Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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