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PAGE 14—JUNE 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Maryland (Continued From Page 12) Montgomery County, which has more Negro children in mixed classes than any other Maryland county, is extend ing its “selective integration” program next fall and adding a touch of compul sion to it. In its second year of desegregation, just completed, Montgomery had 686 out of its 3,017 Negro pupils in form erly all-white schools, where they were among nearly 30,000 white pupils. In the second year more care was exer cised in the selection of transfer candi dates than had been the case in the first year, with emphasis placed not only on the availability of classroom accommo dations but also on the adequacy of programs to be opened to Negroes in white schools. Staff conferences with Negro prin cipals were held to discuss pupils who might be considered eligible for trans fers. In determining whether an “ade quate program” was available at the school to which a pupil’s transfer was being considered, the primary consid eration was the curriculum offered in relation to the pupil’s “educational needs.” The needs were interpreted broadly to include such factors as emo tional stability and the pupil’s achieve ment level in relation to that of the class to which he might transfer. Much the same program for integrat ing Negroes into the schools nearest their homes, when space and programs are available, will be continued next fall. Four schools are expected to re ceive Negroes for the first time, making mixed classes in 53 out of the county’s 98 schools. An additional 227 Negroes are expected to transfer to white class es, with an as yet unknown number entering kindergarten. About a dozen Negro teachers are expected to be re lieved of classes in all-Negro schools for possible reassignment to integrated schools. The one significant change in the coming school year is that integration will not be quite so optional for “down- county” Negro pupils, some of whom have continued to be transported to “up-county” all-Negro schools. “Down-county” elementary and jun ior-high Negro pupils will not be car ried by school bus to distant segregated schools if space is available for them in nearby integrated schools. If private transportation is arranged, that is a different matter. The program will just about complete integration in the down- county area, where proportionately few er Negroes live. COMMITTEE REPORT The third-year desegregation policy was set by the county school board early in May, following a report by Fred L. Dunn Jr., chairman of the school sys tem’s Professional Committee on De segregation. The only opposition on the seven-member school board was ex pressed by Harrison C. King, who was reported to have felt that the committee should have consulted with the trustees and PTA executive committees of the affected schools to get community re action. King was quoted as saying that his fellow board members were “going too fast and too far” with deseeration. Prince George’s County has also ex tended its desegregation program into a third year. During the 1956-57 school year, 155 Negroes were admitted to 17 formerly all-white schools, having ex ercised their option of attending schools closer to their homes, if space was avail able for them. The transfers were ar ranged through individual applications, and the seven-member county school board voted in May, upon the recom mendation of County School Supt. Wil liam S. Schmidt, to continue the same system. The board declared in its resolution, “The policy of enrollment in the public schools of the county shall be one of individual choice, subject to the avail ability of building facilities, transporta tion services and to the approval of the Board of Education of their representa tive, the County Superintendent of Schools.” During “this period of ad justment,” the board reserved the right “to delay or deny the admission of a student to any school if it deems such action wise, necessary and in the best interest of public safety and commun ity welfare.” TRANSFER APPLICATIONS Applications for transfers were to have been in the school superintendent’s office by June 14. Applications were scheduled to be approved or disap proved by July 30 and parents notified of the outcome. The school board meeting at which the third-year policy was set was at tended by an eight-member delegation of the Prince George’s County Chapter of the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People, the Hyattsville Independent reported. The delegation asked if the county schools were complying with the Supreme Court decision, in view of the fact that no teachers had been integrated. County School Supt. Schmidt was quoted as replying, “The decision applies only to the admission of students—that this not be denied on the basis of race.” Anne Arundel County, which admit ted 77 Negro pupils to the first three grades of 13 formerly all-white schools in the 1956-57 school year, is scheduled under its desegregation program to in tegrate “one or more” grades each year until full desegregation is achieved. At the May meeting of the county school board there was an indication that a move might be made to speed up de segregation. QUESTION OF TIMING The question of integration timing was raised by the school board’s first Negro member, Dr. Aris T. Allen, near the end of what had been a lengthy meeting. He was asked, because of the lateness of the hour, to postpone the subject until the June board meeting. Asked after the meeting if he intended to recommend integrating more than one additional grade next fall, Allen was quoted in the county press as re plying, “I haven’t definitely decided, but I think some thought should be given to it. in view of the smoothness with which integration has gone this year.” Allen also questioned a county ruling that the nearest school bus represents the nearest school. He told fellow board members that he could not “personally see any benefit” from the bus ruling. But the county school superintendent, Dr. David S. Jenkins, said that the schools would lose control over bus transportation if the 25-year-old rule were abandoned. The superintendent explained that severe overcrowding was prevented at some schools by requiring that children living in the vicinity these schools go by bus to more disk 0 schools, if the bus stops were closer, their homes than the schools were 10 VOLUNTARY PLAN Charles County, which has a 45.5 r*. cent Negro school enrollment, allow Negro children to enter the first grj? of white schools last fall on a volunk- basis. The same policy is being contir' ued for the coming school year. In the school year just complex Charles County received and accept applications from five Negro childr e .' to enter the white elementary at Indian Head, which serves a naval reservation. Queen Anne’s County on Maryland ! Eastern Shore is also continuing j.' policy of considering Negro transfer to white schools, if any Negroes seei to transfer. In the past two school year; none has applied. ll»l mi Wi-JM i i, i Race relations rarely becomes an is. sue in Maryland politics, but there were overtones in May during the town elec, tion campaigns in Cheverly, which lies in Prince George’s County. A questior on the ballot called for the elimination of ward boundaries and the election of councilmen-at-large rather than from, representative wards. Proponents had said frankly that they feared the ward system might eventually result in the election of a Negro councilman. Mayor Lawrence A. Yates, seekini another term, favored the charter change. He was re-elected, but the pro posal to abolish wards was defeated by roughly a 5 to 4 vote. * #t Five Missouri Negro High ST. LOUIS, Mo. HE SCHOOL YEAR JUST ENDING witnessed no spectacular changes in the status of desegre gation in Missouri. A number of districts completed the transition to desegregation quietly and with out incident. By the end of the year, only five high school dis tricts in the state remained segre gated, and one of those had an nounced plans to desegregate jun ior and senior classes next Sep tember. Altogether, fewer than 7,500 out of 68,000 Negro pupils remained in segregated school systems, and some of these expected to be de segregated by the start of the next school year. Out of 244 districts with Negro enrollments, 193 had ended segregation by this year. The total was expected to reach at least 203 by next year. All of the high school and most of the elementary districts which retain segregation are in the extreme south east comer of the state—the cotton growing “bootheel” section of the Mis souri delta country. Largest school district to end seg regation this year was that of Webster Groves, the last sizable unit in St. Louis County to make the change. Webster Groves had operated a Negro elemen tary and high school which accommo dated Negroes from other St. Louis County districts. As the other districts followed the example of St. Louis City in ending segregation, Webster Groves found it possible to close its Negro school and integrate some 30 high school and 313 elementary Negroes with 1,300 whites in high school and 3,940 whites in elementary grades. No fric tion and no problems were reported. Some Negro teachers at Webster Groves were retained and a few others were dismissed. Suit was filed by three of the dismissed teachers, but dropped before it came to trial. TRANSITION COMPLETE For all practical purposes, Webster Groves desegregation completed the transition among suburban St. Louis districts. The county NAACP issued a statement hailing the “wonderful prog ress” made in complying with the Su preme Court decision. A similar situation meanwhile was developing in the state's second largest metropolitan area, Jackson County. Kansas City had desegregated both ele mentary and high schools in Septem ber, 1955. Independence, the home of Harry S. Truman, desegregated its high school at the same time. This spring, Supt. O. L. Plucker announced that by September, 1957 the entire process of integrating the elementary grades will be completed, and all Negro faculty members will be employed in regular schools teaching predominantly white classes. Thus Jackson County, like St. Louis County, will see the end of racial dis tinctions in school enrollment, through in both areas some “natural” segrega tion persists as a result of residential concentration of Negroes. Other communities which moved this year to end segregation in elementary schools were Bowling Green, New Lon don and Troy, in the northeast part of the state; Lexington and Liberty, west central; Pilot Grove and Slater, north central; Ironton, Frederickton and St. Mary’s, east southeast; Warrenton and Clarence, east. Most of these districts have relatively few Negroes, but for one reason or another had delayed in tegration of elementary grades until this year. Nine other districts are re ported ready to make the change with the start of the school year next Sep tember. CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT In the state capital, Jefferson City, desegregation of elementary schools was likewise completed during the year, the high school having been de segregated in 1954. Some 185 Negroes and 2,200 whites were involved. Also in Jefferson City, the formerly all-Negro four-year college, Lincoln University, continued to operate with a steadily increasing white enrollment. The Kansas City Star called Lincoln a spectacular instance of “desegregation in reverse.” Most of its regular under graduates still are Negroes, but some 300 whites this year attended classes, either in adult education or in regular curriculum courses. Missouri’s public colleges in general —the University of Missouri at Colum bia and the five state teachers’ colleges —continued to operate on desegregated lines. Negro numbers increased some what during the year—the university’s Negro enrollment approximately dou bled—but officials reported nothing like a “flood” of Negroes, as some observers had predicted. At all the colleges, de segregation had become an accom plished fact so far as university facilities went, though in some towns, notably Columbia, some restaurants and other public facilities continued to be closed to Negroes. One notable case of desegregation during the year occurred in the boot- heel town of Morley, where the high school grades 9 to 12 were desegre gated, involving 35 Negroes and 600 whites. Another bootheel town, Poplar Bluff, announced that the upper two grades of high school would be deseg regated next September. This would require nearby Neelyville, which had been sending its Negro pupils to Poplar Bluff, to follow suit, at least as far as the upper two grades were concerned. Schools Remain Segregated at Year-End Although some high school desegre gation has occurred in the bootheel and in other sections, action at the elemen tary level has been rarer and two counties retain segregation in all dis tricts at all levels. There is little ap parent disposition by the Negro com munities to press for changes in this sit uation. The state government, though officially favorable to desegregation, does not bring pressure on local dis tricts through distribution of funds or otherwise. State school laws have al Year-End Summary 1) Out of 244 school districts with Negro enrollments, 193 had ended segregation by this academic year and at least nine others were planning to end it in September. 2) Webster Groves, last sizable district in St. Louis County to re tain segregation, ended it this year. So did Jefferson City, the state capital, in its elementary schools. Independence, home of Harry S. Truman and last segregated district in Jackson County (Kansas City), announced plans to complete de segregation in all grades next September. 3) Missouri public colleges and the state university continued to operate on desegregated lines, with Negro enrollments increasing but not in a “flood” as had been fore cast. 4) The state political campaign of 1956 and the St. Louis school board campaign of the spring of 1957 were waged with almost no reference to racial issues or the school desegregation question. 5) With school desegregation completed, St. Louis was paying more attention to the problem of residential segregation created by an expanding but largely concen trated Negro district. ways been written with an eye to pre venting state interference in matters of policy in the districts. There was a flareup of racial feeling in the bootheel during the winter when a Sikeston high school girl was raped and her escort, a Charleston high school athlete, murdered by a Negro. For sev eral days, white students demonstrated and some stayed away from classes, but gradually things returned to normal as school officials exhorted students to re spect law and order. The murderer, be lieved to have been an itinerant, never was found. Missouri went through the 1956 elec tion campaign with a minimum of dis cussion of racial issues. School deseg regation had become such a widely ac cepted fact over most of the state that it entered none of the statewide cam paigns. Both Democratic and Republi can state candidates appealed to the Negro votes in Kansas City and St. Louis in various ways. James T. Blair, Jr., the successful Democratic candidate for governor, promised to support appointment of a state human rights commission—the current substitute for FEPC—and made good on his promise by personally per suading the House of Representatives to adopt this legislation for the first time in several tries. Whether the bill would pass the Senate, however, was doubtful. STATUTES REPEALED No legislation affecting school segre gation was even introduced except a bill to repeal the old statutes author izing segregation in conformity with the state constitution, which provided for separate schools unless otherwise ordered by the legislature. Two years ago an attempt to pass the repealer bill failed, opponents arguing that the Su preme Court had not yet handed down its final orders in the school cases. This year there was virtually no opposition and the repealer went through quietly, unnoticed in many news dispatches. The issue was not a significant one in a substantive sense, since the segrega tion statutes had already been declared unenforceable by the attorney general as a result of the Supreme Court opin ion. But Negro members of the legis lature pressed for repeal as a matter of symbolism. , In the St. Louis city election of four members of the school board this year, the segregation issue was as absent as it had been in the state campaign. No candidate opposed the desegregation which had taken place in elementary and high schools, and none even dis cussed it. A Negro candidate failed of election though he had served two years on the board bv mayoral appointment to fill a vacancy. So far, no Negro in St. Louis has been elected to a citywide office like the school board, though there are sev eral aldermen and legislators elected from smaller districts. This fact is sometimes cited by NAACP and Negro political leaders who are opposing the proposed new charter for the city be cause it provides for a board of aider- men of whom a majority would be elected at large. The present board is composed of aldermen entirely elected by wards. So far as can be judged the Negro question did not enter into the decision of the charter drafters to pro pose a majority elected at large. They argue for the change on the ground that aldermen representing narrow, lo cal neighborhood interests have for manv years obstructed legislation of citvwide benefit to the community as a whole. The new charter is to be voted on later this year. The Human Relations Commission in Kansas City reported school desegre gation to be proceeding smoothly, with no signs of recurrence of the threatened student strike of 1956. The St. Louis Human Relations Com mission turned its attention during the year to residential segregation, urg ing real estate dealers and newspapers to end the practice of discriminating as to race of buyers in offering real estate for sale. The Negro residential area in St. Louis has expanded markedly in re cent years, but Negroes reportedly still find it difficult to buy property except in areas contiguous to the existing Ne gro district. Several neighborhood organizations have been formed in an effort to main tain housing standards in blocks where Negro families have begun to move w Members of these organizations assert that they are willing to live in a mixed neighborhood provided it retains & one-family residential character in stead of becoming a district of roomin? houses. At the same time, they argur that the pressure of the Negro migra' tion would be relieved if Negroes could move into any section of the city instead of only those areas immediately beyond the present Negro district. The Catholic church is supporting the efforts of residents in the transition dis" tricts to accommodate themselves to tnf influx of Negroes instead of fleeing the suburbs in panic, as has happen in most such areas up to now. Of 1 distinct neighborhoods in St. Louis, are all-white, 22 all-Negro and 28 art mixed. Despite school and other integral steps, discrimination against Negr remains a serious problem in St. L° > it was reported last month at the nual meeting of the St. Louis Civil D erties Committee. ^ Union prejudice keeps many ski j Negroes out of work, said Samue ^ Klein, a manufacturer. He said ^a^ penters, bricklayers and other bun ^ craftsmen who hold union cards ^ northern cities are not permits transfer here because of their race, the unemploved in the city are Neg r< * he estimated. onflOO Little more than half of the 12 Negroes who would be eligible to head it in St. Louis are registered, pointed out by Ernest Calloway, of the local NAACP. y Residential segregation was c * te ^r e st Andy Brown, Jr., chairman of the ^ End Community Conference. #