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Objective
VOL. Ill, NO. 6
NASHVILLE, TENN.
$2 PER YEAR
DECEMBER, 1956
Political, Court Contests Claim Attention
Negro Vote
Switchover
Is Noted
In the Back Seat
ACTION'\»EATANt> \Ho s
'T'he Supreme Court school segregation
decisions and related racial questions
have been tagged as the cause of the
shift of southern Negro votes from the
Democratic to the Republican candi
dates. However, according to a Southern
School News survey the actual effect
of these issues in the Nov. 6 general
election appears to have been relatively
minor.
School segregation-desegregation, ex
panded to embrace all of “civil rights,”
was discussed as an issue both in the
South and outside the region. But in
few sections did it appear to have been
a decisive factor in the outcome of the
voting. The exceptions were Tennessee
and Louisiana.
Outside the region, the shift of Negro
votes from the Democratic to the Re
publican ticket was substantially less
than in the South and was not accom
panied by equal shifts of votes in con
gressional races, though control of the
Congress was the principal anti-Dem-
ocratic campaign point among Negroes.
HOLD CHAIRMANSHIPS
Barring circumstances which could
upset the close Democratic margin in
the Senate, southerners will hold 10 of
15 committee chairmanships in the up
per chamber and 13 of 19 in the House
of Representatives. Of these 10 House
and eight Senate chairmanships will be
in the hands of men from states resist
ing school desegregation.
In the South both Negroes, and con
servative Democrats most strongly ad
vocating continued segregation, turned
to the Republican ticket.
This would suggest that in some in
stances, Negro voters in the South as
in other regions, turned to President
Eisenhower for the same reasons as did
many white voters—the current inter
national crisis, general economic pros-
perity, the President’s great personal
Popularity.
The Atlanta Daily World, only Negro
daily in the South, in a post-election
editorial said one reason for the shift of
Negro votes was that Negroes share
the same aspirations and feelings” as
ether Americans who voted for Eisen
hower.
, however, the editorial stressed that
Negroes . . . remembered the Southern
Manifesto, they remembered the Wash-
ln gton, D.C. school probe, and they
cant easily forget Emmett Till and the
Uc y case. They remembered the East-
forces of Mississippi and the Deep
„ governors with the exception of
j °*hns of Florida. He was among the
p W who failed to use the Supreme
°Urt’s rulings against racial segrega-
as a political issue.”
unofR c i a i returns from major cities,
shff an< ^ sou th, show the following
hicts vo ^ es * n heavily Negro dis-
Har lem PRECINCTS
Outside the region, three predomi-
muIv Nearo precincts in Harlem gave
the ^ epu hhcan ticket 32.7 per cent of
votes cast as compared to 19 per
nt in 1952. Six heavily Negro wards
In rn-
tick t ~ a ^° ® ave the Eisenhower-Nixon
27/
c ket 34 4 per cent 0 f tke vote against
P e r cent four years ago. Fourteen
Board Member
^Southern Education Reporting Serv-
Ntw Ru hhshers of Southern School
G c S ’ announces the election of Dr.
N. Redd of Nashville to the
lat e -° 0ar d of directors, succeeding the
D r p- Charles S. Johnson,
of j>' Re< dd became Dean of the College
the f diversity in 1951 after joining
in l93g U ^N of the Nashville institution
Cp; v , , - A native of Baltimore, he re
st Q , tae B.A., M.A. and Ed. D. degrees
Seta, la University. From 1930 to
cati 0 n ' Vas ^ ean an< d supervisor of edu-
i$ a fr at Texas College, Tyler, Tex. He
Snd ; e 1uent contributor to periodicals
S*£ S ec 'd will serve as a director of
a 'eetj n a eas t until the regular annual
g °f the board next March.
predominantly Negro wards in Phila
delphia changed but slightly, giving
Eisenhower 30.5 per cent this year in
comparison to 30.3 per cent in 1952. And
five Negro precincts in Detroit gave the
Republicans 9.2 per cent of their vote,
a slight advance over the 7.5 per cent
given the same ticket four years pre
viously.
The shift was vastly more marked in
many southern cities. Three Raleigh,
N.C. precincts with heavy Negro voting
populations which went 2,177 to 310 for
Adlai Stevenson in 1952 went 1,136 to
648 for Eisenhower this year. A Negro
precinct in Winston-Salem which had
given Stevenson 750 of its 771 votes
four years ago, split almost even this
year with Stevenson barely carrying
the precinct, 281 to 238.
Similar shifts are observable in the
returns from South Carolina. Predom
inantly Negro Ward 9 in Columbia,
which has gone 90 per cent Democratic
since 1944 when Negroes first began
participating in the primaries, gave
Stevenson slightly less than 50 per cent
this year, Eisenhower about 45 per cent
and the Independent ticket about five
per cent. Charleston’s heavily Negro
Ward 1 gave Eisenhower and Nixon 38
votes in 1952, 618 this year.
Negro voter shifts were seen in Rich
mond. One precinct which in 1952 went
4 to 1 for Stevenson went 2 to 1 for
Eisenhower in 1956. Another precinct,
8 to 1 for the Democrats in 1952,
dropped to 3 to 1 this year. Two heavi
ly Negro Norfolk precincts that gave
Stevenson 1,111 votes to Eisenhower’s
178 four years ago turned 1,262 to 308
in favor of Eisenhower in 1956.
PAPER COMMENTS
On the basis of these Negro vote
switches, the Norfolk Journal and
Guide, Negro weekly, editorialized:
“During the past two years Negroes in
the South have taken a spiritual beat
ing not exceeded in cruelty by any
thing that has happened to human re
lations in the history of America. This
violence to the spirits and minds of Ne
groes was administered by southern
Democratic Party leaders ...
“On Nov. 6, without organization or
direction, without any special leader
ship or persuasion, Negroes availed
themselves of the best way they had to
preserve their self-respect. They went
to the polls and protested in silence.
The great majority of them could not
vote as Democrats.”
Four predominantly Negro precincts
in Nashville which four years ago gave
Stevenson 2,379 and Eisenhower 726,
(See NEGRO VOTE, Page 2)
Southern Schoolman
Heads U. S. Office
Of Education
Lawrence G. Derthick, veteran
southern schoolman and superin
tendent of schools of Chattanooga,
Tenn., has been named U.S. Commis
sioner of Education. The post came to
him in a recess appointment by Presi
dent Eisenhower Nov. 28.
He is the first southerner to hold the
post since John James Tigert, native of
Nashville, the fifth commissioner, who
served from 1921 to 1928.
Derthick, 51, is a former president of
the American Association of School Ad
ministrators. The Atlanta Journal de
scribed his appointment as “a tribute
to the remarkable advancements of the
New South in the
field of education.”
The Chattanooga
Times said that ed
ucators everywhere
would “welcome the
appointment as one
bringing into public
life a progressive
schoolman who
combines idealism
in objectives with
practicality in
methods, farsighted
planning with level
headed management, an abiding faith in
the future of public school education
with a deep respect for the past and its
lessons.”
In 1955-56 Derthick’s school board
was the center of controversy over the
school segregation-desegregation issue.
(See SCHOOLMAN, Page 2)
DERTHICK
State
Index
Page
Alabama 43
Arkansas g
Delaware 49
District of Columbia lfi
Florida . 9
Georgia !."!!” !"l0
Kentucky 45
Louisiana 45
Maryland .14
Mississippi 4
Missouri „ 2
North Carolina '. 6
Oklahoma 42
South Carolina 4
Tennessee 5
'T'he school segregation-desegregation issue showed a varied pattern in the
17 southern and border states during November, with lines drawn most heavily
in the courts and in political contests.
In two states—Louisiana and Arkansas—voters approved constitutional amend
ments regarded as strengthening official defenses against school integration. In a
third—Tennessee—the tide of segregation sentiment reportedly was running strong
as state officials prepared for a showdown in the January legislative session.
Meanwhile, five additional school districts (one in Arkansas and four in Dela
ware) were disclosed to have adopted desegregation policies. The Arkansas district
began accepting Negro pupils two years ago without publicity. Three all-white
districts and one all-Negro district in Delaware said they were willing to accept
pupils of both races.
This brought to 671 the number of school districts in the region which have de
segregated as a matter of policy or practice. Some 3,000 districts remain segregated.
Key court rulings had been handed
down or were pending in at least five
states.
Sitting in Baltimore, the Fourth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mc
Dowell County Negroes in North Caro
lina still must exhaust administrative
remedies before appealing school entry
suits, but it held that appeal could be
taken direct to federal courts without
going through state courts as provided
in a 1955 legislative act.
—Christian Science Monitor
Texas
11
Virginia ’ [ ’ ‘ 3
West Virginia 12
VIRGINIA CASES
Three legal battles involving school
entry were under way in Virginia, and
Delaware was awaiting trial early in
1957 of the majority of eight pending
suits, most of them in segregated south
Delaware.
Texas Negroes were seeking a quick
trial of the state’s plea for a permanent
injunction against activities of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, while Alabamians
(and southerners in general) were
studying the implications of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decision in the Mont
gomery bus case—litigation growing out
of the decisions on public schools.
A comprehensive survey by Southern
School News showed that many Negro
voters switched from the Democratic to
the Republican candidates in the Nov. 6
election. Apparently the switch was de
cisive in two states — Tennessee and
Louisiana—which went Republican in
the national election, while SSN cor
respondents reported that Negro defec
tions from the Democrats were of sig
nificance in South Carolina, North
Carolina, Alabama and other states.
The latest school population count in
Washington, D.C., showed that District
of Columbia schools had lost some 4,000
white pupils over last year and gained
some 4,800 Negro pupils, with Negroes
now making up 68 per cent of the Dis
trict’s enrollment.
A state-by-state summary of major
developments during November follows:
Alabama
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the
Montgomery bus boycott case, linked
to the public school decisions, revived
discussion of race relations. Meanwhile,
a federal judge ordered University of
Alabama trustees to show cause why
they should not be held in contempt of
court for refusing to readmit a Negro
student (the former Miss Autherine
Lucy).
Arkansas
Voters approved a constitutional
amendment, an initiated act and a reso
lution (of interposition) designed to pre
serve school segregation—all three by
heavy majorities. A survey of educators
turned up one more school district (the
fifth) which had been desegregated or
was in process of desegregation.
Delaware
A majority of the eight school segre
gation suits now pending in federal
court will come to trial early in 1957.
Three all-white and one all-Negro
school districts were disclosed to have
announced that they would accept stu
dents of both races.
District of Columbia
Two out of three District pupils are
members of the Negro race, according
to a recent school population survey.
Since last year the number of white stu
dents has declined by 4,010 while 4,846
more Negroes have entered classrooms.
Florida
Dade County’s (Miami) Little White
House Conference on Education voted
in favor of “integration in principle”
while in St. Petersburg the Florida PTA
urged school authorities to carry out
recently enacted laws to preserve school
segregation.
Georgia
Gov. Marvin Griffin considered a “seg
regation strategy meeting” for Decem
ber (apparently to coincide with a meet
ing of U.S. district attorneys in Wash
ington), reportedly to seek ways of
countering recent pro-integration court
rulings.
Kentucky
Louisville School Supt. Omer Car
michael reiterated before Negro groups
his earlier statement questioning the
competency of Negro teachers as com
pared with white teachers. A suit was
filed in Scott County seeking school de
segregation.
Louisiana
Voters approved a constitutional
amendment designed to block suits
against school boards but rejected a
second amendment designed to restrict
or delay voter registration.
Maryland
A survey showed that more than 40
schools (29 of them in Baltimore) now
have mixed staffs of white and Negro
faculty members.
Mississippi
The state educational finance commis
sion approved a phase of the public
school equalization program calling for
construction of 322 new classrooms for
Negroes and 86 for whites.
Missouri
St. Louis County was said to have vir
tually completed desegregation with a
minimum of friction. Meeting in St.
Louis, the National Council of Teachers
of English defeated a resolution sup
porting school integration.
North Carolina
In the long-standing McDowell Coun
ty case the Fourth Circuit Court of Ap
peals ruled (in Baltimore) that Negroes
still must exhaust administrative rem
edies for school entry—singly, and not
as a group—but that appeal can be
taken directly to federal courts without
going through state courts as the 1955
Pupil Assignment Act directs.
Oklahoma
Two-thirds of the state’s colleges (22
of 33), with 90 per cent of the enroll
ment, now have racially mixed classes,
according to a survey.
South Carolina
The school segregation issue figured in
the November elections with a size
able split in the Negro vote, formerly
heavily Democratic.
Tennessee
A strong segregation tide was report
ed running, with state officials ready for
a legislative showdown on the issue in
January. John Kasper, Washington,
D.C., White Citizens Council leader, was
acquitted of violation of sedition and
incitement to riot laws in Clinton, where
Negroes absented themselves from the
high school to which they had gained
admittance by court order, because of a
series of “little incidents.”
Texas
Several plaintiffs have dropped out
of the Dallas school integration case;
the NAACP has urged a quick trial of
the state’s plea for a permanent injunc
tion against its activity in the state.
Virginia
Legal battles over three suits involv
ing school segregation were under way
as school districts reported concern over
marketing of bonds for new construc
tion.
West Virginia
A Republican sweep brought in a new
governor and a new superintendent of
schools in a state where desegregation
is accomplished or under way in 52 of
55 counties, but with no change antici
pated in state policy.