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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—July 6, 1955—PAGE 9
Tennessee Lays Plans For Gradual College Desegregation
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
-jl two separate announcements last
month, Tennessee’s State Board of
Education ended 13 months of official
silence on the public school desegre
gation issue.
First, on June 15, the board ap
proved a gradual desegregation plan
.-beginning this September and end
ing in the academic year 1959-60—for
Tennessee’s six state-supported col
leges.
And second, on June 20, Dr. Quill
E. Cope, state commissioner of edu
cation and chairman of the state
board, placed responsibility for de
segregation in public elementary and
high schools squarely on the shoul
ders of local school officials.
In effect, the state, therefore, took
its first step toward compliance with
the spirit of the United States Su
preme Court’s desegregation rulings
—and also removed itself as a party
to, or controlling factor in, general
desegregation on a local level.
COLLEGE LEVEL PLAN
The gradual desegregation plan for
the colleges provides for the admis
sion of qualified students without re
gard to race to the colleges’ graduate
schools this September. Senior, jun
ior, and sophomore classes, accord
ing to the plan, will be desegregated
in succeeding years, with desegrega
tion extending to freshman classes in
the academic year 1959-60.
The plan was adopted by the board
in a two-hour long, closed door meet-
■nilllilSiSISIIiiiSlSIIlSiSIlgSilliSi
‘Excellent Start’
Many persons who had inter
preted the Supreme Court’s ruling
as permitting the greatest possi
ble delay will be surprised by the
quick action in the capital (Nash
ville). Especially so since the state
did not submit a brief on the work
ing out of the problem as did some
other states in response to the Su
preme Court’s request.
But the court placed direct re
sponsibility on the school boards
and the district judges. It said
move slowly when necessary, but
move.
We believe that the Tennessee
board of education has made an
excellent start, following in the
tradition of reasonableness estab
lished by the justices of the Su
preme Court in their unanimous
decision.—Chattanooga Times.
ln g. The meeting was called by Cope
to discuss the board’s defense against
a su if Pending in the Federal District
Court at Memphis in which five Negro
students are seeking admission to
Memphis State College as under
graduates. It was included as a part
of the state’s answer to the suit, filed
by George F. McCanless, state attor
ney general, on June 21.
The gradual desegregation formula,
according to Dr. Everett Derryberry,
president of Tennessee Polytechnic
Institute, was submitted to the State
Board of Education as a “unanimous
recommendation of the Council of
Presidents (composed of the presi
dents of state supported colleges.)
“But it was born of discussions and
deliberations over a long period of
time with many different groups of
people,” Derryberry said.
CONTINGENCY CLAUSES
The State Board of Education’s de
cision, however, included contin
gency clauses.
1. Provisions of the Tennessee con
stitution requiring segregated public
education be held invalid.
2. That it is determined that the
opinion of the Supreme Court in the
school segregation cases not only ap
plies to public school education, but
also to the state colleges and uni
versities in Tennessee.
3. Any other available grounds for
defense which will manifest the right
of Tennessee to arrange and provide
free education for its citizens on its
own terms and conditions, provided
only that all are treated fairly and
equally, have been presented in court.
Whether the plan will be operative,
Cope said, depends on whether the
court will consider it acceptable.
If approved by the court, the plan
will immediately apply to Memphis
State College, Memphis; Austin Peay
State College, Clarksville; Middle
Tennessee State College, Murfrees
boro; East Tennessee State College,
Johnson City; and the state’s single
university for Negroes, Tennessee
A&I State University, Nashville.
The state’s sixth college, Tennessee
Polytechnic Institute at Cookeville,
does not include graduate courses in
its curriculm.
U. T. MAY STAKE STEP
While the University of Tennessee
at Knoxville is excluded from the
plan—it is controlled by a board of
trustees separate from the State
Board of Education—Dr. C. E. Brehm,
U T. president, said the university’s
trustees will “probably’’ adopt a sim
ilar plan.
The university has admitted Negro
Kentucky Board (Continued)
(Continued from Page 8)
°fhers acquainted with practical
school problems. Co-chairmen are
r. Howard W. Beers and Dr. A. D.
'“bright of the U. K. faculty.
r
LEGISLATIVE action
now° ne ^e summer primarie
fall ant ^ an e f ec h° n coming thi
bi e ’ . General Assembly’s regula
> nrua l session is scheduled for nex
actions have been in
hv 0 - ^ending, in Louisville, ar
tion rS see king an end to segrega
the municipal parks.
^as vule Catholic ins
He nrTs°mu ed June 17 ' H<
a sso c ; = , ‘ Wilson, 53, now a i
chemists m t ! le de Partment
at the University o:
ville Medical School, and formerly
professor of chemistry and chairman
of the division of natural sciences at
Louisville Municipal College, inte
grated in 1950 with the U. of L. For
several years after L. M. C. closed,
Dr. Wilson was educational field di
rector of the Mammoth Life and Ac
cident Insurance Co. He has bach
elor’s, master’s, and doctor-of-phil-
osophy degrees from Indiana Univer
sity, and is a Baptist.
Negro students have been admitted
to Bellarmine since it opened in 1950.
Other Catholic spokesmen an
nounced that “everything has gone
completely satisfactorily and there
have been no protests” over the inte
gration of four Catholic schools be
gun last September with the admis
sion of a few Negro pupils to each.
The schools are St. Benedict’s ele
mentary at Lebanon Junction, St.
James elementary at Elizabethtown,
St. Catherine’s elementary at New
Haven, and St. Catherine’s Academy
near New Haven. The latter is a
boarding school, but the two Negro
girls in attendance there come from
the nearby community and none are
in residence at the school.
The Rt. Rev. Felix N. Pitt, secre
tary of the Catholic School Board of
the Archdiocese of Louisville, said on
June 1 that “principals and pastors of
the schools made a special request to
the archbishop to allow the integra
tion. Because there were no sepa
rate parochial schools for Negroes,
they felt there was no other way for
Negro youngsters to obtain a Cath
olic education.”
DR. QUILL E. COPE
Tennessee Education Commissioner
students to graduate school since
1952.
“I think the procedure as outlined
by the board,” Brehm said, “is a very
logical one, and it seems highly prob
able to me that the board of trustees
will decide on a similar plan.”
PLAN CALLED DILATORY
Rev. J. F. Grimmett, Nashville,
president of the NAACP’s Tennessee
branch, declared, “I am certain nei
ther our organization nor right think
ing individual citizens will regard any
such delaying tactics, as proposed by
the board, as satisfactory or as good
faith compliance with the decision of
the United States Supreme Court.”
The high court ruling already ap
plies to the state colleges, he said, be
cause “it nullified any state law or
laws requiring segregated public
education ... and any system of edu
cation that is supported by public
funds is public education, whether it
be on the elementary, secondary,
college or graduate level.”
Said Z. Alexander Looby, Nash
ville city councilman, member of the
NAACP’s national board of directors
and the Tennessee branch’s legal re
dress committee, “It is evasive. It is
neither prompt nor reasonable, as re
quired by the Supreme Court. And
it seems the board is seeking un
necessary delay.”
NEGRO ENROLLED
The day after the college deseg
regation formula was approved, a
Negro applied for admission to the
graduate school at Austin Peay. He
is a 37-year-old Baptist minister,
the Rev. W. N. Daniel of Clarksville.
Anticipating approval of his appli
cation, the Rev. Mr. Daniel said,
“When I enter in September, I antici
pate a cordial reception by the faculty
and student body.’’
So far, he said, everyone at the col
lege has treated him well. On the day
he applied for admission, he said,
“The atmosphere this morning was
wonderful. It made one feel at home,
and the president and the dean, and
all who were contacted, were very
cordial.”
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The state announced its removal
from direct responsibility in general
public school desegregation in a let
ter from Cope to city and county
school superintendents throughout
the state. Attached to the letter was
an opinion written by the state at
torney general in which the state’s
responsibility in public school deseg
regation was defined.
The opinion said:
“It is the responsibility of each lo
cal school board to determine for
itself the way in which it is going to
meet the problems of desegregation
of the schools under its jurisdiction.
“Under the Code of Tennessee the
management of the public schools is
solely the business of the local school
boards.
“These boards, within the limits of
applicable law, determine all of the
local problems. This has been the law
since the origin of the public school
system in Tennessee and is the law
today.
“Each board must determine for
itself, in the light of all existing ap
plicable circumstances (physical, fis
cal, sociological, transportation prob
lems, etc.... ) when where, how and
to what degree the schools under its
jurisdiction are to be desegregated.”
STATE MAY ADVISE
Furthermore, he said, “While the
office of the attorney general is aware
of the problems that will confront the
school boards, and is sympathetic
with their problems, the office can
do no more than advise with repre
sentatives of the boards with respect
to these problems as they arise. Un
der the constitution and statutes of
Tennessee, the office of the attorney
general is limited to the representa
tion of the state and state officials
with respect to state revenue and
other state matters.”
In the same letter, Cope informed
the school officers., “The State De
partment of Education will be happy
to advise with you on the problem
involved in the implementation of the
Supreme Court, just as on any other
educational problem, at any time you
think a discussion of the problem
will be profitable and advisable.”
The General Asembly of Tennessee
is not in session. Excluding a special
session, the possibilities of which are
extremely slight, the Assembly will
convene next in January, 1957.
ton Road: “I would like to say we are
perfectly satisfied with the school
they (the children) are attending
now, and we would rather our chil
dren attend a Negro school.”
On the other hand, Churchwell re
ported “a large portion of the re
mainder answered in the same tone
as did Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Toms
Jr., 937 Sixteenth Avenue, North
(five children of school age): “We are
looking for the best advantages for
our children regardless of the school
or dsitance.”
The statistical results of Church-
well’s survey:
1. To a Negro school—80
2. The nearest school, Negro or
white—72.
3. The school offering the best ad
vantages, Negro or white—18
4. The nearest white school—3
Dr. Charles S. Johnson, president
of Fisk University, on June 27, told
members of the 12th Annual Race
Relations Institute sponsored by the
American Missionary Association:
“There is no reason why the Deep
South could not desegregate its
schools as promptly as the District of
Columbia. Washington, D.C., has a
Negro school population proportion
higher than any city in Louisiana,
North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennes
see, Texas, Virginia, or even South
Carolina and Mississippi. There are
some counties in Georgia, Mississippi
and South Carolina with higher
Negro population ratios, but by no
means a majority of them.”
A case is pending in Memphis Fed
eral District Court in which five
Negro students are suing for admis
sion to Memphis State College as un
dergraduates. Commissioner Cope,
as chairman of the State Board of
Education; Dr. J. M. Smith, president
of Memphis State College; and R. P.
Clark, Memphis State registrar, are
the defendants. The suit was filed
May 26 by Elijah Noel, 31; J. M. Mc
Ghee Jr., 23; Mardest Knowles Van
Hook, 18; Ruth Hooker, 19; and Nellie
Peoples, 18.
A second case is pending in the
Federal District Court at Knoxville.
There, the suit is in behalf of five
Negro students seeking admission to
the only high school in Anderson
County, which is for whites only. The
case was remanded to the district
court from the U. S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Cincinnati in June, 1954,
with instructions to the lower court
judge to dispose of the suit in com
pliance with the May 17, 1954 ruling
of the U. S. Supreme Court.
There have been no surveys or spe
cial studies on the segregation-deseg
regation problem that have been re
leased for publication. As far as is
known, there are no such surveys in
progress in the state of Tennessee.
The Nashville Banner, however,
published results of an opinion sur
vey of Negro parents, conducted by
reporter Robert Churchwell, a Negro.
The survey, said Churchwell, was
conducted in the city’s five public
housing projects for Negroes. This
was supplemented, he said, by a “spot
check” in East Nashville.
The question asked the Negro par
ents: “If the authorities rule that
children may go to our schools re
gardless of race, will you send your
child to the nearest Negro school, or
to a white school that is nearer, or to
the nearest white school?’’
Churchwell said, “Many parents
spoke out on the subject with feeling
and with reasoning, but not for pub
lication.
“Just as many voiced opinions in
the same manner, quite willing to be
quoted,” the reporter said.
In reply to the survey question,
Churchwell said, “almost half the
parents answered as did this mother
of three school age children on Clif
In Nashville, Mrs. W. O. Benson,
chairman of the city school board,
said on June 14, “We have no inten
tion of evading the court’s order. I am
confident the board’s action before
school opens this fall will show
everyone we intend to comply with
the ruling.”
Also in Nashville, J. E. Moss, sup
erintendent of Davidson County
schools, said, from a residential
standpoint Negroes will be eligible to
attend virtually every Nashville and
Davidson County school when seg
regation is ended.
A group called the Federation for
Constitutional Government an
nounced its intention to restrain edu
cation officials from desegregating
their school systems on grounds of
the unconstitutionally of segregation
without constitutional authority for
such action from the state.
In a statement signed by five men,
the group said, “It is, at present, both
improper and illegal for educational
officials to take any steps whatever
toward integration. The Constitution
of the State of Tennessee specifically
forbids the intermingling of white and
Negro students in public schools. It
is still in force. County and city
school boards have no order from any
court before them to the contrary.
“But, second, if through court ac
tion in Tennessee, segregation should
be ruled unconstitutional, pursuant
to the recent decree of the Supreme
Court, such a court will invalidate
the entire section of the State Consti
tution upon which our public schools
are founded. The educational system
will then be left without a constitu
tional and legal basis for existence.”
Signing the statement were: Don
ald Davidson, professor of English at
Vanderbilt University; Dudley Gale,
Nashville insurance man, former
Chamber of Commerce president;
Jack Kershaw, artist and real estate
dealer; L. V. DuBose, Nashville busi
nessman; T. Walker Lewis, Memphis
civic leader.