Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JANUARY 1957—Page 15
Maryland Board Alters Stand, Approves Negro Child’s Admission
BALTIMORE, Md.
allowing a hearing before the State
Board of Education, Anne Arundel
County reconsidered its earlier position
in the case of a six-year-old Negro
1 child, Jill Brown, and approved her ad
mission to the all-white Femdale ele
mentary school. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
I Twelve Harford County Negro pupils
who were denied transfers last fall to
all-white schools closer to their homes
have filed appeals to the State Board of
Education. Previously they had taken
their cases into U.S. District Court,
where Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen
told them they must first exhaust their
administrative remedies. (See “Legal
Action.”)
The 1956-57 school enrollment figures
in Baltimore are still being tabulated,
so as yet there is not a full picture of
the extent of integration in this, the
third school year since the city school
system began its compliance with the
. Supreme Court decision. Last year at
this time about 7.4 per cent of Balti
more’s Negro pupils were enrolled in
formerly all-white schools and 92.6 per
cent remained by choice in all-Negro
schools. In the first year of desegrega
tion, 3 per cent enrolled in what had
been white schools.
, The Baltimore Department of Educa
tion did complete a report in December
on how many of its schools are mixed
and how many remain all-white or all-
Negro. As the table on this page shows,
the number of schools with both white
and Negro pupils has increased from 50
in 1954 to 80 in the current school year.
A “mixed” school in these figures can
mean the presence of only one or two
Negroes among many hundred white
children, or vice versa. The elementary
school classification includes shop cen
ter, occupational and elementary-junior
high school combinations. The senior
high classification includes combination
junior-senior high schools. Only those
junior high schools occupying separate
buildings are tabulated under “junior
high.” As may be seen, all the formerly
white ones are now integrated to some
extent.
i The General Assembly meets this
month for a 90-day session at which
school desegregation was not scheduled
to become an issue. The odd-year ses-
, sions, however, are open to the intro
duction of local bills, so that any of the
21 delegations (Baltimore city and 23
’ c °unties) could raise the issue in one
, form or another, if pressed to do so. In
* e past two years they have stayed
dear of the subject.
The closest thing to a school desegre-
i gat ion bill that was announced in ad
vance was State Sen. Philip H. Good-
Man s proposal to strike out the
e |al requirement that state training
i piools be racially segregated. Mary-
; an d currently has four institutions for
youthful law-breakers, divided by both
sex and race.
A plan was afoot last year to merge
the institutions for white and Negro
girls, thereby freeing one of the institu
tions for other purposes. The attorney
general ruled at the time that the U.S.
Supreme Court decision in the public
school cases did not invalidate the state
law requiring segregation in training
schools.
A bill which Sen. Goodman, a Dem
ocrat, sponsored in the 1956 session to
end segregation in the girls’ training
schools died in committee. This year the
desegregation move may become part of
a larger effort to get the training schools
out of the hands of their separate
boards of managers and under the direct
control of the State Department of Wel
fare.
In the case of Stephen Moore, Jr., et
al v. Board of Education of Harford
County, Federal District Judge Roszel
C. Thomsen told the NAACP lawyers
representing the 12 Negro plaintiffs that
administrative remedies on the state
level must be exhausted before court
relief is sought. In a ruling handed
down on Nov. 23, Judge Thomsen said
he would dismiss the case unless an ap
peal to the State Board of Education was
taken by Dec. 15.
The case is the first one in U.S. Dis
trict Court to challenge the gradual
approach to desegregation in Maryland.
Harford County this fall admitted 14
Negro pupils to the first three grades
of two formerly all-white schools, but
denied admission to Negroes seeking
admission to higher grades or other
white schools. In keeping with Judge
Thomsen’s ruling, the NAACP attorneys
—Tucker R. Dearing, Mrs. Juanita Jack-
son Mitchell and Robert B. Watts—filed
an appeal with the State Board of Edu
cation on Dec. 7. They asked for an early
hearing of the following questions:
1) Whether integration in the first
three grades in two schools in Harford
County, which meanwhile maintains
segregation in all other grades of the
two schools and in every grade of the
other schools, is educationally sound.
2) Whether compelling the appel
lants to travel greater distances, solely
because of their race, while denying
them admission to the schools nearest
their homes, is unreasonable, arbitrary
and capricious discrimination against
Negro children.
3) Whether compelling the Negro
children in this appeal to travel greater
distances to school than the nearest
school, where their respective applica
tions were made, is not a violation of
Maryland and federal laws.
SINGLE QUESTION
The NAACP attempted in the Jill
Brown case to have the State Board of
Education pass on similarly broad
questions of desegregation policy, but
the state board was advised by the at
torney general’s office to rule out gen
eral issues and stick to the single ques
tion of whether or not the appellant had
Course of Desegregation
In Baltimore
Elementary
Number of Schools
1954 1955 1956
White ....
.. 44
40
31
Negro ....
.. 50
46
44
Mixed ....
.. 39
47
61
—
—
—
Total ...
..133
133
136
Junior High
White ....
.. 3
0
0
Negro ....
.. 4
5
4
Mixed ....
.. 5
8
10
—
—
—
Total ...
.. 12
13
14
Senior High
White ....
.. 2
1
1
Negro ....
.. 2
2
2
Mixed ....
.. 5
6
6
—
—
—
Total ...
.. 9
9
9
Vocational
White ....
.. 4
2
2
Negro .. ..
.. 4
4
3
Mixed ....
.. 1
2
3
—
—
—
Total ...
.. 9
8
8
All Schools
White ....
.. 53
43
34
Negro ....
.. 60
57
53
Mixed ....
.. 50
63
80
—
—
—
Total ...
..163
163
167
* Figures furnished by Baltimore De
partment of Education, on basis of Octo
ber 31 enrollment, 1954-56.
been discriminated against solely be
cause of race or color. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”) It is expected
that the state board will continue to*
rule out questions that, in effect, seek
a determination of what constitutes a
sufficient start toward Supreme Court
compliance, since such questions are
considered by some officials to require
judicial rather than administrative
answers.
No hearing of the Harford case was
set in December, owing to the school
holidays and the hospitalization of Dr.
Thomas G. Pullen Jr., state superin
tendent of schools. A hearing before the
March 15 deadline was assured. (For
county reaction to NAACP suit, see
“Miscellaneous.”)
The eighty-ninth annual report of the
State Department of Education was
published in December, covering the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1955. The
265-page book, filled with statistical
tables, was in the nature of an historical
document, because it is the last such
report to have school data broken down
on a racial basis.
While desegregation is on a moderate
scale in Maryland, with mixed classes
in 138 out of 794 schools in 13 out of 23
counties, the State Department of Edu
cation is no longer asking county school
officials to report racial data, even in
those situations where no integration
1 , Alabama
(Continued From Page 14)
*iong the youth of Montgomery who
sit in a white schoolroom. There
JjUst be another Rosa Parks to sit Jesus-
■ jo e .* n a white hotel or restaurant . . .
j sit Gandhi-like in a white railroad
room ... to sit down in the
- * pews of Montgomery churches.”
^GELHARDTS REBUTTAL
Commenting on the Institute on Non-
of Nr 006 ’ ^ tate Sen. Sam Engelhardt, Jr.
- aj ^ ac °n County, secretary of the Ala-
Association of Citizens Councils
erv ■ one-w eek meeting in Montgom-
’ fj ’ s basking in the guise of love and
vi^hood and in celebration of a
Let me tell you, they are as
(v* 0 a victory as I am to the Supreme
• • . Buck-eyed preachers who
iHj „ at1 ^ pray until midnight and drink
Hdf gat until daylight . . . are making
® n emies among the white people
iio„ h an at ^ time since Reconstruc-
5 pot S - ' ’ ’ Montgomery is sitting on
is v j ® n Gal keg of dynamite. If there
® nc e, and pray there won’t be,
it to j, Us should buy a towel and send
Mpo ,!' e Supreme Court for them to
Thjjo ae blood off their hands . . .
*’bite "^ite, talk white, buy and hire
Th'
» S tL M ° ntg0mery City Commission, in
'k'isio rnent on the Supreme Court’s
t 0 n an< ^ injunctions ordering the
v ‘Ait^ e ® re S a ti° n on Montgomery buses
Coia^ ° u Sh we consider the Supreme
’W Po ec ision to be the usurpation of
' e l er to amend the Constitution . .
■ ha
! Tfia^fo 00 tentative but to recognize
ls not to say, however, that we
will not continue, through every legal
means at our disposal, to see that the
separation of races is continued on the
public transportation system here in
Montgomery . . . The City Commission
. . . will not yield one inch, but will do
all in its power to oppose the integration
of the Negro race with the white race
in Montgomery and will forever stand
like a rock against social equality, inter
marriage, and mixing of the races in
the schools .. . There must continue the
separation of the races under God’s
creation and plan.”
1
N THE COLLE
GE
S
University of Alabama Dean of Ad
ministration James H. Newman was
named interim president of the univer
sity Dec. 28.
He will succeed Dr. O. C. Carmichael
whose resignation became effective Jan.
1. Dr. Carmichael resigned amid talk,
denied by University Board of Trustees,
that he was quitting because of the
Autherine Lucy case.
Dec. 15, at the fourth in a series of
meetings held to consider a successor
to Dr. Carmichael, the board reportedly
discussed tightening entrance require
ments for students at the university.
Under the proposed resolution, appli
cants at the university would be re
quired to produce written recommenda
tions from at least two graduates of the
school and be certified by the probate
judge of his or her county as being a
bona fide resident of the state. Entrance
requirements for out-of-state students
would also be tightened.
Because of the board’s continued fail
ure to name a successor, there was
speculation that the board is divided as
to its choice for Dr. Carmichael’s suc
cessor, and/or the candidates the board
is most interested in are reluctant to
take the job because of the Lucy case.
Scattered activities of the Ku Klux
Klan were reported over Alabama dur
ing December, including the following
incidents:
In Opelika, a five-foot cross was
burned in front of the home of a white
Baptist minister, the Rev. W. F. Wagner,
whose church had admitted a Negro
delegation from the local high school
to observe the church’s presentation of
“The Messiah.”
In Montgomery, where several hun-
dren Klansmen convened in November
but drew only a small crowd, some 30
robed and hooded Klansmen were seen
Dec. 14, bringing food and money to the
home of a sick person. Although they
told photographers to leave, they creat
ed no disturbance.
REFUSED STADIUM
In Ozark, Dec. 13 it was announced
that the city council had refused to let
Ku Klux Klan use the city stadium
for an organizational meeting. Ex
plained Mayor Douglas Brown: “We
haven t had any trouble with the Ne
groes and the people here all get along.
We hope we can get by without trouble
if we don’t have a Klan or a White
Citizens Council.”
In Mobile, there were persistent re
ports of Klan activity, demonstrations
and cross burnings.
has taken place. The change follows the
belief that a policy of non-segregation
should apply not only to school admis
sions but also to school nomenclatures,
statistics and other aspects of education.
The latest state report does not have
a racial breakdown for Baltimore city,
which began desegregation in the school
year covered by the report. It does have
white and Negro statistics for the 23
counties of Maryland, with the exception
of Garrett County which has no Negro
pupils. In a table giving annual expend
itures per white and Negro public
school pupils over a 32-year period, the
report shows that the counties in 1923
had a per-pupil cost of $46.22 for white
children and $17.07 for Negro children.
By 1955, the last year for such data,
the costs per pupil were $222.63 for
whites and $223.35 for Negroes.
The expenditures for white and Negro
pupils varied considerably from county
to county. In eight counties, where the
percentages of Negro pupils ranged from
1.3 to 12.7 per cent in 1955, the per pupil
expenditures were higher for Negro
than for white children on the elemen
tary school level.
The opposite pattern prevailed in some
of the counties with heavy Negro en
rollments.
“To segregate is sin,” Bishop G.
Bromley Oxnam, of the Washington
area of the Methodist Church, told
some 225 white and Negro clergymen
and laymen attending a two-day con
ference on race relations in Baltimore
early in December. Methodist delegates
from Maryland, the District of Colum
bia and portions of Virginia and West
Virginia were also told, in part:
“We do not segregate those we love.
A man is a brother or he is not. If he
is a brother, he is entitled to that status
in religion, in education, in business and
labor, in politics and in society... It is
not enough to prohibit segregation by
legislation and judicial decision. The
spirit that breeds segregation must be
driven from the heart. In the spirit of
Jesus, keep the pressure on.”
The conference also heard the results
of a poll of 225 white and 46 Negro
clergymen in the Baltimore-Washington
area which showed that 41 per cent of
the white ministers said they would
willingly accept appointment as pastors
of Negro congregations and another 34
per cent said they would accept such
appointments but would prefer not to.
Seventy-nine ner cent of the Negro
clergymen said they would accept ap
pointment to white or predominantly
white churches.
KASPER HEARD
A talk was given in Montgomery
County by John Kasper, the White
Citizens Council leader whose activities
in Clinton, Tenn., have come under
court scrutiny. In his second publicized
Maryland visit (he previously spoke in
Talbot County), Kasper drew a reported
audience of about 25 persons in a pri
vate home in Poolesville, scene of a
partial school boycott over integration
in September.
Accompanied by members of the pro
segregation Maryland Petition Com
mittee, Kasper was reported by the
Montgomery County Sentinel, of Silver
Spring, as telling his listeners that pro
integration meetings must be broken up
“physically... by whatever means nec
essary” and that segregation supporters,
being highly mobile, “can suit our tac
tics to the moment, like shock troops.”
He advised tactics that will give local
officials “heart attacks and nervous
breakdowns” and said that anti-integra-
tionists must be prepared to go to jail
in their fight to preserve segregation.
Kasper was critical of the state of
desegregation in Maryland, saying that
“degenerate state and local officials have
pushed this thing further here than in
Tennessee.” In the course of a two-hour
talk he was also reported to have at
tacked President Eisenhower, Vice
President Nixon, Adlai Stevenson, Estes
Kefauver, the Washington “cesspool,”
Quakers, Unitarians, Catholics, Congre-
gationalists, some Southern Baptists, the
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith
and pro-integration activities of Par
ent-Teacher Associations.
The case of six-year-old Jill Brown,
the light-skinned Negro girl who was
first enrolled by a white Anne Arundel
County elementary school and later told
she could not attend there, came to a
close in December. The girl’s mother,
who teaches in a Baltimore public
school, had sought the aid of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People after county school
officials had denied her daughter ad
mission to the Femdale elementary
school. The NAACP took the case to the
State Board of Education.
At the state board hearing on Nov. 28
the attorney for the NAACP sought to
challenge the Anne Arundel County
desegregation program, which this year
called for integration in the first three
grades. He also wanted the state board
to pass on the county’s policy of con
sidering the nearest school bus stop to
the equivalent of the nearest school.
But the state board was advised by
Asst. Atty. Gen. Joseph Kaufman to
confine the hearing to just one question:
Had Jill Brown been discriminated
against because of her race and color?
In the subsequent words of County
School Supt. David S. Jenkins, the
county school board “attempted to
prove in the hearing that it had
acted honorably and in good faith” in
turning down the Brown girl’s request
for admission to the Femdale school.
Dr. Jenkins, speaking for the county
board at the hearing, contended that
while the county had admitted other
Negro children to other white schools
this fall, the Ferndale school was al
ready badly overcrowded and the Brown
girl could attend a Negro school, the
bus stop for which was closer to her
home than the Femdale school.
ACTION REVERSED
The state board held off its decision
at the time of the hearing. Then, on
Dec. 13, Dr. Jenkins announced that the
previous county action had been re
versed and the parents of Jill Brown
notified that she could now attend the
Femdale school.
No specific reason was given for the
change, other than the statement that
the county decision had been delayed
until its effect on all similar cases in
the county could be studied. The exola-
nation carried by the Associated Press
was that county school officials had
planned earlier in the fall to make a
study of all cases involving Negro chil
dren who live within walking distance
of one school, but for whom the bus
stop of another school is closer, and that
this study had been rushed to comple
tion after the state board hearing.
KENT MEETING
The Kent County Board of Education’s
lay committee on desegregation held
what was designated as a quarterly
meeting in December, with the next
meeting scheduled for March 7, 1957.
Kent, with a 28.9 per cent Negro en
rollment in its school system, lies on
the Eastern Shore and last year (1956)
adopted a policy of permitting Negro
pupils to apply for transfers to white
schools. None applied last year.
According to the minutes of the lay
committee meeting, the bi-racial group
expressed the view that “the desegrega
tion movement should be a slow, grad
ual process starting to the extent pos
sible on the adult level.” The county
school superintendent, Reade W. Corr,
told the group that the county board
would continue its policy of considering
Negro applications for transfers to white
schools, provided applications for trans
fers next fall are received on or before
May 18 of this year. The president of
the county board, Peter W. Jopling, told
the group that “experience has clearly
demonstrated that once a board of edu
cation and school officials have made
and announced a decision in desegrega
tion matters, it should be faithfully
observed.”
The ninth annual award of the Sidney
Hollander Foundation, given for “out
standing contribution toward the
achievement of equal rights and oppor
tunities for Negroes in Maryland,” went
to the Housing Authority of Baltimore
for “removal of racial barriers among
neighbors through voluntary and ef
fective integration in public housing
occupancy.” The chairman of the jury
of awards was Walter Sondheim, Jr.,
president of the city school board. A
previous award was given to the Balti
more school system for its prompt com
pliance with the Supreme Court deci
sion.
Federal District Judge Roszel C.
Thomsen’s ruling against immediate
court action in the Harford County case
(see “Legal Action”) brought the fol
lowing comments from the weekly Bel
Air Aegis:
“Having been frustrated for a second
time in a court action against the Board
of Education of Harford County, repre
sentatives of the NAACP should now be
pretty well convinced that the local
board has a definite desegregation plan
in mind and will put it into effect in
Harford’s public schools as rapidly as
the welfare of all parties concerned
justifies. Court actions in a matter of
this sort merely engender ill will and
tend to build up resistance.”