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PAGE 16—NOVEMBER 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
More Negroes Entering Missouri State
Colleges, But Not in ‘Flood’ Numbers
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
■y^rrH integration fully accomplished,
Negroes are entering the state uni
versity and some of the five state col
leges in larger numbers, but in nothing
like a flood, a Southern School News
survey shows. (See “Under Survey.”)
Because no racial records are kept at
the state institutions of higher learning,
precise figures are impossible to come
by. The largest increase in Negro at
tendance has taken place at the Uni
versity of Missouri at Columbia. There,
an administrative official says he esti
mates that the number of Negro fresh
men enrolled this year may be double
the number that enrolled in 1955. How
ever, in an enrollment of around 10,000
he could not say how many Negroes
there are, or were in 1955.
In an interview with the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat former U. S. Supreme
Court Justice Sherman Minton termed
the court’s school segregation decision
“the most important... in a century”
and said he believed compliance would
take place “eventually.” (See “What
They Say.”)
A candidate for governor in the No
vember general election called for
establishment of a state Human Rights
Commission to promote better group
understanding. (See “Political Activ
ity.”)
School patrons in Webster Groves, the
last large St. Louis suburb to desegre
gate, were debating whether two new
junior high schools should be built in
stead of one. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
Last year most of the new Negroes
at the university seemed to be from the
St. Louis area. This year they apparent
ly represent all parts of the state. Some
have enrolled from the southeast delta
section, which is the only area of the
state where segregation persists in most
elementary and high schools. Others
come from the “Little Dixie” counties
along the Missouri river in the central
section of the state, others from St. Louis
and Kansas City.
SOME TEACHING
At Columbia, Negroes live in college
residential halls like any other students.
Those in graduate work teach some sec
tions of certain courses, in the same way
that white students do. No academic
problems have been encountered. Al
though some restaurants and other busi
ness places refuse to serve Negroes in
the town, integration on the campus it
self appears to be complete.
Missouri educators are watching with
interest the development of Lincoln Uni
versity at Jefferson City, which was the
state-supported college for Negroes be
fore racial barriers were dropped. Lin
coln is still staffed by a Negro faculty
and has a predominantly Negro student
body, but white students are now at-
STATEMENT REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF
AUGUST 24, 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE
ACTS OF MARCH 3, 1933, AND JULY 2,1946
(Title 39, United States Code, Section 233)
SHOWING THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGE
MENT, AND CIRCULATION of SOUTHERN
SCHOOL NEWS, published monthly at Nash
ville, Tenn., for October, 1956.
1. The names and addresses of the publisher,
editor, managing editor and business man
ager are: Publisher, Southern Education Re
porting Service, 1109 19th Ave. S., Nashville,
Tenn.; Editor, Don Shoemaker, 1109 19th Ave.
S., Nashville, Tenn.; Managing Editor,
Patrick McCauley, 1109 19th Ave. S. Nash
ville, Tenn.; Business Manager None. 2. The
owner is: (If owned by a corporation its name
and address must be stated and also imme
diately thereunder the names and addresses
of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent
or more of total amount of stock. If owned
by a partnership or other unincorporated
firm, its name and address, as well as that of
each individual member, must be given.)
Southern Education Reporting Service, Inc.,
1109 19th Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn. 3. The
known bondholders, mortgagees, and other
security holders owning or holding 1 percent
or more of the total amount of bonds, mort
gages, or other securities are: (If there are
none, so state.) None. 4. Paragraphs 2 and 3
include, in cases where the stockholder or
security holder appears upon the books of
the company as trustee or in any other fidu
ciary relation, the name of the person or
corporation for whom such trustee is acting;
also the statements in the two paragraphs
show the affiant’s full knowledge and belief
as to the circumstances and conditions under
which stockholders and security holders who
do not appear upon the books of the company
as trustees, hold stock and securities in a ca
pacity other than that of a bona fide owner.
5. The average number of copies of each
issue of this publication sold or distributed,
through the mails or otherwise, to paid sub
scribers during the 12 months preceding the
date shown above was: (This information is
required from daily, weekly, semiweekly and
triweekly newspapers only.)
Don Shoemaker, Editor
Sworn to and subscribed before me this
twenty-eighth day of September, 1956. (Seal)
Natalie M. Rollow, Notary Public
(My commission expires July 20, 1960)
JUSTICE SHERMAN MINTON
‘Compliance ... Eventually’
tending also, most of them being day
students from Jefferson City and sur
rounding territory. During the summer
session there was a notable increase in
white registration. At the regular ses
sion opening in September enrollment
was up 25 per cent over last year, the
increase coming from both racial groups.
Whether Lincoln will continue or will
be closed down may be decided by a
legislative committee now studying the
role and future of all the state colleges.
Most observers believe that, because of
crowding at the University of Missouri
and near-capacity enrollment at the
other colleges, Lincoln will continue to
function as a four-year undergraduate
college, with a mixed but predominantly
Negro enrollment.
NO BIG INCREASE
Southeast Missouri State College at
Cape Girardeau, which is on the Mis
sissippi river 30 miles north of the Ohio,
reports no appreciable increase in the
number of Negroes enrolled this year.
Last year there were about 10 Negroes
in a total of 1,700. Their presence has
been accepted as a matter of course, say
college officials. No restrictions are
placed on their participation in aca
demic or extra-curricular activities, and
no academic or social problems resulting
from their attendance have appeared.
At Central Missouri State College,
Warrensburg, four Negroes are enrolled
as compared with one in 1955-56. Two
are on the football squad, and Negroes
enter other extra-curricular activities
in the same way as do other students.
College officials say no problems of any
kind have occurred. The small Negro
enrollment may be due to the fact that
Lincoln University is only 90 miles away
and Kansas City, where college facilities
are also open to Negroes, is 50 miles to
the west.
Northeast Missouri State Teachers
College at Kirksville this year enrolled
seven Negroes as against four last year.
Now as then, Negroes are participating
in football, basketball, track and band.
They are accepted and treated like other
students in all class and extra-curricular
activities. It is now nearly a decade since
Northeast admitted its first Negro. Ne
groes as well as some 40 colored stu
dents of various races are housed in the
college residential halls along with oth
ers. No discrimination against them is
observable on the campus, and the whole
matter has ceased to be a subject of
comment.
SMALLER ENROLLMENT
Southwest Missouri State College at
Springfield reports a smaller Negro en
rollment than a year ago. One official
“guessed” that the number is now “half
a dozen or so.” No academic problems
have arisen and no unfavorable com
ment has been heard concerning the
Negro students.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
The question of racial integration was
raised in Webster Groves, St. Louis
suburb, this month in a citizen contro
versy over new school building plans.
Webster Groves was the last large sub
urb to adopt integration, having done
so at the beginning of the current school
year. Meanwhile a bond issue to finance
the construction of a new junior high
was submitted to voters last spring, and
defeated. Many opponents argued that
two junior highs should be built instead
of one.
At a recent citizens’ meeting to discuss
building plans, Robert C. Ely, advocate
of a single new school, charged that ra
cial integration “probably was the in
stigating factor” in the movement for
two schools. Not until after the Supreme
Court decision foreshadowed integration
in Webster Groves did the movement for
two buildings begin, he said. He attrib
uted failure of the bond issue to “a
small group using scare tactics and some
improper statements.” Ely is president
of a Parent-Teacher Association which,
with two others, advocates construction
of one new school.
CHARGES DENIED
Ely’s charges were denied by Ernest
Brandenburg, president of a PTA group
which with one other supports the two-
building plan. Brandenburg, who is dean
of University College at Washington
University, said that if integration ever
had been a factor in the controversy it
is not so today. He based the case for
two buildings entirely on superior edu
cational advantages, such as lower pu
pil-teacher ratios, fewer disciplinary
problems, better counseling and lower
enrollments.
In a rare Supreme Court interview
with the chief of the St. Louis Globe-
Democrat Washington bureau, retiring
Justice Sherman Minton said that in
view of outbreaks of violence, he had
“no idea” as to how long full compliance
with the court’s school segregation de
cision would take but that he expected
it “eventually.”
Minton said the court had given “long
and careful consideration to the word
ing of a key phrase to the implementa
tion ruling of 1955. This phrase, direct
ing compliance, held that desegregation
should move forward “with all delib
erate speed.” The expression has been
regarded as giving federal district judges
some latitude in enforcing the court’s
opinion.
Thurgood Marshall, general counsel
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, told an
interracial conference of Methodist
church leaders in Kansas City Oct. 25
that West Virginia ranks first and Mis
souri second in favorable response to
the Supreme Court decisions on school
segregation.
“We’re making headway in Oklahoma
and beginning to make headway in Ten
nessee,” Marshall said. “The law will
work itself out eventually. If we could
get all the church people behind us we’d
have smooth sailing.”
Racial questions have not loomed
large in Missouri’s political campaign
this year, but Lt. Gov. James T. Blair
Jr., Democratic candidate for governor,
late in the campaign announced that he
favored creation of a state Human
Rights Commission to promote better
group understanding. In a speech at
Kansas City, Blair said, “All of us are
proud that Missouri at once moved reso
lutely forward to integration of its edu
cational system” following the 1954 Su
preme Court decision.
Four weeks before election Washing
ton dispatches reported that the Eisen
hower administration was considering
appointment of a Negro, Scovel Rich
ardson of St. Louis, to a vacancy on the
U. S. District Court bench in St. Louis.
Richardson is now a member of the
Federal Parole Board by appointment
of President Eisenhower. Some Negro
leaders protested against his prospective
appointment to the bench on the
grounds that he had remained as dean
of the segregated Lincoln University
Law School for Negroes, and had worked
to keep the school open, long after the
U. S. Supreme Court had ruled against
segregation in university law schols. The
Lincoln school is now defunct.
DISCUSS ISSUES
Two congressional candidates dis
cussed racial issues on a television pro
gram sponsored by the St. Louis chap
ter of the American Civil Liberties Un
ion in October.
Republican Rep. Thomas Curtis of
Webster Groves, running for re-election
from a district embracing parts of St.
Louis County and South St. Louis, said
integration in the nation’s public schools
will come about without congressional
action, in the South as elsewhere, but
will take time. If school districts fail to
abide by the Supreme Court ruling, he
said, court action can be taken com
pelling them to comply.
Curtis’ opponent, Democrat James
Sullivan, said integration in St. Louis
is operating smoothly, but in some
southern cities cannot be attained over
night. “The courts can handle the situa
tion,” he said, “but it should be watched
closely and, if schools are not integrat
ed in a reasonable time, the federal gov
ernment might do well to step in.”
I
Classrooms
(Continued from Page 1)
approved by district voters in March—
delaying the sale of the entire issue be
cause of the unfavorable bond market.
The Richmond News Leader reported
the “almost unanimous opinion” of rep
resentative PTA leaders that Virginia
localities must continue their school
building programs “despite the possi
bility of racial integration.” One South-
side Virginia leader put it this way:
“[School building is progressing] with
the hope and prayers that some way
may be worked out to keep our schools
segregated and thereby keep them
open.”
Meanwhile in the Deep South some
building programs were proceeding at
a rapid clip despite the “tightness” of
money. South Carolina SSN Corre
spondent W. D. Workman Jr. reported
of his state’s massive building program:
“A $15 million bond issue was sold Oct.
9 at an interest rate of 2.65, reduced to
2.64 to the state by inclusion of a pre
mium. However, earlier bonds had been
sold at lower rates so that the average
was only 2.06 up until the Oct. 3
sale... School officials attribute curretj [
higher rate to a tight money market"
Class-
Anticipated
rooms
Spending
Interea
State
Needed
(Or Need)
Rate
By 1960
By 1960
Alabama .
. 13,000 $
320,000,000
3
Arkansas
. 7,323
40,000,000
3.25
Delaware
500
15,000,000
3.25
Florida ..
. 13,861
210,025,000
3.25
Georgia .
. 15,000
78,000,000
2 -25
Kentucky
. 20,000
350,000,000
3.8
Louisiana
. 8,665
94,000,000
3
Maryland
. 2,700
144,000,000 -
-2 -2.75
Missouri .
. 8,000
117,000,000
—
Mississippi
6,000
75,000,000
4
North
Carolina
10,480
150,000,000
2.95
Oklahoma
5,000
150,000,000
3
South
Carolina
1,700
48,000,000
2.64
Tennessee Survey In process: to be
complete
in July,
1957
3.85 •
Texas ...
. 31,000
450,000,000
3.25-3.75
Virginia .
. 6,284
200,000,000
—
West
Virginia
3,238
24,000,000
3
TOTALS .152,751 $2,455,025,000
* The most recent local bond issue, in Tul.
lahoma, Tenn.
Alabama
(Continued From Page 10)
chance. We might get enough votes to
make our voice heard anyway.”
COMMUNITY ACTION
The revolt of local PTA units, which
began in Montgomery in July and has
been largely confined there, seemed to
have been slowed in October by the
action of the board of managers of the
National Congress of Parents and
Teachers in Chicago in September. (See
Southern School News, October 1956.)
About 20 of Montgomery County’s 27
PTA groups have either withdrawn
from the National Congress, announced
they intended to withold dues or have
suspended affiliation for the time being.
It began in July when Mrs. Betty Bald
win McLaurine resigned from the Mont
gomery County PTA because of what
she called the pro-integration policies
of the national group.
Mrs. J. H. Rutledge of Anniston,
president of the Alabama Congress,
subsequently pointed out that the na
tional organization never interfered in
local school affairs and in addition, the
state organization had already passed a
resolution disavowing the national’s
position on integration.
NATIONAL POLICY REVISED
This did not halt the withdrawals, and
Mrs. Rutledge appealed to the national
board of managers. On Sept. 27, the
board revised the national organiza
tion’s statement on the Supreme Court
decision to read:
“The National Congress urges parent-
teacher leaders, in cooperation with
schools and other governmental author
ities in each community, to study and
pursue effective means in working
toward a just solution to the complex
problem of segregation in public
schools.”
The National Congress also advised
the Alabama Congress that the state’s
previously adopted pro-segregation
Mississippi
(Continued From Page 3)
from in the Nov. 6 election. They are:
Democrats pledged to the Stevenson-
Kefauver candidacies; the all-white Re
publican faction pledged to President
Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President
Richard Nixon; Black-and-Tan Grand
Old Party group also pledged to the Ei-
senhower-Nixon candidacies, and an in
dependent slate, unpledged and quali
fied by petition by the Mississippians for
States’ Rights.
Mississippi Democrats backing the
Stevenson-Kefauver slate contend the
major issue is retention of the chairman
ships of southern members of Congress.
They contend that is more important
than segregation, which they maintain
is “safer” with the party chairmanships
than if they are lost to the Republicans.
COMMUNITY ACTION
S. E. Rogers, Clarendon County, S. C.,
attorney who contested the school inte
gration cases before the United States
Supreme Court, told the Jackson Citi
zens Council here Oct. 11 that “the
South is succeeding in our fight slowly
but surely.”
“One of the major threats facing the
South is the possiblility that a Negro
may be appointed federal judge in a
southern states,” Rogers said. “I would
not be surprised to see a roving Negro
federal district judge appointed in
South Carolina. They can’t appoint a
regular judge there now, but there’s
been talk of establishing a roving
judgeship.”
Mississippi’s governor and attorney
general have challenged reported plans
policy statement was not in conflict with
the requirements of the National Con-
gress.
Third, the treasurer of the National
Congress refuted statements that na
tional PTA funds are used to support
integration efforts by other organiza- >
tions.
In mid-October, the Alabama Con
gress published full-page ads in Mont
gomery newspapers, reprinting the
above correspondence, the aims and ac
complishments of PTA with an appeal
for loyalty.
POLICY ‘AMBIGUOUS’
Mrs. McLaurine and her followers
still contend the national policy state
ment is “ambiguous,” and restate their
intentions to remain unaffiliated until'
all references to segregation are deleted
Elsewhere state PTA locals, in district
meetings, reaffirmed their loyalty to the
state and national organizations. Indi
cations at the end of the month were
that the insurrection had been con
tained.
KLAN ACTIVITY FLARES
Klan activity was reported in Mobile
during October, spurred perhaps by the
efforts the previous month of Mrs
Dorothv DaPonte, member of a promi
nent Mobile family, to enroll her 12-
year-old Negro ward in a white school
Crosses were reported burned in the:
Mobile area, one in front of Mrs. Da-
Ponte’s home. On at least two occasions,
robed klansmen visited white churches
The Mobile Pastors Conference adopt
ed a resolution criticizing the visits. Th e
resolution said:
“We do not welcome either the pres
ence or the financial contributions 01
any group which may come to our
churches and leave in such manner as
to interfere with our services of wor
ship and whose purpose in coming mai •
be to glorify itself and to secure for it -
self the sanction and approval of the
church.”
of the federal government to institute
criminal prosecutions against count?
officials and individuals for assert
“wholesale purges” of qualified Negroes,
from voting lists.
A=st. Atty. General Warren Olney ®
head of the U. S. Department of Jus
tice’s criminal division, said the govern
ment will act after the Nov. 6 election
on “many thousands of complaints ?
formerly qualified Negroes in Missis
sippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana a»
North Carolina.
Gov. Coleman in a telegram to Ol
Oct. 23, called on the federal °ffi c ' a L.
“name names” in his accusations,
telegram stated:
“In fairness to the 82 county registry
over the state of Mississippi, I rcqG ^ ^
you to call names if you expect to ^ ,
to prosecute any of them as per
political news release. Let us ^
lawsuits in a duly constituted court w
a lawful jury instead of through
newspapers.
TO DEFEND REGISTRARS
“Mississippi stands ready to del ]
any of its public officials who are sou
to be made the victims of unjus
federal coercion. If you have any ca=^
we will meet you at the courthouse-
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Counc ^
the National Association for th,® ^
vancement of Colored People
President Dwight Eisenhower to ® _ i
the Russian election observers
sissippi “to observe where no Neg * 1 * * * 5 ”^
are permitted to register and vo e
many counties.” . ]
“We feel that a more accurate ant ^ ° 5
jective view will be derived f r0 ^
visit to Mississippi where no Negroes^
permitted to register and vote in & -p
jority of the 82 counties,” the
telegram sent by State Secretary
gar Evers of Jackson, said.