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PAGE 12—SEPTEMBER 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
One More W. \ a. District
Is on Desegregated List
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
UBLIC SCHOOL DESEGRATION will
move into its fourth year in
West Virginia when schools open
after Labor Day.
Hardy County will take its first
positive step toward a desegre
gated program this fall, and the
counties of Boone, Harrison and
Mason will completely desegregate
after following a policy of partial
desegregation last year.
These several changes, decided by
the county school boards some time
ago, give West Virginia a school pic
ture like this: 24 counties fully deseg
regated, 17 partially desegregated, two
still segregated, and 12 with no Negro
students.
SCHOOL POPULATIONS
Numerically speaking, the prepond
erance of Negroes are in partially de
segregated counties. A total of 16,513
Negro children have a choice of either
white or Negro schools in counties
where 155,830 white children go to
school.
Some 8,600 other Negroes are in
fully desegregated systems which have
a total of 229,524 white children. Only
703 Negro children reside in the two
counties — Hampshire and Jefferson —
where no action has been taken. There
are 6,415 whites in those systems. The
12 counties without any Negro popula
tion have 40,861 white school-age chil
dren.
A crowded white elementary school
in Romney reportedly was one reasoD
the Hampshire school board did not
merge the races there. Efforts were
made two years ago to vote a bond
issue for school improvements. It was
defeated, and the board has been un
able to alleviate a badly congested con
dition.
ONE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL
As a result, the single one-room
Negro elementary school at Romney
will be kept open. Fifteen children at
tend it. There are no Negro high school
students in Hampshire this year.
Jefferson’s Negro school-age popula
tion is considerably larger, numbering
688 at last official count. Jefferson, too,
has had a congested school situation in
recent years, and whether it will
change its racial policy this term is a
question yet to be decided.
Harrison County, the largest in
north-central West Virginia, has closed
its last remaining segregated school.
Harrison, with 16,700 whites and 300
Negro children, instituted a gradual
program of desegregation in 1955, and
this term will close out Kelly Miller
Elementary School, placing it in the
“completely desegregated” category.
MOST TEACHERS KEPT
Supt. Arthur Upton of Clarksburg
said most teachers will be pressed into
service in the integrated system. He
said also that a considerable saving will
be realized from the merger program.
But he won’t be able to calculated what
it will be until the coming term is
completed.
Harrison first started desegregation
two years ago in the first and seventh
grades. Last year it was extended into
other elementary grades and into the
high schools.
Hardy, in shelving segregation this
fall, also will shelve a program started
in 1950 that gave the Negro children
in that far eastern county their first 12-
room consolidated school in history.
Prior to that time there were three
one-room elementary schools in the
county, but high school students had to
go elsewhere if they went at all.
SERVED 6 COUNTIES
With opening of the Negro consoli
dated school seven years ago it became
a regional high school for Negroes liv
ing in six counties. All the surrounding
counties except Hampshire have since
desegregated and Hampshire has no
Negro high school students this year.
These developments made it easy for
the Hardy school board to order the
transfer of Negro high school students
to Moorefield High. The consolidated
school will be kept open for approxi
mately 60 elementary children for at
least another year.
Mason County, with only 16 Negroes
in a total enrollment of 5,760 last year,
opened the white schools on a volun
tary basis in the 1956-57 term. A few
children made the shift, and this term
the single one-room school for Negroes
will be closed.
BOONE COUNTY PROGRAM
In Boone County, too, where inte
gration has been brought about by
degrees, the program will become com
plete this fall, when a one-room school
there is closed. It had been maintained
last year for approximately 30 pupils.
Desegregation was brought about in
this way in Boone: high school students
on basis of choice in 1954; abolition of
Negro high school in 1955; and all ele
mentary children desegregated, except
in the single school, in 1956.
While 41 county school systems with
an enrollment of 410,485 have adopted
desegregation policies, in 17 of them
the change from separate to single fa
cilities for whites and Negroes has not
been accomplished. They range from a
single still-segregated school in Hardy
County to what amounts to a triple
headed system in such counties as Mc
Dowell, Logan, Raleigh, Cabell, Mer
cer, Greenbrier and Mingo.
GREENBRIER PATTERN
The pattern for this set-up was
sketched in Lewisburg two years ago
when the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People brought
suit against the Greenbrier County
Board of Education. After two days of
hearing, Federal Judge Ben Moore of
Charleston directed that the schools
desegregate on a voluntary basis.
Suits have since been brought in
federal court against the McDowell,
Logan, Raleigh, Cabell and Mercer
boards, and in each instance an agree
ment was reached in pre-trial confer
ences pegged on the Greenbrier deci
sion. So what has happened is that the
schools in those heavily populated
counties have been thrown open to
Negroes, but few of them are shifting.
Here’s the situation in these coun
ties at the close of the term last spring:
McDowell, 275 of 5,000 Negroes have
shifted; Raleigh, 100 of 3,190; Logan,
150 to of 2,500; Mercer, 160 of 1,800;
Greenbrier, 182 of 371; Cabell, 170 of
885; and Mingo, 215 of 1,222. Moreover,
little if any change is expected in the
year beginning after Labor Day by the
several county superintendents.
MORE COSTLY
One school head, who asks not to be
mentioned by name, says this three
pronged system is more costly than the
old one. In some instances it has been
necessary to operate segregated, de
segregated and partially desegregated
buses. In others, small enrollments in
At Least 6 More Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
W/ITH “compliance” a matter of
settled public policy, Ken
tucky will increase its integration
program as the 1957-58 school
year begins. There will be ex
panded integration in some of the
93 districts already desegregated
to some extent, and at least six
additional districts will begin in
tegration programs in September
—four of them under court order
to do so.
In prospect are “integrated
situations” in about 100 districts
where some 80 per cent of the
state’s school-age Negroes live.
Dr. Robert R. Martin, state superin
tendent of public instruction, said: “The
raw edge was taken off this program
last year. We had substantial compli
ance fairly well over the state. With so
big a start behind us, the second year
will build it up some, the third year
some more, and the first thing you
know it will be behind us and forgot
ten.” (See “School Boards and School
men.”)
AT CLAY, STURGIS
“Watchful waiting” was the word at
such potential trouble spots as Clay
and Sturgis. But officials said they ex
pected no trouble. Citizens Council
spokesmen decried talk of violence, and
said they would use only legal means
to achieve “resegregation.” They
claimed 24,000 signatures on petitions
for this in Jefferson County (Louisville)
alone.
Lt. Gov. Harry Lee Waterfield, acting
in Gov. A. B. “Happy” Chandler’s ab
sence overseas, said, “If disorder breaks
out, it then would be my duty to take
the necessary steps to stop it and re
store peace. That I would not hesitate
to do.” Last September Gov. Chandler
ordered the National Guard to Clay and
Sturgis for 18 days to quell disturbances
there.
An NAACP official termed Louis
ville’s highly publicized program as only
“token integration” because it did not
involve faculty desegregation. But Supt.
Omer Carmichael of Louisville and
Supt. Richard Van Hoose of Jefferson
County reiterated their determination
to postpone faculty integration (See
“What They Say.”)
In 1955 a few of Kentucky’s 224
school districts desegregated. Last year
the number increased to 93, including
Louisville, where nearly a third of the
state’s 38,358 Negro pupils (about 7 per
cent of the total enrollment) live. Con
solidation has reduced the number of
school districts now to 219, and of these
44 have no Negroes.
With integration plans definitely
scheduled by six additional districts
this fall (and possibly more—the State
Department of Education will not check
the list until October), this would result
in about 100 desegregated districts
whose enrollments include more than
80 per cent of the state’s Negro school-
age total. Of the remaining 75 districts
having Negro pupils, at least 15 have
announced desegregation programs but
publicly set no dates, leaving 60 dis
tricts on the “silent list.”
For most of the state the school year
begins on Sept. 3 (Louisville will reg
ister students on Sept. 4 and 5; classes
will begin Sept. 9.) Districts which un
der court order have agreed to begin
integration then include Webster, scene
of last year’s trouble at Clay; Union
County, scene of the Sturgis disorders;
Hopkins County; and McCracken
County. In addition, the Fulton city
school board, in the state’s southwest
ern tip, is under federal court orders
to submit a desegregation plan.
2 OTHERS BY CHOICE
The two other districts definitely de
segregating this September are Leb
anon (895 white, 212 Negro) and Ca-
vema (761 white, 128 Negro), the latter
embracing parts of both Hart and Bar
ren counties.
The white-Negro enrollment in the
four counties affected by court orders:
Webster, 2,061 white, 60 Negro; Union,
2,775 white, 339 Negro; Hopkins, 6,823
white,, 545 Negro; and McCracken, 5,300
white, 216 Negro.
Newly desegregating districts, like
the old, will have a varied pattern rang
ing from a few grades a year to com
plete. But most of them heavily feature
the permissive or “voluntary” aspect,
meaning that they will continue to op
erate erstwhile all-white and all-Negro
schools but permit transfers on request.
ACTUAL MIXING
In the past year this pattern resulted
in mixed classes for only 120,307 white
pupils and 8,017 Negro pupils. Nearly a
fourth of the teachers—4,733, including
113 Negro teachers—were instructing
mixed classes. .
Among districts scheduled to expand
their desegregation programs this Sep
tember is Frankfort, the state capital.
With partial desegregation in effect
there last year, the city board of edu
cation decided to close Mayo-Under
wood High School for Negroes and en
roll all those who did not transfer last
year in the previously all-white Frank
fort high school.
COMMUNITY ACTION
Announced determination of the Cit
izens Councils of Kentucky, Inc., to
work “vigorously” for resegregation has
built up a crossed-fingers attitude in
Districts Will
some areas. Canvassers and handbill
distributors for the Councils have been
ringing doorbells in many communities,
and Chairman Millard D. Grubbs of
Louisville on Aug. 29 claimed 37,000
members in the movement to “resegre
gate Kentucky.” Not all of them, he ad
mitted, are dues-paying members and
“some are confidential members.”
Last month the Councils claimed 8,000
signatures on resegregation petitions in
Jefferson County (Louisville) alone. At
the end of August Grubbs estimated
the total at “about 24,000.” The Councils
will decide later, he said, on whether
to submit these petitions to the Louis
ville school board, which so far, accord
ing to Supt. Carmichael, has received
none. (Average attendance at Council
meetings in Louisville so far has been
under 100.)
Signers of the petitions, according
to Grubbs, pledge that they will not
permit their children “any longer” to
attend desegregated schools “in viola
tion of the state’s Day Law” (which the
state attorney general in 1955 ruled in
validated by the Supreme Court’s de
segregation decisions). Council strategy
is purely legal, he said, to induce school
boycotts under the “shield” of the Day
Law, then take resultant compulsory -
attendance litigation “all the way back
to the Supreme Court.”
ESCHEWS VIOLENCE
Grubbs said he expected no violence
or disorder in Kentucky. “Violence,”
he said, “won’t win anything—but a
two-pronged legal attack, in both the
state and federal courts, can.” He said
he expected several actions over the
state charging local school board offi
cials with violation of the Day Law.
The Louisville chairman confirmed
reports elsewhere that some segrega
tionists would use economic reprisals
against the parents of Negroes entering
erstwhile white schools. These and oth
er pressures, he said, would probably
keep Negro transfer applications at a
minimum in some communities, and in
Union County (Sturgis), for instance,
might make it “unnecessary” for a seg
regationist group (Union County Inde
pendent Schools, Inc.) to open the $15,-
000 private school bought several
months ago and equipped with desks in
July.
A leading proponent of the private
school, W. W. Waller of Morganfield,
said he had conversations with “sev
eral teachers who have stated they
would be ready to teach if and when
it becomes necessary to operate.”
PAST TROUBLE SPOTS
Some Negroes are expected to enroll
in the Clay and Sturgis schools from
which they were ejected by legal pro
cess last year after National Guards
men quelled disturbances resulting
from their admission. But Sturgis Mayor
J. B. Holman said he thought “every-
Desegregate
thing will go along all right,” and
Mayor Herman Clay of Clay said he
guessed it would be “quiet as a little
mouse when school opens.”
Returning from a meeting with Ne
gro parents in Sturgis on Aug. 28, James
A. Crumlin of Louisville, Kentucky
head of the NAACP, said he expected
most of the 12 or 13 Negro students
eligible for admission to go to Sturgis
high school, and the children of at least
one family to go to the Clay elementary
school.
But, he said, “thanks to community
pressures and to the ‘voluntary’ system
not being really voluntary, some of
them might change their minds” and
continue to go to schools maintained
for Negroes.
‘OSTRACIZED’ FAMILY MOVES
One Negro family headlined in the
Clay story last year has moved to Fort
Wayne, Ind. They are Mr. and Mrs.
James Gordon of nearby Wheatcroft
and their two children. Crumlin
ascribed their departure to “ostracism”
by both white and Negro residents.
“When white residents got the Negroes
to believing that Mrs. Gordon was det
rimental to their welfare and they
should put her out of the community,
they ostracized her,” he said.
Another Negro family resident in
Clay, he said, has been trying to sell its
home and move to Indiana, too, but has
found no buyers—and if it has found
none by Sept. 3, will seek to enroll two
children in the Clay school.
Crumlin said “this kind of pressure,”
and not any kind of violence, might
be expected at school openings in sev
eral communities. He said that in some
“free choice” systems Negro pupils were
being advised by some whites that “you
have a choice—but if you want to keep
on going to school, you better take the
bus to the Negro school when it comes
along.”
schools for not integrating the:
ties, Crumlin on Aug. 5 term
programs “token integration.”
Subsequently Supt. Ca:
agreed to discuss this compla:
an NAACP committee (probabl
or two after the school year'
but at two public meetings re
his belief that “one problem at
was enough.
“Faculty integration is com
said, but I don’t know whe
Jefferson County Supt. Van He
that faculty integration in the
schools is “several years in the
if it is to come 1 .”
previously all-Negro schools where
children have moved into white schools
resulted in greatly exaggerated pe r
pupil cost factors.
But several superintendents in the
partially desegregated systems say they
are following a policy which meets with
approval of leaders in both racial
groups. The dearth of Negro children in
desegregated schools, they note, proves
the wisdom of their voluntary policy.
So, barring unforeseen late develop
ments, the welcome mat will be thrown
out to Negro children again this fall
to make the change if they so desire.
Otherwise, their schools will be ready
for them, as they have been in previous
years.
A peaceful school opening is forecast
in every part of the state.
With the opening of schools for the
1957-58 term, this will be the first time
in three years that a suit hasn’t been
pending against a county school board.
Six such suits have been filed by the
NAACP since the first in Greenbrier
County in 1955.
T. G. Nutter, state NAACP head, says
his group is keeping a watchful eye on
Jefferson, and on the big southern
counties where desegregation is moving
slowly, but no policy on future court
action will be decided until the NAACP
holds its state convention in Clarks
burg in mid-September.
By that time the schools will have
been open two weeks, and the NAACP
will have a good idea what’s happening
in the various counties.
A several-month survey by South
ern School News of segregation-de
segregation in West Virginia schools,
shows a smooth transition from segre
gated status in Wood County. E. S.
Shannon, superintendent, says that ex
cept for minor complaints the program
has worked very well since the change
was made complete during the 1955-56
school year.
Wood moved tentatively toward de
segregation in 1954-55 by merging the
races in the first and ninth grades. The
problem was not difficult. Wood had
only one all-grade Negro school and
150 children in a total enrollment of
14,650.
The consolidated school, an old struc
ture, was razed; the gymnasium is still
being used, and the seven Negro
teachers were reassigned. The principal
of the former all-Negro school is now
head attendance officer in Wood
County.
SOME MONEY SAVED
Some savings have resulted from the
switch in that high per pupil cost W
the Negro school has been eliminated
and school maintenance at that unit ha*
been eliminated. Class loads werc
smaller than average there, and this
sent up costs
Desegregation in Wood County waS
preceded by a number of conferences
with Negro people in Parkersburg, the
county seat, but Shannon said a strowj
segregationist feeling never exists
there.
Industry-rich Ohio County, up rb’ cr
from Wood, is another district whe^
desegregation came in 1955-56 witn° u
difficulty. J. P. McHenry, longti®'
superintendent, said it was a two-stff
operation, first on a voluntary basis
1955-56 and compulsory last year-
2 NEGRO SCHOOLS CLOSED
In 1955 Dunbar school in Wheelh^j
with a pupil load of 90, was closed, ^
the children were given a choice
what other schools to attend. Last >
Lincoln Junior-Senior High S^ ^
with 400 students, was closed. la ***1
half the Lincoln students chose j®
elsewhere nearer their homes, and
left the school with only 200 stude 1 ^
Dunbar school is currently
used as a shop building, and L in ^
is being pressed into service this .
as a vocational junior-senior ; f
school with 250 to 300 students in
seventh, eighth and ninth grades. ^
The 12 Negro teachers in ^
County have been transferred to 0
assignments, and, while their tran^,_
helped to relieve the shortage of 9^,
fied instructors, there has been no -
terial cost savings on this score
desegregation.
NEGRO SCHOOLS, TEACHERS
Ohio County is a highly
area, and transportation was no £
problem for the Negro children,
no saving was realized there e ' m.
Ohio is still using its old Negro sC jf
all its Negro teachers, and has
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