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Factual VOL. Ill, NO. 9 •VO ‘SN3H1V V I 98039 30 All S6 3A I Nfl VIVH aaiONVD 3Naosso *i •« 2 I toi is 3H0T NASHVILLE, TENN. $2 PER YEAR Objective MARCH, 1957 Legislation, Court Orders Draw Attention 35 New Suits, 45 Decisions Are Counted A t least 35 new cases related to seg- ' regation-desegregation issues have been filed in federal and state courts in the South in the past seven months, and no less than 45 court rulings have been rendered. This means that approximately 130 cases have been handled through the courts since the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. About 85 of this number sought desegregation of public schools at the secondary, primary and college levels. Thirteen were filed in efforts to enforce segregation statutes or to halt the use of state funds for de segregated education. The remaining 30 or so cases out of the 130 were brought for a variety of purposes, such as to test the validity of school bonds; to halt the activities of the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People, principal protagonist in the segregation-desegre gation controversy; and to seek pay equalization or tenure benefits for teachers. At least four of the cases were libel or criminal actions. BORDER, MID-SOUTH Much of the new litigation was in border or mid-south states. Since Southern School News* last court sur vey in August, 1956, six new cases have been filed in Kentucky, four in Mary land, four in Tennessee, three in Texas, two in Oklahoma and one in West Vir ginia. In the mid-South states, four cases were filed in North Carolina, three in Tennessee, two in Florida and one in Virginia. Of the deep south states, four new cases have been filed ui Louisiana, two in Georgia, one in bouth Carolina, and one in Alabama. No new action has been brought in Arkansas, Delaware, the District of olumbia, and Missouri, and no action 0 any kind has been brought in Mis- sissippi. The Alabama case was a suit for amages brought against the NAACP by ersons who had been accused of con- Pirmg in the University of Alabama ots of February, 1956. The Virginia Na A rt> S an , action introduced by the ,j, L j seeking to overthrow six laws tivi? ted : , n 1956 aime d at curtailing ac hes of the organization. decisions listed In hke manner, many of the cQurt h sions rendered since August, 1956, state P- 6n in border and mid-South in FlVe ° f them were in Texas, five ^ Ve ' n Maryland, two in in nui [ rg ' nia ’ one * n Missouri and one cis j ah °ma. In the mid-South, five de- ’p en ° as Were rendered by courts in CarnV SSee ’ Six in Virginia, two in North y ° T lna ’ two in Arkansas, two in Flor in a ■ ? ^ ee P South, there have been gia eas j oas in Alabama, two in Geor- • one in South Carolina and five in ^msiana. have been rendered in the lowing cases: ^ALABAMA—Lucy v. Adams, a dis- h arnr| C 2 urt ™led the University of Ala in ev n ^ rd °1 Trustees was “justified” b^/Peliing Miss Autherine Lucy. Ala- fin e f re L Patterson v. NAACP, a a sta( . *10.000 was raised to $100,000 by ootirt e , d * str i c i court, for contempt of niajj a er the orgganization refused to br° u h recor ds available in this case ^ACP t0 . ? ee ^ injunction against activities in the state. 'T a ] I^SAS—Aaron v. Cooper, fed- ^ es eer!f court approved a gradual (ri ct v £ a ll° n plan. Hoxie School Dis- Tewer ' ibe Eighth Circuit Court re Sati 0 - an injunction against pro-seg- ^erin 1StS restrain ing them from in- the desegregation process. I’tJfrttef —Gibson v. Board of Public lack* 0 ? County, dismissed hjtion., • , s P ec ified violation of consti- j. —Ward v. Board of Re- lr, 8 th a i 1Sn ^ isse< I by federal court, hold- ^‘Pistrati a ' nti ^ had not pursued ad- a n e remedies. In a second case, ee COURT CASE, Page 2) One of the many, visitors to browse through the Southern Education Reporting Service reference library is Lawrence Derthick, former superintendent of schools in Chattanooga and now U.S. commissioner of education. Patrick McCauley as sistant to the director of SERS, displays for him a few of the 55,000 items which comprise the collection of data on all aspects of the school segregation-desegregation question. SERS Reference Library Now Has 55,000 Rems ■pwo YEARS AGO this month, Southern Education Reporting Service, pub lishers of Southern School News, an nounced the establishment of “a library of comprehensive materials on the seg regation-desegregation issue” at SERS headquarters in Nashville. Today that library has grown to some 55,000 items which are constantly in de mand by news media, scholars and re searchers all over the world. The SERS collection, writes a well-known maga zine contributor, “has become Mecca for the inquiring mind.” Nearly every day inquiries arrive from many parts of the South, from other regions of the United States and from foreign countries. They come from newspaper editors, press associations, gubernatorial and legislative offices, na tional governmental agencies, students and scholars. LIBRARY STAFF The collection, which is microfilmed for protective purposes, is maintained by a library staff headed by Mrs. Imo- gene Morgan McCauley. Her associates are Mrs. Marybeth Wrenne, Mrs. Her- schel L. Estep and Miss Nina Cooley. Every working day this staff clips, catalogues, files and microfilms clippings from some 50 leading newspapers and numerous magazines. Texts of court decisions, legislative acts, special studies and pertinent public addresses go into the collection. As of March, 1957 the library houses an estimated 55,000 items, including 2,000 magazine articles and pamphlets. Some 225 newspapers are represented in a special file of editorial opinion and letters to the editor. PRESS COMMENTS “Nashville’s Operation Information,” the Nashville Banner recently described it, listing a score of news media as “a typical cross section of calls” that come to SERS. “A Service Located Here Quietly Gets the Facts,” headlined the Nashville Tennessean in reporting this incident: “Last Friday, a messenger delivered a telegram to a quaint looking, two-story brick building at 1109 Nineteenth ave. S. “It requested that the sender, a Louisiana newspaper editor, be wired collect, as soon as pssible, a list of all states which have officially adopted res olutions of interposition.” NO CHARGE MADE This request, like all requests coming to SERS, was processed without charge. (In cases where reproductions of clippings or other printed material are requested, SERS is able to furnish these promptly at cost.) Comments from users of the SERS library include the following, who vis ited the reference facility in person: ® W. B. Ragsdale, U.S. News and World Report: “Your library has proven very useful to me in the course of vari ous assignments, especially one in which I visited the library and worked for a day or so. Your library is the best, indeed, the only well-equipped one that I know of, in its field.” • John Bartlow Martin, Saturday Evening Post: “When the time comes to write the full history of the most divisive American crisis of 100 years, the crisis in the southern schools, schol ars will find in the files of the Southern Education Reporting Service the plain truth about what happened during these years a gold mine of materials that has no counterpart on this issue and few on any other. Meanwhile, these ma terials are indispensable to anyone cur rently working in the field, and in col lecting them SERS is performing a unique and invaluable public service.” • Dr. Glen Robinson, former Assist ant to the President, Peabody College: This agency, which has become widely recopiized for its objective fact-finding services, is the primary source of in formation for persons wishing to re port, analyze, or interpret events re lating to the Supreme Court decisions regarding segregation. For the past eight months I have used the materials of the SERS library almost daily while writing a series of articles for The Na tions Schools. This series would have been impossible if it had not been for the vast store of catalogued informa tion at SERS.” • William Emerson, Newsweek mag azine. SERS and its facilities are an invaluable aid to me in my week to week news work in my nine southern states. I am and have been our unoffi cial ‘segregation’ editor; the job has been delicate and difficult, and could not have been done as well or accurate ly regardless of expense—without your library and Southern School News.” • Russell B. Porter, The New York Times: “The facilities of the reference library, which you so kindly made available to me, were of the greatest possible value to me in covering my assignment in the South earlier this (1956) year. I do not know how I could have got along without the background stuff you had gathered and classified so painstakingly, so intelligently and so impartially.” , * Lahey, Knight newspapers: Your file has been most valuable for national appraisal of segregation prob lems. (See LIBRARY, Page 2) J^EGISLATIVE ACTION IN FIVE STATES TO MAINTAIN school Segregation and court desegregation orders in two states (affecting six school districts) claimed attention as southern and border states schools moved well into the last half of the 1956-57 academic year. Court-ordered desegregation was directed for Norfolk and Newport News in Virginia and for Hopkins, Scott, Webster and Union counties in Kentucky. Court action was anticipated to force integration in two areas of Oklahoma schooling. Arkansas’ legislature enacted four bills, one setting up a state sovereignty commission. The Georgia General Assembly adopted six measures, including a resolution of impeachment against six U.S. Supreme Court justices. Texas and Tennessee legislators passed resolu tions reasserting states’ rights, and in South Carolina an anti-barratry law was added to legislation aimed at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Maryland Thirteen southern and border state legislatures are meeting this year. Leg islation adopted thus far brought to 120 the number of measures dealing with segregation-desegregation enacted since the 1954 Supreme Court decision against school segregation. In further court actions, John Kasper, figure in the Clinton, Tenn. school dis turbances last fall, was ordered re arrested by a federal judge. In Georgia the seven-year-old Horace Ward case reached another milestone when a fed eral court held that the Negro, who has sought to enter the University of Geor gia law school, was not the object of ra cial discrimination. And a North Car olina school entry suit was on its way to the Supreme Court. Pro-segregation group activity was reported to be increasing in Florida and Maryland. In St. Louis a 50-50 ra cially mixed high school reported in creasingly successful operation in its second year of integration. A state-by-state summary of major developments follows: Alabama A University of Alabama spokesman told Southern School News after re ports of an exodus of “shocked and shamed” professors as an aftermath of the 1956 Autherine Lucy incident that there had been a “normal” turnover al though six departing faculty members had given this explanation as a major reason for leaving. Arkansas Four pro-segregation bills have been enacted by the general assembly and approved by Gov. Orval Faubus. One sets up a state sovereignty commission with investigating powers. Delaware As public school desegregation slowed down in Delaware, negotiations were pursued for a merger of white and Ne gro parent-teacher associations. District of Columbia Two studies, one by a school system official, called integration in the Dis trict a “miracle of social adjustment.” Two southern congressmen charged that a junior high school was forcing mixed dancing. Florida Pro - segregation group activity stepped up with the entry of persons from other states who are critical of Gov. LeRoy Collins’ stated position that mixed schools are inevitable. Georgia A case in which a Negro had made a seven-year effort to get into the Uni versity of Georgia law school was dis missed in part on grounds that no ra cial discrimination was involved. The legislature passed five pro-segregation bills together with a resolution asking impeachment of six U.S. Supreme Court justices. A bill to ban interracial ath letics meanwhile was shelved. Kentucky Three western counties and a fourth one in central Kentucky were ordered by a court to desegregate their schools this fall. Louisville Supt. Omer Car michael blamed the National Associa tion for the Advancement of Colored People for much of “the chaos in the South” and the organization replied this was due rather to “open defiance of some southern spokesmen” to court de cisions. Louisiana One hundred Negroes out of some 200 previously enrolled reentered inte grated state colleges under injunctions restraining application of new state laws which would have excluded them. Pro-segregation groups were more active at the current legislative session than at any time since the 1954 Supreme Court decision though no legislation they advocated was introduced. Mississippi Saying the state must preserve the “domestic peace and tranquility which is surprising our friends as well as our worst enemies,” Gov. J. P. Coleman, who is expected to run against Sen. James O. Eastland in 1960, outlined a four-point program which he hopes to achieve before leaving the governor’s chair. Missouri A St. Louis high school reported af ter its second full year of desegregation that it was operating more smoothly with a 50 per cent Negro enrollment than it did with a 33 per cent Negro minority the first year. North Carolina As the teacher pay issue dominated the 1957 legislative session, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to review a lower court decision denying Negroes entry to an all-white school. Oklahoma New federal court action was ex pected in an effort to force integration of a state training institution and a public school district. South Carolina The general assembly added an anti barratry (soliciting law suits) statute to a body of legislation aimed at the NAACP and considered other pro segregation laws. Tennessee An arrest order was issued by federal court for John Kasper, segregationist leader and figure in the Clinton inci dents. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Sen ate passed by voice vote the House- passed “Tennessee Manifesto” while re jecting a resolution of interposition. Texas The lower house of the legislature has adopted a states’ rights resolution which avoids the term “interposition.” Houston’s school board president said it was hoped that desegregation could be avoided at least until 1959. Virginia Two more localities—Newport News and Norfolk—received court desegre gation orders as legislative investiga tion of the NAACP continued. West Virginia The general assembly wrestled with proposals to strengthen the minimum foundation school program while a bill was considered to revise statutory ref erence to integrated West Virginia State College as a Negro institution. Index State Page Alabama 12 Arkansas 13 Delaware 6 District of Columbia 9 Florida 16 Georgia 3 Kentucky 12 Louisiana 8 Maryland 5 Mississippi 10 Missouri 2 North Carolina 11 Oklahoma 10 South Carolina 6 Tennessee 7 Texas 4 Virginia 14 West Virginia 15