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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. 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