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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—July 6, 1955—PAGE II Georgia Awaits Counsel Of Special Education Commission MACON, GA. indication of Georgia’s next move to maintain segregation despite the U. S. Supreme Court’s original decision outlawing separate schools for white and Negro children ^nd the Court’s May 31 decision that the transition shall be made “as soon as practicable” is expected at a meet ing of the Georgia Education Com mission in the very near future. Gov. Marvin Griffin had earlier announced the Commission, created by the state legislature to find legal means to circumvent the decision, would meet following the June emer gency session of the General Assem bly. Wire services stories and a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, June 5, all quoted Gov. Griffin as indicating Georgia may have to scrap its proposed “private school” system for some other plan which he said would be “more ex pensive” and “which is not exactly desirable.” The stories said he did not elaborate on what the “other plan” might be. A reporter for the Macon Tele graph & News, checking for clarifica tion of the report, however, was told by the governor no such comment had been made and a search of his recorded statements failed to reveal anything of the sort. Abandonment of the private school plan would have been a complete about-face for Gov. Griffin, who staked his political future on the stratagem aimed at making state grants to individual students in seg regated private schools. KID DERBY INCIDENT The first evidence of any activity on the part of Georgia’s only known organized anti-integration citizens’ group cropped up in Augusta. The States Rights Council of Geor gia Inc., demanded that the annual Soap Box Derby be called off after two Negro contestants entered. The Derby, scheduled for July 13, was cancelled after the sponsors, the Augusta Chronicle, Henry Darling Inc., and the Augusta Chapter of the American Business Clubs, said a number of white youths withdrew and a survey of parents disclosed that a large percentage did not care to have their sons participate. The sponsors denied outside pres sure brought by the Council caused the cancellation and said had a suffi cient number of parents permitted their sons to participate, the race would have been held. Hugh G. Grant is listed as presi dent and Roy V. Harris as first vice- president of the Council. Both are from Augusta and Harris is a former speaker of the Georgia House of Rep resentatives. „ The June emergency session of the state legislature was for tax-raising purposes only and no measures bearing on segregation were intro duced or discussed. Gov. Griffin said he did not anticipate it would be necesary to call the legislature back into special session as a result of the May 31 decision. The third petition asking integra tion of white and colored children in the public schools has been filed in Georgia. “Immediate steps” to abolish seg regation were asked of the Atlanta school board in a petition listing the names of nine parents of Negro chil dren filed by the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People. Similar petitions had earlier been filed in Macon and Columbus. A suit seeking school integration was filed in 1951 by NAACP attor neys and is still pending in the U. S. District Court of Atlanta. A letter accompanying the Atlanta petition said there would be no need for pressing for court action on the suit if the board was in a position to Maryland Officials (Continued from Page 10) not be done in just two or three Months.” Western Maryland Running westward from Baltimori ounty are five counties which havi • e gro school enrollments ranginj °m less than ten per cent down ti ^ (in westernmost Garrett Coun- AT Ehe area is one of fertile farm; n a few scattered industries, witl e nnsylvania cultural affinities oi y. e nor th and more than a touch o Ir ginian influences on the south ii C ° Unty like Frederick. All of th. hav * les 7' exce Pt Garrett, of course— e maintained separate schools foi Mr small numbers of Negro chil- n ’ and also Negro school buses. W °, We stern Maryland countie; to e ® rea dy made decisions leading desegregation. Frederic! -A* with 9.1 per cent Negrt ^ 1 Pupils, has announced tha' !em° r anc * sen i° r high school stu- !a][ , would be integrated in thf of following the completior fhnn' 66 neW sc b°°ls now in the Kill s * a £ e - Elementary school; a e desegregated gradually or C°Untv me£ d basis. In nearby Carrol 5.1 per cent Negro en- a] 6r ent > the school board voted tc white and Negro athletic pro as qj and such county-wide event; •5g a Slc an d dance festivals, pend- W e P°rt on full integration by £ “nuwttee and school staff, tent N Ueehany County, with 2 pel 6 ^ r ° stdlo °l enrollment, schoo tisticgl ® em bers have received sta- ^hoo] . f rom the professional "‘lorertf °n the location of the 32( Several yb 00 ^ children in the county - f“ministrative questions have Sducau erred t0 the State Board oi kgr atlo ° n - An announcement of in- bi -nr P.ns is expected soon. '■"‘aa t s mngton County, with less 'olbw? cen t colored school en- , the school board on June 2c Willing (Continued) named a 13-member study group and set July 13 as the meeting date for a discussion of integration. The county school superintendent, William M. Brish, said immediately after the May 31 decision that desegregation in this county would be “no great problem.” SOUTHERN MARYLAND The division of a state into local areas is always subject to interpre tation, but on the basis of racial atti tudes southern Maryland may fairly be said to start with Howard County, which is more often linked geograph ically with western Maryland. So far the Howard school board has only said that it was studying problems related to desegregation and that “such a study has been in progress for some time and will be continued until sufficient information has been obtained upon which to base a course of action.” The county school super intendent, John E. Yingling, has been quoted in the press as saying, “We’ll probably get some form of action at out next meeting July 5.” Howard County has 19.4 per cent colored pu pils in its schools. Southwest of Howard lies Mont gomery County, which is heavily white suburban at the southern end, where it borders the District of Co lumbia line, and white rural at its upper half, where Negroes represent about 25 per cent of the school popu lation. Montgomery was the first to announce a definite integration pro gram, which will start with down- county elementary schools and in clude some secondary-level mixing. In Calvert County, which is the only one to have more Negroes than whites in its schools, the school board met the day after the Supreme Court’s final action in the school seg regation cases and resolved that its president “appoint a committee of representative citizens to make rec- move toward integration now. Board members did not comment on the pe tition or the letter. The Atlanta petition follows the strategy outlined at an NAACP meeting in Atlanta early in June. This calls for: (1) Filing a petition with each local school board, calling attention to the Supreme Court decision, of fering NAACP assistance in solving transitional problems and requesting action by school authorities. (2) Following up with periodic in quiries as to what is being done in compliance. (3) Going into court to try to force action if the local school boards have made no move toward integration by the beginning of the September school term. No action has been taken on any of the three petitions and court suits are expected to be filed in the fall un less Negro petitioners believe moves toward integration are being made. 35 NAACP BRANCHES There are 35 branch organizations of the NAACP in Georgia and peti tions will be filed in every city where there is a branch, according to Dr. William Boyd, state NAACP presi dent. He said the state branch would give help to Negroes in those areas where there are no NAACP branches. Commenting on the NAACP strat egy, Gov. Griffin said he would have no alternative under the laws of the State of Georgia and the Georgia Constitution “but to withhold all public funds, which is my duty and my oath of office” if the organization tries to force integration during the summer, getting ready for the fall term. The question of whether the Su preme Court’s desegregation order had invalidated school bond financing in Georgia and other southern states came up following the decision of a judge in a Virginia case. The Virginia judge enjoined a mil- lion-dollar bond issue for Hanover County on the grounds that it was voted for “segregated schools,” which have since been declared illegal. George P. Whitman Jr., of Atlanta, chairman of the Georgia School ommendation for the implementation of the May 31, 1955, Supreme Court decrees relative to the desegregation of schools.” The resolution said that the board recognized its obligations to operate schools in accordance with federal and state laws and the by laws of the State Board of Education. In Charles and St. Mary’s coun ties, which lie across the Potomac from Virginia and have Negro en rollments of 45.3 and 30.2 per cent, respectively, the school boards have discussed desegregation during the past year but no announcement of plans have been made. BALTIMORE CITY Baltimore schools, desegregated last fall, completed their initial year of mixed classes in orderly fashion— a year generally acclaimed by school officials and others as having been successful. The city runs summer courses in three high schools for stu dents who have work to make up because of poor grades, long absences because of ill health, etc. This sum mer the courses are given at two high schools that have been predominant ly white and one that has been all- Negro. In the summer courses, fac ulties are mixed. School officials have given out no figures on summer school enrollment by race, but the schools from which students have been drawn indicate that for the first time there is a sig- nifiicant movement of white students into a predominantly colored school. More than 150 white boys and girls will be in Douglass high school, which will have about 1,500 Negro students. There were no white stu dents in colored secondary schools. The proximinity of Douglass to white neighborhoods, in comparison to the other two schools where summer course are given, is considered to be the reason for the mixing. —St. Louis Post-Dispatch Building Authority, said the decision would have no bearing in this state because in Georgia the school bonds were issued by an agency connected with the state. Church groups in Georgia in June took definite stands in favor of con tinued segregation. Members of the Atlanta Methodist Ministers Association, composed of some 150 ministers of the denomina tion in the Atlanta area, unanimously asked the Methodist General Confer ence to retain the all-Negro Central Jurisdiction of the church. “We Methodists of the South united with other branches of the church in 1939 with the understanding that the Central Jurisdiction, providing for segregation within the church, would be maintained,” said the Rev. Gordon Thompson, Association president. Removal of the Central Jurisdiction, he said, would be a “breach of faith.” The suggestions of some of the groups in the North in regard to in tegration “just are not practical. In tegration will not work in the South,” the Rev. Mr. Thompson said. OTHER METHODIST ACTIONS The North Georgia Methodist Con ference, meeting in Athens, and the South Georgia Methodist Conference, meeting in Savannah, also went on record for continued separate Negro churches. The northern group, asking that ways be sought to improve race rela tions, directed a memorial titled “A Christian Solution to Race Problems” to the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church. It said: “We recognize that the society in which we live is in the process of changing and that our church cannot in loyalty to her Master fail to sup port the movement toward a peace ful Christian solution to this prob lem.” Ways should be sought to provide “points of contact for better under standing among races, thus making our jurisdictional system to be an effective instrument to work toward a more Christian society,” the memo rial continued. The South Georgia Methodist group also asked that the present jurisdic tional setup be continued, in effect asking for a continuance of segrega tion. A flurry of comment developed as a reaction to the Supreme Court de cision of May 31. Several public fig ures later elaborated on their orig inal statements. Sen. Walter F. George said the seg regation problem must be handled on a state level. “We can’t hope to secure anything in legislation on the na tional level on an issue as politically involved as this one is,” he said. “The best we’ve been able to do (in Con gress) for the last 30 years is to de feat certain things. We can’t do any thing positive.” Whatever is done, he said, must be done by “thoughtful people of both races.” The Georgia senator added that “you can’t get rid of the Supreme Court’s decision until you get nine justices to overrule it, and that just isn’t going to happen.” Sen. George’s remarks on the sub ject were heard with interest in this state where it has been generally speculated that he will face opposi tion in a bid for re-election next year from former Gov. Herman Tal- madge. Reports have been that the ex-govemor will campaign against George with a charge that the senator did not denounce the Supreme Court’s original decision outlawing segregation. Gov. Griffin said, “Many Southern ers who rushed to applaud the Su preme Court’s implementation edict are doing a double-take now that they 'have read its provisions. Most of the early comments by southern leaders came before they had a chance to read and study what the court had to say. As a result, some construed it as a retreat or ‘backing down,’ which certainly is not the case.” The governor said, “The strategy is to lull the South to sleep with a little mixing of the races here and there until the ultimate end of complete integration in the schools is accom plished.” The NAACP will press for action in admitting students to state-en dowed southern universities if qual ified Negro applicants ask for help, Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney of the organization, said in Atlanta. To this end, he declared, the NAACP will reopen action in a dor mant suit seeking admission of a Negro, Horace Ward, to the Univer sity of Georgia Law School at Athens. The suit was filed some years ago and the plaintiff, now in the Army, is scheduled to leave military service in the near future. Marshall said, “If he gets out one day, we’ll have him in court the next day.” In Columbus, adoption of a six- year-old child by white foster parents who claim the boy now appears to have Negro blood was nullified by Superior Court Judge T. Hicks Fort, who said, “My heart bleeds for the unfortunate youngster.” The adopting couple, a 36-year- old Army master sergeant and his wife from Anniston, Alabama, re quested nullification. The judge closely inspected the boy’s hair, eyes and skin with the aid of a hand magnifying glass. Solicitor General Russell C. David son urged Judge Fort, “For the ben efit of this child sitting there who looks mighty bright and alert to me, don’t pass an order saying he’s a Ne gro. Don’t pass an order saying he’s feeble-minded. If you make him a Negro, he’ll have to go to a Negro institution.” Judge Fort decided the child “may or may not be” of partial Negro an cestry. “I don’t know,” he said, but he said he felt it was best that the boy be removed from the home where he had been named “by the people who ought to love him” as being of mixed blood. He placed the child in temporary custody of juvenile court authorities and ordered that a program for his future be worked out by the State Welfare Department “carefully, hu manely and solicitously.” In Fulton County (Atlanta), Negro deputies sheriff were employed for the first time. Negro policemen have worked on city and county police forces in several other Georgia com munities for some years.