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Page 14—JANUARY 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Mississippi Enters 1957
With Segregation Intact
JACKSON, Miss.
jyjississiPPi entered 1957 with racial
segregation intact at all levels.
Thus far, there has been no legal
move to force compliance with the inte
gration decisions of the U.S. Supreme
Court, either in the public schools, on
buses or in other public areas. At the
moment, Negro leaders are centering on
efforts to gain voting rights and are urg
ing members of their race to seek quali
fication under the promised protection
of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Meanwhile, a 1954 program to equal
ize educational opportunities and facili
ties for Negroes with those of the whites,
designedly to discourage integration
efforts, was stepped up under a Missis
sippi Supreme Court decision placing
final approval of the school reorganiza
tion plans on the state level rather than
in local authorities. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
Supreme Court Justice John Kyle, a
Rhodes scholar, onetime attorney gen
eral and state senator, wrote the opin
ion vesting the State Educational Fi
nance Commission with final authority
in approving school district reorganiza
tion plans submitted by city and county
school boards. The reorganizations must
be completed by next July 1 in order
for local schools to continue to receive
state funds.
40 OF 82 APPROVED
At the close of 1956, a total of 40 of
the 82 counties had received approval
of their district reorganizations and
sites for new equalized buildings. Only
10 counties have yet to take the neces
sary action on the local level to ready
their plans for consideration by the
State Educational Finance Commission.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Summing up the situation in a special
message written for the United Press,
Hodding Carter, Pulitzer-prize winning
publisher of the Greenville, Miss., Delta
Democrat Times, said “the third anni
versary of the Supreme Court’s school
integration decision is less than six
months away, but any meaningful im
plementation of the decision in the
Deep South appears at least as distant
today as it did in May, 1954.” (See
“What They Say.”)
Other developments include:
The Jackson Progressive Voters
League, composed of Negroes, named
committees to seek registration of Ne
groes as qualified electors. (See “Com
munity Action.”)
SEES BROWNELL
A United States district attorney dis
cussed Mississippi’s legislative-enacted
segregation statutes with U.S. Atty.
Gen. Herbert Brownell in Washington.
(See “Under Survey.”)
Gov. J. P. Coleman indicated the
necessity for a special session of the
legislature in February has lessened in
view of a decision of the U. S. Depart
ment of Justice to wait on local action
in the qualification of Negroes as voters.
(See “Legislative Action.”)
Two northeast Mississippi cities
mapped plans for huge bond issues for
improved school facilities. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Establishment of a non-profit educa
tion fund to “compete” with the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People was announced by
the Mississippi Association of Citizens
Councils, an all-white organization
“dedicated to preservation of segrega
tion.” (See “Community Action.”)
U.S. Rep. Frank Smith of the third
(Delta) congressional district, said the
main job confronting southern congress
men at the 1957 session of the Congress
will be preventing the execution of
the U. S. Supreme Court’s integration
decrees. (See “What They Say.”)
Failure of U.S. Atty. Gen. Brownell
to demand immediate action by federal
district attorneys in the 14 southern
states to seek compliance with desegre
gation decisions has caused Gov. J. P.
Coleman to see less need for an im
mediate special legislative session to
take counter-action.
State officials had feared “for the
worst”, and had planned to bolster pre
viously enacted statutes strengthening
Mississippi’s legal efforts to block in
tegration. They saw in the asserted
“voluntary compliance” approach fur
ther delaying steps.
Mississippi’s next regular biennial as
sembly meets in January, 1958.
LEGAL ACTION
State level authority in the reorgani
zation of local school districts under the
Negro-white equalization program as a
condition to receiving state funds was
upheld by the Mississippi Supreme
Court in the case styled Adams County
School Board v. the State Educational
Finance Commission.
Justice John Kyle, in the unanimous
decision, said the equalization statute
calling for district consolidations in
order to reduce their number for im
proved educational opportunities for
both races, gives the state commission
full and final authority to reject plans
submitted by local school boards. The
decision backed up the commission’s
action in rejecting a two-unit school dis
trict plan proposed by the county board
and recommending a one-unit plan for
the county under the Natchez Munici
pal District.
It was the first state supreme court
test of the minimum foundation educa
tion program to equalize educational op
portunities between the races and up
grade the entire state system.
SECOND. YEAR
Mississippi is now in the second year
of a projected 20-year program to cost
an estimated $120 million for new and
equalized school buildings.
The Adams County board had chal
lenged the powers of the commission
and charged that its order was “arbi
trary and capricious.”
Justice Kyle said plans submitted by
county boards do not involve a ques
tion for judicial determination but one
of policy to be determined solely by the
administrative agency to which the leg
islature has delegated that power.
“School districts are mere agencies of
the state and may be abolished or dis
solved at the will of the legislature, sub
ject of course to constitutional limita
tions,” the court said. “Maintenance of
the uniform system of free public
schools to insure and provide substan
tial equality of educational opportunity
is the joint responsibility of the state
and the local taxing districts.”
The equalization-reorganization pro
gram is intended to do away with the
small, inefficient school districts, some
with only one school. Under it, the
counties and cities get substantial state
aid for a minimum teacher salary and
school construction program. It was en
acted just in advance of the May, 1954
decision of the United States Supreme
Court outlawing segregation.
Mississippi’s segregation problems
were explained to Atty. Gen. Brownell
in a Washington conference in Decem
ber with U. S. attorneys on ending bus
segregation by Robert Hauberg of Jack-
son, of the Southern Mississippi federal
court district.
“Mississippi’s problem was presented,”
Hauberg said on his return.
He had taken copies of all segrega
tion-preservation statutes enacted by
the Mississippi legislature since 1953 to
Washington. They included those on
public schools.
Hauberg would not comment on the
discussions, other than to say it was his
understanding that the federal govern
ment will seek “voluntary compliance”
with the Supreme Court’s rulings de
claring segregation on common carriers
to be unconstitutional.
There has been no effort to desegre
gate city buses or those of the major
passenger bus lines. Signs, placed by
local authorities, still call for segregation
in waiting rooms for “intrastate pas
sengers.” There has been no attempt
to disregard the local mandates.
Editor Hodding Carter’s specially
written statement on segregation as
serting that integration “appears at least
as distant today as it did in May, 1954,”
said:
“Most advocates of compulsory deseg
regation, and some opponents, gener
ally believed two and one-half years
ago that the decision means virtually
the end of a long ideological war.
“What most extremists on both sides,
as well as more moderate observers,
agree upon now is that the decision
represented a major victory but no ul.
timate triumph. Ahead lies many a
year of anti-integration legal campaign;
and extra-legal resistance on state and
community levels . . .
“Here and there a few Negro children
may gain entry through court action
They will have had to make their way
through a maze of legal obstructions
created by legislative action, and such
other and no less effective barriers as
economic pressures or intimidation by-
organized or spontaneous white groups.”
In a speech at Indianola, birthplace
of the Citizens Councils, U. S. Rep
Frank Smith said before the Rotary-
club (Dec. 18) in previewing the 195;
congressional session that southern con
gressmen will have a “busy year.”
He said their paramount effort will be
in seeking to prevent the execution ol
the U. S. Supreme Court’s integration
decrees. “We can expect a tough fight
on civil rights legislation.”
By the deadline next July 1 for reor
ganization of Mississippi’s present 827
school districts in the 82 counties, the
number is expected to be reduced to
120 districts under the Negro-white
equalization program. The present num
ber of districts compares with 5,406 in
1930.
The reorganization status at the end
of 1956 was:
Reorganizations approved in 40 coun
ties; hearings completed on five coun
ties’ plans; ready for hearings, 11 coun
ties, plans on file but incomplete, six;
held in abeyance, four; rejected and not 1
yet re-filed, six; surveys completed and
awaiting action by local schools boards,
10.
CUT TO 68
The number of school districts in the
40 counties already approved have been
reduced from 480 to 68. The number of
attendance centers has been cut from
(See MISSISSIPPI, Page 16)
Alabama Trustees Face Contempt Proceedings in Lucy Expulsion
MONTGOMERY, Ala.
'J'he University op Alabama board of
trustees will face contempt proceed
ings this month growing out of the
Autherine Lucy case.
In a hearing set for Jan. 18 in Birm
ingham, the trustees must show cause
why they should not be held in con
tempt of court for expelling Miss Lucy
(now Mrs. Foster) after U. S. District
Judge Hobart Grooms ordered her re
admission to the university Feb. 29,
1956. (See “Legal Action.”)
Meanwhile the board of trustess, fol
lowing a series of meetings which had
failed to produce a successor to Dr. O.
C. Carmichael whose resignation was
effective Jan. 1. (Southern School
News, December), finally agreed, Dec.
28, on the appointment of Dean of Ad
ministration James H. Newman as in
terim president. (See “In the Col
leges.”)
OTHER RACIAL ISSUES
Eclipsing, however, the university’s
troubles and other news bearing on ra
cial matters was the U. S. Supreme
Court’s order, reinstating a lower court’s
injunction, which ended segregation on
Montgomery buses Dec. 21. The ruling
brought renewed determination by of
ficials to hold the line against integra
tion in all its phases. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
In Montgomery, a Negro woman was
wounded in the legs when the bus she
was riding Dec. 28 was fired on by a
sniper. In Birmingham, the home of a
Negro minister leading a challenge to
bus segregation there, was blasted by
dynamite. Other violence was reported
in both cities. (See “Legal Action.”)
Gov. James E. Folsom, in a statement
Dec. 30, said that state forces were
ready to swing into action if needed to
“safeguard human lives and the rights
of property” in the disturbances over
the “much agitated question of segrega
tion.” (See “What They Say.”)
At a bi-racial seminar on “non-vio
lence and social change,” sponsored by
the Negro organization supporting the
Montgomery bus boycott, speakers
praised Montgomery Negroes and their
“passive resistance” as giving hope to
Negroes all over the South. (See “What
They Say.”)
A hearing on contempt proceedings
against the trustees of the University of
Alabama has been set for Jan. 18 in
Birmingham. The university trustees
have been directed by U. S. District
Judge Hobart Grooms to show cause
why they should not be held in con
tempt for expelling Mrs. Autherine Lucy
Foster last February.
After Mrs. Foster (then Miss Lucy)
attended classes in Tuscaloosa for three
days in early February, riots and dem
onstrations drove her from the campus.
The board of trustees, which had been
ordered by Judge Grooms to accept her
and all other qualified Negro students,
suspended her temporarily because of
the riots and “for her own good.” Back
in district court Miss Lucy won, Feb.
29, an injunction ordering the univer
sity to readmit her. A few hours later
the trustees “permanently expelled” her
for her charges that the university had
conspired in the campus disturbances.
TRUSTEES DEFEND ACTION
It is for this action that the university
has now been called to account. The
trustees contend that their action was
not in contempt, that it had nothing to
do with the fact that Miss Lucy was a
Negro. They point to the fact that a
white student, Leonard Wilson of Selma,
was also expelled for his attacks on the
university and his part in the demon
strations. Both expulsions, the trustees
argue, were within the administrative
powers granted them by the state con
stitution.
If Judge Grooms agrees with the
petition for contempt filed by Mrs. Fos
ter through her attorney, Arthur Shores
of Birmingham, the trustees may face
jail, fines or both.
The Alabama Supreme Court Dec. 6
upheld a $100,000 contempt of court fine
against the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. The
fine had been levied by Montgomery
Circuit Judge Walter B. Jones after the
NAACP refused to produce certain rec
ords, including membership rolls, in
connection with a suit brought by the
attorney general to drive the organiza
tion out of the state.
MUST PURGE OF CONTEMPT
Judge Jones also issued a restraining
order for the organization to cease op
erations in the state. Lawyers and court
officials explain the NAACP must purge
itself of the contempt citation before
appeal will be heard on the restraining
order.
The supreme court based its affirma
tion of the $100,000 fine on a 1949 de
cision in which the court ruled that the
Ku Klux Klan could be forced to open
its membership records to a grand jury
in Birmingham. The decision was unan
imous.
“It is clear,” the court said, “that the
circuit court had authority to order the
petitioner to disclose names, addresses
and dues paid by petitioner’s members,
officers, agents and employes and that
the petitioner could be held in contempt
of court for non-compliance with the
court’s order to produce.”
‘BRAZEN DEFIANCE’
Holding the NAACP has been given
ample time to produce the records, the
state’s high court said the refusal was
in “brazen defiance” of the circuit court
order.
Judge Jones initially fined the or
ganization $10,000, then increased that to
$100,000 when the records had not been
produced by the expiration of a second
deadline period.
“Neither fine,” said the supreme court,
“was severe enough or the petitioner
would have produced the documents
within the time allowed instead of of
fering partial compliance with the
court’s order on the last day of grace.”
Referring to the 1949 Klan decision,
the court quoted part of its previous
ruling:
“The first duty of every citizen is al
legiance to the constitution and laws of
the state and nation and the lawful
judgments and decrees of the courts . . .
Only privileged communications and
facts made so by the law or lawful gov
ernment regulations are protected from
disclosure. The identity of the member
ship of said organization [the Klan] does
not fall within such privileged class.”
BUS DECISION IN EFFECT
The U. S. Supreme Court’s decision
outlawing bus segregation became ef
fective in Montgomery Dec. 21. Despite
the city commission’s contentions dur
ing the hearings that led to the decision
that integration would result in violence
and bloodshed, Negroes sat anywhere
they chose on buses — some in front,
some as always in the rear—without in
terference.
In Montgomery buses were fired on
on four occasions in late December. In
the most serious case, a young Negro
woman, Mrs. Rosa Jordan, was hit in
both legs by a bullet fired through the
side of the bus in which she was riding.
Later, after the bus had been taken to
police headquarters for interrogation of
passengers, it was again fired on in the
same neighborhood where the first at
tack occurred.
In the first incident, there were six
white passengers and six Negroes on the
bus, all observing traditional segrega
tion (as most passengers have been de
spite the court’s injunction). In the sec
ond, there were only whites on the bus
and the shot struck near the front, tra
ditionally the white section.
In Birmingham, the home of the Rev.
F. L. Shuttlesworth, Negro minister,
was dynamited and heavily damaged
Christmas night.
Shuttlesworth is a leader of the Ala
bama Christian Movement for Human
Rights which staged a one-day defiance
of Birmingham bus segregation laws
following integration of Montgomery
buses. Twenty-two Negroes were ar
rested during the day.
Dec. 30 a Birmingham city bus, with
30 passengers aboard, was hit four times
by gunfire. Six Negro boys were ar
rested in connection with the shooting.
Earlier, shots were fired into the Negro
section of a bus and two white youths
were reported seen running from the
scene.
White reaction was generally calm
but still disapproving. Many whites ex
pressed the view that bus integration
was one thing, school integration quite
another, implying far greater opposition
in the latter challenge to the state’s
traditional separation of the races.
RENEWED INTEREST
The reality of integration in Mont
gomery has apparently brought re
newed interest in the broad aspects of
segregation. This interest was spurred
still more by the Dec. 23 statement of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., boycott
leader, who listed the future aims of the
boycott-sponsoring Montgomery Im
provement Association. These included
voting, parks and education. Of the
latter King said:
“Here we are going to lose many of
our white friends that helped us during
the bus boycott. Still we must have in
tegrated schools as the Supreme Court
in 1954 ruled we can. That is when our
race will gain full equality. We cannot
rest in Montgomery until every public
school is integrated.”
Vowing that “good order must be
maintained,” Gov. James E. Folsom said
state forces were ready to swing into
action if necessary.
In a statement Dec. 30, the governor
said:
“It is a prime responsibility of a gov
ernor to maintain law and order in the
state . . . Governors do not intervene
. . . with the full power of their office
and the forces under their jurisdictions
except in two conditions.” ,
These two conditions the governor
described as the breakdown of local law
enforcement or its inadequacy to cope
with a “critical situation.” i
Speakers at an “Institute on Non-Vio
lence in Social Change” in Montgomery
Dec. 3 to 9 praised the year-old Mont
gomery bus boycott (which ended Doc
21 when buses were integrated) as
heartening to Negroes everywhere.
Excerpts from a few of the speeches
follow: *
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., boycott
leader—“We have discovered a new and
powerful weapon: non-violent resist
ance . . . Nobody has been able to con
vince me that the vast majority of white
people in this community, or in the
whole state of Alabama, are willing t°
use violence to maintain segregation-
It is only the fringe element, the hood
lum element, which constitutes a nu
merical minority, that would resort to
the use of force . . . We must continue
to believe that the most ardent segre-
gationist can be transformed into * e
most constructive integrationist. j
also “Legal Action” for King’s la e
statement on integrated schools.)
L. D. Reddick, director of the A»*
bama State College (for Negroes) nj
tory department—“[The boycott
shown] there is a way, even under ,
most distressing conditions, to transfo
the old, obsolete pattern of life- ,
should be grateful for this example, .
some of us had feared and conc ^L v -
that we would have to fight it out. ^
we know that the transition can
made peaceably.”
j
WHITES ‘BRAINWASHED’
Rev. Glenn Smiley, Fellowship of ^
conciliation, New York City 1 n
white people of the South] have
brainwashed. We can’t forgive tha ,
we can understand it.” . . tet ,
Dr. Homer Jack, Unitarian rninl ,. er
Evanston, Ill.—“There must be an ° ^
Rosa Parks [the Negro woman w
arrest Dec. 5, 1955 precipitated t e ’ j
cott and subsequent court a
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