Newspaper Page Text
'
1
.
*
i
t
<
(
i
i
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH 1956—PAGE 7
action unless his client were rein
stated in the next two days.
“It is regrettable,” he said, “that
the University of Alabama would
submit to mob rule in excluding Miss
Lucy.” Miss Lucy said she still in
tended to attend the university, add
ing that the rioters Monday seemed
to have been largely outsiders.
Defending the Board of Trustees’
action, Dr. Carmichael told a faculty
meeting that Miss Lucy had twice
been within 20 seconds of “stark
tragedy” Monday. “I can think of
nothing worse,” Dr. Carmichael said,
“than a student being murdered on
this campus.”
The board had no choice but to
exclude Miss Lucy, he said, “lest
greater violence should follow.”
Not all faculty members agreed.
Asst. Political Science Professor
Charles D. Farris objected to Car
michael’s adjournment motion, say
ing, “I can see no reason why the
faculty should be compelled to agree
with the action of the Board of
Trustees.”
Farris offered a resolution asking
the faculty to condemn conditions of
“mob rule” at the school. The resolu
tion said the university could not con
tinue to operate under such conditions
with threats to faculty and students,
and asked for civil and military pro
tection for them. Otherwise, the uni
versity should suspend operations,
the resolution concluded.
After a voice vote on the resolution,
Dr. Carmichael ruled it tabled.
Other dissenting voices were heard
at the faculty meeting. Prof. Fred
Oeden asked “why police protection
had not been more adequate at this
time.” Art Prof. Lawrence Calcagno
said, “Our university has succumbed
to mob rule.”
However, about two-thirds of the
faculty members were reported in
supoort of the board’s stand.
The Alabama legislature passed a
resolution, introduced by Sen. Sam
Englehardt of Macon County, com
mending the action of the trustees.
FEBRUARY 8:
Jeff Bennett, assistant to President
Carmichael, officially reported to
Gov. Folsom that the Feb. 6 mob was
“trying to kill” Miss Lucy.
“They were screaming ‘Let’s kill
her,’ and were trying to open the
car doors,” Bennett reported. “In my
opinion those who were there to kill
her weren’t students.”
FEBRUARY 9:
Miss Lucy asked U. S. District
Judge Hobart Grooms to compel uni
versity authorities to allow her to
resume her studies.
She asked $1,000 damages for the
university’s refusal to provide room
and board and an additional $2,000
for her exclusion from the university
after the Feb, 6 riots. In addition, she
asked the court to imprison the presi
dent and the board of trustees “for
a period to be determined by the
court” or until she is permitted to
return to classes.
ACCUSES OFFICIALS
She charged further that her ex
clusion was not necessary, that police
protection “is available and ade
quate,” and that she had been sus
pended to “appease persons having
n ° connection with the university
• • . who wish to defy and prevent
the enforcement of the order of this
court.”
Calling her exclusion a “cunning
strategem,” she accused the univer
sity of “intentionally” permitting the
demonstration to create an atmos
phere of mob rule.
It was revealed that the university
ad issued a plea for the National
uard at the height of the demonstra-
ons Feb. 6. Gov. Folsom had replied
hat troops would not be called out
ut that the “state stands ready at
1 tunes to meet any situation proper-
?' Folsom also added: “It is normal
°r all races not be be overly fond of
a „ other . . . We are not excited.”
of Atty. Shores in
suit demanding the
. Polly Ann Myers
u dson was dropped.
F&8RUARY 10:
bvlvr ^ arm i c hael said the allegations
tiesk k uc y that university authori
ty cons pired to create mob ac-
* Wer e “untrue, unwarranted and
utr ageous.”
yn the consent
Birmingham, the
Admission of Mrs
‘Basic Support’
—Birmingham News
From the time of “the completely
unanticipated demonstration on Fri
day until Tuesday morning,” Car
michael said, “officials of the univer
sity were in constant meeting, plan
ning and carrying out plans to meet
the critical condition.”
Dr. Carmichael told newsmen that
Miss Lucy’s return depended on the
action of the court, but that she was
still enrolled as a student. If the court
orders her return, he said, “I have
reason to believe that local and state
authorities will provide protection to
all members of the university com
munity if needed.”
Gov. Folsom, taking a strong stand
against mob action, said in Montgom
ery “I will use every power at my
command to prevent mob rule from
running any branch of the state gov
ernment and let me specify any
branch.”
A giant White Citizens Council
rally in the State Agriculture Coli
seum in Montgomery drew 10,000
shouting, cheering, flag-waving
people. Sen. James O. Eastland of
Mississippi, in an apparent reference
to the university situation, said he
knew “you good people of Alabama
don’t intend to let the NAACP run
your schools.”
•
FEBRUARY 13:
Attorneys for the University of
Alabama announced that the univer
sity would appeal to the U. S. Su
preme Court the order opening the
school’s doors to Negroes.
Gov. Folsom accused the NAACP
and “professional outside agitators”
of hindering efforts to quell the dis
turbances at the university Feb. 6
and the days preceding. He said:
“If the professional agitators had
been interested only in entering a
student at the University of Alabama
. . . then they would not have come
with their own cameramen and
newsmen. They would not have made
such an exception out of that stu
dent’s routine activities . . . The pro
fessional agitators are the worst
enemies the Negro people have . . .”
Mrs. Ruby Hurley, regional secre
tary of the NAACP, said in Birming
ham, “The governor has been
misinformed. The NAACP did not
have newsmen and cameramen on the
University of Alabama campus.”
•
FEBRUARY 14:
Petitions circulated on the univer
sity campus urging the university to
readmit Miss Lucy were reported to
have 200 signers.
•
FEBRUARY 15:
Two Negro brothers, who told of
ficers they attacked a university
freshman “to get even with somebody
for the way they treated Miss Lucy,”
were charged with assault with intent
to murder. The warrant was sworn
out by Samuel Perrin Taylor who said
he was beaten and kicked by the two
Negroes, Arthur Washington and his
brother John, both in their 20s.
•
FEBRUARY 16:
Dr. Carmichael told a compulsory
convocation of university students
and faculty members that the issue
is “not segregation versus integration,
but law and order versus anarchy.”
Defending the action of the board in
excluding Miss Lucy after the Feb. 6
demonstrations, Dr. Carmichael said
reason for the action was her protec
tion and the protection of other stu
dents and faculty members.
Louisville Board Gives Its Approval
To Elementary School Desegregation
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
he Louisville Board of Education
approved the elementary-school
desegregation plan submitted to it
last month (see February SSN), and
began consideration of a newly-sub
mitted plan for its 13 junior high
schools.
Both would begin this fall, as
would an incompleted one for senior
high schools, and both include a free-
choice provision permitting pupils
to transfer to other schools if they
prefer to be in one predominantly of
their own race — space permitting.
(See “School Boards and School
Men.”)
Several additional Kentucky dis
tricts moved toward desegregation
by plan or action, and Lexington,
which had barred press interviews of
children or teachers since desegre
gating its schools last fall, reported
“not one problem” had come to the
city superintendent’s desk. (See
“School Boards and School Men.”)
The University of Louisville stu
dent council of 60 members unani
mously voted praise for the Univer
sity of Alabama student senate’s ac
tion condemning violence. It also got
university authorities to request the
opening of YMCA and YWCA swim
ming pools, used by U. of L. swim
ming classes, to Negro students. (See
“In the Colleges.”)
After voting praise for the Uni
versity of Alabama student senate’s
condemnation of violence, the Uni
versity of Louisville student council
declared its opposition to university
use or lease of facilities whose own
ers exclude any student from the fa
cilities because of his race, creed,
or color.
The council, consisting of some 60
students representing every division
of the university, urged the univer
sity to “use all the power at its com
mand to encourage the YWCA and
the YMCA to allow all students of
the university to use facilities where
the university leases these ... to
further the curriculum of the uni
versity.”
Dr. Philip Davidson, U. of L. presi
dent, said on Feb. 21 that the univer
sity has asked the two organizations
to permit Negro students to use the
pools. He added that “no force or
undue pressure” would be exerted
by the university to have the “Y”
policy reversed.
The Hazard Board of Education on
Feb. 23 announced the first step in
a five-year plan to desegregate all
schools in its city system: high school
integration this fall, accompanied by
the closing of Liberty High, the only
Negro high school in Perry Comity.
‘Dangerous Place for
Candidates’
—Louisville Times
An estimated two-thirds of Lib
erty’s 50 students are county resi
dents. But a county school board
spokesman reported no decision yet
on an integration program to absorb
Negro high school pupils living in
the county. Hazard’s current per
centage of Negro school-age chil
dren (total) is 10.8, Perry County’s
1.5.
All city high school pupils, Supt.
Roy G. Eversole said, would attend
Hazard High School this fall. A Ne
gro elementary school will be main
tained, but Negro pupils will be giv
en a year-by-year choice of trans
ferring to white schools in their dis
tricts under this schedule: 1957, first-
grade pupils; 1958, third grade; 1959,
fifth grade, and 1960, seventh and
eighth grades, with all forced segre
gation ending that year.
NO PROBLEMS
Lexington City School Supt. John
Ridgway on Feb. 16 reported that
“not one problem has come to my
desk since the opening of school con
cerning any local child involved in
the desegregation process.” The free-
choice desegregation effected last fall
resulted in only 21 of 2,632 Negro
pupils (31.8 per cent of the total)
transferring to formerly all-white
schools.
Subsequently, Ridgway said in his
annual progress report to the Lex
ington Education Association, “we
refused both the local press and the
Negro press of Louisville permission
to interview children or teachers.
“When requested, we explained
things were going so well and we
wanted to treat the situation as just
a change in enrollment policies. The
press concurred and did not insist.”
Kentucky’s capital city, Frankfort,
had its first public school integration
on Jan. 30 when 23 Negroes joined
woodworking classes at Frankfort
High School. The transfer was made
after their teacher at Mayo-Under
wood High had resigned. “No inci
dent whatever,” Frankfort High
principal F. D. Wilkinson reported
after the change.
At Bowling Green (Negro school-
age population: 15.1 per cent) the
city board of education on Feb. 14
took under advisement a recommen
dation of its 15-member advisory
committee that school segregation
end this fall.
Louisville’s Board of Education on
Feb. 6 approved a previously an
nounced plan (see February SSN)
for the re-districting “without regard
to race” of its 56 elementary schools
and took under consideration a sim
ilar plan for its 13 junior high
schools. The senior high plan has not
yet been detailed, but the announced
goal is kindergarten-through-12th
grade desegregation this fall.
The junior high plan would make
only one institution close to 50-50 in
racial ratio. One would have 771
whites and six Negroes, another
would have 374 whites and 618 Ne
groes, etc.—and one would remain
all white on the basis of attendancy-
by-resident. None would remain all-
Negro. But under the flexible trans
fer provision previously approved
by the board, pupils may transfer to
other schools, space permitting, if
they prefer to be in one predomin
antly of their own race.
A lecturer at Louisville Presby
terian Seminary blamed the tense
racial situation in South Africa and
“in the southern United States” for
what he termed “growing agitation
against the white man” in Africa. He
was the Rev. Ralph Galloway, a mis
sionary to the French Cameroons,
who spoke on Jan. 25.
The missionary, “whose first duty
is to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ,” is doing what he can to com
bat Communist propaganda, Gallo
way said, “but many times what we
do and say is compromised by what
is being done in the southern United
States and elsewhere.”
Speaking to a mixed audience in
Louisville on Feb. 21, the executive
director of the National Urban
League, Lester B. Granger, deplored
“hysteria” on the part of either foes
or friends of racial integration. He
said “integrity and objectivity” must
be the approach in this “period, of
crisis in American racial affairs.”
The Negro’s greatest need “during
these important years of integration,”
a white Episcopal clergyman said at
a Brotherhood Week program at
Louisville’s Central High School on
Feb. 20, “is for forgiveness and un
derstanding—the man who has en
mity in his heart is worse off than
the man who has enemies.”
The speaker was the Rev. Alvin
L. Kershaw, rector of Holy Trinity
Church in Oxford, Ohio, who was
“dis-invited” to speak at the Univer
sity of Mississippi during Religious
Emphasis Week after he told uni
versity officials that he is a member
of the NAACP and would discuss
segregation if the question were
raised.
“... This was the sole reason what
ever the critics may say ... It was
clear to those closest to the scene that
a student’s life may have been in
serious jeopardy if she had returned
to the campus the next day.”
a
FEBRUARY 17:
Arthur Shores, Miss Lucy’s attor
ney, called President Carmichael’s
statement to students the previous
day “splendid.”
The Tuscaloosa Council on Human
Relations, noting that the university
demonstrations and the beating of the
white student by Negroes had “stirred
emotions in our community in an
unprecedented way,” called for calm
ness by members of both races.
A crowd of some 2,000 attended a
West Alabama Citizens Council rally
in the Tuscaloosa courthouse. Leon
ard Wilson, the university student
who figured in the campus demon
strations Feb. 3-4, disagreed with
President Carmichael’s convocation
statement that “segregation is not the
issue, but law vs. anarchy.”
“Segregation is the issue,” said
Wilson, temporary chairman of the
Tuscaloosa group. In unusually mili
tant speeches, leaders vowed opposi
tion to all integration.
It was the temper of this meeting,
coupled with the Feb. 6 incidents,
which aroused fears as to what might
happen when Miss Lucy returns to
classes.
•
FEBRUARY 21:
Albert Horn, a law school senior
from Tuscaloosa and one of the
sponsors of a petition urging the
board of trustees to readmit Miss Lucy
without being ordered to—said re
sponse to the petition had been
“somewhat disappointing.” However,
he said he expects 500 signers in all.
•
FEBRUARY 22:
Dean of Admissions William F.
Adams, principal defendant in the
long court action which ended with
Miss Lucy’s admission to the univer
sity, told a New York Times reporter
that he does not believe Miss Lucy
had a real interest in gaining an
education.
“She never came here as an in
dividual,” Dean Adams said. “It was
always at the head of a delegation.
No other student does that.”
•
FEBRUARY 27:
State Rep. W. L. (Doc) Martin of
Greene County warned that if Ala
bama whites continue to “give and be
compromised” on the race issue, “we
will have but three choices to make—
sell our homes and get out of Ala
bama, be humiliated or take up our
shotguns.”
Martin made the statement in sup
port of a resolution he had introduced
to the legislative interim committee
on education, requesting Dr. Car
michael to furnish the committee the
names and addresses of all students
who signed a petition urging the re
admission of Miss Lucy.
“Let’s find out who these students
are who want to go to school with
Negroes, and let’s let them go . . .
it is time to let the people know that
white supremacy is going to stand in
Alabama.”