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Objective
VOL. Ill, NO. 2
NASHVILLE, TENN.
$2 PER YEAR
AUGUST, 1956
Key Decisions, New Laws
95 Law Suits
On Schools
Get in Court
Come 95 law suits bearing directly on
^ the segregation-desegregation issue
or growing out of it have been handled
by state and federal courts since May
17, 1954.
In addition to the five cases decided
by the U. S. Supreme Court on that
date, some 65 others have sought to end
segregation in the public schools of the
17 states which traditionally have sep
arated pupils by race. Twenty-eight of
these have been filed since the begin
ning of 1956. Every state in the region
has been the scene of at' least one such
action except Mississippi.
Besides suits specifically requesting
the end of segregation practices, legal
actions in the region have included six
cases involving teacher tenure or pay
equalization claims, six involving the
issuance of bonds approved prior to
May, 1954 and scheduled for sale since;
six aimed at halting desegregation or
disbursements to desegregated schools;
three involving parents who have de
clined to send their children either to
segregated or to integrated schools;
three involving the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People either as a plaintiff or as de
fendant; two involving libel; and six
miscellaneous cases ranging from issues
concerning handling of school funds to
the interference with the desegregation
process.
DIRECT ISSUE USUALLY
In most of these cases the question of
segregated public schools was directly
at issue, though in a few of them the
segregation-desegregation controversy
was not specifically raised. Examples of
this type of case are found in Virginia
where state officials sought to test in
court the question of use of state funds
for private schooling and in Arkansas
where pro-segregationists sought to
reverse school desegregation at Hoxie
by charging financial and administra
tion irregularities on the part of the
school board.
In the litigations directly seeking de
segregation of the schools which have
thus far resulted in court decisions, all
lf Ve k een decided in conformity with
the principles of non-segregation laid
down by the U. S. Supreme Court. Both
state and lower federal courts have
©en consistent in adhering to this prin-
ciple, though the extent to which it has
been implemented has depended on the
attitude of the area in which the action
as been broueht and on the proportion
of Negro population.
State school segregation laws have
been ruled unconstitutional by state
and/or lower federal courts in Arkan
sas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina,
Tennessee and Texas.
results of actions
Actual mixing of the races in the
classroms has resulted from only 12 of
ese cases and announcements of in-
ent to comply with the court orders
Act-, 6 keen made in six others.
,®1 desegregation in response to
specific court action, other than in
ansas, the District of Columbia and to
a united extent in Delaware, has been
untight about in Adair County,
y '> one school in Cecil County, Md.;
Index
State
Alabama
Arkansas
“flaware
Elo^d*^ ^' 0 * um k’ a • • ■ ■
£«>rsia ’
Kentucky ,
ifuisiana ...
Maryland
J«ssissippi
Missouri
^••‘h Carolina':;;;;;;:;:
k, ahoma ...
~ 0uf h Carolina
ennessee
f ex as
yjr?mi a
est Virginia
Page
... 4
... 3
... 9
... 5
...10
... 5
... 3
...11
... 6
... 7
... 8
...16
...15
... 9
...13
...14
...12
... 2
Smothered!
Kirkwood, Mo.; the University of North
Carolina; North Texas State College at
Denton; the Texas Western Branch of
the University of Texas at El Paso;
Greenbrier County, W. Va.; and Ra
leigh County, W. Va.
In this category also is the case of the
University of Alabama which admitted
Autherine Lucy to classes for several
days last winter.
Announcements of intention to com
ply with court orders to end segrega
tion have resulted from cases brought
against school authorities in one and
possibly two Delaware school districts,
in Harford County, Md., at Memphis
State College, Memphis, Temi.; Texar
kana Junior College, Texarkana, Texas;
Mercer County, W. Va.; McDowell
County, W. Va.; and Logan County,
W. Va.
EFFECTS EXTENDED
However, the effect* of litigation in
forcing desegregation cannot be meas
ured only in terms of the school districts
involved. For example, the case which
gained admittance for three Negro un
dergraduates to the University of North
Carolina also has brought about the ad
mittance of two more undergraduates
for summer classes at the N. C. State
College at Raleigh, part of the univer
sity system, and the acceptance of a
third for the regular fall session. Sim
ilarly, the Greenbrier County case in
West Virginia led to the announcement
of fall desegregation plans in Summers
County prior to the filing of court ac
tion in that county. And the decision of
the Texas Supreme Court in the Big
Spring case, holding state funds could
be paid to desegregated school districts,
was followed by the lowering of racial
barriers in several west and south
Texas districts.
The major example of the broad effect
of a court ruling is seen in the five
original segregation cases decided May
17, 1954 which led to desegregation in
the District of Columbia, Delaware and
Kansas, states directly involved, as well
as in Missouri, West Virginia, Kentucky,
Maryland, Arizona and New Mexico,
states in which the Supreme Court de
cisions were officially interpreted as in
validating state school segregation
laws.
Since May 31, 1955 when the “imple
menting” decision of the court was
handed down in the five original cases,
four other cases have been reviewed by
the court and ruled upon in conformity
with the original decisions. Two more
school segregation cases have been de
nied review.
TRENDS ESTABLISHED
During the two years since the orig
inal decision in Brown v. the Board of
Education of Topeka, Kan., some inter
esting judicial trends have been estab
lished. One of the first was set by Fed
eral Judge John J. Parker in the re
manded South Carolina case of Briggs
v. Elliott in which he sought to define
“exactly what the Supreme Court has
decided and what it has not decided in
this case.” While adhering to the broad
constitutional principle of non-segrega
tion, the statutory court for which
Judge Parker was speaking said: “It
(the U. S. Supreme Court) has not de
cided that the states must mix persons
of different races in the schools or must
require them to attend schools or must
deprive them of the right of choosing
the schools they attend... The Consti
tution, in other words, does not require
integration. It merely forbids discrimi
nation. It does not forbid such segrega
tion as occurs as the result of voluntary
action.”
While saying that the Summerton
District of Clarendon County, S. C.
must end segregation, the court set no
time limit. A closely similar decision
was rendered in the remanded case of
Davis v. Prince Edward County in Vir
ginia a few days earlier.
Perhaps with this as precedent, fed
eral and state courts in the Deep South
and in areas with heavy Negro popula
tions have likewise ruled consistently
that segregation must be ended, but set
no time limits until last month. Such
decisions were rendered in Bell v. Flip
py at Dallas, Texas, now up for hearing
on its merits, Abernathy et al v. Izard
et al and Matthews et al v. Bearden
School District in Van Buren and Ou
achita counties in Arkansas; Bush v.
Orleans Parish School Board in Louisi
ana; Avery et al v. Randel et al in
Wichita Falls, Texas.
VIRGINIA DEPARTURE
The first departure from this trend in
a strongly resisting area came July 12
when Federal Judge John Paul in the
Charlottesville, Va. case ruled that de
segregation must be commenced next
fall. He noted particularly the specific
policy of delay under which the state
has been operating.
Meanwhile, in the border and mid-
South states decisions of courts usually
have set time limits for compliance,
such as Willis v. Walker in Adair Coun
ty, Ky.; Dunn v. Greenbrier County in
West Virginia; McSwain et al v. County
Board of Education in Anderson Coun
ty, Tenn.
This allowance for time to work out
desegregation problems has not applied
(See COURT CASES, Page 2)
Addenda
One section—the “K’s”—was inad
vertently omitted from the Index to
Volume II of Southern School News
which appeared in the July isue. The
missing section will be found on Page 2
of this issue. It may be clipped out and
pasted on the Index for future reference.
Highlight Month
JpouR key court decisions—three of them favoring desegregation—and a mass of
pro-segregation legislation adopted by three state legislatures were features
of a busy summer month on the school segregation-desegregation front.
In two states—Arkansas and Texas—continued school segregation was a dom
inant issue of primary elections, while in a third—Tennessee—the issue was not
as prominent politically as first predicted.
The four court decisions, two in Virginia and one each in Maryland and Texas,
opened up some new avenues of legal speculation and were regarded as highly
significant. They were as follows:
Virginia: A federal court, in the first
such decision in the Southeast, ordered
desegregation this fall of Charlottesville
schools on the ground, at least in part,
that the state had done nothing to im
plement the U.S. Supreme Court rul
ings but rather was resisting compliance.
A decree had not been perfected as
SSN went to press.
In the second Virginia case, a fed
eral court decreed on July 31 the de
segregation of the elementary schools
of Arlington County by Jan. 31, 1957
and of the county’s junior and senior
high schools by the opening of the fall
term in 1957. This was the first decree
which set specific time limits for lower
schools.
Maryland: A federal court held that
Negro children of St. Mary’s County
who are petitioning to enter all-white
schools must exhaust their administra
tive remedies before the court can en
join the county. This was the first court
case to come to an actual decision in
largely desegregated Maryland.
Texas: The Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals held in the Mansfield school case
that local (anti-desegregation) opinion
was not of itself a sufficient reason for
denying Negro children the right to
enroll in an all-white school.
LEGISLATIVE ACTION
On the legislative fronts in North
Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, laws or
constitutional amendments to maintain
segregation generally were strengthened
and new devices were introduced.
The three legislatures passed all to
gether 17 measures to maintain separate
schools. One of these, an act requiring
a constitutional amendment, was North
Carolina’s “package” bill providing for
state-paid tuition grants to children not
wishing to attend integrated schools
and permitting “local option unit” elec
tions on the question of closing schools
confronted with desegregation orders.
A special survey of schools in Okla
homa conducted jointly by Southern
School News and the Oklahoma City
Times disclosed a substantial increase
in the number of “integrated situa
tions” in that state. Together with de
segregation announcements elsewhere,
this raised the number of school dis
tricts desegregated or in the process of
some stage of desegregation to approx
imately 570 districts and units. There
are some 4,700 school districts in the
southern and border states having Ne
gro pupils.
POLITICAL ACTTVITTES
Meanwhile, the school segregation-
desegregation issue continued to figure
prominently in political activities: in
Arkansas, where on July 31 Democratic
voters balloted in the gubernatorial pri
mary; in Delaware, where a Democratic
nominee for U.S senator was being
chosen; in Georgia, also the scene of a
senatorial contest; in Kentucky, where
a Presidential aspirant praised desegre
gation; in Missouri, where two candi
dates for the Republican senatorial
nomination vied with one another in
pro-integration sentiments; and in
Texas, where school segregation was an
issue in the Democratic gubernatorial
of July 28.
A state-by-state summary of major
developments during July follows.
Alabama
Disagreement appeared over “free
dom of choice” (three-school) amend
ments to the constitution to be voted
on Aug. 28 with the state superintendent
of education warning that adoption
would mean abolition of public schools,
segregated schools and equal school
terms.
Arkansas
School segregation was a major issue
in the Democratic gubernatorial pri
mary won by incumbent Gov. Orval E.
Faubus, most “moderate” of three lead
ing candidate, who has said that no
school will be forced to desegregate
while he is governor.
Delaware
In the south Delaware town of Milton,
where the school board has offered a
desegregation plan in answer to a fed
eral court case, the board was over
turned by an election and resignations
and voted to ask the court to let it
withdraw its plan for “further study and
consideration.” The action followed
public meetings protesting desegrega
tion.
District of Columbia
A House subcommittee has begun an
investigation of alleged “lowered stand
ards” in desegregated District schools
and juvenile delinquency in the cap
ital. A former school board member
said the investigation was a “prede
termined one” and in turn was called
“very highly prejudiced.”
Florida
In special session the legislature
swiftly passed a five-point program of
segregation legislation, including a
broadened pupil assignment act, which
Gov. LeRoy Collins believed would
allow the state to maintain separate
schools indefinitely.
Georgia
The long-pending case of Howard
Ward, Negro applicant to the University
of Georgia law school, was reporting
closer to decision.
Kentucky
Gov. A. B. (“Happy”) Chandler, 1 m-
ocratic Presidential aspirant, shift a his
state-compliance pledge on desegrega
tion to the national scene when he said
in response to a question: “Segregation
is one of those things that must go.”
Another school district (Ashland) an
nounced desegregation for the fall.
Louisiana
Ten pro-segregation bills directly af
fecting the schools have been passed by
the legislature, replacing the “police
powers” amendment struck down by a
federal court. One measure puts the
legislature in charge of schools in the
defense of integration suits.
Maryland
Two more counties, with heavy Ne
gro populations, have announced deseg
regation for the fall, one in first grades
“as available facilities permit,” and the
other on a transfer basis, leaving only
five of the state’s counties still segre
gated as a matter of policy. In a key de
cision a federal court ruled Negro chil
dren in St. Mary’s County must exhaust
administrative remedies in school entry
actions before the county could be en
joined to halt segregation.
Mississippi
Pushing ahead with a separate-but-
equal program, the state reported the
teacher salary gap cut from $1,108 for
white teachers and $398 for Negroes in
1945-46 to $2,609 for whites and $2,010
for Negroes in 1955-56.
(See KEY DECISIONS, Page 2)
FRANK A. KNIGHT
Southern School News announces
with deep regret the death of its West
Virginia correspondent, Frank A.
Knight. He had served this publication
since its establishment in 1954.
Knight, who was managing editor of
the Charleston Gazette at the time of
his death, began his
newspaper career as
an 8-year-old deliv
ery boy. Always a
“working” newsman,
he regularly con
tributed stories, ed
itorials and columns
to the pages of the
Gazette.
Frank Knight was
. civic leader in his
community and state, serving 12 con
secutive years in the West Virginia
House of Delegates, and he was a for
mer president of the West Virginia
State Newspaper Council. His contri
bution in helping build SSN will be
sorely missed by the central staff in
Nashville and the corps of correspond
ents.—The Editors.
Knight