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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH 1957—PAGE 9 I). C. Experience Is Held ‘Miracle of Adjustment" WASHINGTON, D.C. S chool integration in the nation’s capital was called a “miracle of so cial adjustment” in two studies released during February. (See “Under Sur vey”) Two southern congressmen said they intended to investigate personally com plaints that teachers in a junior high school were forcing white and Negro pupils to dance together. (See “Legis lative Action.”) A test of lOth-graders in a District school showed academic improvement under the new “four-track” program. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) reed retires U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stanley F. Reed, one of the justices who par ticipated in the decisions against pub lic school segregation, announced his retirement. President Eisenhower re portedly had a southerner, among oth ers, under consideration as a replace ment. (See “Legal Action”) President Eisenhower said he could not make a major speech in the South on civil rights issues, as he had been urged to do by pro-integration groups. (See “Community Action.”) The National Council of Churches is sued a 12-point program by which it said local church groups can rid their communities and congregations of racial segregation. (See “Community Action.”) A private research organization said the fate of civil rights legislation now pending in Congress could be deter mined in the next few weeks. (See “Legislative Action.”) The U. S. Office of Education reported that the biggest shortage in classrooms continues in the southern states, where construction, despite an increase, lags farther behind needs. (See “Under Sur vey”) SCHOLARSHIP REPORT A report on a scholarship project said southern Negroes from segregated high schools show up poorly on college apti tude tests but catch up quickly once they get into college. (See “Under Sur vey.”) Federal aid for school construction continued to be debated in Congress, with some indication that the Eisen hower Administration’s plan for a four- year, $1.3 billion construction program, Louisiana (Continued From Page 8) he said, and is frequently under attack >n the Communist press. The NAACP has never and will nev er advocate defiance of law and order or the denial of rights to any people be cause of their color, race or religion,” Laws said. “No White Citizens Council can make that statement.” perez fires back Perez rejoined: “Everybody wanting * ormation as to the Commie-front ac kground of this trouble-making, race-rioting, agitating NAACP should write their congressman for a copy of e Feb. 23, 1956 Congressional Record.” « ® sa *d it “partially exposes” the NA 7«unist - front affiliations of the AACP organizers. . . . including A pro-integration group, the Unite “bs, Inc., heard a prediction of “vie f °r integration” by 1963. It cam a m ? e ^ing °f about 3,200 persons a jjColiseum Arena in New Orleans. he Rev. Martin Luther King c outgomery, Ala., made the predictior asing R on contention that “Ne tj 068 stand together in determina fcj 1 1° disobey local law and abide b federal law.” •'fESSAGE TO PRESIDENT at ^another New Orleans appearance, draft j W ^‘ on Baptist Church, King lj 0w e< i a telegram to President Eisen- rj„i f r ’ ur ging him to make a pro-civil If tl SPGech I* 1 the South, said h P>res ' t i en t did not do this, King ^ vv would face a “mass pilgrimage” p ro t as hington by both white and Negro miscellaneous B 0y ® egre gation law has evicted the Colk„ C ° Uts f rom the LSU Agricultural *seum. JOfT c Us h P® c ' a l- S sa id the Boy Scout cir- lOy e el< t there annually for the past this ^ rS ’ w°uld have to find another site Boy o ear ' The reason: Negro and white does fl C0UtS ta ^ e P art > and the Coliseum c hitie 0t ^ aVe the segregated toilet fa- Schtielr] re< f u i rec l by law. Richard cir cil 1 er .’ i n charge of arranging the yeaj. ’ Sai( l it would not be held this would be upped. (See “Legislative Ac tion.”) Congress had before it a request from the District commissioners, forwarded with President Eisenhower’s approval, asking for permission to spend more than $1 million annually on additional teachers—a request growing out of de segregation problems. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) School integration in the nation’s cap ital has been called a “miracle of social adjustment.” An analysis of the citywide achieve ment scores of Washington school chil dren rejects the idea of the mental in feriority of Negroes. These conclusions appear in two new booklets on desegregation in the Dis trict of Columbia. The first booklet, declaring school in tegration a “miracle of social adjust ment,” was published by the Anti- Defamation League of B’nai B’rith as one of its Freedom Pamphlets and was written by Carl F. Hansen, assistant su perintendent of schools in Washington. ON WAY TO OBJECTIVE In this third year of desegregation, Hansen stated, the school administra tion is well on its way to the realization of its primary objective. He described this as: “The maximum development of every pupil, regardless of race, creed, cultural and economic status and sup posed capacity for learning.” He continued that the “big fear, that integration will impair the education of some children in the community, is rapidly yielding to the concentrated drive to effectuate the big solution.” The school integration story cannot be viewed in a vacuum, wrote Hansen. It is part of a changing city and a shrinking world. He recalled that Mar ian Anderson was denied use of a white school auditorium here in 1939 and a high school play was cancelled in 1950 because Negroes were in the cast. ‘CHANGE . . . EVERYWHERE’ But in the last few years “change was visible everywhere.” New ideas came into the city, among them that: “People everywhere are more alike than unlike.” Hansen believes District schools would have been forced to in tegrate soon even without the Supreme Court ruling. “The extent of the movement to al leviate problems in race relations was so great as to have left the schools an island in a sea of change,” he wrote. “The action of the board of education to desegregate at once [after the court ruling] may be described as an histori cal inevitability.” Population shifts brought ever-heav- ier problems of transferring teaching positions from one segregated system to the other and of transferring or build ing new schools. Action always lagged behind need. “In Washington, D.C., where equali zation was striven for earnestly and vigorously, it was never achieved,” he stated. Hansen reviewed the preparation for integration, dating back to Feb. 25, 1947 when the Citizens Committee on Inter- cultural Education asked School Supt. Hobart M. Coming to set up a commit tee to seek ways of bettering racial relations in the schools. A year and a half before the Supreme Court ruling, the board of education re quested community leaders to offer sug gestions on the mechanics of integra tion. A public hearing followed. A se ries of staff meetings scheduled during 1953 produced the segregation plan for the following year. ADOPT POLICY Eight days after the Supreme Court’s decision was handed down on May 17, 1954, the board of education adopted its desegregation policy. Schools were integrated when they opened in Sep tember. Coming’s plan, which was followed, provided for complete desegregation with the least delay, new school boun daries (which could be relaxed for health or emotional reasons), appoint ment and promotion of school personnel on a merit system. Schools opened on Sept. 13, 1954 with white and Negro pupils attending class es together in 116 (73 per cent) of the schools. Newspapers that day reported the apparent smoothness with which in tegration began. But one Monday morning early in October, 1954, a number of students in three high schools failed to report for classes. By Friday most were back in schools. At the peak of the student strike, about 2,500 junior and senior high school students were out of school. Over 100,000 pupils continued in class es throughout the city. “Any reasonable observer would have predicted a period of turbulence in com munity relations during the transition,” said Hansen. “What happened in this respect was not unexpected.” By September, 1955, the last signs of the dual school system had been wiped away and desegregation was complete, Hansen said. Not every school had both white and Negro students. But no child was denied admission to any school be cause of race. Teachers were assigned on merit according to need. ‘ALMOST ROUTINE’ Last fall the opening of school in the third year “had become almost routine —with not much more than the normal complement of problems and confusion,” said Hansen. “Anyone who would underestimate the difficulty of personal adjustment experienced by many parents, pupils, teachers and officers in the transition to integrated schools in the District of Columbia would fail to give credit to those who rose above their fears and prejudices to do much better than they thought they could.” During the first year of integration, Hansen said, principals planned social programs with considerable caution, perhaps at times leaning over back ward to avoid setting the stage for an unpleasant or misunderstood incident. But, he declares, most extra-cur ricular school activities, all of which include some degree of social experi ence, have continued without inter ruption since the schools were integrat ed in 1954. Hansen also included the profiles of two 1956 valedictorians, one Negro and one white. Both attained an average grade of 95 or above and both received scholarships to Yale. Their “comparabil ity of accomplishments,” Hansen states, “illustrates how superiority is an indi vidual and not a racial characteristic.” SECOND BOOKLET Similarly, the second booklet—“De mocracy and the District of Columbia Public Schools” — disclaims Negro mental inferiority. It was written by Ellis O. Knox, professor of education at Howard University and was released by the District branch, National Asso ciation for the Advancement of Colored People. From the same test data used by the House (Davis) subcommittee in its at tempt to show that Negro children are inferior mentally to white children, Knox found that: • Negro pupils with comparable ed ucational and environmental back grounds do not possess lower capacities to learn than white pupils. • A large overlapping of achievement scores by races exists in all integrated schools, showing that some pupils in predominantly Negro schools achieve higher scores than those in predomi nantly white schools. • Although the national norm for tests given to elementary school chil dren was third grade, second month, some pupils in predominantly Negro schools achieved at a sixth grade, eighth month level, or three years, six months in advance of national averages. • Since desegregation, some formerly white schools do not find their aca demic standards lowered by the attend ance of large numbers of Negro youths. CLASSROOM SHORTAGES The biggest classroom shortages (ac cording to need) continue in the South, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Education. It said that 69,200 of the 159,000 rooms needed will be completed this year by state and local govern ments. Among states covered were: Alabama, with 11,354 classrooms needed and 407 to be completed this year; Arkansas, with a need of 8,324 of which 350 will be completed; Kentucky, 7,000 needed, 800 to be completed; Mississippi, 6,579 needed, 600 to be completed this year, and Missouri with 4,000 needed of which 1,300 will be completed in 1957. APTITUDE TESTS Reporting on aptitude tests given more than 3,000 high school seniors in 78 schools in 45 southern cities, the Na tional Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students said that of 1,700 qual ifying for colleges, 1,100 expressed a de sire to seek admission and scholarships at interracial colleges, and 578 carried through the effort. A one-year survey of the college records of 167 students in the project, said NSSFNS, showed that “education ally, almost all of the students studied were successful. . . . Further data re vealed that the grades of students tend —Norfolk (Va.) Journal & Guide ed to improve between the freshman and sophomore years. . . . The evidence is strong . . . that aptitude tests, for de prived students, tend to measure what they have learned rather than what they can learn.” Two southern congressmen say they will investigate complaints that white and Negro children are being forced to dance together in the Cramer Junior High School. They were Rep. John Bell Williams (D-Miss.) and Rep. James C. Davis (D-Ga.). Williams made public a letter he said he had received from a parent and member of the District public school as sociation that two teachers “informed their classes that they were to partici pate in unsegregated dances . . . unless they definitely brought notes from their parents which would specifically assert that they were not to dance for one of two reasons: namely on grounds of re ligion or on grounds of health.” CIVIL RIGHTS BILLS Meanwhile, Congressional Quarterly, a private, non-partisan research publi cation, said civil rights legislation this year could be determined in the next few weeks. A civil rights bill similar to the one approved last year by the House but stalled in the Senate is expected to be through committee and on the floor by March 15. Senate Majority Leader Wil liam F. Knowland of California has pre dicted that the Senate will be ready to debate the measure about Easter. CQ said that if the legislation isn’t be fore the Senate by the midway point of the session, southern senators feel their filibuster threat will prevent final action this year. FEDERAL AID On another legislative front, a press association survey in mid-February in dicated approval of a six-year, $3.6 bil lion school construction program by the House Education subcommittee. Presi dent Eisenhower had proposed $1.3 bil lion for federal aid over a four-year period. The United Press said that its survey “showed also that the Powell amend ment—to bar federal aid to school dis tricts maintaining classroom segrega tion—would be rejected by the subcom mittee, if proposed.” During the month the subcommittee completed two weeks of open hearings and began an estimated two additional weeks of hearing further testimony. Justice Stanley F. Reed, 72, second oldest member of the U.S. Supreme Court in length of service, retired Feb. 25. In announcing his retirement earlier in the month he told reporters it was “because I am 72 years old.” The retirement was requested in a handwritten letter to President Eisen hower, who congratulated Justice Reed on his “long and splendid record in public service.” The justice, a Ken tuckian, began his term in 1938. Among those mentioned as possible successors is Judge Elbert Tuttle of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. SCHOOL BOARDS AND SCHOOLMEN Under the school system’s four-track program, which is geared to the achievement level of young people, Mc Kinley High School 10th graders were tested early in February. The results, compared to their academic standing last fall, were startling: • Seventy-nine pupils made a gain in reading of between one and two years. • Seventy-five gained from two to five years. • Forty-seven pupils showed gains of one year. • Twelve pupils showed no gain at all. The class was 70 per cent Negro. School officials point out that the re sults indicate that Negro students can pull themselves up as well as other students when stimulated. The four-track high school plan places students in four different courses of study according to abilities. It was started in September after school offi cials admitted that too many youngsters were falling behind in the fundamental courses of reading, writing and arith metic. SEEK APPROVAL The District commissioners’ request for permission to spend more than $1 mil lion annually on additional teachers has gone to Congress with the recommenda tion of President Eisenhower. According to James G. Deane, writing in the Washington Star, “the main object is to reduce class sizes so the city’s young sters can be given better instruction.” Deane continued: “The impact of inte gration apparently was decisive in caus ing the commissioners to grant the budget increase. Before integration, the city’s white school children had class sizes nearly exactly what the pending budget—if Congress approves it—will establish next fall. (Editor’s Note: The present class average is 34.8. The budget would reduce it to 32.) But Negro class es were much bigger. In effect, what the city is now getting around to is to try to bring all schools up the previous white standard.” President Eisenhower will not be able to make a major speech in the South on civil rights, as he had been urged to do by anti-segregation leaders. This was revealed by the Department of Justice when it made public a letter disclosing that Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams told the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., of Montgomery, Ala., that “it was not possible for the Presi dent to schedule a speaking engagement such as you asked.” Justice also disclosed, in response to an inquiry, that it had rejected an “urgent” request for a conference be tween Atty. Gen. Herbert Brownell Jr. and representatives of the southern Ne gro leaders conference on transportation and non-violent integration. Such a conference was sought in con nection with recent violence attending attempts to end segregation on public transportation systems in the South. ‘NOT HELPFUL’ Asst. Atty. Gen. Warren Olney III wired King that the department “well understands your interest and position in this matter and no conference is needed to make this clear.” “With respect to specific incidents of violence, a conference at this time would not be helpful or appropriate,” Olney told King, whose home has been the target of two attempted bombings. King was the leader of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. The telegram suggested that any evi dence of federal offenses be reported promptly to the FBI or the local U.S. attorney. The FBI has been investigat ing a series of bombing incidents in Montgomery to determine if any fed eral statute was violated. COUNCIL MESSAGE King drafted the annual message is sued by the National Council of Churches for Race Relations Sunday, Feb. 10, and later adopted as a Council statement for distribution by the Coun cil’s Department of Racial and Cultural Relations. This message urged local congrega tions to take a “forthright” stand on the “crucial” issue of segregation. “If we are to remain true to the gos pel of Jesus Christ, we must not rest until segregation is banished from every area of American life,” the Council stated. Although noting that “some progress toward integration” has been made, the statement pointed to segregated hous ing as a “critical problem remaining in every section of the nation.” Also deplored were segregated trans portation facilities and what was called slow compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision on school integration. As a 12-point guide for action by chinches in communities, the Council suggests: obtaining facts, discussing and formulating concrete proposals for con structive action on school integration, supporting legislation designed to guar antee full opportunity for all, and pro testing against legislation aimed at maintaining racial discrimination.