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PAGE 20—August 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Kentucky’s
LOUISVILLE, KY.
j^entucky’s first desegregated school
admitted six Negro pupils in
July; a public junior college admit
ted its first Negro student; white
and Negro parents in one small east
ern Kentucky community voted over
whelmingly to begin integration this
September; Daviess County an
nounced an integration target of one
year later—and a state Negro organ
ization announced plans to take legal
action against school boards not
showing “good faith” in working to
ward integration possibly earlier
than that.
On July 18 the six children of Clark
Stonewall, ranging in age from 6 to
15, entered Wayne County’s Griffith
school for the beginning of the fall
semester. (Background was given in
the July issue of Southern School
News.) They joined 35 white pupils
in the one-room school, first in Ken
tucky to integrate its regular session.
(Earlier, a Fayette County high
school had admitted one Negro to its
summer session.) The teacher report
ed that all the children “got along
beautifully” on the opening day, and
there have been no reports of fric
tion since.
Wayne County Supt. Ira Bell an
nounced last month that, in addition
to the Griffith school, the county’s
two hitherto all-white high schools
would be opened to Negroes this fall.
Earlier in July the three-weex
Seminar in Inter-Group Relations at
the University of Kentucky conclud
ed with a nutshell summary that in
tegration is not a simple adjustment
to be achieved single-handed by the
schools but must be a job for the
whole community.
Some 60 superintendents, princi
pals, teachers, school board members
and “interested citizens” attended.
Co-chairmen were Dr. Howard W.
Beers and Dr. A. D. Albright of the
University of Kentucky faculty. The
three-week theme was desegrega
tion. Special sessions, including fo
rum panels with outside speakers,
drew scores of observers in addition
to the students working for their
three hours of graduate credit. Spe
cial texts for each student: A full
file of Southern School News.
SPECIFIC FEARS
The seminar showed that both
races approached integration with
specific fears. On the Negro side, Dr.
Beers said, they fear: (1) That deseg
regation will be planned in the usual
pattern of white supremacy, with the
Negro simply told what to do; (2)
that white leaders will work only with
the Negro leaders and politicians with
whom they have been accustomed to
work for years—“Negroes not in most
cases recognized as true leaders by
the rank and file of Negroes”; (3)
that most if not all Negro teachers will
be frozen out of employment in in
tegrated schools — while Negroes
themselves have not the slightest fear
their children will be abused by white
pupils or white teachers.
On the white side, Dr. Beers said,
the chief fears revealed were: (1)
That their children might be taught
by Negro teachers; (2) that Negroes
will use desegregated schools as a
foot in the door for complete social
integration in all activities; (3) that
schools will be pulled down by ad
mitting Negro pupils with achieve
ment levels substantially lower than
those of white pupils.
WHAT THEY SAY
No adverse reaction to the State
Board of Education’s June order to
local districts to move toward inte
gration “as rapidly as conditions war
rant” has been publicly voiced—ex
cept, somewhat indirectly, by Negro
leaders wanting “speedier” integra
tion.
The Kentucky State Conference of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People
thrashed out this question at a July 16
meeting in Louisville with 54 officials
First Integrated School Opens in Wayne Count
}
from 14 branches in attendance. Also
present were Gloster B. Current of
New York, NAACP director of
branches, and Donald Jones, Cincin
nati, regional secretary.
James A. Crumlin, conference pres
ident, said that petitions would be
filed within the next few weeks with
school boards to find out their plans
for desegregation — and that legal ac
tion would be taken in cases where
“good faith” is not being demonstrat
ed. Target date for boards to show
that they are taking “reasonable ac
tion” to comply with the Supreme
Court’s desegregation ruling, Crum
lin said, is September of this year.
The conference formally urged each
school district in the state to “take
all necessary steps to integrate . . .
(because) we believe it is in the in
terest of all children that compliance
be immediate and voluntary.” It de
clared that “in cases where there is
apparent neglect, failure or refusal
to comply, we are prepared to insti
tute legal action.”
“We’re not insisting that racial in
tegration be completely effected this
September,” Crumlin said, “but we
do want a start made this fall.”
On July 21, Louisville and state
NAACP officials presented to Louis-
ville c-t>ool officials a petition signed
by 20 Negro parents calling for “im
mediate steps to reorganize the pub
lic schools” of Louisville “on a non-
discriminatory basis.”
George T. Cordery Jr., Louisville
branch president, said this means that
the group “wants desegregated
schools this September.” He accused
the Louisville Board of Education of
“practicing deliberate and unneces
sary delay,” of thereby “flouting” the
Supreme Court, which ordered a
“prompt and reasonable start” toward
desegregation.
The Louisville board will consider
the petition at its August meeting.
At an eastern Kentucky mass meet
ing on July 19 which the Associated
Press said was “marked by friendli
ness and amiability,” white and Ne
gro parents heard Supt. J. O. Ward
of the Walten-Verona district schools
urge parents of both races to help
solve the problem of segregation. He
invited opinions from persons against
ending segregation in the coming
term, but no one spoke out in favor
of delay.
Then Mayor R. M. Hall of Walton
said that school systems throughout
the South were facing a situation that
ought to be resolved without friction.
“Personally,” he said, “I can’t see any
reason why the decision should be
delayed—whether we like it or not.”
Of the 75 white persons and 14
Negroes present, several of both
races refrained from voting. But 41
voted in favor of ending segregation
immediately, 18 to defer it for a
year. Their expression must be acted
upon by the Boone County School
Board before integration becomes a
reality. But one board member pres
ent, Clarence Vest, said he thought
the board’s decision would follow the
wishes of the parents.
There is a new Walton-Verona
high school at Walton, housing 500
grade and high school students, and
a grade school at Verona, with 125
pupils. Only 11 Nesro children from
the district attend school in Boone
County, at the Burlington colored
school. Two Ne^ro high school stu
dents from Walton attend Lincoln
Institute, a state institution, where
their fees ($15 a month for board,
room and tuition) are paid by the
district school board.
At Owensboro on July 6, Daviess
County Supt. Fred T. Burns an
nounced that integration was sched
uled for Seotember, 1956, and that the
county board had directed him to sub
mit a plan at the board’s January
meeting. Among 4,000 pupils, he said
the county has only 70 Negroes. First
step: A study by a group of white
and Negro adults. The board said it
felt that “a program of education
should precede actual integration.”
The city of Owensboro (pop. 40.
000) has announced no steps toward
integration.
The Henderson County Board of
Education on July 13 announced the
need of additional school facilities be
fore integration could be accom
plished. It named a 12-member com
mittee to study the matter in com
pliance with the state board’s recom
mendations
On July 18 Ashland Junior College
enrolled its first Negro student—Wil
liam Keeler, who had moved from
West Virginia to Ashland after at
tending Marshall College. He en
rolled for the college’s second sum
mer session.
His enrollment followed adoption
by the Ashland Board of Education
July 14 of a general policy that any
apnlicant scholastically eligible to en
roll in the junior college might do
so.
Delaware
(Continued from Page 19)
geographic location and has nothing
to do with discrimination.
“If attendance districts, however,
are so contoured as to skip houses
or blocks or to extend geographical
peninsulas and islands into physi
cally unified areas solely for the
purpose of including families of a
particular race, it is reasonably cer
tain that the districting would be
regarded as an invalid evasion of
desegregation requirements. (Har
vard Law Review, v. 67. No. 3, Jan.
1954.)
“ (b) Maintaining Segregation in
Non-Segregated Schools —- Colored
pupils may not be separated for
intra-mural activities in study
halls, or classrooms, nor shall there
be any racial seating arrangement
in the classrooms or elsewhere in
the school. (McLaurin v. Oklahoma
State Regents, 339 US 637 1950.)
“(c) Administrative Practices—-
No board of education nor board
of school trustees shall set up spe
cial examinations or any entrance
procedures the purpose of which
is aimed at excluding Negro pupils
from the white schools.
STUDENT CHOICE
“If a school district has more than
one building serving a given grade,
attendance at a particular school
could be decided by choice of the
student provided, in the event of in
sufficient space at a particular school,
preferences should be given students
residing nearest the school in ques
tion.
“The state board of education be
lieves that constitutional require
ments are met either by integration
within the fixed attendance areas or
integration based on a single attend
ance area wherein freedom of choice
is exercised to the extent that physi
cal facilities will allow. The decision
as to which type of attendance plan is
established in a school district ulti
mately rests with the local board of
education.”
On July 17, Bowles held a mass
meeting back in Delaware at the Har
rington Airport (Kent County) and
according to the Wilmington Morning
News, from 250 to 300 persons turned
out.
It was then that he announced he
would resign as president and a di
rector of the NAAWP. He told the
Morning News: “I don’t feel like help
ing people who won’t try to help
themselves.”
Bowles also warned that if white
people don’t work together, Negroes
will be joining the “country clubs.”
However, on July 23, the board of
directors of the NAAWP met in the
home of Bowles in Houston, Del.,
while a crowd gathered outside the
house.
Bowles estimated the crowd at 800;
state police said it was closer to 400.
While the board was deliberating
the resignation of Bowles, he went
outside to speak to the crowd. They
asked him why he was quitting. He
replied:
“I thought you were the ones who
were quitting.”
In response, he told the press later,
the people declared they had just
started to fight desegregation. That
encouraged Bowles so much that, ac
cording to his statement, he returned
to the house and withdrew his resig
nation. In the meantime, the board
had already refused to accept it.
The next day—Monday, July 25—
Bowles went on trial in the Superior
Court of Kent County on two charges
of conspiracy to violate the state’s
school laws. Actually, it was a trial
based on an appeal Bowles had taken
from a sentence of $600 imposed upon
him by Common Pleas Judge Arley
B. Magee, Jr. last April 6.
Bowles was represented by two
Washington, D.C. attorneys, Bond L.
Holford and Donald S. Caulfield.
The details of the charges against
Bowles concerned his activities last
fall when he is said to have urged
white parents not to send their chil
dren to school with Negroes and when
he is alleged to have declared that
no child of his would go to school
with a Negro “so long as there is
breath in my body and gunpowder
to burn.”
Bowles insisted he did not con
spire with anyone to violate state laws
and that he never did anything to
hinder the Delaware school system.
As to his remarks about gunpowder,
Bowles said he was from the South,
“and in the South, police have guns
to protect the white from the colored
and the colored from the white.”
It was a one day trial. The jury
was out 15 minutes and brought back
a verdict of “Not guilty.”
After the verdict, Bowles said it
was what he had expected but had
not thought it would take the jury as
long as 15 minutes to reach a decision.
Missouri
(Continued from Page 19)
for employment without regard to
race.
“One reason for making the transi
tion by steps over the period of a
year was that considerable detail
work needed to be done in such mat
ters as drawing of new school dis
trict boundaries, assignment of
teachers and pupils and other per
sonnel, transfer of books and mate
rials, and transmission of information
to parents. To do this work properly
required time.
“Another reason was that a major
portion of administrative attention
could then be concentrated on the
particular groups of schools being
integrated, thus insuring a more
thorough supervisory job. It was
strongly believed that integration of
the first groups of schools should be
accomplished in such a manner and
in such an atmosphere as to create
a proper climate for the entire pro
cess, and also to serve as models for
the groups of schools which followed.
COLLEGES FIRST
“The junior and teachers colleges
were included in the first group be
cause there was a considerable
amount of social maturity on that
level, because both faculty and stu
dents had participated in many group
activities of an interracial character,
because there was no problem of
redistricting, the registration being
citywide, and because the need for
communications with parents was at
a minimum.
“The nine general high schools
were included in the second group to
be integrated because it was believed
that careful redistricting, necessary
communication with parents, and
psychologically sound arrangements
for transfer of pupils could be accom
plished in a half year.
“Since the adult education program
was to a considerable extent housed
in secondary school buildings, it also
was scheduled for integration at the
beginning of the second semester.
TECHNICAL SCHOOLS
“Because an additional technical
high schools was under construction,
scheduled for completion in the fall
of 1955, the two technical high schools
were scheduled for desegregation on
that date. This was also the date set
for desegregation of the 121 regular
elementary schbols, as the adminis
trative detail and communication to
parents in their case required more
time—both because of the larger
numbers of schools and pupils, and
because of the greater immaturity of
the pupils.”
Shortly after this plan was adopted,
the president of the board of educa
tion invited representatives of all
civic organizations which had offered
cooperation to a meeting at which »
was thoroughly discussed.
“Never has there been a project
on which the leadership groups of St-
Louis cooperated more unreservedly
than on this,” Hickey told his Chicago
audience. “The influence of these or
ganizations, combined with the natu
ral respect for law on the part of the
majority of the citizens, was suffici®
in St. Louis, as we believe it woU
be sufficient in most American cite*’
to create a climate of friendliness an
good will in which desegregate
might take place.”
Southern Education Reporting Service
P.O. Box 6156, Aclclen Station
Nashville, Tenn.
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