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PAGE 10—OCTOBER 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Kentucky, With 105 Mixed Districts, Has Few Disturbances
I. Counties in which there is desegregation:
2. Counties with announced plans for desegregation (Some in one
district only):
3. Counties which have no Negro pupils (14 counties with 20 districts):
An estimated 105 school districts in the shaded counties are reported to have begun or accomplished desegregation in
Kentucky. Other school districts in 10 counties have plans for desegregating in the future. Kentucky this year has 217
school districts, of which about 175 have Negro students.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
ENTUCKY UNCROSSED ITS fingers
as it began the third year of
a slowly but steadily expanding
desegregation program.
There was minor trouble at
Sturgis (a year earlier Kentucky
National Guard units were posted
there and at Clay for 18 days),
where 18 Negroes enrolled under
the protection of a 30-man detach
ment of state troopers. No Negroes
enrolled at Clay. A boycott of
Sturgis High School faded away,
but at nearby Grove Center the
first segregationist-sponsored pri
vate school in the state reported
an enrollment of “about 150” in
grades 1 through 12.
Elsewhere half-feared disturbances
failed to develop. At least six additional
districts, four of them under court or
ders, desegregated for the first time, one
extended its integration program to ele
mentary schools, and one, Frankfort,
closed down a Negro high school hither
to maintained on a “permissive” or free-
choice basis and merged its students
with a predominantly white student
body.
105 DISTRICTS DESEGREGATED
Best estimates, subject to a full check
by the State Department of Education
in mid-October: Of the state’s 217 dis
tricts, 105, with 80 per cent of Ken
tucky’s Negro pupils, now have desegre
gation varying from complete to “tok
en.” (See “School Boards and School
men.”)
The Fulton city school board, under
court orders to desegregate “immediate
ly,” sought to postpone integration until
September 1958. (See “Legal Action.”)
Gov. A. B. Chandler praised Ken
tuckians for their handling of desegre
gation problems, predicted integration
of all schools in the South, and approved
President Eisenhower’s Little Rock ac
tion. (See “What They Say.”)
Most Kentucky schools began the new
session on Sept. 3. Among districts de
segregating for the first time, and bring
ing the state’s total of integrated-situa
tion districts to 105, were Caverna, Hop
kins County, Lebanon, McCracken
County, Webster County, and Union
County. High schools only were in
volved in Lebanon and Union County
(Sturgis).
Only small numbers of Negro pupils
were involved. In Hopkins County
(6,823 white, 545 Negro), only one Ne
gro transferred from all-Negro schools
still maintained on a free-choice basis.
At Clay, in Webster County (2,061
white, 60 Negro), scene of last year’s
disturbances, no Negroes enrolled; the
two families whose children sought ad
mission in 1956 have since moved to
Indiana, leaving no Negro residents in
the town.
Apprehensions of possible disturb
ances, heightened by increased Citizens
Councils activities as reported earlier
in Southern School News, were
matched by Gov. Chandler’s standing
assurance that state police powers would
be used to protect the right of “any
child” to go to school.
POLICE POWERS USED
Such powers were used only at Stur
gis, in Union County, where 18 Negroes
enrolled. A six-man detachment of
state troopers, with Adjutant General
J. J. B. Williams (Kentucky National
Guard chief) on hand “only as an ob
server,” was reinforced after opening-
day incidents involving booing and
stone-throwing (much of it at newsmen)
by a crowd of 250.
W. W. Waller Jr. of Morganfield, head
of the Union County Citizens Councils,
said his organization had nothing to do
with such incidents. “The White Citi
zens Council does not condone violence
and will go to great lengths to avoid it,”
he said, urging instead an organized
boycott. “Niggers,” he said, “are not go
ing to Sturgis High School.”
The following day more incidents
brought more troopers, and State Safety
Commissioner Don Sturgill and State
Police Maj. Charles Crutchfield arrived
by plane. Four persons were arrested.
POLICE REMOVAL SOUGHT
While charges were being filed at City
Hall, six Union Countians, headed by
Waller, asked Mayor J. B. Holeman to
order the state police to leave Sturgis.
Holeman said he hadn’t asked them to
come and had no authority to order
them to leave. He added that he felt
certain that “the federally-forced school
integration in our schools will in all
probability lead to bloodshed and se
rious troubles that will never all be
erased.”
On his arrival Commissioner Sturgill
ordered police to be on the lookout for
Waller and to arrest him if they heard
him make any statements that in their
opinion “tended to incite to riot.” Wal
ler did not return to the high school
area.
Day by day, after that, the crowds,
the booing and the heckling dwindled.
By week’s end all was quiet, and only
21 of the 276 students enrolled were ab
sent. At a Wednesday night rally of the
Citizens Council, Waller had asked par
ents in a crowd of 800 to 1,000 not to
“boycott” the school, “because state po
lice officials have said we’ll be inciting
a riot if we use that word.” Instead, he
said, “I’m asking you to keep your chil
dren out of school as long as the niggers
are there.” The high point of absentee
ism, 70, was the following morning.
15 WHITE PUPILS LEAVE
At the beginning of the second week
of school, on Sept. 9, 15 white students
walked out after the 18 Negroes entered.
A crowd of some 75 white persons ap
plauded them. But next day, for the
first time in a week, there were no dem
onstrators at the school, and officials
reported attendance “about normal.”
State police announced they would stay
at least another week, but the rest of
the month passed without any new dis
orders.
Severe academic penalties were meted
out to Sturgis students last year when
the boycott was far more effective. Sim
ilar penalties this September, in the
form of “unexcused absences” (enough
to cause some to fail courses and per
haps lose a year’s credit) were credited
by some students with bringing them
back after only one or two days.
There were a few other minor inci
dents over the state, including tele
phoned threats of violence to Negro pu
pils, distribution of handbills depicting a
devil reaching out for a figure labeled
“Southern Womanhood,” and the burn
ing of a cross near the home of the fath
er of the only Negro student enrolled in
a Hopkins County white school, at Mad-
isonville. And at Mayfield, on opening
day, police dispersed a crowd of 50 peo
ple as 14 Negroes entered the Mayfield
High School.
PRIVATE SCHOOL OPENED
With the boycott at Sturgis ineffec
tive, the Union County Independent
Schools, Inc., chartered last November
by Waller and other Citizens Council
leaders, opened a private school for
white children at Grove Center. The
Union County group bought the aban
doned former public school seven-room
building for $15,000 last fall.
Some 150 pupils, “mostly from Union
County,” were enrolled in grades 1
through 12. A faculty of six is headed
by William Barnett, formerly of Bagdad,
Ky., a graduate of Western Kentucky
State College who has had previous
teaching experience in Central Ken
tucky, according to Waller.
Waller told Southern School News
on Sept. 27 that all was going well at
the school, and that an increase in
enrollment is expected “within a few
days—when we arrange for school-bus
transportation under charter.” He said
parents pay tuition charges of $2 a week
for one child, $1.50 for a second, $1 for
a third, 50 cents for a fourth, and noth
ing for additional children in the same
family.
Free tuition is granted in “hardship
cases,” he said, when the school officials
are convinced that the parents “are con
scientiously opposed to race-mixing.”
EXPECT ACCREDITATION
He expressed confidence that the
Grove Center school would win full ac-
ceditation. A minimum requirement for
accreditation of a high school, accord
ing to State Department of Education
officials, is an enrollment of 100.
“This,” said Waller, “is what the un
constitutional usurpation by the federal
government of local police power and
local school board management of the
local schools is driving us to.” He said
that the press had failed to report that
some Negro students at Sturgis had
“threatened white students with their
very lives”—and explained that such
threats had not been reported for court
action—“even a fist-fight gets to be a
federal matter nowadays, and the white
man can’t win there.”
In Louisville first-day enrollment was
down 973 from last year as the city be
gan its second year of school integra
tion. But a week later enrollment was
up 334 over last year, about what school
officials expected, to 44,946.
54 MIXED SCHOOLS
Dr. Omer Carmichael, Louisville su
perintendent, said a check of enrollment
by races would not be made before mid-
October. A newspaper check, meantime,
MIAMI, Fla.
rumor that Negro students
would attempt to enroll in a
Pompano Beach high school
caused police to throw a barricade
around the building. The situation
eased after a period of tension but
the Fort Lauderdale Daily News
reported students, both white and
Negro, were carrying concealed
weapons. (See “Community Ac
tion.”)
Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin
called on the U. S. Supreme Court
to “take another look” at racial
problems in the South and come
up with a new solution. (See
“What They Say.”)
Gov. LeRoy Collins’ leadership on seg
regation matters was challenged by
Rep. William C. Cramer of St. Peters
burg, Florida’s only Republican con
gressman. (See “What They Say.”)
After the Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals refused a rehearing on its deci
sion reversing a Dade County school
admission suit, both sides prepared to
try the case on its merit. (See “Legal
Action.”)
COMMUNITY ACTION
Reports that Negro students would
attempt to enroll in the white high
school at Pompano Beach, a small com
munity on Florida’s lower east coast,
caused a period of tension.
Nine policemen were rushed to man
improvised barricades thrown around
the block. All students driving to the
school, alone or with their parents, were
required to leave their cars and walk
the final block through police lines.
Traffic was rerouted and all loitering
was forbidden.
Police Chief James Boggs said his
men were not ordered to keep Negro
children from the school but to “keep
the peace.”
DISPUTE OVER PRINCIPAL
The threat developed from a con
troversy over a Negro principal, Mrs.
Blanche Ely, who has taken a stand
opposing integration. Leaders of the
indicated that, of the city’s 75 schools,
12 are now all-white, nine all-Negro,
the rest integrated.
This is one less integrated school than
last year. Two white schools which last
year had three Negro students each no
longer have any. One Negro school lost
the few white students it had last year.
But for the first time Southern Junior
High enrolled three Negro students this
year, and a Negro school, Virginia Ave
nue Elementary, enrolled its first white
students.
Under federal court orders to deseg
regate its high school “immediately,”
the Fulton city school board on Sept.
20, through Atty. James Warren, said
it would file a motion seeking to mod
ify the court’s order. That had been
issued by U. S. District Judge Roy M.
Shelbourne on Sept. 10, a week after
the school board failed to comply with
Judge Shelbourne’s order to file a com
prehensive integration plan by March
25, 1957.
The suit was brought for parents of
Negro community indicated they might
seek to enroll children in the white
school as a protest against Mrs. Ely.
“If she remains [as principal of a
Negro junior high school], drastic action
can be expected,” said Richard Lee, a
newly-enrolled member of the local
NAACP branch. “Students may boycott
the Negro school and an attempt may
be made to enroll some of our children
at the white school.”
When no Negro student showed up
at the white school, barricades were re
moved but police continued to patrol
the area. Chief Boggs issued a warning
that drastic action would be taken
against students carrying concealed
weapons.
Several days later, Pompano Beach
police said they were investigating re
ports that a “prominent white man” had
been “encouraging” Negroes to enroll
in the white school. If the report could
be substantiated, an official said, the in
dividual would be charged with inciting
a riot.
Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin, whose
stand for “gradualism” was widely re
garded as a factor in the U. S. Supreme
Court’s second mandate, asked the
court to “take a new look” at its deci
sion and try some other solution.
In an address before the Dade County
Bar Association, Ervin said:
“The magnitude of the problem, the
bitterness and resentment the segrega
tion decisions stirred up indicate to us
that the court would be wise to leave
its principle of law declaring segrega
tion invalid to stand as a goal or ideal.
“It should leave determination of the
local questions of administration largely
to the good judgment of state and local
school officers. It should not by-pass
them or attempt coercion or premature
forcing in any case.
•REVERSE OR DESTROY’
“The case will undoubtedly arise
where our Supreme Court will, of ne
cessity, have to reverse a hasty andpre
mature decree of forced integration or
16 Negro high-school students (denied
admission to Fulton High in 1956) by
the NAACP. There is no Negro high
school in Fulton, and Negro pupils are
transported, daily by bus to the Negro
high school in Hickman, 15 miles away.
The school board’s hopes to delay in
tegration until September 1958 are re
ported to be based on administrative
problems and crowded conditions in the
classrooms.
Democratic Gov. A. B. Chandler and
Republican Sen. John Sherman Cooper,
among others in Kentucky, voiced ap
proval of President Eisenhower’s dis
patch of troops to Little Rock. Said
Chandler, an announced candidate for
the Democratic Presidential nomination
in 1960:
“A most distressing situation ... I
approve of the President’s action . . .
Under the circumstances, there was
no other choice left open to him ... We
must protect all our people from mob
violence, and law and order must pre
vail in these United States . . .”
Mrs. Agnes E. Meyer, Washington
writer and publisher’s wife, in Ken
tucky to receive an honorary degree:
“If President Eisenhower had spoken
up [in 1954] he could have jelled public
opinion then. It’s impossible to do this
now. Because we had no federal leader
ship, all the crackpots had a chance to
come up from under the rocks . . . The
real problems of integration are yet
to be faced—lowering of academic
standards and overcrowding of schools.”
Dr. Philip Davidson, president of the
University of Louisville, on Sept. 3 as
sured a Negro candidate for alderman
that the 7,500-student institution “has
no student quotas with respect to race
or religion.” He added:
“We are very proud that the Univer
sity of Louisville was the first university
in the South to integrate the races.”
# # #
run the indicated risk of destroying the
schools of a wide area of the South.”
Ervin has been predicting that many
schools in Florida would never have in
tegration because of residential segre
gation and other local factors.
“This may still be the case,” he told
the largest bar association in the state.
“But there is a sour note in the public
school picture at present in a few south
ern states in the action of extremists in
pressing prematurely for integration,
and the decision of some federal judges.
WITHOUT DIFFICULTY
Ervin said Florida has managed to
solve its school problems without dif
ficulty so far, but added:
“The whole federal judiciary is really
very formidable. One or two more fed
eral district judges on our side would
help a lot right now.”
Ervin’s talk drew criticism from the
Greater Miami Chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union. Pointing to the
Virgil Hawkins case in which the Flor
ida Supreme Court has refused to ac
cept a U. S. Supreme Court mandate
to admit a Negro graduate student to
the University of Florida, the ACLU
said:
CRISIS FORESEEN
“Such continued defiance and non-
compliance by high state officials with
federal programs for gradual desegr®'
gation of Florida’s public schools will
lead inescapably to a situation of crisis,
wherein the federal courts could have
no alternative but to impose immedi
ate and comprehensive integration hi
Florida.”
Thomas D. Bailey, state school su
perintendent, said he is concerned 0
developments in the attitudes tovcar
mixed schools. “The segregation issh^
may ultimately prove to be the issue
such magnitude that public instruct 10
could well be jeopardized,” he said-
“If the issue grows to such prop 01 ^
tions where it divides the public an
causes them to cease supporting ph° ,,
education, the entire system will suff e ^
Gov. LeRoy Collins again gained nj^
tional attention by an address at
Southern Governors Conference at ^
Island, Ga., in which he said tha
southerner might aspire to the P re
(Continued On Next Page)
Rumored Desegregation Attempt Brings
Tension To Florida East Coast Town