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2 More Districts Report
Integration In Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
wo more Oklahoma school
districts desegregated during
September, both as a result of
court action, but a lawsuit was
threatened against a third district
which refused nine Negroes ad
mission to white classes. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Integration in the schools in the
two eastern Oklahoma communi
ties of Morris and Preston was
accomplished peacefully. Four Ne
groes were admitted to the white
schools in Morris and one Negro
enrolled in Preston High School.
The National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People prepared
to file a federal court suit seeking entry
of nine Negroes to a white high school
in El Reno, previously integrated at the
junior college level.
FIGURES REVISED
Meanwhile, Oklahoma generally ap-
j peared to be moving even more surely
toward compliance with U. S. Supreme
Court rulings on school desegregation.
A new check of State Department of
Education records, admittedly not com
plete in revealing the status of inte
gration, indicated only 29 districts in
Oklahoma still maintain segregated
schools. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
Echoes of the racial turmoil in neigh
boring Arkansas reverberated in Okla
homa, with news-making comments by
Paul M. Butler, national chairman of
the Democratic Party, and by Gov. Ray-
J mond Gary. (See “What They Say.”)
Negro students enrolled for the first
time Sept. 23 at white schools in Mor
ris and Preston, in Okmulgee County,
two days after a federal judge ordered
them admitted. The jurist, Eugene Rice
of the U. S. District Court for Eastern
Oklahoma at Muskogee, acted following
a hearing on injunction suits filed
against the two districts and their offi
cials March 14, 1957.
In the Morris case (Brown v. Long)
Judge Rice issued a declaratory judg
ment for the plaintiffs when school
board attorneys conceded four Negro
children were entitled to enter the
white schools. The suit originally in
volved 27 Negro youngsters, but the
judge ruled that only those who had
not already transferred to other dis
tricts could be admitted to the Morris
schools.
Three of the four Negro children ben
efiting from the court ruling enrolled
in high school and the fourth, in grade
school.
EVENTS CAUSE CONCERN
Morris school officials, mindful of the
integration crisis not far off in Little
Rock, Ark., admitted they were “just
a little bit nervous” when the Negroes
enrolled but after two days free of in
cidents were confident there would be
no trouble.
Superintendent of Schools James
Broadhead said the Negroes seeking
admissions to the Morris schools in
1956-57 were turned down by the board
of education because officials preferred
to delay integration until it was ordered
by a federal court.
A 14-year-old freshman was the only
Negro admitted, under direct order, to
the Preston High School, since 12 other
plaintiffs in the case (Simms v. Hudson)
had transferred out of the district.
NO GRADE SCHOOL RULING
Judge Rice withheld a ruling on the
admission of Negro children to a white
elementary school in Preston. He asked
attorneys to submit findings of facts and
rulings of law within 20 days. Unlike
Morris, Preston has an elementary
school for Negroes, located across the
road from the white grade school.
Frank Duke, Preston superintendent,
reported there was no adverse reaction
among the white students to the entry
of the Negro pupil and added that he
expected none.
At El Reno, just west of Oklahoma
City, W. T. Young, Canadian County
branch president of the NAACP, said
a suit would be filed in U. S. district
court in behalf of the nine Negro stu
dents refused admission to the white
high school there.
APPLICANTS TURNED DOWN
Young said the nine Negroes tried
to enroll Aug. 30 at El Reno High School
but were turned down. A committee, he
said, then visited the El Reno superin
tendent, Paul R. Taylor, but was told he
had no authority to admit the Negroes.
Following a Sept. 3 meeting of the board
of education, Taylor told the NAACP
committee the white high school would
not be integrated “at this time,” Young
related.
“According to his statement, it will
be another year before we can even
make another attempt,” the Negro
leader commented. He charged the El
Reno school board is not complying with
the Supreme Court rulings on desegre
gation.
POLICY REITERATED
Supt. Taylor said the board, in its
Sept. 3 meeting, merely reiterated an
integration policy it adopted June 21,
1955. Under the policy the El Reno Jun
ior College, which is housed with the
senior high school, was opened to both
races. At the same time the board speci
fied that students in grades one through
12 should attend the school closest to
their homes.
Taylor said no Negroes live near the
white high school.
The superintendent added that trans
fers from one building to another will
be authorized by him if they are “in
the best interest of the school system.”
So far, he said, no Negroes have been
transferred to white schools.
With racial breakdown of enrollment
and attendance figures in Oklahoma
schools virtually extinct in State De
partment of Education records, there is
no dependable way of ascertaining the
number of districts still segregated.
Southern School News files showed,
at the beginning of September, that 211
of 261 bi-racial districts in Oklahoma
had officially desegregated in the two
years since the Supreme Court’s imple
mentation ruling. (The total included
Tecumseh, whose only Negro student is
not in school this year. It also included
14 districts with official desegregation
policies but no actual mixing of the
races in the classes so far.)
Florida
(Continued From Page 10)
' dency if he worked for racial harmony
progress.
IMPROVING CONDITION’
) “Negroes, North and South, will judge
national leadership on how effective it
15 in improving their condition,” he said.
Improvement does not depend on an
“""mediate end to segregation through-
nut America. But an end to segregation
®ywhere will continue to be dependent
largely upon bettering the living stand-
anis of the Negro people.
These improvements simply cannot
brought about in an atmosphere of
ra cial furore.”
Collins came under fire from Rep.
riliam C. Cramer, the state’s sole Re
publican congressman, from St. Peters-
Ur g- In a speech, Cramer criticized the
governor’s opposition to the interposition
' ??^ u ^ on passed by the legislature last
Cramer said Collins’ stand
snacks of dictatorship.” Collins replied
st Cramer’s assertion was “sheer
"Riagoguery” and “flagrant misrepre-
^tation.”
St and maintained
J Sr * have freely joined in criticizing the
“Priety and constitutional soundness
I « the decisions of the U. S. Supreme
’ Collins said. “I have, however,
that we as a state can lawfully
(j™ 5 any decision of the Supreme
,. ; Urt null and void within our bound-
Although Florida does not elect an-
; governor until 1960, Faris Bryant,
.... , er House speaker and unsuccessful
35 'date in 1956, is making a bid with
jj e S a ti°nist speeches. In a Miami ad-
ir] . s he attacked the Supreme Court
“j Sa * c h “Home rule is better for Flo-
jjj^than rule by Congress in Wash-
Jsjj. rir -!a opened its 1957-58 school
?r 0 , without a single attempt by a Ne-
e nter a white school.
, ere was not one semblance of
anywhere in the state,” said
to t , Thomas D. Bailey. “This was due
k*t)dl e nianner in which the state
* ts rac * a l problems,” he de-
“The atmosphere of Florida has not
been one of rabble-rousing. It has been
one of stability in dealing with these
problems. There has been no encourage
ment for super-aggressiveness.”
APPEAL FOR INTEGRATION
The Dade County Council on Com
munity Relations made its second ap
peal to the school board for immediate
integration. Neal P. Rutledge, president
of the civic group, told the board:
“One of the prime factors involved in
a peaceful compliance with the Supreme
Court decision is acceptance first by
school board officials of the fact that the
decision is the law of the land and must
be obeyed.”
Rutledge said the council has studied
desegregation peacefully accomplished
in some 700 communities and is con
vinced that the Dade schools should
take immediate steps to integrate.
NO ACTION TAKEN
The school board took no action on
Rutledge’s request. Board member
Robert S. Butler said he too had made
a personal study of integration in other
communities, “I believe a great deal of
trouble that has been caused in other
parts of the South can be avoided
through a careful, middle of the road
attitude,” he said.
“We board members have a definite
responsibility toward both sides in this
matter and speaking for myself, I will
attempt to represent all of the people.”
The Miami Herald reported another
board member, Mrs. Anna Brenner
Meyers, was trying to persuade her col
leagues to adopt a clear, concise policy
on integration.
PRIVATE SCHOOL GAINS
Gen. Sandy Beaver, president of Riv
erside Military Academy, a private
school for boys at Hollywood, Fla., and
Gainesville, Ga., said desegregation had
caused a 20 per cent jump in the en
rollment at his institution.
Beaver conferred with Hollywood city
officials on an expansion program he
said was urgently needed to keep pace
with this expansion. He predicted the
growth would continue.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
turned down a petition to rehear the
only Florida suit seeking school inte
gration (Gibson et al v. Board of Public
Instruction of Dade County). Earlier,
the court reversed the dismissal of the
suit by District Judge Emmett C. Choate
and remanded the case for trial.
G. E. Graves Jr., NAACP attorney,
said the legal skirmishing was at an
end and the actual issues now are to be
decided.
Judge Choate has set no date for the
trial, however, as the school board is
considering an appeal to the U. S. Su
preme Court.
Graves predicted that such “delay and
subterfuge” might prompt the U. S.
Supreme Court to “arbitrarily order in
tegration.”
An official of the NAACP protested
to federal officials the award of funds
to the University of Florida for nuclear
research on grounds that the University
is segregated.
Robert W. Saunders, NAACP field
secretary, said government contracts in
clude a non-segregation clause. Saund
ers asked his national office to “clarify”
the matter.
Clarence Mitchell, director of the
NAACP national headquarters, said he
will take the matter to the Atomic En
ergy Commission. The $220,000 contract,
he said, “very clearly would require ad
mission of students without regard to
race.”
A state-wide membership campaign
by the Citizens Council continues to
gain momentum. David I. Hawthorne,
long-time South Florida leader and
former school board candidate, said
some 15,000 have joined in Dade County
alone.
Hawthorne said the Council is back
ing Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas in
his fight to prevent integration at a Lit
tle Rock school. “If he wins—and I
don t see how he can lose—we’ll never
have to worry about integration here,”
said Hawthorne.
# # #
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER 1957—PAGE II
GOV. RAYMOND GARY
‘Recreate Brotherly Love’
Late in the month state department
aides completed tabulation of enroll
ment reports submitted by district su
perintendents for 1956-57. The report
forms, dealing chiefly with average daily
attendance figures, also called for the
number of Negroes and whites enrolled
but did not ask the superintendent to
specify whether the races are integrated.
RACE BREAKDOWN OMITTED
Department workers said enrollment
reports from a number of districts
known to have both Negroes and whites
listed only white students. They ex
plained many superintendents, since de
segregation took effect, resent making a
breakdown by race in their reports.
Nevertheless, from the list it was de
termined that Oklahoma in 1956-57 had
only 243 bi-racial school districts.
During the month still another inte
grated district previously unreported
was uncovered — Tyron in Lincoln
County, with 15 Negroes and 200 whites
this year. This, with newly integrated
Morris and Preston, brings to 214 the
number of districts which are or have
been desegregated. Some are believed
not to have actually mixed classes at
present, simply because the Negro pu
pils have left the district.
29 STILL SEGREGATED
On this basis, apparently only 29
school districts remain segregated in the
state.
The reduced number of segregated
districts is not explained entirely by the
trend of desegregation. At last count
174 more districts had been annexed to
neighboring units, dropping the state
wide total to a new low of 1,469.
The 1956-57 enrollment reports
showed 495,664 white and 36,390 Negro
school children in the state. The totals
involved in “integrated situations” are
unofficially estimated at 247,541 whites
and 24,817 Negroes.
TEACHER EMPLOYMENT
Up-to-date State Department of Ed
ucation records also revealed the im
pact of integration on Negro school
teachers’ employment in the past two
years. Only 1,278 were reported teach
ing in Oklahoma in 1956-57, compared
to 1,539 in 1955-56 and 1,654 in 1954-55.
That is a reduction in the total Negro
teaching staff of 376 since desegregation
began.
Integration, for the first time, of the
entire school system in Marietta, Love
County, was described as “very natural
and smooth” by Joe Banks, a principal.
With 550 white students and 51 Negroes,
the district has mixed classes in two
schools—the high school and a grade
school. Three Negro boys were reported
on the high school football team and
two on the junior high grid squad. In
addition, three Negro girls made the
girls’ basketball team.
Hugo, revealed during the summer to
have adopted an official desegregation
policy for the first grade for the 1956-
57 year, still has no Negroes attending
white schools this fall. The community
is located in Choctaw County, deep in
the “Little Dixie”. It had 1,245 whites
and 381 Negroes last year.
PATRONS ‘SATISFIED’
I. R. Armstrong, superintendent, re
ported Negro patrons are satisfied,
since their children have the “same
program and, in some cases, better fa
cilities than the whites.” He added all
schools are “loaded to the brim.”
A similar situation was reported at
Fort Towson, also in Choctaw County.
Said Supt. M. E. Cogburn: “Both white
and colored patrons are satisfied with
the set-up we now have, that is, staying
segregated.” The district has 300 white
children and 92 Negro pupils.
Raymond Gary, Oklahoma governor,
got into national news headlines twice
during the month with his views on ra
cial issues.
First he spoke out against racial dis
crimination before the National Baptist
Convention, U. S. A., America’s largest
Negro religious body. At the meeting
in Louisville, Ky., Gary declared it is
“up to the Christian leaders of America
to recreate the feeling of brotherly love
among all the people.” He pointed out
that he announced, immediately after
the Supreme Court rulings on integra
tion, that desegregation would begin in
Oklahoma.
Later he described how this had
worked out for Oklahoma during a dis
cussion of the use of school facilities
at the Southern Governors Conference
at Sea Island, Ga.
SAVINGS ARE NOTED
Gary said Oklahoma is now 75 per
cent integrated. (On the basis of figures
already cited in this report the propor
tion is closer to 88 per cent.) The gov
ernor estimated Oklahoma has saved
$750,000 by its program of desegregat
ing schools.
This has resulted, he explained, in
less need for additional classrooms and
teachers. Partly because of this and
through other economies, he claimed the
state has lifted teachers’ salaries to
slightly above the national average. The
average teacher’s annual pay in Okla
homa in 1956-57 was $3,942.68.
Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas took
issue with Gary. He said integration
might result in savings in areas where
the Negro population is small and sep
arate schools have been maintained. But
he insisted that, in districts with crowd
ed school facilities, integration would
bring no savings.
BUTLER RAPS EISENHOWER
Paul M. Butler, Democratic national
chairman, created a stir in Oklahoma
City when he declared on Sept. 18 that
Harry Truman would have had the Lit
tle Rock integration problem “settled
a long time ago.” In Oklahoma City for
a meeting of Democratic party leaders
from six southwestern states, Butler
spoke out in sharp criticism of Presi
dent Eisenhower just six days before
the chief executive federalized the Ar
kansas National Guard and ordered U. S.
Army troops into Little Rock to help
enforce a federal court order.
Butler charged Eisenhower had not
furnished the “leadership and courage”
to resolve what he termed “one of the
great crises in the history of the United
States.”
Terming Faubus a “great Democrat”,
Butler said he is convinced the Arkan
sas governor acted out of “honest, pure
motives” but apparently was mistaken
in his belief that there was a threat of
violence.
Asked if he thought integration could
be enforced in the South, Butler re
plied: “I think it can be done under
conditions set by the Supreme Court,
which allowed time to be considered.”
VISITOR HAYS MUM
Another key figure in the Little Rock
situation was also a visitor in Oklahoma
City late in the month but had little
to say about it. He was Rep. Brooks
Hays of Arkansas, who arranged the
meeting between Gov. Faubus and
President Eisenhower at the latter’s
Newport, R.I., vacation headquarters.
Delayed by the rapidly moving events
in Little Rock, Hays arrived in Okla
homa City only minutes before a sched
uled speaking date at a Southern Bap
tist men’s conference Sept. 20. He re
fused to be drawn out on the explosive
integration issue in a news conference
but did touch on it briefly in his talk.
“It is evident,” he said, “that two
groups have sinned, at least to some
extent. One group [the smaller] in
cludes those who practice and threaten
violence. You’ll not find Christians
among them. The other group includes
those, who by indifference and inaction,
have failed to deal with the causes of
the conflict.”
Hays is president of the Southern
Baptist Convention but he refused to
comment on its stand on integration. He
declared one man cannot speak for nine
million Baptists.
Military police and state highway pa
trol troopers had an anxious night in
mid-September when a 26-year-old Ne
gro soldier, Henry Cross, formerly of
Buffalo, N.Y., escaped from a brig at
Fort Sill, Okla. The reason for their
worry: Cross had become involved in
heated arguments over the tense Little
Rock situation and had threatened to
kill the Arkansas governor, Orval Fau
bus, for blocking the enrollment of Ne
gro children in Central High School.
Cross fled the military post after slug
ging a guard and taking his carbine.
The soldier was finally recaptured at
Chickasha, 50 miles to the northeast,
after spending several hours with a Ne
gro family, who quoted him as saying
he was going to Little Rock on “a secret
government mission.” # # #