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Factual Sow •VO ‘SN3H1V V I Ob 0 3 0 JO A1 I Sb 3A I Nfl n»H «310NVD 3 N bO 6 SO *1 *« z i ioi iwnr ool News 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.