Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16—JUNE 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Hobart Corning Retiring
As District School Head
WASHINGTON, D.C.
upt. Hobart M. Corning, who
has guided the District public
school system through three years
of full-scale integration, told the
board of education last month he
would retire in March, 1958, after
12 years’ service.
Almost immediately, the school
board began its search for a new
school head. Letters were mailed
to leading state universities, pri
vate colleges and superintendents
of cities over 200,000 population,
notifying officials that the Wash
ington superintendency will be
vacant next spring.
The board’s letter pointed out that
the “integrated school situation pre
sented an interesting chal-
On the lege” to a school administrator.
Local It stated that a school super-
Scene intendent with an earned
doctorate will get $18,000 a
year, adding that the board has rec
ommended that Congress pass legisla
tion to raise that salary to $22,000.
TO ALLOW TIME
Corning, 68, said, “I make my an
nouncement at this time so the board
can begin its search for my successor.”
His fourth, three-year term expires in
less than a year.
His decision to step down as head of
the nearly 110,000-pupil school system
was reached “because it is to my own
best interest to plan for a less strenuous
life.” He added: “I shall, of course, con
tinue until March 1 to conduct the
schools of Washington to the best of
my ability, and I shall be happy in so
doing.”
Coming’s leave-taking follows that of
his first lieutenant, Deputy Supt. Nor
man J. Nelson, who is in charge of the
instructional side of the school system.
Before integration, Nelson was in charge
of white schools. Nelson has sought re
tirement because of ill health. His resig
nation becomes effective next fall. Corn
ing currently is screening top colleges
for candidates for Nelson’s position.
COMMITTEE AND CORNING
Candidates for Coming’s job will be
considered by the school board person
nel committee and Coming himself.
Committee members are Walter N. To-
briner, chairman; Mrs. Frank S. Phillips,
acting president; and Wesley S. Wil
liams, one of three Negro board mem
bers. Tobriner announced that the cir
culation of letters concerning the job
opening did not “preclude” the appoint
ment of someone already in the school
system. Coming made this same point
in regard to his advertisement of the
deputy vacancy.
On June 30, the three-year terms of
three board members expire. One mem
ber, C. Melvin Sharpe, long-time presi
dent, has announced he will not seek
re-appointment because of ill health.
Sharpe suffered a heart attack a few
months ago. Other members who have
said they would accept re-appointment
are Mrs. Phillips and Williams.
COURT-APPOINTED BOARD
A special three-member education
committee of district court judges is
accepting names of board candidates.
The full court will make the final se
lection early this month. Board mem
bers receive no pay. Under law, three
of the members must be women, and
traditionally three members are Negro
on the nine-member board.
The Washington Post wrote editori
ally of Coming’s decision: “. . . it comes
at the apex of his career when he holds
the respect and gratitude of the whole
community.” It added, “Dr. Corning
has brought the school system through
the most trying and difficult phases of
integration. There now lies ahead a
major program of school construction
and expansion which ought to be under
taken by a younger man who can be
expected to remain at the helm over a
period of years.
“The grave educational problems
which integration brought to light re
main to be solved and will demand
heroic efforts by Dr. Coming’s succes
sor, the school board and the whole
community. Dr. Coming can take great
pride, however, in having laid a solid
basis for the solution of these problems.”
SPECIAL COURSES
Currently school officials are concen
trating on improving reading on all lev
els of the system. A special summer
school reading program for laggards
will start in July. Junior highs plan to
substitute special remedial reading
courses for such eighth and ninth grade
electives as Latin, French and business.
A special Commissioners’ Youth
Council is studying emergency meas
ures to obtain individual treatment for
children facing exclusion from school
because of “dangerous” behavior. The
council said an initial program would
cost about $50,000. It would provide for
a psychiatrist, a physician, a social
worker and a psychologist in the school
Pupil Appraisal Department to screen
all possible exclusion cases and recom
mend the “best plan of care for each
child within the total community facil
ities available.”
Special courses at District Teachers
College this summer would train teach
ers interested in working with incor
rigible children, and the teachers would
be assigned to special classes for chil
dren who would benefit from them, be
ginning in September.
PTA CHALLENGE
During the annual convention of the
District Congress of Parents and Teach
ers last month, banquet speaker Agnes
E. Meyer challenged the PTAs to draft
a new type of school system which
would “fit all children.”
Mrs. Meyer, author and lecturer, and
wife of Eugene Meyer, chairman of the
board of The Washington Post Co., told
the delegates that parents must be “pio
neers” in getting the type of school
they want for their children.
She commented that the PTAs “led
the way in our battle for an integrated
school system,” and added: “Any group
which has the courage to do that in our
semi-southern atmosphere will, I am
confident, also have the courage to in
stitute a new type of education that
will fit your children to become individ
ualists and therefore potential leaders
in a new America.”
STUDENT LEADERS SURVEYED
Meanwhile, two researchers making
a special study of District integration
reported last month that student lead
ers were the key to its success. Their
study, financed by a grant from the
National Institute of Mental Health,
was based on a project conducted among
students of a District senior high school
and a junior high.
In a report to the American Associa
tion for Public Opinion Research, Har
ry Walker of Howard University stated:
“It was found that student leaders are
Year-End Summary
1) A congressional investigation
of current school standards and
conditions under integration stirred
controversy over the District’s de
segregation program.
2) Citywide school efforts were
undertaken to improve student
achievement in such basic subjects
as reading, arithmetic and social
studies.
3) Additional classes for slow
learners and children with beha
vior problems were established.
4) The board of education re
quested permission to borrow $69
million to build an adequate single
school plant.
5) School Superintendent Hobart
M. Corning announced he will re
tire at end of his 12th year of serv
ice in March, 1958.
playing a kind of waiting game. These
leaders have indicated that when re
sistance to desegregation has waned,
the first overtures toward integration
will be made.
“There is need first of some assur
ance that their status in the social struc
ture of the school is secure before they
can become involved in action designed
to bring about greater integration of
Negroes and whites in the life of the
school.”
MODUS OPERANDI
On this point, Walker declared that
“integration does not necessarily follow
desegregation.” In the early stages of
desegregation, he said, “a sort of modus
operandi based on mutual avoidance
emerges.
“Relationships between white and
Negro pupils generally were character
ized by formality, constraint and with
drawal into one’s own racial group,”
Walker said. He said this was due to
the “official sanction of racial separa
tion as indicated by the official ban on
social functions within the school, to
gether with the existence of racial anti
pathy among a significant proportion of
students.”
The study, he continued, raises seri
ous questions regarding the assumption
that the “mere bringing together of
members of different races without re
gard to background or social status au
tomatically leads to an improvement in
race relations.”
—Washington Post and Times-Herald Photo
A crowd estimated variously at from 14,000 to 25,000 gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington May 17
to observe the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision against public school segregation. Speeches, prayers,
hymns and preaching went into the three-hour program of the meeting, called the “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.”
Among the participants in the program were the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of Montgomery, Ala.; NAACP Executive
Secretary Roy Wilkins of New York; Negro Congressmen Adam Clayton Powell (D.-N.Y.) and Charles Diggs (D.-Mich.).
More than 30 states were represented.
But, he reported, “tolerance of deseg
regation” increased with time; that as
preconceived fears, anxieties and ten
sions failed to materialize there was a
lessening of hostility.
Walker and his co-researcher, Harold
Mendelsohn, found “no evidence that
scholastic standards were lowered to
accommodate Negroes.”
They pointed to the need of careful
preparation for desegregation and em
phasized that in Washington, despite
the development of an avoidance pat
tern, there has been, “a general clear
ing of the climate of opinion regarding
race relations, and this has the possi
bility of providing a constructive frame
work for the development of sounder
race relations both in the school and in
the community.”
The House Rules Committee late last
month by an 8 to 4 vote cleared Presi
dent Eisenhower’s long-delayed Civil
Rights program for House action.
House Democratic Lead-
On the er John W. McCormack
National (Mass.) said he would call
Scene up the four-point measure
the week of June 3.
House leaders generally agreed it
would be passed. Leaders on the Sen
ate side of the Capitol weren’t too hope
ful. Senate Republican Leader William
F. Knowland (Calif.) forecast “lengthy
debate which some might call a fili
buster.” Southern senators are planning
to fight the bill with all the weapons
at hand.
The legislative battle over civil rights
this year finds many of the old argu
ments obscured by a new issue raised
volves the right of trial by a jury. The
by southern civil rights opponents. It in
bill now pending congressional action
would permit the U. S. attorney general
to seek an injunction in a federal court
against anyone who “has engaged in or
is about to engage in any act or prac
tice” which would deprive another per
son of the right to vote in federal elec
tions or primaries. Failure to heed such
an injunction, if granted, could lead to
a contempt conviction without a jury
trial.
SPOKESMEN ON ISSUE
Spokesman for the southerners, who
argue that this provision denies a basic
right, has been Sen. Sam Ervin, former
justice of the North Carolina Supreme
Court. Senate champion of the bill (S.
83) has been Thomas C. Hennings of
Missouri, a former St. Louis district
attorney and a practicing attorney.
Major immediate hurdle in the Senate
is in the Judiciary Committee, headed
by Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.),
where the bill has been bottled up
since March.
AID BILL SUPPORTED
On another controversial measure,
President Eisenhower last month sent
word to Congress that a “compromise”
$1.5 billion federal school construction
program had his “full support.”
It was the first public indication that
Eisenhower approved the compromise
which was worked out by liberal
Democrats and Eisenhower Republicans.
The President announced his position
on the bill to Rep. Samuel K. McCon
nell Jr. (R.-Pa.), ranking Republican
on the House Education and Labor
Committee, who visited the White
House to report on his own investiga-
ton of the classroom shortage.
Eisenhower also let it be known to
House Republican leaders that he still
did not approve of any “crippling
amendments” which might stymie action
on the school aid measure again this
year. At the same time, Rep. Adam
‘Pilgrimage for Freedom’
Draws Washington Crowd
WASHINGTON, D.C.
r T'HOUSANDS OF OPPONENTS of ra-
cial segregation gathered at
Lincoln Memorial, beginning at
noon May 17 for a three-hour
“Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.”
The mass demonstration “to
arouse the conscience of the na
tion in favor of racial justice” at
tracted participants from more
than 30 states.
The program marked the third
anniversary of the Supreme Court
decision against segregation in
public schools.
Cheered by the throng at the nation
al shrine, Negro speakers called for
leadership from President Eisenhower
and Congress.
‘GIVE US BALLOTS'
“Give us the ballot,” said the Rev.
Martin Luther King and the Prayer
Pilgrimage crowd chanted, “Give us the
ballot.”
“Give us the ballot,” he repeated, “and
we will no longer have to worry the
federal government about our basic
rights . . . Give us the ballot and we
will quietly and nonviolently, without
rancor or bitterness, implement the Su
preme Court’s decision .. .”
King, leader in the Montgomery, Ala.,
desegregation fight, spoke calmly and
slowly before an orderly crowd esti
mated variously between 14,000 and
25,000. Park police estimates ranged
from 14,000 to 20,000 while Pilgrimage
leaders claimed 25,000. Pre-pilgrimage
forecasts had been up to 50,000.
The minister’s address was punctuat
ed by shouts of “Yes, yes” and the wav
ing of pennants and programs. Most of
the speakers talked dispassionately.
•REJECT RED SUPPORT’
A. Philip Randolph, president of the
AFL-CIO Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters, told the crowd that Negroes
must “reject the support of Commun
ists because we are opposed to the use
of immoral means to attain moral ends.”
He added, “We have come to call upon
President Eisenhower ... to speak out
against the lawlessness, terror and fears
that hang like a pall over the hearts” of
southern Negroes as the result of bomb
ings and intimidation. He urged the
President to “counsel” Americans to
obey the law.
Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, said:
“Spiritual wickedness in high places—
in the mansions of certain governors
. . . and under the dome of our nation’s
capitol has caused a deaf ear to be
turned to our plea for justice.”
‘DISHONESTY . .. HYPOCRISY’
Rep. Adam Clayton Powell (D.-N.Y.)
accused both parties of “basic dishon
esty and increasing hypocrisy on civil
rights. He urged the establishment of
a third force,” non-partisan and non-
racial, to lead the fight for racial equal
ity.
Rep. Charles Diggs (D.-Mich.) ac-
Clayton Powell (D.-N.Y.) repeated his
intent to seek an amendment which
would deny federal funds to school dis
tricts which maintain segregated schools.
A similar Powell amendment killed the
legislation s chances in the House last
year.
# # #
cused the President of a failure of lead
ership and asked: “What kind of politi
cal pressures could have resulted in the
loss of courage of a man who is not
running for re-election?” He criticized
Democratic congressional leaders and
said, “More and more protest votes are
being cast by southern Negroes for Re
publicans, and I don’t blame them a
bit.”
There were yells, applause and a
waving of pennants and programs when
Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard
University, said Negroes will suffer
anything to preserve the NAACP, “in
cluding prison.”
PRAYERS, HYMNS, PREACHING
The crowd, hushed through much of
King’s 20-minute speech, broke out with
yells, cheers and chants of “amen” at
various times in the program of speech
es, prayer, hymns, scripture reading,
gospel singing and fervent preaching.
Many wore buttons proclaiming the
event. When King, speaking on a
platform with the statue of Abraham
Lincoln directly behind him, finished his
talk he was surrounded by an excited
crowd of well-wishers, who wrung his
hand, patted his shoulders. The crowd
stood and yelled and applauded.
Shortly before the ceremonies began,
the three co-chairmen of the event
were presented keys to the city by the
District commissioners.
FACES IN CROWD
That was the pilgrimage itself—but
what of the pilgrims?
There was singer Harry Belafonte who
said: “We play a hit and run game up
here. We come down here like this
and say our piece and then it’s all over.
But the Rev. King has to go back and
face it all over again.”
There was Robert E. Lee, 70, a West
Chester, Pa., landscape gardener with
a silver beard and a worn black suit.
He said: “You can run a dog just so far-
and he’ll turn and bite a little. We ve
been drug around long enough. Were
tired of it. This is like a drop i n 3
bucket . . . drop, drop, drop. It will s° on
fill uo, if it don’t leak out. I left Flor-
ida as a young man because I got tire
of that foolishness.”
MONTGOMERY SEAMSTRESS
Another face in the crowd was tha
of Rosa L. Parks, a Montgomery, A* 3 "
seamstress, who refused to change n
bus seat, went to jail instead and ®
Montgomery torn by the segregate
battles that followed.
“I’m just here out of curiosity, **
77-year-old R. Percy Allen of Harris
burg, Pa. “I’m a member of the NAA
but I’m not radical about it all- ,
There were all ages in the cr0 '\
“This is on TV, isn’t it?” asked Huge ^
Martin, 14, Tuckahoe, N.Y. “It
wake up a lot of people,” the boy m
SOME HUMOR
There was even humoi
solemnity of the speeches,
terrupted by the noise of a
looked to the sky and
[James O.] Eastland must be flying
plane.” ^ (he
A weary, footsore preacher wa
Rev. Milton Perry, 21, of Jerse}
who walked to Washington. P en '’ jje
lapsed in his seat after his speec •
said he had “walked along the roa . , e< J
the cause of freedom.” He was i ev ^
with smelling salts. He said h e
walked about 180 miles. # # ^
r amid the
Wilkins,
heliocoptet'
said:
“Sen-