Father Ryan high school, “We think it is a good thing. We think it has worked well for us. “But I don’t want to urge any other school to desegregate, or to discour age them from doing so,” he said. “They’ve got problems that I have no suspicion of, perhaps, and conse quently, the conditions we’ve worked with may be entirely different.” An official of the other school (Ca thedral high, on which a separate re port will be published in the next issue of SERS), made a similar com ment. In early September, 18 Negro stu dents enrolled at Father Ryan. They were members of a total enrollment of 307 students. By June 2,1955, when three of the Negroes received their diplomas from Father Ryan, the number of Negroes enrolled in the school was 15. NO UNTOWARD INCIDENTS Of the three who left the school, one moved to Chicago with his par ents, one was found to be a tuber culosis case shortly after enrollment, and the third was asked to leave. He was, said Father Shea, a chronic truant. At no time during the nine-month academic year has there been one untoward incident which could be construed as a result of integrating white and Negro students. From interviews with students, it was learned that only once did a white and Negro student come to blows. This occurred in a physical education class. The boys were quick ly separated, briefly lectured, and shook hands before they went on with their games. Father Shea said he had not been told of this incident. He was, he said, convinced that any incident of a se rious nature would have been re ported to him. Said one of the students, a Negro, “I don’t know of anything that hap pened that wouldn’t happen in any other school.” Father Ryan’s principal credits the students for the success of the transi tion there. But, he said, three other factors played an important part in acting as pressure deterrents, and permit ting the students to work out the problem among themselves. ALL TEACHERS PRIESTS These factors, he said, are rather peculiar to the Father Ryan situa tion. First, all teachers there are priests, and Father Shea feels that the Cath olic boy’s innate respect for the priest made him less prone to take any action that would incur their displeasure or embarrass them. Second, Father Ryan is for boys only, and as a result, there was no occasion for concern over mixing of the sexes as well as the races. Third, the boys and their parents were completely informed of the rea son behind the integration—that the single Catholic high school for Ne groes in Davidson County—Immacu late Mother—was an uneconomic op eration. The church was maintaining a separate facility to educate 36 stu dents. The building was run down. To place it in proper condition would take considerable funds. Because of this, Father Shea said the white students at Father Ryan adopted the attitude that, after all, the Negroes, as Catholics, had as much right to a Catholic education as they did. And if their school had to be closed, there was no place for them to go except Father Ryan. “Frankly, I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” Father Shea said. “I don’t think anybody has attempted to cause us any trouble. The city, the other schools, have been very kind to us.” After school opened, Father Shea said there was only one period when he was worried—the period during which anti-integration incidents oc curred in West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Delaware. “After we got over that without any difficulty,” he said, “I figured the kids were working it out O.K. They were very calm, much more so than I believed possible under the circum stances.” Father Shea said the school officials adopted no set policy of implementa tion of integration or guidance. “We determined that everyone would be treated just alike,” he said. “That was our only policy.” HOLD WORKSHOP Another development here last month was a two-day workshop con ference on a study of the Supreme Court decision and its meaning to the community. Similar meetings have been held in the past at Fisk University. But this was the first time such organ izations as the local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the Asso ciation of Churches, Citizens for Pub lic Schools, Association of University Women, Council of Jewish Women, B’nai B’rith, United Church Women, Council of Colored Parents and Teachers, have sponsored a discussion on the decision, much less an inter racial one. The conference opened with a panel discussion on the workshop subject. Members of the panel were Dr. George Mitchell, Atlanta, executive director of the Southern Regional Council; Dr. Charles S. Johnso’n, president of Fisk University; Whit worth Stokes, Nashville attorney and president of the Nashville Citizens Committee for Public Schools. Dr. William van Til, Nashville, Peabody college professor, was panel modera tor. MITCHELL PLAN Mitchell offered the following plan for successful integration in com munities: 1. People of similar cultural back grounds but of different groups, should work together on a detailed plan for achieving integration. 2. These groups, once the plans are complete, should make their views and findings known to local school authorities. 3. Then the school authorities should evolve a firm plan, with a solid legal foundation, and support its enactment with firmness and con viction. To those who say minorities should receive an education and back ground for self-government before “turning them loose,” Mitchell said: “You don’t provide welfare and then turn people loose. “By the curious, circuitous process of democracy, the Supreme Court has affirmed a doctrine recognized by England in its recent dealings with India,” he said. “ ‘First you turn peo ple loose, then they get their own welfare.’ ” 325 ATTEND Approximately 325 people were members of the panel’s non-segrega- ted audience. The second day of the conference heard SERS executive director C. A. McKnight deliver a report on segre gation-integration activities in the various states affected by the high court ruling. The group, 180 white and Negro men and women, then joined one of five discussion sections, each considering a separate phase of the desegregation problem. Discussed were the role of the church, civic organizations, planning for integration in the schools, plan ning for integration in areas other than the schools, and how public opinion is formed. No resolutions were passed or group decisions made. The church group discussed ways of getting people to practice at local, congregational level, their beliefs in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.