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PAGE 4—August 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Georgians Ban ‘Forever’ Teachers
Of Mixed Groups; Strategy Mapped
MACON, Ga.
ormation of a legal task force to
plot Georgia’s moves in the years
of litigation expected over public
school segregation highlighted the
news in a month which also saw these
significant developments:
(1) The state board of education
adopted a resolution to revoke “for
ever” the license of any teacher who
“supports, encourages, condones, or
agrees to teach mixed classes.”
(2) Board chairman George P.
Whitman Jr., said he thought the
resolution applied to members or
contributors to the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People but the board, at the sugges
tion of Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook, will
spell out the ban at its next meeting.
(3) Negro groups continued to
push school integration efforts and
to prepare for court suits in Georgia’s
larger cities in line with NAACP-
directed strategy.
The secret strategy meeting to
map the state’s defensive plans
against mixed schools was called by
Cook and attended by some of the
leading attorneys in the state who
have been active opponents of the
U. S. Supreme Court’s ruling out
lawing segregation in the public
schools.
OFFER STATE FUNDS
These included former Gov. Her
man Talmadge of Atlanta, B. D.
Murphy of Atlanta, Charles J. Bloch
of Macon, Carter Pittman of Carters-
ville, Durwood Pye of Atlanta and
two members of the attorney gen
eral’s staff who, Cook said, would be
assigned “full-time to the job” of
fighting integration in court pro
ceedings.
Gov. Marvin S. Griffin authorized
the use of state funds to assist any
Georgia school system in resisting
desegregation.
Cook said the lawyers who
attended the meeting are serving
voluntarily at present but had agreed
to accept deputy commissions in the
legal department for compensation
if they are needed.
The state law department will
assist local systems in litigation and
all county school superintendents
and board of education members
have been written and urged to take
advantage of the department’s assist
ance, Cook said. In reference to the
segregation issue, the attorney gen
eral added that “every statement
made or letter written (by board
members) becomes a part of the
court records and therefore these
statements and records must
be properly framed to judiciously
defend any cross-examination
approach.”
Cook also said he would confer
with representatives of other south
ern states who are opposing desegre
gation efforts and, along with his
two assigned assistants, Robert Hall
and Freeman Leverett, would spend
full time on segregation cases from
here on out.
SECOND COMMITTEE
Another special committee to deal
with the desegregation problem was
created within the state board of
education at the same meeting at
which the ban on teachers support
ing integration was voted.
The “omnibus” committee, a
secret group with no publicly-desig
nated function, is expected to advise
on segregation questions. It is com
posed of chairman Whitman, Her-
schel Lovett of Dublin, James S.
Peters of Manchester and State
School Supt. M. D. Collins.
Peters introduced the motion to
revoke the license of any Georgia
teacher instructing mixed classes.
The original motion specified “for two
years” but, with little discussion, the
board agreed with Henry Stewart of
Cedartown that the ban should be
“forever” and the resolution was
unanimously adopted.
The board also voted to hold blame
less a teacher who refuses an order
from “superior authority” to teach
mixed classes and to pay his salary
ATTY.-GEN. EUGENE COOK
in full for the remainder of the con
tract.
Following the board’s action, Cook
demanded that any Georgia teacher
or school official who “contributes to
or is affiliated with” the NAACP also
be banned forever from teaching in
Georgia. Whitman promised such a
resolution would be passed at the
board’s meeting Aug. 1, and would
apply to those “in sympathy with
this organization and its purposes.”
8.000 TEACHERS
Georgia’s department of education
lists some 8,000 Negro teachers on its
rolls and the attorney general esti
mated that there are “several hun
dred,” including some white teachers,
in the state “who are members of,
have contributed to, or have coun
seled with the NAACP,” on the school
segregation issue.
Cook said he does not desire to have
his proposed teaching ban on NAACP
members or teachers retroactive be
cause “so many are good citizens who
have been seduced into false ideas
about mixing the races and should be
accorded a chance to get out.”
Reaction to the board’s resolution
and Cook’s anti-NAACP proposal
which Whitman said would be
adopted followed immediately.
The NAACP voted to take to court
any effort to bar supporters of the
organization from teaching jobs in
the state.
The organization’s Georgia execu
tive committee called a special meet
ing and took the position, “upon ad
vice of counsel,” that “the regulations
adopted, as well as the one proposed,
cannot be successfully defended
whenever and wherever challenged
in a court of competent jurisdiction.”
NAACP STATEMENT
A statement said, “The Georgia
state conference of NAACP branches,
through its counsel and associates,
stands today ready, willing and able
to challenge immediately in the courts
these and other regulations which
interfere with the rights of school
teachers to secure and pursue em
ployment in their chosen vocations.”
The committee declared that “any
American citizen has the civil and
constitutional right to join or support
any organization whose purposes are
legitimate and not contrary to the
law of the land. A violation of the
aforesaid right prefaces an encroach
ment on the constitutional guaran
tees of every white and Negro citi
zen.”
In commenting on the resolution,
Pres. William H. Shaw of Colum
bus, president of the Georgia Educa
tion Association, composed of white
teachers, said the board was perfectly
within its rights in changing the con
ditions under which teachers can be
licensed. “I think the state board is
cooperating with what it thinks is
the sentiment of the people,” Shaw
said. “I think the teachers will go
along with them.”
CLERGYMAN CRITICAL
But the board’s action was severely
criticized by a Macon minister who
asked, “Are the clergy next on the
list to be silenced?”
Also in Macon, Dr. J. S. Williams,
president of the local NAACP chap
ter, said he would bum the member
ship rolls before he would permit
them to be used to single out for fir
ing teachers who are members of the
organization. He said he would con
tinue to solicit more members among
teachers, signing them up as “John
Doe” and “Jane Doe” if necessary.
Opposition to the board’s resolution
and to the attorney general’s pro
posal was noted in the state’s daily
and weekly press. Editorials reaf
firmed pro-segregation stands but
sharply criticized Cook, Whitman,
and other board members.
The Columbus Ledger said, “Such
a precedent forewarns the public that
there could be a penalty against join
ing or contributing to any group.”
The Columbus Enquirer said it would
be “stepping beyond the bounds of
common sense” and the Augusta Her
ald termed it “a most serious restric
tion on freedom of speech.” The
Macon News said such a policy was
of no value in building segregation
defenses but was “dangerous to
democracy.”
A fourth Georgia school system,
Chatham County (Savannah) was
faced with an NAACP petition de
manding integration. Bibb County
(Macon) and Muscogee County
(Columbus) were presented such
petitions prior to the May 31 Supreme
Court ruling. Since then, Negro par
ents have petitioned Atlanta and
Chatham county systems to desegre
gate.
Atty. Gen. Cook said the Chatham
petition “prompted” the strategy
meeting to enlist top legal aid in the
state to counter pro-integration
moves.
Atlanta board of education mem
bers have received two petitions ask
ing an end to segregation in succes
sive months. A demand that “imme
diate, concrete” steps be taken to
“reorganize” Atlanta schools along
non-segregated lines was voiced.
BOARD TO STUDY
Atlanta board president D. F. Mc-
Clatchey has named the entire board
membership as a committee of the
whole to study the segregation prob
lem. J. Austin Dilbeck, a member of
a special subcommittee set up to
study the NAACP petition, said the
city would have no alternative but
to “close down the schools.” He said
the system receives more than $3,-
600,000 annually from the state, cited
a Georgia law which withholds state
funds from systems which mix the
races in their classrooms and con
cluded that Atlanta could not con
tinue to operate schools without
financial assistance from the Geor
gia government.
White and Negro members of the
Georgia Committee of the White
House Conference on education met
together in Atlanta to make plans
for two separate conferences—one for
whites and one for Negroes—at which
reports will be drafted for submis
sion to the full committee.
Although no racial question was up
for discussion, C. S. Baldwin of Mill-
edgeville, a member of the commit
tee, said he was opposed to federal
aid for education because Negroes
would eventually get all the money
if integration efforts “push” Georgia
to go to private schools.
Chairman George P. Whitman Jr.
said every member and group within
the committee would have an equal
opportunity to present their views
“in a fair and unbiased, democratic
manner.” Anyone, said Whitman,
could file a minority report.
Southern School News
Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate
unbiased information to school administrators, public officials and interested
lay citizens on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme
Court opinion of May 17, 1954 declaring segregation in the public schools
unconstitutional. SERS is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor
anti-segregation, but simply reports the facts as it finds them, state by state.
Published at 1109 19th Ave., S., Nashville, Tenn.
OFFICERS
Virginius Dabney Chairman
Thomas R. Waring Vice-Chairman
Don Shoemaker Executive Director
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Frank Ahlgren, Editor, Memphis
Commercial Appeal, Memphis,
Tenn.
Gordon Blackwell, Director, Institute
for Research in Social Science,
University of N.C.
Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor, Van
derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
Virginius Dabney, Editor, Richmond
Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va.
Coleman A. Harwell, Editor, Nash
ville Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.
Henry H. Hill, President, George
Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn.
Charles S. Johnson, President, Fisk
University, Nashville, Tenn.
C. A. McKnight, Editor, Charlotte
Observer, Charlotte, N.C.
Charles Moss, Executive Editor,
Nashville Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
Don Shoemaker, Exec. Director Sou.
Education Reporting Service
Thomas R. Waring, Editor, Charles
ton News & Courier, Charleston
s. c.
Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of
Schools, Richmond, Va.
P. B. Young Sr., Editor, Norfolk
Journal & Guide, Norfolk, Va.
CORRESPONDENTS
ALABAMA
William H. McDonald, Editorial
Writer, Montgomery Advertiser
ARKANSAS
Thomas D. Davis, Asst. City Editor,
Arkansas Gazette
DELAWARE
William P. Frank, Staff Writer,
Wilmington News
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Jeanne Rogers, Education Writer,
Washington Post & Times Herald
FLORIDA
Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami
Herald
GEORGIA
Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The
Macon News
KENTUCKY
Weldon James, Editorial Writer,
Louisville Courier-Journal
LOUISIANA
Mario Fellom, Political Reporter,
New Orleans Item
MARYLAND
Edgar L. Jones, - Editorial Writer,
Baltimore Evening Sun
MISSISSIPPI
Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau,
Memphis Commercial-Appeal
MISSOURI
Robert Lasch, Editorial Writer, St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
NORTH CAROLINA
Jay Jenkins, City Editor, Raleigh
Times
OKLAHOMA
Mary Goddard, Staff Wriier, Ok
lahoma City Oklahoman-Times
SOUTH CAROLINA
W. D. Workman Jr., Special Cor
respondent, Columbia, S. C.
TENNESSEE
James Elliott, Staff Writer, Nash
ville Banner
Wallace Westfeldt, Staff Writer,
Nashville Tennessean
TEXAS
Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bu
reau, Dallas News
VIRGINIA
Overton Jones, Editorial Writer,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
WEST VIRGINIA
Frank A. Knight, Editor, Charles
ton Gazette
MAIL ADDRESS
P.O. Box 6156, Aclden Station, Nashville 5, Tenn.
Whitman refused to permit a tele
vision camerman to make pictures
of the mixed session.
Continued widespread public com
ment in favor of uncompromising op
position to desegregation was noted
with no public resolutions or quota
tions calling for integration during
July outside the ranks of organiza
tions which frankly support mixing
of the races.
Atty. Gen. Cook and former Gov.
Talmadge have kept up a busy sched
ule of public addresses which usually
attack the Supreme Court ruling and
pledge continued defiance to the in
tegration decree.
Roy V. Harris, a former speaker of
the Georgia House, said in the Au
gusta Courier, a political weekly that
Cook is “the key man in the battle
to preserve segregation” and sug
gested his efforts may put him in
the next Georgia gubernatorial race
or “establish him as Georgia’s attor
ney general for life.”
and educational plant for girls on ^
rather than coeducational. The sex®
are also separated in other white
schools in the county but the
large Negro school is coeducation
The action followed by one da) ®
editorial in The Macon News sugj!®^
ing that if integration came, the sj 1
could be somewhat cushioned ■
separating the sexes in the new
school as in the existing high schoo
A threat to close the Universi
Georgia law school in a “show ^
move to prevent integration
made by Atty. Gen. Cook. ,
Cook said he has been
that Horace Ward, an Atlanta ^
whose Army service postponed
efforts to gain admission, ^
renew his entrance deman'
NAACP backing this faU '
to the legislature’s appropnati .
which denies state funds ° -^j)
schools, Cook said if Ward w )a»"
he will do is close down
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
The Bibb County board of educa
tion in Macon amended its annual
school budget to include a prohibi
tion on racially mixed schools, as re
quired by state law.
The board also voted to make a
planned new five-grade high school
looI.” tl*
Robert Arnold, chairman®^
te board of regents wh *. „e wa*
> university system, took
; attorney general. He sai »
no more danger of the ^ ^
ing closed this year than• ^
e years ago. There is c lios&
■ of the law school bevngI , „
in there is of any pd
? state being closed.