Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965, November 01, 1955, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextFactual Southern School New VOL. II, NO. 5 NASHVILLE, TENN. $2 PER YEAR NOVEMBER 1955 Three Courts Annul State School Laws School Construction Expenditures Since (In Millions of Dollars) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 1949 400 Alabama Arkansas Delaware Dist. of Columbia Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi North Carolina Oklahoma South Carolina Tennessee Texas j f Virginia West Virginia Expended Approved Spurred on by rapidly growing numbers of school age children and by realization of the need for more adequate building, Southern states have, in the past six years, spent w approved more than two and a half billion dollars for construction of new facilities. The figures shown in the shove bar graph are, of necessity, incomplete. They do, however, show something of the relative rate of construc- hon in the states and the District of Columbia faced with the problem of racial integration in their schools. While •949 appears to have marked the start of the period of in tensive school construction, figures for the whole period in some cases were unavailable. By way of further ex planation it should be noted that the Alabama figure of $110 million approved represents an amount of school bonds authorized by the state legislature but subject to approval by the voters in a referendum scheduled for Dec. 6. The total of $2,556,500,000 does not include approxi mately $85 million spent during the period in Missouri which is not included in the graph. '• Includes state, local and federal funds - Expenditures since 1951 3. Program began prior to 1949 4. Expenditures for latest biennium Negro Teacher Tenure A- sense of insecurity, marked by a ^nsistent if weakly held fear of loss , hanging over many Negro schers is one result of the Supreme urt’s decisions against public °ol segregation and subsequent Patt^ attae * cs on t ^ le South’s biracial ex i? e< fucation, according to an N’Ews S * Ve surve y by Southern School ®°Wever, ^ere is no indication s ion e *^ er this fear or other compul- Port ^ ea< ^ Negro teachers to sup- ^ntinued segregation in the j 0 ^ e , r ^ a P s one reason for this is that tj on osses as a result of desegrega- sej, ° r Pressure arising from the Pbioi Se ®regation issue have apj. te d to less than 300 out of the ‘each mately 75 ’ 00 ° Ne gro school st^ er ? * n the Southern and border ’ furthermore, apparently few sch^i e< fucators fear that the public v e i 0 s °t the region, so long in de- TjJ^t. w iU be abandoned, tejjjj. e reasons, plus the fact that Prof ® * s one °f the better-paying ar ea I® 118 open to Negroes in an ip jjj “ere teachers generally are why supply, probably explains aon Ce ere has been no widespread H-g re _ about this aspect of the school LfiSs i0n ^ Ue stion. So { DlSc OURAGING’ ^Sreu’ ° n!y ' n Oklahoma, where 150 °f Ration has occurred in some e state’s 1,800 school districts, has the displacement of Negro teach ers raised much apprehension. And even there, John W. Davis, teacher tenure director for the National As sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, found in July that the situation “was not nearly as dis couraging as a good many people think.” At last accounting, 144 teachers and 21 principals had lost their jobs as a result of desegregation. Only four teachers had been integrated into mixed schools and these as coun selors for Negro students. But one principal has been promoted to su perintendent in a “Little Dixie” dis trict. Next largest number of displace ments because of integration was re ported in West Virginia, where state school authorities are committed to a policy of desegregation. Here only seven Negro teachers and 17 princi pals have been displaced, with 46 of the state’s 55 counties desegregated or moving in that direction. But 83 of the state’s total 973 Negro teachers had been integrated along with their students. Some displacement reportedly has occurred in Missouri, but since rec ords in this highly decentralized school system are no longer kept on a racial basis, statistics were not available. In September, however, the office of the NAACP teacher tenure director indicated that the teacher Is Surveyed situation in that state had been worked out satisfactorily. FIVE IN TEXAS In Texas, five Negro teachers have been displaced in Karnes County. In (See TEACHER TENURE, Page 2) ■■IllllllllglgllEIIIHISIllIIllllEllIIi .Johnny Can Head SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Beginning with the first issue of Volume II, Southern School News has been made more read able for the busy educator, pub lic officials, school board attor ney . . . The Page 1 summary gives you the whole month’s activities in capsule form. Then, the “lead” on each state report summarizes what has hap pened in slightly extended form. Finally, under the topical head ings you will find more detailed accounts of these events: “Legal Action,” “School Boards and Schoolmen,” “Legislative Ac tion,” “In the Colleges,” “What They Say,” and so on. A new de partment has been added this month. It’s called: “Community Action.” Only Southern School News offers a complete, unbiased monthly roundup of the biggest education story in the South to day. 9iSIiIIIsIIIIiiiEs!iSI£ilIls5IsIiIli§Ii ^JOURTS in three states—two of them state supreme courts—struck down constitutional or statutory provisions for public school segregation during October. Again it was a busy month on the legal front, as elsewhere and notably in the Deep South groups opposed to desegregation drew new recruits to their ranks. Southern School News counted at least 21 private organizations oppos ing compliance with the Supreme Court decisions that were active in one or more of the 17 traditional seg regation states save Kentucky and West Virginia. Oklahoma reported the first organization of a Citizens Coun cil, a movement which was spreading out of Mississippi into Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and other states. • The three major court rulings were in Florida, Texas and Tennessee. In Florida, in a case involving ad mission to the University of Florida and remanded to the state court by the U.S. Supreme Court, a 5-2 deci sion by the state Supreme Court nullified state segregation laws. How ever, the court allowed time for in tegration by orderly procedures. In Tennessee a federal district judge held that “the Supreme Court had said very definitely, if it has said anything, in its latest pronouncement that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional and all provisions, state or local, calling for racial discrimination must yield to this principle.” At the same time, and over protests of counsel for Negro students seeking immediate admis sion to Memphis State College, the court upheld a Tennessee plan for gradual desegregation of the state college system, beginning at the graduate level. It was the first ruling in any court dealing with a “step-by- step” integration plan. In Texas the state Supreme Court ruled that schools may proceed with desegregation without regard to state laws, declaring invalid provisions of the state constitution and the school laws which required racial segrega tion. In the main opinion Associate Justice Few Brewster called “utterly without merit” the argument that Texas segregation laws were un affected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision. • Reports coming to SSN after school opening showed meanwhile that sev en more schools in Oklahoma now have mixed classes; that one more county in West Virginia has ordered desegregation (effective in January), and that 24 of Kentucky’s 224 districts have adopted desegregation. Little or no segregation activity was reported from the states of the Deep South, where the accent was on the organization of protest groups. A state-by-state summary of key developments follows: Alabama The U.S. Supreme Court ordered two Negro women admitted to the University of Alabama without wait ing for the outcome of an appeal from a federal district court order opening the doors of the university to all qualified Negroes. Several of the gov ernors attending the Southern Gov ernors Conference at Point Clear ex pressed the view that school segrega tion will not be an issue in the 1956 elections. Arkansas A federal district judge at El Do rado said he expected to order inte gration at Bearden school district within • year. The Hoxie school re opened without incident but with many absentees. Representatives of White America, Inc. filed suit against members of the school board, alleg ing irregularities, while the board obtained in federal court a restraining order against interference with the operation of the schools. Delaware Dover High School (integrated) set up a unique athletic policy calling for segregated games away from home but requiring visiting teams to play return games in Dover against inte grated squads. The House of Repre sentatives passed the pending $44 million school bond bill, retaining the controversial “C” classification. District of Columbia Parents and school authorities were involved in a controversy over a teacher shortage and overcrowding of the schools—conditions traced in part to administrative problems flow ing from the integration of the school system. Florida The Supreme Court in a 5-2 ruling knocked out Florida school segrega tion as a legal principle, holding com pliance with the U.S. Supreme Court decision to be “our inescapable duty.” However, it said the federal ruling does not require “a clear legal duty” to admit Negro students to schools “at any particular time in the future.” One of the justices said the ruling did not go far enough and the other mi nority member questioned integra tion on principle. Biracial committees were at work in one-third of Florida’s counties to survey the school situa tion and make recommendations. Georgia Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook and Ex ecutive Secretary Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advance ment of Colored People traded ver bal blows over the issue of whether, as Cook charged, the NAACP was “subversive.” Forty-four Negro par ents filed a school admission petition in Waycross—Georgia’s sixth such petition — while the State School Boards Association, meeting in Ath ens, said that the “legal conflict be tween federal and state authority must be resolved before local school boards can do anything more than study the question of racial integra tion in our schools.” Kentucky Twenty-four of Kentucky’s 224 school districts reported desegrega tion, involving some 300 Negro chil dren who were attending mixed classes. Louisiana The state was still awaiting the outcome of litigation over a $100,000 state fund for use in combating inte gration efforts and attempts in St. Helena and Orleans parishes (coun ties) to gain admission of Negro chil dren to all-white schools. Maryland Mixed classes were reported in eight of 22 counties having Negroes of school age, plus Baltimore City. The Maryland Petition Committee, opposing integration, renewed its (See COURTS VOID, Page 2) Index State Page Alabama 9 Arkansas 3 Delaware 14 District of Columbia 5 Florida 4 Georgia 15 Kentucky 16 Louisiana 16 Maryland 10 Mississippi 7 Missouri 14 North Carolina 13 Oklahoma 12 South Carolina 11 Tennessee 8 Texas 6 Virginia 12 West Virginia 5

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Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965, November 01, 1955, Image 1