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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—July 6, 1955—PAGE 15 Supreme Court Issues Mandate To Federal Bench In Virginia RICHMOND, VA. five cases directiv tk. RICHMOND, VA *7IRGINIA’s public schools will ' continue operating on a segregat ed basis during the coming year, if a policy formally adopted by Gov. Thomas B. Stanley and the State goard of Education is carried out by the local governing bodies. The policy declaration says, in ef fect, that Virginia would not have time, prior to the opening of schools in September, “to adjust to a new end different basis for the operation 0 f public schools.” In another recent development in the Virginia school segregation pic ture, the federal district court at Richmond received a mandate from the U. S. Supreme Court directing it to take action in accordance with the higher court’s decrees of May 17, 1954, and May 31, 1955. The three-judge federal district court will convene here at 10:00 a.m. July 18 to begin hearings on the de segregation decree to be issued in the Prince Edward County case, one of the cases involved in the United States Supreme Court’s anti-segrega tion opinion. The hearing date was set on July 1 by District Judge Sterling Hutche son, of Richmond. The other two judges in the case are Circuit Judge Armistead M. Dobie of Charlottes ville, and District Judge Albert V. Bryan of Alexandria. The policy statement issued by the Governor and the State Board of Education declares that it has not yet been possible for the state’s segrega tion study commission to propose and for the General Assembly to enact “appropriate legislation” to meet the requirements of the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing racial segregation in the schools. Indications are that virtually all counties and cities plan to operate segregated schools next year, in ac cord with the official state policy. PRINCE EDWARD PLAN But one county—Prince Edward— »ay abandon its public schools en- , y l n order to be absolutely cer- fam that there will be no integra- »on of the races in the classrooms. Prince Edward feels that it is in a somewhat different position from the In Prince Edward Bet there be no mistake, the peo- V e of Prince Edward are deeply concerned about the education of ® children in this county, and, ls state. Nowhere will one find a Person who would advocate abo- 1 ion of education. But they are so ute in their position of sep- m e schools. The fate of the Ne- 0 schools is as much a concern as but t { ate °f the white schools, « the moment the white peo- / are unable to take any steps icept those of integration) to tn _, ra , <e the school system on a nor th' . as * s ' This they will not do. Conr+ W n0t defying the Supreme Oeti ’ n ° r trying to ereate an emer- Prj y ™ Virginia. The people of ce Edward are standing sim- a nd T' 6 have always stood, for i,. * s ^ or separate schools, ^ch they have good and suf- n rea sons.—Farmville Herald. I?*®* Virginia’s coun ties and cities, Bogj., . e Prince Edward School ^ ls the defendant in one of the five cases directly involved in the Supreme Court’s anti-segregation decision. Prince Edward is under di rect orders from the court to make a “prompt and reasonable start” toward integration. In light of that fact, the county’s Board of Supervisors has declined to appropriate funds for operation of the schools next year. A group of Prince Edward citizens has formed a private corporation to raise $212,830 to assure the 63 white teachers of salaries next year. The plan is for the corporation to operate schools for the approximately 1,500 white children. No plan has been an nounced for schools for the 1,850 Ne gro children in Prince Edward. Ne groes constitute 44.6 per cent of Prince Edward’s 15,398 population. FUNDS HELD UP Boards of Supervisors in two other counties—Nottoway and Sussex— also have refused thus far to appro priate funds to operate public schools next year. Their action does not en tirely parallel that of Prince Edward, however. Prince Edward’s supervisors ap parently have slammed the door tight against the operation of public schools next year. They took the money which originally was ear marked for schools and appropriated it for other county purposes. The supervisors in Nottaway and Sussex, on the other hand, still have funds available which can be appro priated for schools. The general feel ing is that the boards in those two counties will appropriate money to the schools a little at a time, thus being ready at a moment’s notice to abandon the schools entirely if at any time it appears that integration is going to be forced on them. The normal procedure is for the coun ties to appropriate lump sums suffi cient to operate the schools for an entire year. The James City-County Board of Supervisors also is holding on to the purse strings as a safeguard against integration. On April 18 the board adopted a $415,704 school budget to finance the county’s share of the coming year’s cost of the joint school system oper ated by the county and the city of Williamsburg. Later, however, some members of the board became con cerned over what they considered pro-integration sentiment among members of the Williamsburg school board. On June 27, the school board cut $111,019 from the previously ap proved school appropriation and put the money into a contingency fund. The amount left after the cut is enough to pay teachers’ salaries, debt service and other fixed charges for the entire year, but is only a small percentage of the needed operational funds. If an attempt is made to inte grate county schools, the board’s con trol over finance will enable it to cripple operation of the school sys tem. The policy statement adopted by the governor and the State Board of Education was in line with recom mendations made earlier in the month by the State’s Commission on Public Education, the 12-member group of legislators appointed by the governor last year to study the im pact of the segregation decision on Virginia and to propose a course for the state to follow. The gist of the commission’s rec- r» ^ ou Have a Friend Who Would Like to Receive Southern School News? Subscription Rates ~ ° ne year (July 1955-Jime 1956) Q Two Q ' years (July 1955-June 1957) .$2.00 .$3.75 Q Bulk subscriptions @ $1.50 each (5 or more to same addressee) Semi-bulk subscriptions @ $1.75 each (5 or more in one order to different addressees) llake °, r Money Order enclosed. □ Send me a bill ecks payable to Southern Education Reporting Service, P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville, Tenn. _ State Virginia State Sen. Garland Gray is shown handing Gov. Thomas B. Stanley (right) the report of the Commission on Public Education recommending that Virginia schools remain segregated at least through next year. Others in the picture are: Delegate Harry B. Davis, commission vice chairman (at left) and Atty. Gen. J. Lindsay Almond. ommendations was contained in this paragraph from its report: “It is the recommendation of this commission that Your Excellency and the State Board of Education declare that it is the policy of the state to continue schools through the school year 1955-56 as presently operated. Further, it is the judgment of this commission that an adjustment, at this time, to a school system not based on race would not be practica ble or feasible from an administrative standpoint or otherwise.” NAACP MAPS PLANS While state officials are searching for ways to prevent integration in the schools, the Virginia Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is making plans to try to bring about in tegration at the earliest possible mo ment. State NAACP leaders have au thorized local NAACP branches to petition local school boards to end segregation “with all deliberate speed.” More than 1,000 persons, attend ing an NAACP rally in Petersburg, Va., on June 12, heard Atty. Oliver W. Hill declare: “I am confident that an intensive program of persuasion based upon moral and factual grounds will great ly facilitate the program of deseg regation. But, of course, where such efforts do not bring forth appropriate results, court action will have to fol low.” NAACP lawyers here have made no public statement as to how many petitions they expect to be filed be fore schools open in September. In view of all the developments up to the present, it appears extreme ly unlikely that any Virginia public schools will operate on a non-segre- gated basis next year—unless, of course, they are forced into such op eration by court school order. When the policy declaration was issued by the governor and the Board of Education, Board President Blake T. Newton and Gov. Stanley were asked by reporters whether any integration could take place in Vir ginia under the policy as adopted. Mr. Newton said he would rather not answer, but the governor replied: “There’s nothing in this action that suggests to them (the localities) to do it.” In answer to another question, Mr. Newton said there was “a possibility the State Board of Education could withhold state funds from any local board which tried to put integration into effect, but Mr. Newton added that he was not suggesting that this be done. Virginia’s General Assembly has not met since early in 1954, and it will not meet again in regular session until January, 1956. But the Assem bly is very much in the news these days, as the result of a controversy over whether the lawmaking body should be called into a special ses sion. Some legislative leaders are asking for a special session to deal with the segregation problem. A number of local governing bodies are supporting this view, as is also the anti-integra tion organization, the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties. On the other hand, the Commission on Public Education declared in its report to the governor on June 9: “It is the view of the commission that an extra session of the General Assem bly should not be called at this time.” Gov. Stanley endorsed that recom mendation. By early July, however, there was considerable speculation that the As sembly would be called sometime after the July 12 Democratic prima ries in Virginia. Proponents of a special session ar gue that the regular session next year will have its hands full with other state problems and will not have ade quate time to devote to the segrega tion issue. Another argument is that a special session could demonstrate to the courts that Virginia is making a start toward solving the segrega tion problem. Still another argument is that any proposed constitutional changes (such as eliminating the re quirement for the operation of public schools) should be approved by the Assembly in time to be submitted to the voters in the November general election. In the 2,500-word statement urging immediate special session of the Gen eral Assembly, the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties said, in part: “We call upon the General Assem bly to initiate procedure to amend Sections 134 and 141 of Chapter IX of the Constitution so as to remove any doubt that, in case of necessity, state and local monies may be used to pay the tuition and other school expenses in private schools, of chil dren of localities in which it becomes necessary, as in Prince Edward, to close the public schools. . . . “We call upon the General Assem bly to take out of our law all mention of compulsory education. We have yet to hear one single man advocate that compulsory education be re tained in Virginia, and that any man be prosecuted and convicted who may elect to hold his child out of school rather than subject him to - the de grading influences of an integrated school. . . . “We call upon the General Assem bly to enact such laws as may be needed to prevent the expenditure of $1 of public monies, state or local, in the support and maintenance of any racially mixed public school... But State Delegate Robert White- head, of Nelson County, a leader of forces opposing the dominant Dem ocratic organization in Virginia pol itics, told the Virginia State Federa tion of Labor meeting in Roanoke on June 6, that he was “squarely op posed” to a special session of the leg islature. The federal district court at Rich mond on June 28 received a mandate from the U. S. Supreme Court direct ing the lower tribunal to take action in accordance with the high court’s decisions of May 17,1954, and May 31, 1955. u The mandate told the district court “to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with the opinions of this (the Su preme) Court as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially non-discriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to this case.” The “parties to this case” are Ne gro children of Prince Edward Coun ty, who instituted suit in 1951 to gain admittance to white schools of the county. On June 29 NAACP attorney Oliver W. Hill filed a motion with District Judge Sterling Hutcheson here ask ing him to arrange an early hearing on the type of decree that must be entered to carry out the mandate re ceived by the court the previous day. HILL’S STATEMENT In a prepared statement given to newsmen, Hill said, in part: “We are aware of the agitation which some of the adherents of segre gation are trying to stir up to block an orderly and sensible process of desegregation. But we trust that the white people in Virginia and else where in the South will face up to the realities of life—racial segregation is doomed. “The elimination of racial segrega tion is inevitable, not simply because the Negro wants it eliminated or be cause the United States Supreme Court ordered it to be eliminated, but primarily because the vitality and continued growth in accordance with American principles of our religious, economic and political institutions, and an unrelenting world public opinion demand the elimination of racial segregation. “Originally we instituted this case because we knew that racial segre gation was detrimental to Negroes and because we believed that racial segregation was unconstitutional. “Now that our opinion of the ille gality of racial segregation has been confirmed, we intend to press for ward until every vestige has been removed from our daily lives.” The Supreme Court’s mandate was directed to a three-judge court con sisting of Judge Hutcheson, District Judge Albert V. Bryan, of Alexan dria, Va., and Circuit Judge Armis tead M. Dobie, of Charlottesville, Va. In addition to directing the Ne groes to be admitted to the county’s public schools on a non-segregated basis, the Supreme Court’s order di rected the defendants (the Prince Edward School Board and school su perintendent) to pay court costs for the plaintiffs, totaling $2,975.19. Pre sumably this will be paid by the Board of Supervisors out of public funds. Spootswood W. Robinson, III, one of the NAACP attorneys who repre sented Prince Edward County Ne groes in their unsuccessful suit against segregation in the schools, told an NAACP mass meeting that petitions to be filed with some local school boards this summer will seek “desegregation this fall with all de liberate speed.” He said the Supreme Court recognized “administrative dif ficulties” as the only valid reason for a locality to delay putting integration into effect, and he added: “We propose to indulge these com munities (with administrative diffi- (See Virginia, Page 16)