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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JANUARY 1957—Page 13
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
F ederal District Court orders gave
two western Kentucky counties,
where the Clay and Sturgis disorders
made headlines in September, until
Feb. 4 to file desegregation plans. The
effect is to rule out the “immediate”
desegregation sought by the NAACP.
In another district court at Lexington,
Scott County officials asked dismissal of
a suit seeking immediate integration of
elementary schools. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
In Union County, one of the two or
dered to file desegregation plans by
Feb. 4, pro-segregationists bought an
abandoned schoolhouse and planned for
the 1957 opening of a private school for
“children of the Caucasian race.” Lead
ers of the same group sought “action
at the state level” in the case of a
National Guardsman who was dis
charged after offering his military pay
(earned at Sturgis) to the Citizens
Council. (See “Community Action”)
In Louisville, a Detroit youth out
spokenly opposed to desegregation was
denied admission to a local high school,
and Supt. Omer Carmichael, praised
earlier by President Eisenhower for
the smoothness of Louisville’s desegre
gation program, was described by a
teachers’ union official as being “anti
integration.”
Another state survey found that 10
of 13 nurses’ training schools now ac
cept Negro students. (See “Miscella
neous.”)
Federal Judge Henry Brooks at Ow
ensboro on Dec. 12 directed the boards
of education of Union and Webster
counties to formulate and file school de
segregation plans in his court by Feb.
4, when he will reopen a hearing on a
plea for permanent injunctions for im
mediate desegregation in the cases of
Gordon v. Collins (Clay) and Garnett v.
Oakley (Sturgis).
As reported in previous issues of
Southern School News, Negro students
were admitted to the two western Ken
tucky schools in September and pro
tected by National Guardsmen for a
fortnight until “legally ejected” by a
ruling of the state attorney general’s
office that they were not entitled to ad
mission because neither school board
involved had—as yet—adopted a deseg
regation program. Attorneys for the
NAACP filed suit in both cases late in
September.
One probable result of Judge Brooks’
order is to rule out initiation of any
desegregation program in either county
before the beginning of the 1957-58
school year.
ORDER APPLIED TO BOTH
The Union County case was heard
first, but in a pre-trial conference at
torneys on both sides agreed to apply
the Union County order in the Webster
case since the two suits are similar.
Attorneys for the Union County
Board of Education (W. I. Wathen and
E. R. Morgan of Morganfield) contended
that formation of a 25-member inter
racial Union County Integration Com
mittee last May showed good faith on
the board’s part in making a start
toward desegregation and held that
certain unsurmountable problems
W1 thin the school system prevent im
mediate desegregation.” Attorneys for
me NAACP (James A. Crumlin and
arl Dearing of Louisville and Jack
[dreenberg of New York) argued that
the question is whether the defendant
a * or has not desegregated its schools”
m'd that “a desegregation plan should
°f concern to this court.”
The only witnesses heard were Wil-
ham H
Uni,
Anderson, chairman of the
ion County board’s integration com-
‘tee, and Supt. Carlos Oakley. An-
crson testified that though his com-
1 tee was formed last May it held no
b e eetin§ until Oct. 6 (and others since)
ceause, aside from repeated changes
, membership, the group had no
r . m^lcdge that there would be “any
felt emS during the 1956 term” and
^ d would have 12 months in which
t Wor h out a desegregation proposal
0r the board.
DIFFICULTY’ EXPECTED
^udge Brooks in giving the board
o time to formulate its program
d te< I °ut that the Supreme Court’s
ou _ ^Sation decision is “the law of
hav and said the board should
d e e no difficulty” in working out a
hg^^fSotion plan. He said the board
but et * *° com Ply with the decision
0Ur r 1 ® 1 he felt it is “much better for
5^ TPe of government if good citizens
ajj. ® et . together and agree on compli-
p r ® w ith laws as defined by the Su-
O a kj e Court.” And he asked Supt.
Wor , e y U he thought the school board,
with its integration committee,
Prepare a plan for compliance by
Clay, Sturgis Are Told To File Desegregation Plans
“I think it can,” Oakley replied.
Union County’s Negro-pupil per
centage is 10.9, Webster County’s 3.3 in
one district, 18.7 in another.
SCOTT COUNTY CASE
In U. S. District Court at Lexington
on Nov. 29 Scott County Supt. M. L.
Archer and school board members
sought dismissal of a suit seeking im
mediate integration of the county’s ele
mentary schools (Dishman v. Archer)
filed Nov. 14
The defendants contended that they
are “carrying out an orderly plan for
complete integration of all grades,” that
both the Scott County and Georgetown
Independent systems have integrated
high schools, and that county elemen
tary schools will be integrated “as soon
as the same grades are integrated by
the Georgetown Board of Education,
which will take place as soon as the new
school building for the city is com
pleted.”
About 150 Negroes of elementary
school age in the county district now
are attending a Negro elementary school
in Georgetown.
Anticipation of a losing battle in the
federal courts led some Union County
citizens at Morganfield into buying an
abandoned school house and planning a
private school for “children of the Cau
casian race.”
Wright Waller Jr., chairman of the
Union County Citizens Council, an
nounced on Nov. 28 formation of Union
County Independent Schools, Inc., and
purchase for $15,000 of the seven-room
Grove Center school building, aban
doned three years ago when county
schools were consolidated. He said the
corporation, which he heads, has no
official connection with the Citizens
Council, and was set up for the pur
chase and equipping of the private
school, and that another corporation
would be established for actual opera
tion of the school. The first corporation,
he said, planned to sell 400 shares of
stock at $50 a share to help meet the
cost of establishing the school.
‘WITHOUT INTERFERENCE’
He added that “our purpose is to op
erate a private school without federal
interference,” and said competent in
structors and an administrator would
be hired to run the school “under the
supervision of a board free from pol
itics.” Students, he said, would be ac
cepted from any nearby counties, and
“we will not have enough room to ac
commodate those who want to enroll.”
Asked by Southern School News for
later details on stock sales, faculty hir
ing, and accreditation prospects, Waller
on Dec. 25 replied:
“The sale of stock has been enthu
siastically received, and we will be
ready by next fall with whatever is
necessary to avoid race mixing.
“There is no question about getting
accredited. We have a modem building
and more than one teacher from
throughout the state has volunteered
his services. I have talked to several
more who have vowed to leave public
school teaching when the Negroes are
brought in.”
NATIONAL GUARD CASE
As head of the Union County Citizens
Council, Waller complained to state of
ficials on Dec. 10 that a fellow towns
man, Robert L. Rowley, 21, had been
discharged from the Kentucky Na
tional Guard because of his sympathies
toward the Council during the school
desegregation trouble at Sturgis.
Rowley, a specialist third class in the
Guard who enlisted in January, 1954,
for a three-year term, was on active
duty with his unit at Sturgis for one
week in September. Released to civil
ian life when his unit was relieved by
other guardsmen, Rowley soon after
ward attended a Citizens Council meet
ing at Morganfield. Waller said the
young guardsman stood up at the meet
ing, offered to donate his military pay
to the Council—and on Sept. 30 was dis
charged for the stated reason of “in
compatible occupation.”
A farmer, Rowley accompanied
Waller to Frankfort, learned from Maj.
Gen. J. J. B. Williams, the adjutant
general, that he would not reopen the
case. Williams said the discharge had
been recommended by Rowley’s com
manding officer, First Lt. Thomas E.
Lett Jr., and that “I’m not going behind
the recommendation of a company
commander.”
After his discharge Rowley had at
tempted to re-enlist in the Guard but
had been rejected, with no reason
stated. Subsequently his Selective
Service board changed his draft classi
fication from 1-D to 1-A.
“I think my friend has been mis
used,” Waller told Gen. Williams. “I’m
going to get a lawyer and take this to
court.”
On Dec. 25 Waller said the next meet
ing of the American Legion post in
Morganfield would entertain a resolu
tion calling for action “at state level”
in the case. State Sen. William Sullivan
of Henderson, he said, is “working on
the matter.”
COUNCIL SYMPATHIES BLAMED
Vigorous support for Rowley was
voiced by Allan M. Trout, Louisville
Courier-Journal columnist and long
time Frankfort bureau chief, in a series
of articles, Dec. 15 to 20. Trout’s sum
mary of the case included a later state
ment by Gen. Williams that Rowley had
been discharged “because his avowed
sympathy with the Citizens Council
placed a grave question against his loy
alty to the National Guard, when and
if it is called out again to quell inte
gration disturbances.”
Late in November and again in De
cember a white youth from Detroit
tried without success to enroll in Louis
ville’s Male High School. He was Billy
Branham, 17, an announced foe of in
tegration, whose parents still live in De
troit.
Male Principal W. S. Milbum con
sulted police when Branham first ap
plied for admission, then referred the
application to Supt. Carmichael. The
latter and Asst. Supt. W. F. Coslow had
a two-hour talk with Branham, who
told them he wanted to organize stu
dents against integration. In Detroit, he
said, he had attended a high school that
was 98 per cent Negro, and he “couldn’t
study there.” (Male High has 63 Ne
groes, 1,142 white students.
He said he wanted to finish school at
Male High, go to the University of
Louisville, and study law at the Uni
versity of Kentucky (he is a native
Kentuckian and attended Pike County
elementary schools until his father, a
welder, moved to Detroit). His parents,
he said, hoped eventually to move to
Louisville.
CONTACTS CITIZENS COUNCILS
Branham came to Louisville with his
mother (who subsequently returned to
Detroit) in mid-November and took an
apartment at 1427 South Sixth street—
the same address as Millard Grubbs,
chairman of the Citizens Council of
Kentucky, Inc. Grubbs said that the
Council had not brought Branham to
Louisville, but that the boy “had heard
of my work against integration and
came to see me. . .
A series of conferences led to rejec
tion of Branham’s application on the
grounds that his parents are not legal
residents of the city. Branham then of
fered to pay tuition ($254.64 for the re
mainder of the school year), as do 565
Jefferson County pupils living outside
the city limits, but again was turned
down. Officials cited Carmichael’s
earlier ruling, read to Branham over
the telephone before it was released to
the press:
“We have no obligation for the edu
cation of a non-resident and are there
fore free to deny admission. ... To ac
cept him [Branham] would be to set a
precedent which would enable trouble
makers in any number from anywhere
to enroll in our schools.”
BOARD APPROVES
Carmichael’s Nov. 20 and Dec. 3 rul
ings were issued with the advance ap
proval of the board of education, board
President Keith C. Spears said at the
time. Subsequently, on Dec. 17, the
board at a regular meeting gave formal
endorsement.
Grubbs said before the rulings that
“the board will get a lawsuit if it refuses
to enroll the boy.” Subsequently, on
Dec. 12, the Citizens Council held a
public meeting in Louisville, attended
by about 35 persons, at which Grubbs,
Branham and John Kasper, executive
secretary of the Seaboard White Cit
izens Council of Washington, D.C. (most
recently active in Clinton, Tenn.),
spoke.
In a lengthy speech assailing the Su
preme Court’s desegregation decision
and its implementation by federal
judges, Kasper offered his services to
the Kentucky Citizens Council and to
work with the Louisville group “as long
as is necessary to stop this thing.”
CARMICHAEL CRITICIZED
Supt. Carmichael came under fire from
another quarter on Dec. 11, when 25
members of the Kentucky Federation
of Teachers met at Louisville’s Shera-
ton-Seelbach Hotel. Carl Megel of Chi
cago, president of the American Fed
eration of Teachers, early in the evening
had praised Carmichael for “courage
and intelligence” in Louisville’s deseg
regation program. But other views were
heard after the reading of a letter from
a New York teachers’ union asking if
the local union had any objection to
the New York group inviting Car
michael to address it.
Miss Ethel du Pont, vice president of
the Kentucky federation, said that Car
michael was both “anti-integration”
and anti-teachers-union. She based the
anti-integration statement on the fact
that Negro teachers in Louisville have
not yet been assigned to previously all-
white schools (Carmichael has said that
teacher-integration would come later).
Another unionist said that Carmichael
had achieved “integration without in
tegration”—an apparent reference to the
flexible-transfer policy.
Carmichael was lecturing at Dart
mouth College at the time. His later
comment: “The record speaks for itself.”
WITHDRAWS CHILDREN
One Louisville mother on Dec. 12 said
she would keep her two children at
home rather than let them go to school
with Negroes, and subsequently with
drew them from Southern Junior High,
to which one Negro pupil had been
transferred.
Southern had no Negroes until De
cember, when a special eight-pupil class
for disciplinary problems in junior
highs—first such class Louisville has
had in several years—was assigned to
a vacant portable building available
there. Mrs. Roy Dupin last September
had refused to send her children—
James, 13, and Sandra, 15—to Eastern
Junior High because Negroes were en
rolled there. Conferences with school
and Juvenile Court authorities had re
sulted in their transfer to Southern and
the transfer of two younger children to
an all-white elementary school.
Late in December, Supt. Carmichael
said he hoped that a series of talks with
Mrs. Dupin might persuade her to “ac
cept the inevitable, for the good of her
children,” before the school-attendance
law is invoked.
SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
In 1956, the State Department of Edu-
cat : on reported in a year-end survey,
27 Kentucky districts built 39 buildings
with 436 classrooms at a cost of $8.8
million. In addition, the department ap
proved $10.7 million in revenue-bond
issues for building purposes—some
spent this year, more to be expended in
1957. Alterations to present buildings
yielded 186 more classrooms, remodel
ing another 123, refurbishing and re-
occuoation another 353, and 114 addi
tional rooms are being rented. But 441
classrooms were abandoned (net gain:
771). Most of them were one-room
schoolhouses replaced by consolidated
centers (Greenup County alone aban
doned 54 one-room schools).
One reason for the extensive con-
Texas
(Continued From Page 10)
office on Jan. 15, expressed doubt that
the Texas legislature can pass any ef
fective segregation legislation. He said
the problem is “for determination by the
local district.”
Secretary of State Tom Reavley, also
an East Texan, disagreed with the ap
proach of the Texas Committee on Seg
regation but agreed that the legislature
needs to pass a law giving guidance to
local districts on segregation. “Any new
legislation should be designed with the
honest intention of affording equal edu
cation to every child in the State of
Texas,” Reavley told the Dallas Morning
News.
He said that in some places, notably
East Texas, segregated schools can best
provide equal opportunity. Elsewhere,
he said, integration will be necessary.
Reavley said he had no doubt that
federal courts would honor efforts to
provide equal opportunity through local
option, if an honest effort is made to
provide equality.
“We cuss the Supreme Court as utter
fools and knaves and then expect them
to listen to our difficulties with a sympa
thetic ear,” said Reavley.
“The South has played its role right
into the hands of the paternalistic crowd
and the distant hotheads of all sorts of
motivation who understand none of the
problems of the South. We choose our
battleground where the position is in
defensible.”
WHAT THEY SAY
Some 100 Negro ministers and laymen,
meeting in Dallas, called for churchmen
to be alert “to what’s happening to our
people.”
The Rev. A. A. Lucas, president of the
Missionary General Baptist Convention
of Texas, said the group did not intend
struction is that the new minimum
foundation law allocates state support
to local districts on the basis of class
room units. At stake per classroom are
the teacher’s salary, $600 a year for ex
penses, $400 a year for capital outlay.
Officials noted but a small dent, how
ever, in the state’s reported need of
$350 million for new-school construc
tion, an estimate reached by the State
Department of Education and the U.S.
Office of Education. Dr. Robert R. Mar
tin, superintendent of public instruction,
long has advocated a state school bond
issue of $100 million to be supplemented
by local districts.
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
In the 1956 general election Louis
ville Negroes voted just about like ev
erybody else in the city—56.7 per cent
for Eisenhower, up by 5.9 per cent over
1952, compared with a citywide total
of 56.1 per cent for Ike.
Dr. Louis C. Kesselman, chairman of
the political science department of the
University of Louisville, reported that
finding on Dec. 9 from a survey of 29
predominantly Negro precincts, con
taining 37.2 per cent of the city’s reg
istered Negro voters. At 25,000 these
accounted for 14.1 per cent of the total
registrations.
Other highlights: Democratic candi
dates for lesser offices fared as poorly
as Adlai Stevenson in Negro precincts.
Nearly 5 per cent fewer Negroes voted
in 1956 than in 1952, though the total
Louisville vote increased by 3 per cent.
Of Negroes registered as Republicans,
82 per cent voted, whereas only 73.9 per
cent of Negro voters turned up at the
polls. In short, he found “more of a de
cline of Negro support for the Demo
cratic party in Louisville than a switch
to the Republicans.”
Of 13 nurses’ training schools in Ken
tucky, 10 now accept Negro students,
the Kentucky Council on Human Rela
tions reported Dec. 11. Negroes have
been admitted to seven of the 10
schools; three have had no Negro appli
cants. Of the 611 students in the inte
grated schools, 47 are Negroes (total
studying nursing at all Kentucky
schools: 1,205).
In addition, the council reported, five
of seven agencies training practical
nurses have admitted Negroes.
The report, prepared by Galen Mar
tin, executive director of the council,
concluded: “Opportunity for advanced
education at colleges and professional
schools such as nurse and practical-
nurse training is related to achievement
levels of students in public schools. It
seems vital to give pupils in desegre
gated schools an incentive which will
make them better students.”
to organize “a substitute for NAACP”.
“But if anyone should want to enjoin
the church, let them do it,” he asserted.
“If the church goes to jail, it will pray
itself out.”
OPPOSE NULLIFICATION
At Fort Worth, the Texas State Coun
cil of Methodist Women adopted a reso
lution opposing all efforts to nullify laws
as interpreted by the courts.
Texas State CIO Council adopted a
resolution calling on its members to co
operate in abolishing discrimination in
public schools and public agencies. It
recommended also that the legislature
pass a law “prohibiting use of symbols,
religious or otherwise, for the purpose of
intimidation and/or coercion.”
The CIO’s Committee on Human
Rights reported in part:
“We wish to commend the more than
100 local school districts that are now
in their second year of compliance with
the ruling of the Supreme Court. More
than 300,000 school children are now
studying in integrated schools without
one single serious incident being re
corded in schools actually integrated.
We also commend the public school dis
tricts which have taken steps to inte
grate their faculties as well. These
gains have been made despite the inter
ference and opposition of our Governor
and Attorney General who have used
every means of advancing their motives
by appealing to the prejudices of some
of our people . . .
“We are aware of the recent rise of
hate organizations in the state of Texas.
We recognize them for what they are
and for the denial of human rights and
resistance to government by law upon
which they thrive ... We recommend
that the Texas State CIO Council and
all of our affiliates give very possible
assistance and support to those organi
zations and community forces seeking to
combat the program of the ‘hate’ or
ganizations . . .”