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PAGE 2—JANUARY 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Tennessee Ends Year With Flurry of Action in School Area
NASHVILLE, Term.
r J^HE year 1955, which started off at
a snail’s pace as far as develop
ments in the segregation-desegrega
tion field go, ended in a flurry of legal,
school and community activity, indi
cating a busy year ahead.
High points of the last month:
In Nashville, parents of two white
children filed an amendment to a de
segregation suit in federal court, ask
ing that their children be admitted
to a Negro public school. (See “Legal
Action.”)
Nashville’s superintendent of
schools, W. A. Bass, told Tennessee’s
public school superintendents at a
meeting in Gatlinburg that they were
dodging the issue after they voted to
study the desegregation problem for
another year. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
A state official said racial integra
tion “apparently is a long way off in
Tennessee’s public schools.” (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
The administrative staff of the Da
vidson County Board of Education
recommended that the board appoint
a bi-racial committee of 52 members
to study means of ending segregation
in the county public schools.
An organization known as the Pro-
Southerners claimed a membership of
3,000 in Memphis and Shelby County.
(See “Community Action.”)
Tennessee became the South’s first
state in which white parents asked
a federal court ruling in favor of their
children attending Negro public
schools.
An amendment to an integration
suit already before Federal Judge El
mer D. Davies, the petition was
signed by Robert W. Rempfer, 41, as
sociate professor of mathematics at
Fisk University, and his wife, Ger
trude.
They sought admission for their
son, Richard Fleming Rempfer, to
Washington junior high school and
their daughter, Jean Trudy Rempfer
to Pearl elementary school.
Rempfer, a native of South Da
kota, explained to Southern School
News that the above schools are no
farther than three blocks from their
home while the white schools the
children now attend are from one and
a quarter to one and a half miles
away.
The Rempfer family lives across the
street from the Fisk campus.
ATTENDED MIXED SCHOOL
Rempfer pointed out that last year
Jean, then a fifth grade student, at
tended an integrated private school
operated by Fisk University for chil
dren of its staff and others. However,
this year the Fisk school goes only
to the third grade.
Richard, he said, last year attended
an all-white private school, where he
was a sixth grade student.
“Some of the children Jean went to
school with are now at Pearl elemen
tary school and one or two are at
Washington junior high. So this is
not an untried thing so far as we are
concerned,” Rempfer said.
The original suit was filed Sept. 23
by relatives of Negro children seek
ing admission for them to Nashville’s
East Junior and Senior high schools
and Glenn and Kirkpatrick elemen
tary schools.
PRINCIPALS ANSWER
Isaiah Suggs, principal of Washing
ton junior high school, and W. E. Tur
ner Jr., principal of Pearl elementary
school, both Negroes, said Dec. 15 in
an answer to the amendment that in
refusing admittance to the Rempfer
children to the Negro schools they
were “acting pursuant to instruc
tions” from W. A. Bass, city school
superintendent, and in accordance
with the policy of the city board of
education for the current school year.
Bass and all members of the board,
along with three principals of the East
Nashville white schools, are also de
fendants in the original integration
suit.
Filing of answers by Suggs and
Turner placed the suit “at full issue”
and paved the way for the case’s call
Principals in an amendment to an integration lawsuit in federal court at
Nashville, believed to be the first of its kind, are, from left, Richard Fleming
Rempfer, Robert W. Rempfer and Jean Trudy Rempfer. Rempfer, a mathe
matics professor at Fisk University, seeks court authority to enter his two
children in Negro public schools.
on the federal court docket at its
March term, unless other amend
ments are filed.
ASKED ADMISSION BEFORE
Mr. and Mrs. Rempfer asked the
city board of education three times
last spring to permit their children to
attend Negro schools. They were
turned down each time, and last June
10 the board deferred action on the
request until the board’s instruction
committee submits a report on end
ing segregation in city schools.
The Negro principals in their an
swer said that pending the formula
tion of a plan for implementing the
high court desegregation ruling
Rempfer and his wife “should not be
permitted through experimental use
of children of tender years and im
mature judgment, to impose their in
dividual and unrealistic sociological
opinions and prejudices upon those
having the responsibility and duty of
school administration.
“Defendants reaffirm their avowed
policy to establish and operate a pub
lic school system within constitutional
boundaries for the best interests of
all the students, white and colored
alike, rather than for the indulgence
of personal prejudices and sociologi
cal experimentation which would de
lay or prevent the formulation of an
orderly plan,” the answer said.
In Anderson County’s four-year-
old integration lawsuit both the
plaintiffs and defendants are wait
ing for Judge Robert L. Taylor of
Knoxville to rule on motions filed by
both sides Dec. 5.
The Negro plaintiffs filed a mo
tion for a final decree in the case
which would contain provisions for
immediate integration.
The defendants responded with a
motion for dismissal of the entire law
suit on the grounds that the five stu
dents on whose behalf the case was
filed are no longer in the school sys
tem.
(They have all either graduated or
left school.)
MAY DISMISS BOTH
The judge’s remarks seemed to in
dicate he will reject both motions and
leave the case as it is—with a supple
mental order on the books calling for
integration with no deadlines.
New facts which came out at the
hearing:
1) The county’s citizen committee
studying integration has set a “Feb
ruary or March” deadline for making
recommendations to the school board.
2) Both sides now agree the case
does not pertain to elementary
schools. There is a difference of opin
ion about the high schools. The plain
tiffs say integration should include
all high schools while the defendants
hold it applies only to Clinton high
school, since that was the only school
named in the original lawsuit, and
the five particular students.
In the hearing Dec. 6, Judge Taylor
allowed 15 more days for attorneys
to file additional briefs on both mo
tions.
It is anticipated that he will not
give his rulings at least until after the
first of the year.
MEMPHIS CASE APPEALED
A verdict supporting the state of
Tennessee’s “stairstep” plan for de
segregation of state colleges, rendered
by the federal district court in Mem
phis Oct. 18, will be appealed.
Notice of appeal was filed with the
court, presided over by Judge Marion
S. Boyd, on Dec. 5, by five Negro stu
dents seeking admission to Memphis
State College.
The case will be appealed to the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals at
Cincinnati, O.
Nashville’s city school superinten
dent told a meeting of Tennessee pub
lic school superintendents they were
dodging the issue after they voted to
study the problem of “desegregation”
for another year.
“My board is in federal court on
this question now,” W. A. Bass told
the city and county superintendents
in Gatlinburg at the final session of
their four-day annual work confer
ence.
“We’re entitled to your thinking.
We need the benefit of your judgment
... I might as well have stayed home
. . . What are the possible courses?
“We’re like ducks sitting on a pond.
No one is giving us any advice and
counsel in this matter. What is my
board going to say when I get back
home and report that the council just
voted to continue the study for an
other year?”
Later Bass told newsmen he had
been giving considerable thought to
the segregation problem, but that he
was not ready to discuss any conclu
sions.
INTEGRATION ‘WAY OFF’
In Nashville Associated Press staff
writer John A. Harris reported that
a state official, who asked his name
be withheld, said racial integration
“apparently is a long way off” in Ten
nessee’s public schools.
According to Harris the official said
he thinks there will be “very little”
integration in the school year begin
ning next fall.
He believes there are two major
reasons for the slow reaction by local
authorities to the high court order:
1) “County boards are reluctant to
act because they don’t want to be the
first in the state to approve integra
tion, and some board officials have
indicated they would resign rather
than approve it.
2) “Many Negroes were . . . sur
prised at the amount of opposition,
and apparently the average Negro
family is not now pushing for any
immediate change.”
IMPROVING FACILITIES
The official added that some comi
ties are moving to improve Negro
school facilities, apparently in the be
lief that this would tend to reduce
the number of Negro students who
would want to enter white schools
when all the barriers are removed.
The spokesman said that shortly
after the first Supreme Court ruling
he thought integration probably
would come relatively quickly and
easily in counties which have a small
percentage of Negroes.
“But this hasn’t been the case. Some
of the counties with small Negro pop
ulations are more resistant to integra
tion than some of the counties with
a high percentage of Negroes,” he
said.
He said he does not anticipate any
appreciable integration in any of the
four big metropolitan areas next fall.
NEGRO CAGERS PLAY
In Oak Ridge integration has not
been discussed publicly for more
than a month. The last discussion
came in early November and that
concerned the basketball team.
Since that time Negro players
(three on the varsity at Oak Ridge
high) have played two home games
(against Powell Valley and Farra-
gut).
They did not play in a third game
against Norris because Anderson
County Board of Education has given
a ruling that there will be no inte
grated classrooms or athletic events
this school year. Norris is in Ander
son County.
Oak Ridge has played only one
game away from home so far and
that against Elizabethton in which the
Negro players were not used.
COMMISSION MAKEUP
In August, 1954, the Davidson
County (Nashville) Board of Educa
tion adopted a resolution calling for
a bi-racial committee of school pa
trons and educators to study means
to end segregation in the county pub
lic schools. Similar resolutions were
passed by the board in June and
August, 1955.
On Dec. 1, the administrative staff
submitted a report of “Recommenda
tions Concerning the Organization of
Personnel for a Study of Desegrega
tion” which the board has taken
under advisement. The report sug
gests a committee made up of 52
members, including one Negro and
two white staff members; five Negro
and five white principals (each race
providing one from a high school);
five Negro and four white teachers;
15 Negro and 15 white parents.
The staff report included a list of
white and Negro principals and
teachers to aid the board in selecting
members of the committee. It includ
ed also a list of citizens—considered
“outstanding people” in the commu
nities of various schools. This list was
compiled from 276 names submitted
by principals in the system.
Said J. E. Moss, county school su
perintendent: “These are people who
have been recommended to us by the
principals of our schools. No one has
been placed on the list because of his
position. We asked for the names of
people with children in school for
they are the ones who will be most
vitally concerned.”
Reaction of the board members to
the recommendation was generally
favorable except for question on the
committee’s size.
Board member Ferris Bailey, a
Nashville attorney, suggested the
possibility of having teachers and
principals meet as one group, parents
in another, and then pool their re
sults for final decision.
Another board member proposed
that the committee be divided into
subcommittees, each of which would
be assigned to work on specific prob
lems.
WHAT THEY SAY
In an interview in Norfolk, Va.,
Tennessee’s Sen. Estes Kefauver,
twice candidate for the Democratic
nomination for President, stressed
that the Supreme Court ruling
against enforced segregation in the
public schools is the “law of the land.”
He added that it would be “tragic”
if the South’s public schools were
“destroyed or damaged” in efforts to
circumvent the ruling.
“The Supreme Court was unani
mous in its opinion against enforced
segregation in public schools,” he
declared. “It is a problem that must
be worked out with time and pa
tience. It is important that the races
get together and make plans to work
out the situation.”
COMMUNITY
ACTION
On Dec. 6, a group known as Pro-
Southerners made its presence known
in Memphis.
President of the group is Harry
William Pyle, 75, retired painter, joke
book author, and ex-member of the
Ku Klux Klan. Pyle said Pro-South
erners was organized in 1953 at Co
lumbus, Ga., as a unit of the now
inactive “Patrick Henry Organization,
Inc.”
National headquarters for the or
ganization is the home of a longtime
friend of Pyle’s, M. B. Sherrill, in Fort
Pierce, Fla. Sherrill claimed a na
tional membership of “nearly a mil
lion.” Pyle said, however, the mem
bership is approximately 8,000. Of
these, he said, 3,000 are in Memphis
and Shelby County—but only 2,200
are “paid up.”
Annual dues in the organization are
$2, which is split equally between
the county and national headquarters.
Pyle said neither he nor Sherrill re
ceive a salary, and that dues collected
go for expenses only.
ACCOUNTS FOR FUNDS
In accounting for about $4,400 in
dues collected in the Memphis area,
Pyle said $513 has been deposited in
the National Bank of Commerce on
behalf of the county headquarters in
his name; approximately $300 has
been spent for car expenses since
May; between $600 and $700 has been
spent for printing leaflets and appli
cation blanks.
The balance, he said, “has been
going for expenses such as renting
halls for meetings, buying flags,
etc. . . .”
Pyle told reporters: “I can draw
anything I need for expenses,” and
added that his expenses are recorded
and filed at national headquarters.
Increasing travel demands, he de
clared, have made it necessary for
him to buy a new car. The new car
is a “green and white Buick special-
Money for the purchase, Pyle said,
came from “a small personal bank ac
count” and he is trading in his old
car, a 1946 Ford, on the deal.
MEMBERSHIP SAID UP
Sherrill declared there has been an
increase in membership in Memphis
and Shelby County, but added that no
dues for the national headquarters
from the Memphis area have been re
ceived.
Pyle forecasts a membership ®
Memphis and Shelbv County of 10,0®®
(See TENNESSEE. Page 7)
Interposition
(Continued from Page 1)
children to a Negro school. In an m'
terview an unnamed Tennessee
school official said racial integral 011
“apparently is a long way off &
the state.
Texas
In an otherwise quiet month a sin
was filed in Wichita Falls by NAAC
attorneys seeking admission of
groes to an elementary school.
Houston, which has the state’s lat*j
est school district, it was announc^
that school staff meetings would
desegregated.
Virginia
As Virginians discussed interp 05 !
tion, the state looked toward a r .
erendum Jan. 9 on whether to affl*
the constitution to permit tui ^
grants to children attending P rlV
schools. The grants would be
where parents preferred segr e ^jj c
private schools to integrated P u
schools.
West Virginia ^
Mercer, Summers and ^
county school authorities quit s ^
of a court battle and agreed to ^
segregate their schools. This leu ° ^
six of the state’s 55 counties w ,
are not in the process of desegr
tion. The NAACP said court t^
were planned in the remaining