Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—DECEMBER 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Studies, Plans
Get Spotlight
(Continued from Page 1)
tions. The NAACP was “under inves
tigation on several counts” by state
government authorities.
TENNESSEE
A tear gas vial exploded to climax
a tumultuous public meeting in
Chattanooga where school officials
were attempting to set up a segrega
tion-desegregation study group. The
Nashville school board responded to
an integration suit with an answer
which implied “free choice” desegre
gation. The University of Tennessee
announced a plan of gradual deseg
regation at the undergraduate level.
TEXAS
The Dallas school board announced
results of a survey of learning abil
ity of white and Negro students. Tex
arkana Junior College was ordered
to admit qualified Negro applicants.
Houston residents formed a Citizens
League for School Home Rule. Mean
while (in a special report appear
ing elsewhere in Southern School
News), San Antonio’s desegregation
program was said to be proceeding
smoothly but slowly.
VIRGINIA
The General Assembly was called
into special session to consider rec
ommendations of the Gray Commis
sion (the text appears with the Vir
ginia report in this month’s issue of
SSN) after a state court had held
that Virginia, under present constitu
tional proscriptions, could not pay
state funds for private education.
WEST VIRGINIA
The Raleigh County school board
in a reply to an NAACP petition for
an injunction said integration “can
be done, and will be done, just as
well, and perhaps better, without use
of the injunctive process.” A survey
showed that 160 Negroes were now
attending formerly all-white state-
supported colleges.
‘Permissive*
(Continued from Page 1)
schools they would have attended
before the redistricting.
In Kansas City, the Negroes seek
to compel the board of education to
abandon its school boundary lines.
Their petition alleges Negro children
are denied the right to attend schools
near them because they are Negroes.
Filing of preliminary pleadings to
determine issues are now in process.
Only one judge will rule on this
suit.
School officials in two first-class
cities, Leavenworth in the northeast
and Fort Scott in the southeast, have
said some segregation will end in
their schools as soon as building
programs are complete In the next
three years.
Parsons has integrated three of its
four elmentary schools. But a bond
issue to build a replacement build
ing for the other all-Negro school
was defeated this fall. Further plans
await a new election.
Atchison took its integration by
stages, starting in the fall of 1951 and
ending this fall. Almost adjacent
white and Negro schools were com
bined under one administration with
integrated primary grades in one
building and intermediate grades in
the other.
Coffeyville gave each elementary
student an option of going outside
his home district to attend a school
with a majority of his own race.
Six schools have predominantly
white enrollments. In the seventh,
180 of 183 students are Negro. Junior
highs were integrated in 1953.
Fort Scott discontinued fifth
through eighth grades in its Negro
school this fall, and assigned Negroes
to the other schools. The Negro
school will be maintained for the
first four grades at least until a new
building its completed next year.
SPACE A FACTOR
Kansas City voted to end segrega
tion as soon as classroom space is
available. Last year, 153 Negro stu
dents were enrolled in about half
the elementary schools, and 65 in
junior and senior highs formerly seg
regated. About 80 per cent of Kan
sas City’s Negro population lives in
one area.
-4 Eo„L &
eview
Talmadge Cites His Views
Leavenworth has permitted kin
dergarten and first-grade Negro stu
dents living outside two Negro dis
tricts to attend former white schools,
and plans to add a few grades each
year until all have this change. Ne
groes in the two Negro districts have
no option as yet. Following comple
tion of a building program in three
years, the Leavenworth board plans
to integrate all seventh and eighth
grade students.
Salina took two years to convert,
but its board now requires students
to attend the schools in their home
district.
Wichita, the state’s largest city,
used an option plan similar to To
peka’s. Concentration of Negro resi
dences has resulted in three nearly
all-Negro elementary schools. School
authorities say the optional areas are
primarily for purposes of student
convenience in travel.
Arizona
By Frederic S. Marquardt
Editorial Page Editor
The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX, Ariz.
rizona is following what might be
called a three-year school deseg
regation plan. So far it has met all its
deadlines without any friction. If the
program is maintained the state’s
public schools will be completely in
tegrated by September, 1956. Ari
zona’s parochial schools have never
been segregated.
Clifton L. Harkins, state superin
tendent of public schools, has
summed up the Arizona situation as
of November,
1955, in these
words: “We
started our de
segregation pro
gram ahead of
many other
states because
our courts ruled
on the issue be
fore the U. S.
Supreme Court
did. We are still
ahead. So far as I know, there is not
a completely segregated school in
Arizona today. There is a one-room
all-Negro school at Gila Bend, but
that is because no whites live in the
area. In carrying out the program
there has not been a single demon
stration on the part of students or
parents. There have been a few dis
agreements, but they have been re
solved satisfactorily.”
Arizona had a compulsory school
segregation law on its statute books
from territorial days until 1952. In
that year the state legislature re
pealed compulsory segregation and
passed a law permitting boards of
trustees to segregate pupils if they so
desired. On Feb. 10, 1953, Superior
Court Judge Fred C. Struckmeyer
held the permissive segregation law
unconstitutional. That was 15 months
before the May 17,1954 ruling of the
U. S. Supreme Court.
ECONOMIC CONSIDERATION
Even when there was a compulsory
segregation law on the law books,
many Arizona schools were integrat
ed because they had so few Negroes
that it was economically unfeasible to
establish “separate but equal” facili
ties. However, segregation of Negroes
—and in a few cases of children of
Mexican descent—was observed in
many schools in the heavily populat
ed areas of Maricopa, Pinal and Pima
counties. Following Judge S truck -
meyer’s decision, without awaiting
an appeal to the state supreme court,
the segregated school systems began
a gradual process of integration.
A typical program is the one fol
lowed by Phoenix Elementary School
District No. I, the largest district in
the state, which has some 12,000 stu
dents, including 1,600 Negroes. Before
the court ruling it had three all-Ne
gro schools. In 1953-54 the school
board allowed pupils in kindergarten
and the first three grades to go either
to the school nearest their homes or
to the school they had been attending.
At the beginning of the 1954-55 school
year, all kindergarten children were
told to attend the schools nearest
their homes. This system of compul
sory integration was extended to the
first six grades in September, 1955.
However, children in the seventh
and eighth grades were allowed to
remain in their old schools even if
they lived in other attendance zones,
since it was felt they had established
ties that should not be broken arbi-
(YOU AND SEGREGATION, Her
man E. Talmadge, Birmingham,
Ala., Vulcan Press, Inc., 79 pages.)
A two-pronged counterattack—in
volving election of candidates ear
nestly committed to uphold segrega
tion and organization of the popula
tion of the states to maintain self-
government—is advocated by the for
mer Georgia governor in the latest
pro-segregation book to come off the
press.
Postulating that!
the people of the
states are the “real:
court of last re
sort,” Talmadge
asserts: “A de
termined chief ex
ecutive of a state
: : :
with the courage §
of his convic- Talmadge
tions, supported by a united people, as
expressed through a cohesive organi
zation can prevent the mixing of the
races in the public schools and col
leges of any state.”
The proof he offers: “We have done
it in Georgia and will continue to do
is as long the people demand it.”
The “real issue” surrounding the
school segregation - desegregation
question as brought to the fore by the
Supreme Court’s decisions, Talmadge
contends, is that it represents a “vi
cious attack” on the Bill of Rights
from which only the Communists will
benefit. Because of the absence of
safeguards against abuse of judicial
powers by political-minded justices
the court has, in its decisions,
breached the Tenth Amendment
guarantee of State’s Rights, Talmadge
asserts.
trarily. By the 1956-57 school year all
children will be told to go to the
schools in their own zones, although
any eighth grader who wants to fin
ish out in his old school will be al
lowed to do so.
‘GRADUALISM WORKED -
“I feel that the board’s decision of
gradualism has worked out best for
us,” said Dr. Loren Vaughn Jr., su
perintendent of the Phoenix Elemen
tary School District. “By telling the
parents and children our plans well
in advance, we have given them
ample chance to adjust themselves.
We haven’t had any trouble at all. A
few families have moved into other
districts, and the board has allowed
two children to transfer to other
schools in compliance with their
parents’ wishes.”
The 65 to 70 Negro teachers who
formerly taught in the three all-Ne
gro schools were not shifted to pre
dominantly white schools unless they
volunteered to go. Nine white teach
ers asked for transfers to the former
all-Negro schools because they would
be closer to home, and the transfers
were made. Classes in all three
schools are now mixed, Negro prin
cipals have been retained in all three
schools.
The Phoenix High School District,
largest of its sort in the state, has five
completely integrated high schools.
Attendance zones are drawn and chil
dren must attend the schools in their
zones, unless they wish to go to Phoe
nix Union which has a technical di
vision. Carver high school, which had
an all-Negro student body and facul
ty, was closed in June, 1953. It is now
used for a storage building. All of its
teachers and other employes have
been reassigned to comparable posi
tions in other schools.
Outside of Phoenix, the only
classes still segregated are to be
found in Pinal County, which has a
large itinerant farm population. Here,
the Phoenix example was reversed,
and the seventh and eighth grades
were desegregated first. The lower
six classes are still segregated, but it
is expected that they will be inte
grated by the 1956-57 school year.
New Mexico
By Joseph Lawler
Managing Editor
The Sante Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N. M.
he most significant development
in a relatively quiet year of New
This, he claims, it has done under
pressure from the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People, which, he further contends,
has gained control of the Negro bloc
vote, though it does not represent the
best interests of the Negro people.
In attacking the claims of the
NAACP that removal of racial re
strictions is in keeping with the re
ligious or political tradition of the
nation, Talmadge cites three authori
ties:
“God,” he writes, “created them
(the races) all different. He set them
in families and appointed bounds of
habitation. He did not intend them
to be mixed or He would not have
separated or segregated them.”
Abraham Lincoln, “the Great
Emancipator” and “the founder of the
Republican Party,” he quotes as say
ing: “I am not, nor have I ever been
in favor of bringing about in any way
the social and political equality of the
white and black races—I am not, nor
ever have been in favor of making
voters or jurors of the Negroes, nor of
qualifying them to hold office, nor to
inter-marry with white people.”
And Thomas Jefferson’s famed
quotation, “Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fates than that
these people are to be free,” he says
is in truth a “misrepresentation and a
fraud,” since it has been taken out of
context. The remainder of the same
statement, he writes, goes on to say,
“nor is it less certain that the two
races, equally free, cannot live in the
same government.”
The end results of integration in the
(See TALMADGE Book, Page 9)
Mexico dealings with the segregation
question was the recent hiring of a
new dean of education by the Uni
versity of New Mexico. The dean, Dr.
Chester C. Travelstead, 44, takes over
his new duties in February. He told
newsmen he had been dismissed by
the University of South Carolina as
the result of a speech he had made
last August in which he called for
an end to public school segregation.
New Mexico University President
Tom Popejoy said the university had
made a thorough investigation of
Travelstead’s speech, and added: “We
found that it was in line with sound
educational policies in a democracy.
What he said was in line with our
point of view that segregation is con
trary to our way of life.”
FEW AREAS SEGREGATE
The general program of integration
in the few isolated spots where school
segregation has been practiced has
gone ahead smoothly during the past
year. At present
only a few south
ern New Mexico
districts still have
segregated
schools, all of
which are lower
grades, and
where segrega
tion is mainly a
geographical fac
tor. Officially, the State Board of
Education has ruled that racial seg
regation may not be practiced, and
all local school boards have taken
steps to integrate white and Negro
students where segregation has ex
isted.
Negro teachers, along with their
students, have been moved to schools
with mixed classes. One recent test
case which was appealed to the State
Board of Education involved a Negro
teacher who had instructed classes
at a school for Negro children. When
the local school board ordered Negro
students integrated with whites, it
closed the Negro school and told the
teacher there was no position for her
in the consolidated school system.
The teacher had tenure under state
law and appealed her case to the state
board, which overruled the local
board and ordered the teacher re
instated.
No accurate figures are available
on how many Negro teachers are
employed by New Mexico schools;
state law prohibits listing of race or
creed in employment records. Con
servative estimates, however, figure
Park Decision
Is ‘Affirmed’
(Continued from Page 1)
be taken into account, “including the
feeling of inferiority generated in the
hearts and minds of Negro children,”
Judges Dobie, Parker and Soper con
cluded:
“With this in mind it is obvious
that racial segregation in recrea
tional activities can no longer be sus
tained as a proper exercise of the
police power of the state, for if that
power cannot be invoked to sustain
racial segregation in the schools,
where attendance is compulsory and
racial friction may be apprehended
from the enforced commingling of the
races, it cannot be sustained with
respect to public beach and bath
house facilities, the use of which is
entirely optional.”
CLARIFICATION SOUGHT
The state of Maryland and the city
of Baltimore, in taking their appeal
from the Fourth Circuit Court’s de
cision, urged the Supreme Court to
spell out whether or not the school
segregation decisions applied to fields
other than public education. The
school decisions, their joint brief said,
“have furnished a springboard from
which attacks have been launched
upon other areas of state and munic
ipal action not fairly within this
court’s decision, and have caused un
certainty and indecision on the part
of state and municipal officers.”
The Maryland-Baltimore brief said
that public officials “should not he
left to grope and wonder as to the
scope and application” of the school
decisions and that the Sandy Point-
Fort Smallwood case “furnishes the
opportunity for this (the Supreme)
Court to fairly acquaint the officers
of the municipalities and the state
of Maryland, as well as of other states
similarly situated, with some guide-
posts to aid them in the solution of
the difficult legal, psychological and
social problems which presently con
front them.”
The Supreme Court did not respond
to the plea that it rule on public
segregation generally, rather than on
the recreation case immediately be
fore it. The high court upheld the
opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court
that “racial segregation in recrea
tional activities can no longer be sus
tained as a proper exercise of the
police power” and then immediately
applied that opinion by sending the
Atlanta golf course case back to the
federal district court with instruc
tions to enter a decree in conformity
with the Maryland ruling.
NO TIME SPECIFIED
As in the school segregation de
cisions, the court did not specify when
desegregation must take place.
In the Atlanta case, a Negro doctor
and his two sons had been denied the
use of the Bobby Jones public S°"
course because of their color. On Jub
6, 1954, a federal district court ruled
that unless equal facilities were P r0 ".
vided, there was “discrimination
The court ordered Atlanta to provide
substantially equal facilities “while
preserving segregation.”
The lower court decision was aP'
pealed to the Fifth Circuit Court a
New Orleans on the same ground 5
as in the Maryland cases; nafflW’
that the “separate but equal” doC'
trine had been rendered invalid W
the Supreme Court’s school de®"
sions. The appellate judges sustain
the district court’s opinion. The Su
preme Court vacated the decision 0
the appellate judges and instruct ®
the district court to follow the Mary
land rulings that segregation in P uD
lie recreation is unconstitutional
that there are between 50 and ^
Negro teachers and school admin
trators, almost all of whom are e 1
ployed in integrated school systc®'
New Mexico colleges, as weh^
grade and secondary schools, also
prohibited by law from discrinun®
ing between students of diff er ..
races. College officials throughout ^
state seem agreed that during T f C ^
years a larger proportion
! s a ;
uni'
state’s small Negro population lS
tending college. One small state 1
versity has a score or more of N
students enrolled, and school ofitf-
report that there have been no &
culties encountered in the race 1
tion.