Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—JULY 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Florida’s First Admission
Action Is Filed in Miami
Surprise Suit Set Against
Desegregating W. Va. Area
MIAMI, Fla,
r J^HE first sun for admission of Negro
A students to white elementary schools
in Florida was filed in the Federal Dis
trict Court at Miami.
The action came at a time of increas
ing racial tension. Several incidents oc
curred during the month (see “Miscel
laneous”) which brought official expres
sions of alarm.
Legislators prepared for a special
session to enact segregation laws, possi
bly in July. The attorney general at
tacked the Supreme Court for “abso
lutism” and called for a four-point legis
lative program. (See “Legislative
Action.”)
Florida’s first suit for admission of
Negro children to white public schools
was filed in the Federal District Court
in Miami.
Brought by six Negro parents against
the Dade County school board, the suit
pointed out that a petition asking that
segregation be abolished was filed Sept.
7, 1955. Since that time, the suit said,
“the Board of Public Instruction has re
fused to desegregate the schools as soon
as was practicable.”
The petitioners asked an interlocutory
injunction “prohibiting the school board
from violating the 14th Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States.”
They also asked that a three-judge
court grant a “speedy hearing and enter
a declaratory decree that the segrega
tion of the infant plaintiffs, because of
race, violates the 14th Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States.”
The school board should be required
“to promptly present a plan of desegre
gation which will expeditiously desegre
gate” the schools of Dade County, the
suit said.
BOARD SURPRISED
School board officials said the suit
came as a “complete surprise.”
Dr. Joe Hall, associate school super
intendent, who was nominated as super
intendent in the recent Democratic
primary, said the board has been making
a study of the situation since the peti
tions were filed last September.
The suit was filed under the auspices
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People. Thurgood
Marshall, general counsel for the NA-
ACP, appears as one of the attorneys
of record.
There was no immediate date set for
a hearing. Attorneys for both sides an
ticipated lengthy litigation.
Thomas D. Bailey, state superinten
dent of education, informed of the suit,
declared that the NAACP was “en
dangering public education by its ag
gressive action to end segregation.” He
criticized NAACP leaders for “haughty
and dictatorial statements.”
CALLED ‘PREMATURE’
Bailey called the suit “premature” and
said the NAACP tactics antagonize lib
erals and moderates and force them into
the camp of the extremists.
Thurgood Marshall said that the suit
was filed “because Dade County is ready
for integration.” “There is no rhyme or
reason why the schooLs in Miami should
be segregated,” he said.
The battle of Virgil Hawkins, Daytona
Beach Negro, for admission to the Uni
versity of Florida, entered a new round
in June.
Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin filed a
brief with the Florida Supreme Court
calling for an indefinite stay of the order
requiring UF to accept Hawkins as a
law student. This brief outlines the shift
ing policy of Florida officials toward
maintaining segregation by legal means.
Both the Florida and the U. S. su
preme courts have ruled there are no
legal grounds to bar Hawkins.
Ervin argued that Hawkins’ immedi
ate acceptance “would lead to violence,
public mischief and a disruption of the
state’s system of higher education.” The
attorney general said racial relations
were 'deteriorating and cited recent in
stances or threats of violence at Delray
Beach (see “Miscellaneous”), a bus boy
cott at Tallahassee and a threatened bus
boycott in Miami.
ERVIN’S CONTENTION
“Courts of equity may properly take
into account the public interest in the
elimination of such obstacles in a sys
tematic and effective manner,” he said.
“The supreme court of Florida repre
sents the majesty of the state and may,
in its discretion, implement the rights
1 d powers of the state where the pub
lic welfare, including good order and
education, is involved.
“There is no conflict between federal
and state Taws, since Congress has not
enacted any legislation on the subject of
state school segregation and the only ap
parent conflict is between the sociologi
cal theories of the U. S. Supreme Court
and the inherent powers of the state of
Florida under the 10th Amendment of
the federal constitution to safeguard the
peace and welfare of its people through
the administrative process provided by
the state constitutional and legislative
provisions, and through the application
of equitable principles in the public in
terest by the supreme judicial body of
this state.”
Coincident with the appeal for delay,
Hawkins asked for a prompt final ruling.
Through his attorney, Hawkins asked
to be accepted by the University of Flor
ida “as immediately as admission is
available to any other first-year quali
fied student.”
In other court action, a Leon County
jury awarded State Rep. Prentice Pruitt
a $15,000 damage verdict in his suit for
libel against Dr. Von D. Mizell, a Fort
Lauderdale Negro physician. The suit
grew out of a statement made by Mizell
during discussion of segregation bills
introduced by Pruitt at the last session
of the legislature.
Mizell notified the court that he will
not appeal the verdict.
Gov. LeRoy Collins announced he is
ready to call an extra session of the
legislature to consider segregation as
soon as his special commission, appointed
to develop a program to maintain
separate schools, makes its report.
There were indications in Tallahassee
that the report will be made in time for
a session in July.
The commission, which includes con
stitutional attorneys and leaders of the
legal profession, has indicated it will
recommend revision and strengthening
of the state’s pupil assignment law. The
group has been studying legislation
adopted in North Carolina, which is
much stronger than Florida’s statute. It
includes a maze of appeal procedures
designed to keep the cases in court.
4-POINT PROGRAM
Atty. Gen. Ervin, who has been mak
ing frequent speeches throughout the
state, proposed a four-point legislative
program. This includes:
1) Extension of the 1955 assignment
law to provide additional procedures and
other devices for delay at the elemen
tary, secondary and college levels.
2) An interposition resolution de
signed to maintain, if possible, the state’s
power of local regulation under the 10th
Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.
3) Laws conferring on the governor
additional powers to take “emergency
preventive action to avoid public dis
order and breaches of the peace arising
out of racial conflict or imminence of
the same as the result of attempts to
implement desegregation decisions of the
federal courts.”
4) A system for calling referendums
in any county or district on the ques
tion of abolishing any public facility or
service as a protection against enforced
integration.
State Supt. Bailey said tests given
senior high school students on which
admission to state universities is based,
showed this year that “there was no
Negro student who scored up to the level
of the top 20 per cent of white students.”
“Only one per cent of the Negro stu
dents scored as well as the top 30 per
cent of the white students on most of
the tests, while only two per cent of the
Negro students scored as well as the top
48 per cent of the white students,” he
said.
If the present admission policies for
the [white] universities adopted by the
board of control were to be used at
Florida A. & M. University [for Negroes]
next year, based on this year’s scores of
seniors in Negro schools, it would seem
that only five per cent of all who took
the tests would be eligible to enter that
university.”
TEACHERS CHALLENGED
Speaking at a conference of Negro
public school principals at Daytona
Beach, Bailey said “there might be some
reason for this situation existing in the
past, but I submit you are challenged to
require a higher degree of performance
in the future. Excellent school facilities
are being provided with improved ma
terial as tools with which to work.
“Standards of Negro teachers have
been improved to the point where edu
cational qualifications, on a percentage
basis, are almost equal.
“There seems to be no reasonable ex
cuse for a continuation of this lag be
tween the achievement of students of
the two races,” Bailey said.
DADE COUNTY TESTS
The Dade County school board re
leased the result of a study of eighth
grade pupils. It said white children
were ahead of the national average in
reading and about average in arithmetic.
Negro students were about two years be
hind in both.
Results of sixth grade tests, announced
earlier, showed somewhat similar results.
The school administration blamed eco
nomic conditions for the difference in
the ratings. They pointed out that stand
ards for teachers are the same for both
races and that facilities generally are
equal.
Dr. Richard V. Moore, president of
Bethune-Cookman College, at Daytona
Beach, said the tests were “not realistic.”
“White children are tested at least
three times yearly, while Negro chil
dren are tested only once,” he said. Dr.
Moore said the Negro children were “not
test-ready.”
County school superintendents, hold
ing their annual session at Gainesville,
excluded representatives of the press
from a discussion of segregation.
Ed Henderson, executive secretary of
the Florida Education Association, was
reported by the Tampa Tribune to have
warned the county officials that public
schools might suffer from the increasing
tension.
After the session, Henderson said, “In
the face of problems facing Florida at
the present time, we hope the people
will continue to be careful in the moves
they make so as not to destroy the public
school program. “A study commission
has been appointed by the governor and
I hope they can make recommendations
which the people can accept and which
will stand in law.”
Many voices were raised in Florida
as conflicts and tensions increased over
the racial issue.
Atty. Gen. Ervin, whose arguments for
“gradualism” before the U .S. Supreme
Court helped form the policy of proceed
ing “with all deliberate speed,” attacked
the high court for its “strait-jacket
absolutism.”
Ervin asked Negroes to “cooperate in
a realistic adjustment to immutable facts
of life despite the innovation of an arti
ficial judicial fiat.”
COURT ‘COLOR-BLIND’
The U. S. Supreme Court, Ervin said,
“has become absolutely color-blind in
considering segregation cases. Its de
cisions oversimplified a many-sided and
and varied problem in the South and in
effect ignored considerations of degree
and long-recognized state customs and
regulations. As a result the South and
the nation are now oaught in the net of
an unrealistic judicial dilemma.”
Another Florida official who made a
target of the U. S. Supreme Court was
Sen. George A. Smathers.
“The present Supreme Court imagines
itself a super-legislature, and even
though its function is not to make policy
or enact laws, it is nonetheless so doing,”
he said in a commencement address at
Bolles Military Academy, Jacksonville.
“The court today has turned its back
on precedent and has departed from
those constitutional and historic limita
tions recognized by previous courts.”
A state-wide Citizens Council was
formed at a meeting of representatives
of 11 counties in Tallahassee. All were
from North and Central sections of the
state.
Dr. W. H. Petty, Pensacola, was named
temporary president.
Sam Peacock, president of the Brooks-
ville Chamber of Commerce, was the
principal speaker. He said the entire
South should organize to present a
united front in resisting integration.
Attempts to mix schools, Peacock said,
“would lead to violence not seen since
the Civil War.”
KKK UPS ACTIVITIES
The Ku Klux Klan also stepped up its
activity, holding a public initiation in
Jacksonville. About 150 men and women
were taken into the organization, while
CHARLESTON, W.Va.
'J'he filing of a surprise suit by the
National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People against
the Cabell County Board of Education
and the completion of integration in the
state’s industrial schools were the high
lights during June in West Virginia.
The NAACP was thought to be
reasonably pleased with the progress of
integration in Cabell, which touches on
the borders of both Ohio and Kentucky,
and this correspondent had so report
ed to Southern School News last month.
But suddenly a suit was entered June
8 in the U. S. district court in Charles
ton which named the board as a cor
poration, its five members as individuals
and Supt. Olin C. Nutter. President T.
G. Nutter of the NAACP state chapter
said the suit was being brought because
“Cabell County is making no real ef
fort to desegregate its schools.”
Willard L. Brown, NAACP’s legal ad
visor, said it was the sixth suit against
West Virginia counties, and added:
“Furthermore, we may take further
action in two counties already sued and
where the court has ordered them to
integrate.”
Without naming the counties he add
ed, “We feel the two counties are dis
obeying the court’s orders as shown by
the fact that they’ve ordered Negro
teachers to the same segregated schools
for the 1956-57 term.” The counties
where suits were settled by agreement
were Greenbrier, Mercer, Raleigh, Mc
Dowell and Logan.
‘ONLY HANDFUL’
Brown said only a “handful of Negro
students attended white schools in Cab
ell County during the last term. We now
find they have no intention to keep their
promise made last year to integrate.
They have not had a mixed faculty ap
pointment to any school in the county.”
This statement conflicted with an
earlier declaration by Supt. Nutter
which said all but the fourth, fifth and
sixth grades in McKinney and Barnett
districts will be desegregated next Sep
tember. The first, second, seventh and
eighth grades were desegregated in
1954, making Cabell one of the first
counties in the state to take action. The
remainder of Cabell’s grades were to
follow with the fall term of 1957.
Another question of what to do with
a Negro teacher arose in Mason County,
which adjoins Cabell. Out of a total of
5,833 students there are only 24 Negroes
and “all who wish” have been integrated
to date according to Supt. C. H. Withers.
Complete integration is being held up
a year, he said, because the county’s
one Negro teacher—who has taught 34
years—has requested “that she be per
mitted to teach her last year before
retirement in her little one room school
of colored children.
“After next year,” Withers added,
“this school is expected to be discon
tinued.”
He also told Southern School News
that in classes where integration has
been accomplished the pupils are mixing
fairly well “although it hardly can be
said they are ‘chumming’ with each
other.” He reported some degree of
“strangeness” at the start. “Our schools,”
Withers summarized, “are all opened to
colored children who wish to attend
provided they live in the vicinity. Like
wise any white pupil may attend the one
room school taught by the colored
teacher on the same conditions.” He
delgations from Tallahassee and Orlando
observed proceedings.
The press was invited. Candidates
were required to answer a series of
questions, one of which was:
“Are you a native-born, white Gen
tile?”
Each candidate was required to take
an oath to uphold white supremacy.
The Board of Managers of the Florida
Congress of Parents and Teachers, meet
ing in Tallahassee, recommended “modi
fication” of the state’s segregation laws,
“if the recent decisions of the U. S. Su
preme Court relating to integration are
allowed to prevail.”
Avoiding specifics, the PTA group said
the Supreme Court rulings render obso
lete the state laws, including a constitu
tional ban on mixed schools.
admitted there were still some objec
tors to integration in Mason County
and that they were influential.
In Ohio County the school board
announced during May the closing of
the last Negro grade and high school.
Facing uncertain futures were 14 teach
ers and Principal Phillip Reed, a veteran
Negro educator. On June 19 Reed was
transferred to the board’s administrative
office. The teachers, who hold continu
ing contracts and are eligible for reas
signment in the county system, have
not been placed, Board President Rob
ert C. Hazlett said.
A similar problem exists in Kanawha
County, largest of the state’s 55 counties
and seat of the state government. Gar
net high school, the county’s only Negro
high, is being converted into a technical
school this September for all students
who can qualify. Two hundred and
seventy Garnet students will be distrib
uted among the county’s other schools
but there will be some difficulty placing
about 20 teachers.
These include Garnet’s two coaches—
Jim Jarrett and Marvin Richardson—•
who will have to be given teaching as
signments and then wait for develop
ments in the county’s coaching ranks.
There will be no athletic program at
the new technical high school, which by
no stretch of the imagination will be a
“trade school.” It is to be a fully aca
demic institution, with emphasis on
math and technical subjects that will
prepare students for careers in engi
neering and other industrial fields, ac
cording to L. K. Lovenstein, Kanawha’s
new superintendent of schools.
In fact, the number of prospective stu
dents was so low at one time that coun
ty officials considered keeping the for
mer Garnet building closed. Since then
more than 100 applicants for the tenth
grade have registered and many more
are expected by next fall. Now the
board has decided to open as sched
uled in September.
Clearing the way for immediate racial
integration of state industrial schools
for boys was accomplished June 14 with
the dedication of the state’s first forestry
camp for youthful law violators at
Blackwater Falls, near Davis.
Among the 30 youths already attend
ing the camp were 12 Negroes trans
ferred from the Industrial School for
Colored Boys at Lakin. Seventeen oth
ers from Lakin have been transferred
to the Industrial School for Boys at
Prunytown, heretofore an all-white in
stitution.
The Industrial School for Colored
Girls will be moved from Huntington
to the Lakin property.
PARK WORK
At Blackwater Falls the youths, who
eventually will total 125, will work on
projects in a state park under the su
pervision of the conservation depart
ment’s parks division. Both officials of
that department and the State Board of
Control participated in the brief dedi
cation ceremonies at the camp which ii
aimed at improving the rehabilitation
chances of young first offenders.
Ellsworth H. Harpole, superintended
of the Lakin school, called the integra
tion a “reverse” of an action taken in
1923 which segregated industrial school 1
in the state.
The colored girls who will replace thf
colored boys at Lakin will be integrated
into the West Virginia State Girls In
dustrial School at Salem as room be
comes available.
Only major comment during Juri
came from Gov. William C. Marland
who recently won the Democratic nom
ination for U. S. Senate to succeed tb
late Harley Kilgore, himself an actiV
integrationist.
Marland, who with State Superin
tendent of Schools W. W. Trent, ws
among the first to applaud the 1954 Su,
preme Court ruling, said he did n<
expect the segregation issue to corn
before the annual conference of soutl
em governors when the group meets i
White Sulphur Springs in September.