Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—NOVEMBER 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Board Member Dies
(Continued From Page 1)
the goals he set for his own people. But
his concern in this cause, always kept
on a high plane, was marked by toler
ance and objectivity.
“He was widely esteemed as an edu
cator, the vocation in which he spent
his life. He was respected by all the
Foundations, a fact that drew from them
many benefits to Fisk and made him a
consultant in some of their operations.
“As the first Negro president of his
university, Dr. Johnson realized, appre
ciated, and used the opportunity to dem
onstrate a great capacity for adminis
trative leadership. It must have been
gratifying to him to see the evidences of
satisfactory discharge of that high trust.
“His example of scholarship and de
votion to intellectual attainments, as his
high concept of service, stands as a pat
tern for those to emulate who regarded
him as leader and friend.
“His dedication to the cause of learn
ing leaves its mark. His service and
thought will be missed in the highest
educational councils.”
The Nashville Tennessean
“ ‘My first concern,’ Dr. Charles S.
Johnson once wrote, ‘is to see Fisk Uni
versity reach a level of the highest na
tional standing for a liberal arts col
lege.’
“Toward the realization of that dream,
Dr. Johnson gave almost thirty years of
his very useful life, the last seven of
which he spent as the first Negro presi
dent of the institution. And his service
to the university alone justified the rep
utation he achieved in his sixty-three
years. For his scholarship and his ad
ministration led Fisk to new heights,
and the whole field of higher education
counted him an intelligent and able
leader.
“In addition to his outstanding role
as an educator, however, Dr. Johnson
was an articulate, enlightened and un
derstanding spokesman for his race. It
has been said of him that his work was
that of “interpreting Negroes to white
people and white people to Negroes,
southerners and northerners, country
people and city dwellers, to each other.’
It was a work for which he was well
equipped, a work to which he brought
an abiding faith in spiritual and demo
cratic values, and a work he did with
remarkable success.
“In no small measure, the interracial
understanding and cooperation achieved
in our own community over the years
can be attributed to Dr. Johnson’s in
fluence, and Nashville can consider it
self fortunate that his unusual talents
were so long employed here.
“In both his service and his reputa
tion, however, he was a national figure,
and the many honors that came to him
attest to the esteem in which he was
held and the value attached to the con
tributions he made in the fields of edu
cation, government and human rela
tions.
“His death is a loss that will be widely
felt, but nowhere more deeply than in
this city where his unceasing labors in
behalf of others were centered.”
Teachers
(Continued From Page 1)
year when the board of education de
cided to integrate the system at the start
of the 1956-57 school year. Seven Negro
teachers were retained; others were de
clared surplus as a result of closing a
Negro school. Two of the dismissed
teachers filed suit in circuit court, but it
does not have NAACP backing and no
hearing has been held. There is a feeling
the suit may be dropped.
“Of the nine teachers dismissed at
Webster Groves: One was rehired after
another Negro teacher resigned to ac
cept a teaching job in St. Louis. Two are
substitute teachers in St. Louis, where
one of them is assigned to a predom
inantly Negro technical high school. One
is unemployed, though she was offered a
job in St. Louis if she would complete
work on her master’s degree and qualify
as a swimming instructor. One is a reg
ular instructor in St. Louis, assigned to
Hadley Tech. Another, one of the plain
tiffs in the suit, has been employed as
music instructor in Detroit and has
moved there. Another is unemployed
and two are unaccounted for.
“Those who have gone into St. Louis
to teach have taken salary cuts. At Web
ster Groves their tenure and seniority
gave them the top scale of $5,300 a year.
Those accepted in St. Louis were rated
as having four years experience and
given salaries of $4,400 a year.”
Some 125 Negro teachers in Missouri
are reported teaching in integrated
schools.
The picture is not as clear in any of
the other states where Negro teachers
are reported to have lost their jobs. In
Oklahoma, for example, Gov. Raymond
Gary early in 1956 appointed a commit
tee to study this question. However, the
committee has never met.
Chairman F. D. Moon has compiled a
list of 85 displaced Negro teachers who
held the MA degree and has circulated
it among superintendents reported to be
looking for teachers. However, he has
not followed up to see how many have
been placed. On the basis of inquiries he
has received, he said, some of the dis
missed teachers have gone into other
teaching jobs in Florida, California,
Missouri, Texas and the Virgin Islands.
OTHER EMPLOYMENT
Others have gone into other fields of
employment, several of them working at
Tinker Air Force base near Oklahoma
City and at least one has gone into the
public welfare department.
Twenty Negro teachers are reported
to be on desegregated faculties in such
districts as Wellston, Perry, Sulphur,
Kingfisher and Oklahoma City. Five
Negro teachers were so placed last year.
In Kentucky, reports that 60 Negro
teachers have been fired are not quite
accurate, Sam B. Taylor, assistant di
rector of the division of supervision of
the state department of education, said
in October. Under Kentucky’s continu
ing contract clause, 60 Negro teachers in
perhaps 12 school districts were notified
last March that they may not be rehired.
These notifications were issued, Taylor
said, to protect school boards who were
planning desegregation in their districts
and who felt they might be able to re
duce the number of teachers by consoli
dating schools at the same time the de
segregation process was begun.
Taylor said there was some doubt that
all the teachers so notified were actually
dismissed. In any event, Taylor said, at
the beginning of the current school year
he called about half of the districts
where teacher displacement was re
ported looking for Negro teachers for
placement in an eastern Kentucky dis
trict in need of their services. At that
time, he said, he could not find any of the
notified teachers who had not already
found jobs. Taylor said reports have
reached his office that some of the teach
ers have gone to teaching jobs in other
states, particularly in Ohio and Florida
where pay scales are higher than in Ken
tucky. He said he has had reports that
“a few” have gone into other fields of
employment “which they’ve found they
like better” than teaching.
INSTRUCT WHITES
In September, President A. B. Atwood
of Kentucky State College (predomi
nantly Negro), said that about 20 of the
displaced teachers had gone into other
states and some into Kentucky districts
still maintaining “permissive” segrega
tion.
Recent reports indicate that 113 Negro
teachers now are instructing white stu
dents, but all of these are in predomi
nantly Negro schools to which white
pupils have been assigned.
Next greatest instance of Negro teach
er dismissal appears to be in West Vir
ginia where 52 were displaced during
the 1955-56 school year and six more this
year. In only 16 to 20 of these cases are
teachers said actually to have been dis
missed as a result of the desegregation
program.
In Kanawha County, the state’s larg
est school system, 12 principals of for
mer Negro schools have been assigned
teaching jobs, at lower pay. The only
charge of discrimination to arise from
this situation came from Harry E. Den
nis, former principal of Charleston’s
Garnet High School, who was assigned
as assistant principal of the city’s new
Technical High School.
‘TREATED UNJUSTLY’
In submitting his resignation he
praised “a job well done in the place
ment of Negro teachers,” but charged
“Negro principals and administrators
were, in the majority of cases, treated
unjustly.”
About 35 teaching positions have been
eliminated by the desegregation process
in Texas but only about 20 Negro teach
ers have been put out of work in that
state, according to Leslie White, execu
tive secretary of the State Teachers
Association of Texas. Practically all of
them have found other teaching jobs
in the state, he added. Two and pos
sibly three Negro teachers have been
placed on integrated faculties in Hon
do, Uvalde and Refugio. The last in
stance is unconfirmed.
No teacher displacement reportedly
has occurred in Maryland or Delaware.
In each state some 100 Negro teachers
are reported assigned to mixed classes.
Teacher integration is on a statewide
basis in Maryland, according to one re
port, but limited largely to Wilmington
in Delaware.
SOME DISMISSED
In the Deep South, where no school
desegregation has occurred, some teach-
New Survey Shows 21 More Oklahoma
Schools Districts Are Desegregated
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
|yEW studies in October uncovered 21
more public school districts in Okla
homa with desegregated classes (see
“Under Survey”) while integration
spread to at least two additional insti
tutions of higher learning. (See “In the
Colleges.”)
A Negro student from deep in “Little
Dixie” became the first member of his
race to win election to the University
of Oklahoma student senate. (See “In the
Colleges.”) The state’s Negro teachers
were still debating whether to disband
their professional organization; pros
pects were that it will be continued to
spearhead a campaign for employment
of its displaced members in integrated
faculties. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The 21 districts not previously known
to be integrated were reported by Dr.
Oliver Hodge, state superintendent of
public instruction, who announced re
sults of a survey of Oklahoma’s county
and district superintendents. The dis
tricts in question did not respond to
questionnaires sent them by the
Southern School News last summer.
Actually, results of Dr. Hodge’s survey
were reported by schools, rather than by
districts. The conclusion that 21 more
districts should be added to the list of
161 heretofore known to be desegregated
was reached through a city-by-city
comparison of his tabulation with SSN
records.
COULD BE HIGHER
In fact, the number of integrated
districts could go even higher. Dr. Hodge
reported 440 schools in Oklahoma are
now conducting mixed classes. These
include 178 high schools, 90 junior high
schools and 172 elementary schools.
However, his report listed by name only
the schools still having only Negro pu
pils in attendance. There are 251 of them
—44 high schools, 15 junior high schools
and 192 elementary schools. Some are in
all-Negro communities, others are in
school systems that have integrated and
still others are in districts that maintain
segregation.
Dr. Hodge said his staff probably will
compile a list of the integrated schools
later on, thus providing the basis for an
analysis which may uncover still more
districts which have desegregated.
Near deadline time only 16 superin
tendents had failed to respond to Dr.
Hodge’s questionnaire, and no more
than three or four of them were believed
to be in districts with Negro pupils.
An SSN study in conjunction with the
Oklahoma City Times disclosed that at
er dismissals have been reported in
connection with the segregation-deseg
regation question. In South Carolina,
24 teachers at the Elloree Training School
for Negroes either resigned or were not
rehired when they refused to answer
questionnaires relating to membership
in the NAACP.
SSN’s South Carolina Correspondent
W. D. Workman Jr. reported from Co
lumbia:
“Elloree School Supt. M. G. Austin
Jr. tells me that he had a total of 290
applications to fill the teaching vacan
cies left by the combined resignation
and failure to be retained of some 24
Negro teachers at Elloree at the end of
last session. A great many applications
came from out of state, but no applica
tions indicated that applicants had lost
jobs due to integration elsewhere. A
sampling of 70 applications from out-of-
state (there were considerably more
than that) gave this breakdown: North
Carolina 39, Florida 2, District of Co
lumbia 2, New York 9, Alabama 2, Vir
ginia 4, Maryland 1, West Virginia 1,
Ohio 1, Texas 3, Georgia 1, Michigan 1,
Louisiana 1, Tennessee 1 and New Jer
sey 1.”
A somewhat similar report came from
New York city, where in July, Dr. Wil
liam Jansen, school superintendent, re
ported the school board, in an effort to
obtain competent teachers, was seeking
to tap all sources of supply including
discharged Negro teachers. In its effort
to trace the whereabouts of Negro teach
ers dismissed due to desegregation,
SSN queried New York school author
ities and was told that while “several
dozen” applications had been received
from southern Negro teachers, none has
been appointed.
least 161 Oklahoma districts had inte
grated the races in the classroom at
some level or in a limited manner (such
as band, athletics or transportation) by
the start of the 1956-57 school year. An
other district desegregated in 1955-56
but lost its only Negro child by transfer
this year.
Adding the 21 new districts brings the
total to at least 182.
The 21 are Clinton, Custer County;
Pauls Valley, Garvin County; Hollis,
Harmon County; Fairview, Hughes
County; Snyder, Kiowa County; Spiro,
LeFlore County; Bumeyville, Love
County; Madill, Marshall County; Rose-
dale, McClain County; Blynton, Oktaha
and Wainwright, Muskogee County;
Nowata, Nowata County; Choctaw,
Oklahoma County; Cushing, Payne
County; Macomb and Shawnee, Potta
watomie County; New Lima, Seminole
County; Muldrow, Sequoyah County;
Porter, Wagoner County, and Dewey,
Washington County.
Spiro, Burneyville and Madill are in
the southeastern Oklahoma area gen
erally known as “Little Dixie,” which
has been most consistently opposed to
desegregation. Unofficial reports indi
cated a fourth “Little Dixie” communi
ty—Valliant in McCurtain County—had
integration for a while when eight or 10
Negro students enrolled in the white
high school at the beginning of the fall
semester but dropped out a short time
later.
HAS NO PROGRAM
Dr. Hodge said Choctaw County, also
deep in “Little Dixie,” is apparently the
only county in the state with a substan
tial Negro population that has failed to
put any program of integration into
effect. However, he overlooked Atoka
County, with some 240 Negro pupils in
Atoka and Stringtown, where the races
have not been integrated in the schools.
Another comparison of SSN records
with the state superintendent’s survey
results revealed at least 57 districts in
Oklahoma with Negro populations are
still segregated, either through choice
of the pupils or policy of the local board
of education.
Counted in the desegregated column
although they have only limited inte
gration are Wewoka, Seminole County;
Sapulpa, Creek County; Beggs, Okmul
gee County, and Frederick, Tillman
County. None has classroom integration
but all four have mixed the races in
their athletic programs. In addition,
Beggs has integrated its band students,
and Frederick permits white and Negro
pupils to ride the school buses together.
The state superintendent of public in
struction predicted another increase
next year in the number of schools with
mixed classes. But he said the rate of
increase probably will be slower than
in the past two years. The state board
of education has “encouraged” integra
tion by requiring districts to lump
white and Negro enrollments together
in calculating state aid for teacher
salaries. It has also stopped reimbursing
districts for the expense of hauling pu
pils on school buses outside their own
transportation areas. Thus, school dis
tricts which maintain separate schools
are penalized financially.
But Dr. Hodge insisted the board’s
policy still contemplates that integration
is a local problem.
“The board feels that local boards of
education and people of local communi
ties know whether folks are ready for
integration better than anyone else,” he
said.
The 17 integrated colleges and uni
versities reported so far have more than
210 Negroes enrolled. The exact number
is not known because Oklahoma City
University, privately owned, said it does
“not have any figures on racial groups”
although Negroes were enrolled both
last year and this year. The University
of Oklahoma also stated it makes no
tabulation of students by race. J. E. Fel
lows, dean of admissions and registrar
said, however, he believes that no more
than 75 of the university’s 11,502 stu
dents this semester are Negroes. Using
that maximum figure but excluding any
estimate for Oklahoma City University,
the total of Negroes enrolled this year
in white universities and colleges would
fall between 206 and 213. The 17 schools
have a total enrollment of 28,616.
Last year 134 Negroes (plus an unde
termined number at Oklahoma City Uni
versity) were enrolled in 15 otherwise
white colleges and universities, accord
ing to reports thus far submitted.
Nine of the independent institutions i
have adopted official desegregation
policies but no Negroes applied for ad
mission at two of them, Bethany-Naz-
arene College near Oklahoma City and
St. Gregory’s College, Shawnee. Bene
dictine Heights College in Tulsa reported
it has three Negroes enrolled this year
although it has never adopted an official
desegregation policy. The school’s en
rollment is 172.
COLLEGES LISTED
State-owned institutions which have
integrated and the number of Negroes
enrolled:
University of Oklahoma, Norman, not
over 75; Oklahoma College for Women,
Chickasha, 3; Central State College, Ed
mond, 15 to 20; East Central State Col
lege, Ada, about 10 or 12; Northeastern •
State College, Tahlequah, 25; South
eastern State College, Durant, 22;
Southwestern State College, Weather
ford, 1; Eastern Oklahoma A and M ,
College, Wilburton, 8, and Northern
Oklahoma Junior College, Tonkawa, 1.
Independent institutions:
Phillips University, Enid, 8; Benedic
tine Heights College, Tulsa, 3; Okla
homa City University, no figures avail
able; Oklahoma Baptist University,
Shawnee, 16; El Reno Junior College, El
Reno, 2; Muskogee Junior College,
Muskogee, 7; Poteau Junior College,
Poteau, 8, and Seminole Junior College,
Seminole, 2.
None of the 25 colleges and univer
sities which returned reports to SSN
has integrated Negroes into faculties.
PRECEDENT SET
One of the Negro students at the Uni
versity of Oklahoma set a precedent in
October. John Edwin Green, 26-year-old
law student from Idabel in McCurtain
County, was elected by the Independent
Student Association as its representa
tive in the university’s student senate.
It is the first time in the history of
the university that a Negro has served
in the senate.
Green beat out two other candidates
by polling 57.7 per cent of the votes in
the ISA election. He had served as
parliamentarian of the independent or
ganization in 1955.
The student was graduated from
Booker T. Washington High School in
Idabel, where he lettered three years in
football and basketball and was chosen
salutatorian of his class. He attended
Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga., and
came to the University of Oklahoma a®
a graduate law student in 1953.
At the end of October, 17 of the 33
institutions of higher learning in Okla
homa (state-owned and independent
junior and senior colleges) reported they
had Negroes on their campuses. Eight
schools had not been heard from, in
cluding Oklahoma A and M College,
where Negroes are believed enrolled,
and Langston University, which has an
all-Negro student body.
The state board of higher regents
acted officially in June, 1955, to end
segregation in the 11 senior colleges and
seven junior colleges under its control.
The board no longer maintains records
by races and was unable to report the
extent of integration.
Northern Oklahoma Junior College,
Tonkawa, a state-owned school, and
Seminole Junior College both reported
Negroes enrolled for the first time. One
entered the Tonkawa school and two at
Seminole. The latter reported it dropped
the race ban in 1955-56 but no Negroes
applied for admission.
The Oklahoma Association of Neg r °
Teachers convened again in Oklahoff 3
City, a year after it voted to disband s °
its members could go into the Oklahofl 3
Education Association, which had j*
down its color barrier. Details of ^
disbandment were left up to the ot
fleers and major committees, but u 18
group last June declined, on a split vo*f
to disband and threw the decision ba
to the full membership at the fall C ° D
vention.
This time the members voted to co®
tinue the organization until integral .
of Negro teachers into desegrega*
schools has been achieved. But they 0
ficially dropped the name “Negro” f*v
the title. F. D. Moon, executive sed^
tary, explained that persons who are
Negroes had expressed interest in j°
ing the group. The association will c ^
fine itself, Moon indicated, to efforts^
educate the people to accept Negroes
white faculties by pointing out
this has been accomplished elseWD