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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH 1956—PAGE II Study Group Urges Maryland County to Desegregate By Fall BALTIMORE, Md. HE FIRST OF A NUMBER of reports eX- I pected this spring from county- desegregation study groups was made public in February. It recommended to the Howard County Board of Edu cation that “all public schools in Howard County be declared officially desegregated at the opening of the fall term in 1956.” The board is preparing ) to act on the report by “early spring.” Howard County, lying southwest of Baltimore, is partly suburbanized but predominantly rural county with 4,466 white and 1,085 Negro pupils in its school system. The study committee, appointed by the board of education and made up of representatives of the parent- teacher groups in the county, based its recommendations on “a belief that freedom of choice will bring fewer t problems than will compulsory meth ods.” It urged that county schools be opened to both races on a priority basis with first choice reserved for those who attended a given school the previous year, second choice for those living in the general area of the school and succeeding choices at the discretion of school officials. (See “Under Survey.”) NAACP WANTS ACTION The legal redress committee of the Maryland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People resolved in February that “suits should be instituted in ( every Maryland county in which suit able and acceptable plans for inte grating public schools have not been put into effect by September, 1956,” One suit has already been filed against Harford County. Another, against St. Mary’s County, has been reported by the Baltimore Ajro- , American as being already drawn and awaiting final NAACP legal ap proval. In other developments reported I about the state: (1) Maryland’s most recently desegregated school, an ele mentary school established at Fort Meade by the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, opened in Feb ruary with 24 Negro children in a student body of approximately 270 and with one Negro teacher in a faculty of eight; (2) the Anne Arun del County Teachers Association moved a proposal to admit Negro members into position to be voted on at the annual meeting in May; and (3) Calvert County, which is the only county in Maryland with more Negro than white children, was reported as having its first joint meeting of white and Negro teachers in February. The Maryland General Assembly moved into the final days of its 1956 session, due to end March 1, without school segregation or integration be coming an issue. Representatives of the Maryland Petition Committee and Georgia (Continued from Page 10) Negroes in the community forced the decision after he made speeches ask- ln S colored people to “forget integra tion.” Lee, in a speech which was also published in the Fort Gaines weekly newspaper, cautioned Negroes that we have not yet learned how to pool °ur resources and build even a rec reation hall for our children.” Negroes of the community sub- mitted a petition to the board of edu cation calling for Lee’s resignation in the best interests of the Negroes. The Principal said he, his wife, also a eacher, and his family had been hreatened. Lee left the community shortly after resigning. LEGAL ACTION Atty. Gen. Cook issued an official Phiion that Negro students cannot a white school gymnasium one t a week because it would in- rng e on Georgia’s “social customs ^d traditions.” The opinion was requested by J. C. Sgins, Paulding County school George Washington Williams, who is running for the U. S. Senate on a segregationist platform, were report ed in Annapolis early in the session, seeking sponsors for bills that would provide state aid for students attend ing private schools and allow pupils to refuse to attend public schools which have children or teachers of another race. Neither bill was intro duced this year. Last year the same bills were introduced but did not come out of committee. The Howard County “citizens’ com mittee” that has recommended school desegregation in the coming fall was organized last July by the county board of education. Composed of 16 members, representing parent-teach er groups at 14 white and Negro schools and the white and Negro countywide PTA organizations, the committee held seven monthly meet ings and in February issued both a majority and a minority report. The county, lying southwest of Baltimore, has at present five Negro and 12 white schools. The Negroes represent approximately 20 per cent of the total school population. The county, while predominantly rural, has been undergoing suburban grow ing pains in recent years. Several of its schools are presently overcrowded. The pro-segregation Maryland Peti tion Committee has had some active members in the county since the Supreme Court’s 1954 school decision and immediately challenged the citi zens’ committee recommendations as “not truly representative” of county opinion. The majority report, issued with out names, recommended: “1) That all public schools in How ard County be declared officially de segregated at the opening of the fall term in 1956, and that this be imple mented as herein proposed. POLICY ALLOWS CHOICE “2) That a policy of attendance in the public school of individual choice, subject to the availability of facilities and to the approval of the Howard County Board of Education, be es tablished and announced publicly. “3) That primary rules of priority for the board to consider transfers be established. These are recommended: “a) First priority is given to stu dents who have attended the given school in the previous year. “b) Second priority is given to students living within the general area defined by the board for each school to serve. “c) Succeeding priorities will re quire the judgment of school authorities acting within the boundaries of sound practices superintendent, who said Negroes at Dallas wanted to borrow the white school gymnasium facilities, but “people are bitterly opposed to grant ing the colored people this privilege.” COMMUNITY ACTION A “Christian searching” for solu tions to problems of racial tension was characterized as the theme of a meeting of about 75 white and Negro ministers in Macon. Negroes at the meeting outnum bered whites nearly two to one but pastors of most of Macon’s largest white and Negro Protestant churches participated in the discussion. Negro ministers of the Evangelical Ministers Union attended at the invitation of the white Macon Ministerial Associa tion. The Rev. Reese Griffin of Bass Methodist Church (white) said he thought a good place for churches to start slowly applying integration principles would be in vacation Bible schools and women’s societies. The Rev. J. T. Saxon, Negro, said near the end of the meeting that “the things said here won’t amount to much until the white ministers can say the same things to their congre gations and stay in Macon.” and the best interests of the community. “4) That the progress in school con struction and staffing be maintained and improved where necessary to fill the needs of Howard County’s growth and that this program be planned to meet the needs of such school areas as they develop. “5) That bus route operations be desegregated to the same degree that individual schools are desegregated. Specifically, all children attending a given school would ride the buses serving that school if they so desire. STANDARDS TO BE KEPT “6) That scholasic standards be maintained or improved. “7) That school health standards be maintained or improved. “8) That requests for transfer, signed by a parent or guardian, be made each spring in sufficient time so that replies from the board of educa tion may be returned before the end of July of the same year. “9) That the board of education, after making its decisions on a plan of desegregation, announce its plan to the public outlining its policy, the responsibilities of individuals and the dates when specific action shall oc cur. This recommendation is believed by the committee to be of extreme importance. It is urged, too, that this be done as soon as it is possible to do so.” MINORITY REPORT The minority report recommended that desegregation be introduced one grade at a time, beginning with the first grade, and only after “a thorough study of racial problems and situa tions peculiar to Howard County.” The minority urged that the transfer choice be given only to those pupils with more than two years to com plete at their present school and that they present a certificate of health and take an entrance examination to determine their grade level. Bus de segregation would be left to the board of education’s discretion. County School Supt. John E. Ying- ling reports that the county board of education “expects to studv the re port of the 16-member citizens’ com mittee and make a decision on this important matter sometime in the early spring.” Paul D. Cooper, superintendent of schools in Worcester County, was asked on behalf of Southern School News to describe the preparations which a county school system such as his is making toward the transition to a non-segregated basis. Unlike the eight Maryland counties with rela tively small percentages of Negro pupils which have desegregated to some extent in the current school year, Worcester has a 37.5 per cent Negro enrollment in its schools and is in the study phase of Supreme Court compliance. The county is on the Eastern Shore, where the tradi tions of segregation are considered to be still firmly rooted, and it adjoins the southern end of Delaware, where resistance to school integration has been pronounced. Cooper responded with several documents and a chronology of events since the 1955 Supreme Court deci sion which serve as an illustration of what the study phase involves in at least one county. Included in the ma terial is a brief description of the size and shape of the problem in Wor cester. In addition to the fourth highest proportion of Negro school children among Maryland’s 23 coun ties, it is pointed out that: “The distribution of population throughout the county may also have a bearing on the problem. In many communities, the racial groups tend to segregate themselves by place of residence. Hence, if the children at tend the nearest school, they remain more or less segregated. In a rural community such as Worcester, this type of situation does not occur.” BUILDING PROBLEM Another problem is school build ings: “While in more recent years a very considerable effort has been made to provide all children in the county with adequate facilities, it is still true that many buildings hous ing Negro children appear to be less adequate than those housing white children. The worst situations have been eliminated, but the schools for white and Negro children in each community still present a marked contrast. “Then, with respect to high school facilities, all Negro children are transported from all sections of the county to one central school. Be cause of the larger white school population, it has been feasible to operate high schools for white child ren in each community. These condi tions may tend to increase the pres sure for integration.” One week following the Supreme Court’s decision of May 31, 1955, the Worcester County Board of Educa tion announced that it would “attempt to end the practice of racial segrega tion in the schools as soon as prac ticable.” The board said, however, that in view of the problems involved and the “lateness of the final decision of the court,” it did not believe it “to be feasible or practicable to attempt any integration of school children during the 1955-56 school year.” STUDY GROUP NAMED Instead of immedate desegregation, the board of education said that it would appoint “a countywide citizens advisory committee to study the problem and advise the board as to how it should proceed in the matter.” The board added, “Every effort will be made to plan an orderly program for desegregation to be carried out as rapidly as may be feasible.” The 30-member advisory group, one of the largest among county desegregation study groups in Mary land, was appointed on July 12. Its membership was worked out on a proportional representation basis, with 19 white and 11 Negro members representing 10 white and six Negro schools. The committee first met on July 21 and has met monthly since that time. Public presentations of the prob lem by school officials included a re view of the legal aspects of desegre gation, the positions taken by the state and county boards of education, the courses adopted in other Mary land counties and the problems pe culiar to Worcester County. Then, various possible approaches to deseg regation are outlined and discussed. One such approach is described as “planned integration,” whereby a policy of desegregating certain grades in certain years is established. The advantages, it is pointed out, are that integration would then be a gradual process and time would be allowed to provide needed facilities. The dis advantages cited are that this would force integration, rather than merely removing discriminatory restrictions, and would result in complete inte gration in a specific number of years —possibly so rapidly “that children of neither race could adjust to it.” Still another approach is the type adopted last summer in neighboring Queen Anne’s County, where the lo cal board announced that schools would continue to be operated on the same basis as in the past; that no child would be denied admission to any school because of race; that if a child wished to attend a school other than the one he was attending, he might register by a certain date, with the board reserving the right to deny ad mission if it was not administratively practical to admit the child due to overcrowded conditions or other valid reasons. The comment on this latter ap proach is; “Some feel that such a pol icy, while immediately complying with the law, makes it possible for the people of the community to make the change as they feel ready to do so. On the other hand, it could conceiv ably result in a rapid change.” The arguments for and against these approaches to desegregation are presented not as the beliefs of school officials but as what some people are saying on the one hand, and other people are saying on the other hand. The public presentations end up with the plea that citizens consider all ap proaches carefully, so that “we may find a solution fair and just to all.” Possibly because school officials are taking pains to air transition prob lems publicly in a quiet, orderly fashion and making known their readiness to listen to the suggestions of citizens groups, there has not been much organized resistance reported in Worcester County. The county weathered the uneasy period of school disturbances in nearby southern Del aware without any report of a con certed effort to join forces with the school boycotters. An Eastern Shore newspaper recently reported a peti tion circulating in the county in pro test against any move away from segregated schooling, but there was nothing to indicate that the petitioners had widespread support. The formerly separate white and Negro junior college curricula in the Montgomery County public school system will be combined in a single catalogue of courses to be offered jointly in the semester beginning next fall. Courses in auto mechanics, dry cleaning and pressing, cosmetology and building construction technology will be offered to both white and Negro students at Carver Junior Col lege, the formerly all-Negro school. Courses in secretarial science, medi cal technology, medical secretarial, electrical technology, general business management and engineering aide will be offered to white and Negro students at Montgomery Junior Col lege, the former all-white school. The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County has published a pampnlet reviewing desegregation developments to date in its county, both in the schools and in public recreation. Montgomery has more Negroes in formerly all-white schools than any of the other seven Maryland counties where some mixing has tak en place. The integration has taken place in the “down-county” Washing ton suburban areas where the num bers of Negroes are small. Desegre gation in the “up-county” rural half of the county, where the precentage of Negro children is much higher, is currently under discussion. The Maryland reporter for South ern School News in February at tended one of a number of public discussions on school integration be ing held in Montgomery County. This particular one, sponsored by the Unitarian Church of Montgomery County and held at Chevy Chase, drew an orderly, racially mixed au dience of both up- and down-county residents representing both pro- and anti-integration sentiments. The case for integration was given by George P. Guernsey, former chairman of the integration committee of the Mont gomery County Council of PTAs and assistant educational director of the A.F. of L.-C.I.O. Guernsey expressed confidence, on the basis of down- county experiences to date, that Montgomery could, and should, pro ceed toward complete desegregation. An opposing view was presented by O. W. Anderson, former president of the Montgomery County Farm Bu reau and the most prominent spokes man for the up-county area. While making plain his own dislike of mixed classes, Anderson, who said he was raised on a South Carolina plantation, indicated his acceptance of the fact that school integration was bound to come. His main point was that if it should come too fast, it would be met with resistance up-county. Asserting that complete integration would mean 50 per cent Negro enrollment in some up-county schools and an average of 30 per cent in all up-county schools, Anderson reiterated his position that desegregation should take place at one grade level at a time over a period of 12 years. As an alternative, he suggested that Negro children be as signed to schools throughout the county so that there would be no more than 10 per cent in any one school.