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PAGE 12—JANUARY 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Delaware Political Parties Face Stand on School Question WILMINGTON, Del. neasiness is beginning to creep into the political state of affairs in Delaware as the election year of 1956 develops; for within several months, the leaders of the state Democratic and Republican parties will have to decide what stand they will take on “the question.” And in Delaware “the question” is integration v. segregation in the pub lic schools. In the meantime, two anti-integra tion groups in Delaware are watching developments very closely—the Na tional Association for the Advance ment of White People and the newer organization known as “We, The People.” As 1955 ended, the actual “front” of the controversy — the public schools of the state—was quiet. In the meantime, the state House of Representatives (Democratically controlled) has passed an FEPC bill and sent it over to the Senate where it was put “on ice.” (See “Legislative Action.”) THE POLITICAL SCENE In the summer of 1954, before the so-called Milford incident disrupted the peace of Delaware, both major political parties adopted integration plans in their respective platforms. The wording of the planks varied, but in essence both state parties went on record as cheering the U. S. Su preme Court opinion on integration and pledged support for any program that would proceed in an orderly fashion toward integration. And though the conventions of both parties were composed of dele gates of all shades of opinion on the subject (though with a preponder ance, perhaps, against out-and-out integration in the schools) not a word of protest was registered on the floors of either convention. Four times, state Rep. Paul Liv ingston (Democrat of Wilmington and the only Negro in the Delaware General Assembly) tried to get an FEPC bill passed. And four times the bill was defeated, though supported by the small group of Republicans but with Democrats voting on what was virtually a sectional basis. Finally, in the middle of December, Rep. Livingston managed to get enough votes to have his bill passed. It was immediately sent over to the Senate whose chamber was filled with representatives of We, The People. The Democratic president pro tern of the Senate, Charles G. Moore of Hartly, assigned the bill to the Com mittee on Public Health of which Sen. Hoey (out-and-out segregation ist) is chairman. It is generally assumed that the bill will not be reported out, and if it should be pried out, it will be de feated. UNION PUSHES BILL Soon after this particular meeting of the state Senate, the International Longshoremen’s Association formed a political action committee to work for the passage of the FEPC measure. Other than this FEPC bill, nothing has happened in the past month in the Delaware General Assembly touch ing on the segregation-desegregation question. The school construction bill for millions of dollars, the designated Negro schools characterized with the letter “C,” has been signed by Gov. Boggs, but an opinion is pending in the office of Atty. Gen. J. Donald Craven on the constitutionality of the bill. The bill is interesting because in Delaware no local funds are required to build Negro schools. All Negro schools in Delaware have been fi nanced by 100 per cent state funds. White schools are financed on a 60- 40 basis; the state paying 60 per cent of the cost and the remainder raised by local school districts through bond issues. Some legislators are afraid that the designation of Negro schools in the construction bond issue bill of the state will either hamper or cancel the chance of the state selling the bonds. Several months ago the State Board of Education asked some 19 local boards of education that had declined to undertake integration in this school year to explain why their facilities were not adequate enough for an in tegration program. To date, only seven of those 19 have responded. However, the state super intendent of public instruction, Dr. George R. Miller, suggested that more time be given for the other school districts. He was obviously not willing to force the issue at this time. At the meeting of the State Board of Education Dec. 15, the CIO of Del aware sent a memo to the board ask ing “that through the media of the State Board of Education, the process of integration be carried on in a greater degree as prescribed by the historic ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court.” In the meantime, in the little town of Greenwood in the southern part of Delaware, the local board held a meeting also on Dec. 15 when the question of integration popped up. The principal of the school, H. Geiger Omwake, asked one of the board members, Wilbur Root, what the latter meant by saying that the Greenwood school would not partici pate in any inter-school activities with schools that have integration. Root replied that he meant even such activities as statewide school choruses and statewide school bands were “off limits” for the Greenwood school if the other choruses or bands were integrated. Earlier in the month, a so-called misunderstanding was straightened out in the Laurel Board of Education (Sussex County). There had been a question as to whether or not the board had actually authorized a reso lution to the State Board of Educa tion, asking for a certificate of neces sity for expanding school facilities but on a segregated basis. Such certificates are necessary for local districts before they go into a bond issue referendum for school building purposes. RESOLUTION ASCERTAINED It was decided on Dec. 7 that such a resolution had been authorized, though a week or so before, certain members of the board declared they knew nothing of the resolution. At that same meeting of the Laurel school board, the Rev. Harry L. May- field, rector of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, spoke briefly and declared that the cancelling of games between the Laurel teams and integrated schools had had a “demoralizing” effect upon the school. The board, in its reply to the rector, said that the present policy of the school district will remain anti-inte. gration until the people want it changed. MISCELLANEOUS While Bryant Bowles of Houston, Del., is reported to be in California on business, the NAAWP of which he is national president has been very quiet. But the We, The People group has been active. In the first week of De cember, a group of citizens of Sussex County gathered in Georgetown to form the Sussex County Mental Health Association. An attempt was made by certain people at the meeting who were iden tified as We, The People supporters, to block the organization of the as sociation. The opposition to the Mental Health Association was led by Nelson Abbott of Ellendale, Sussex County, who claimed that the national mental health organization is infiltrated with Communists. However, the We, The People sup porters were declared out of order by the presiding officer of the meeting, former state Supreme Court Justice James M. Tunnell Jr., of George town. Days later, a controversy devel oped as to who is the official spokes man for We, The People in Delaware —Nelson Abbott of Ellendale or Charles E. Boyce of Seaford. Boyce claims he’s the spokesman and says he has such authority from the regional director of We, The People who he said was Merwin K. Hart of New York. It is reported that We, The People, a small but alert group in Delaware, intends to figure in the 1956 election campaign. ISSUE BECAME LIVELY But when school opened in 1954 and Milford residents discovered that 11 Negro children had been admitted to the Milford (white) high school, the issue became a lively one. The election went in favor of the Democrats on virtually a landslide scale, with the Republicans claiming that integration had helped to defeat them. Oddly enough, the fact that the Democrats had promised support for integration in their platform didn’t seem to make any difference in areas where the NAAWP was influential and citizens were opposed to integra tion. Another election year is here. With the exception of the office of governor which is held by a Republican, Caleb Boggs, the state government is Demo cratic. Two leading Republicans — state Rep. James Snowden and former chief deputy attorney general, Vin cent Theisen—have expressed them selves on a possible approach to “the question.” Their attitude is that their party should recognize the existence of “the question” and the existence of the Supreme Court decision and that the local communities should be guaranteed the right to proceed toward integration at their respective paces. INTEGRATION ‘NO ISSUE’ However, other Republicans have come out to say that “the question” is not a political issue. One of these was state Sen. Elwood F. Melson Jr. of near Wilmington. He declared in a recent radio broadcast that it is not a political issue because neither party can do anything about the U. S. Su preme Court decision. The attitudes of Sen. Melson and Rep. Snowden are significant because Sen. Melson has said he would not turn down the nomination for gov ernor if it were given him by his party’s convention and Rep. Snow den is being regarded as a potential candidate for the nomination. In the Democratic ranks is Walter F. Hoey of near Milford, currently a state senator. He is known to be an aspirant for the nomination for gov ernor on a segregation platform, either with the regular Democratic party or perhaps a third party, pos sibly supported by the NAAWP and We, The People. First Louisiana Challenge in Hands NEW ORLEANS, La. 'J'he first DIRECT challenge to Louisi- A ana’s segregation laws enacted in 1954 was in the hands of a special three-judge federal court as a fateful year for the Deep South drew to a close. The court has under advisement an NAACP suit (Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board) to open all public schools in Louisiana’s largest parish (county) to all races; also four state motions for dismissal. (See “Legal Action.”) The NAACP geared its case toward keeping the issue “federal” and clear- cut—that the state violates the U. S. Constitution by segregating its schools. State’s attorneys have asked the federal court to step out of a local dispute, all aspects of which are cov ered by existing and valid state laws. They also asked the court to recog nize, in effect, the priority of the state’s duty to protect public health and maintain educational standards. Attorneys opposing the NAACP suit presented a number of affidavits from schoolmen and physicians pur porting to show that integration would create a health hazard to white public school students and lower the standard of education which could be offered them. ACTION ‘PURELY LEGAL’ The NAACP’s response to these affidavits was a refusal to budge from its “purely legal” action. However, A. P. Tureaud Sr., Louisiana chief coun sel for the NAACP, said the state ments were not based on scientific fact. A preliminary on the hearing, which stems from a 1952 court action brought by the NAACP, was a deci sion by a Louisiana district court that the state could legally use $100,000 in appropriated public funds to hire counsel in defending local school boards against integration suits. (See “Legal Action.”) A backdrop to the suits, and one which overshadowed them in public interest, was the heated gubernato rial campaign. All five candidates for the Democratic nomination declared at the outset they would be defenders of segregation if elected. (See “What They Say.”) But segregation was revived as a campaign issue as the candidates vied to see who was willing to use the strongest measures—such as aboli tion of public schools—to maintain segregation. A suit which, if upheld, would in tegrate Louisiana’s largest school dis trict was taken under advisement by a federal court in New Orleans after a one-day hearing early in December. Judges Wayne G. Borah, Herbert W. Christenberry and J. Skelly Wright prepared a decision which will affect the future of Orleans Par ish (county) public schools. These schools, operated for generations on a separation-of-races basis, and in more recent years on a “separate but equal” basis, are in fact almost equal ly attended by each race. Out of a total enrollment of 72,803 for the cur rent school year, 36,527 are whites and 36,276 are Negroes. The mental and physical detriment which would be suffered by students of both races following integration was one of the arguments advanced by school attorneys — an argument which NAACP lawyers Tureaud and Robert L. Carter said was unscientific. HEALTH ASPECT TIED IN The “public health” question was tied in with an amendment to the Louisiana constitution passed in 1954. This asserts that the state has the right, through its inherent police power, to maintain public health and welfare by preserving segregation. The suit, filed on behalf of 90 Negro school children against the Orleans Parish school board, challenges this amendment only indirectly. The suit’s direct attack is on two legislative acts which stem from the amendment. One withholds State Board of Educa tion approval from any school which mixes the races. The other requires that parish school superintendents assign each individual pupil to a school, and sets up a system of ap peals from the school heads’ rulings. These laws are unconstitutional in view of the U. S. Supreme Court’s ruling on segregation, the petitioner claims. The court was asked to en join the Orleans school board from enforcing the segregation laws. However, the laws were not in ex istence when the original suit (Bush v. Orleans School Board) was filed in 1952. It was amended to attack the laws after their passage. The method of the suit’s amend ment was one of the points in the motions for dismissal made by the school attorneys, Gerard A. Rault and W. Scott Wilkinson. They argued that the amended complaint was improperly filed. Other state contentions were that: —State instead of federal courts had jurisdiction in the suit, because it was an action brought by Louisiana citizens against a Louisiana agency. —The action asked by the peti tioner would be a criminal violation of existing state laws. —The plaintiffs had not made all the appeals to school board authori ties specified by Louisiana’s segrega tion laws. —The plaintiffs had not shown that segregation brought them any irre parable harm; but that integration would harm pupils of both races. APPROPRIATION UPHELD Two days before the hearing of the suit District Judge Coleman Lindsay ruled in Baton Rouge that there was no cause of action in an NAACP challenge to the constitutionality of using public funds to hire lawyers to fight segregation suits. The plaintiff charged (Adams v. Attorney General of Louisiana) that public funds could not be used in an effort to support unconstitutional state laws. Judge Lindsay said that, in spending the funds to support state laws which have not yet been in validated, the attorney general was doing his “sworn duty.” The plaintiffs were “expressing a legal conclusion, unsupported by any judicial decree” when they “alleged the unconstitutionality” of the state segregation laws, Judge Lindsay ruled. He upheld the state’s motion for dismissal. SLATIVE ACTION The head of the committee which authored Louisiana’s 1954 segrega tion laws said he will recommend a study of “nullification” as another of 3 Judges possible means of keeping the races separate in the schools. State Sen. W. M. Rainach said that his “joint legislative committee for preserving segregation” will most likely look into the possibility of ap plying the legal device when the leg islature meets next May. The first organized public objec tions to integration in Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of New Orleans came in December. Archbishop Joseph Francis Rum- mel has called the principle of segre gation morally unsupportable, and has said schools under his jurisdiction would be integrated at an appro priate time. Parents clubs of two New Orleans area schools, St. Francis Xavier in Metairie and Holy Name of Mary in Algiers, strongly urged that segrega tion be preserved. The resolutions cited health hazards, dissimilar cul tural backgrounds, and the dangers of “fraternization” as reasons for not integrating. Catholic schools in the archdiocese are attended by about 75,000 pupils— 61,250 white and 13,150 Negro. PRO-INTEGRATION GROUPS A second pro-integration organiza tion was formed in Louisiana—th e Louisiana Council on Human R e l a " tions. Formed in New Orleans an headed by Dr. Joseph Taylor, its fi- rst act was to offer assistance to the Or leans school board in making the transition toward integration. The only other pro-integration group in the state, the Commissi® 11 on Human Rights of the Cathohc Committee of the South, adopted a statement that orderly integration ca® be brought about by intelligent eff° | A “Citizens’ Forum for Integration was in-the-making in New Orlea • headed by the Rev. John H. Although not yet officially orgaiuz the group held a meeting Dec- 1" Rabouin public school auditorium New Orleans to hear the Rev. AU e (Continued on Next Page)