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PAGE 12—OCTOBER 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Desegregation Follows Population Shifts in Kansas City, Mo.
Total School Population in Kansas City, Mo.,
During Integration
ELEMENTARY
Date
Total White
Total Negro
Per Cent Negro
Sept. 1955
33,585
8,896
20.9
Sept. 1956
32,412
10,072
23.7
Sept. 1957
34,375
10.393
23.3
SECONDARY
Feb. 1956
16,092
3,378
17.3
Sept. 1956
16,351
3,907
19.3
Sept. 1957
16,182
4,457
21.5
TOTAL ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY
Sept. 1957
50,557
14,850
22.7
JUNIOR
COLLEGE
Sept. 1956
1,007
85
7.7
Sept. 1957
1,048
92
8.1
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
he ebb and flow of racial
mixing in the public schools
and the relation thereto of shifting
white and Negro populations are
reflected in a comparative study of
Kansas City school enrollments.
The study was made for Southern
School News by school offiicials
in that city. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen”).
Elsewhere in the state there are,
out of 244 school districts with Ne
gro enrollments, 209 which have
announced the end of segregation
since the Supreme Court decision
of 1954.
Out of 67,000 Negro pupils, approxi
mately 60,000 are reported to be in in
tegrated situations—meaning that they
attend school without regard to racial
distinctions.
Most of the state’s Negro pupils live in
St. Louis, St. Louis County, Kansas City,
St. Joseph and Springfield. In all these
communities segregation has been end
ed without incident. This does not mean
that every Negro and every white stu
dent attends mixed classes. School en
rollments reflect residential patterns,
and in most Missouri communities Ne
groes remain fairly well concentrated.
Yet, especially in the larger cities, the
Negro residential areas are steadily ex
panding as Negro population grows.
SCHOOL POPULATIONS SHIFT
Where this migration moves into pre
viously white neighborhoods, schools
are mixed. Where the migration wholly
displaces white populations, the schools
tend to become all-Negro. Where white
families still predominate, which is in a
majority of the urban areas, the schools
remain all-white.
Missouri newspapers this year have
carried virtually no news about deseg
regation in their own state, though their
columns have been filled with reports
from Arkansas and Tennessee. The rea
son is that segregation in most of the
major communities is a thing of the past,
while those communities where action is
not expected at present are under no
pressure from Negroes to speed up the
desegregation process.
NEW DESEGREGATION
Six smaller communities opened their
schools to biracial enrollment this Sep
tember for the first time. But St. Louis
and Kansas City had acted in 1955, St.
Joseph and Springfield in 1954. St. Louis
County school districts desegregated in
1955 and 1956. So did many smaller
towns.
In addition to the six communities
which made the change this year, 10
others report that desegregation is
planned for the next two or three years,
usually depending upon the completion
of building programs.
That leaves segregation persisting
primarily in a few counties of the “boot-
heel” in southeast Missouri. Even there,
some high school districts have ended
racial distinctions. But elementary dis
tricts in Pemiscot, Dunklin, New Ma
drid, Stoddard, Mississippi and Scott
counties retain segregation.
SOCIAL, ECONOMIC CHANGE
These are principally cotton-growing
districts bound to a delta economy. They
are undergoing steady social and eco
nomic change as mechanized farming
displaces the hand laborer, white and
Negro, which formerly lay at the base of
the agricultural structure.
School districts there are improving
somewhat the facilities afforded Negro
pupils. Community sentiment expects
integration to be extended gradually
throughout the region over the next five
or 10 years. As yet, no pressure for ac
celerating the process has been exerted
by the Negro communities.
What happens in a city with a sizable
Negro population after three years of
integration? Do Negro school popula
tions tend to push out white? Are white
schools overwhelmed by the Negro in
flux? Does the extension of mixed
schools accelerate the white flight to the
suburbs?
Light on these questions is cast by a
comparative study made for Southern
School News at the direction of Supt.
James A. Hazlett of the Kansas City
school system. Unlike St. Louis, Kansas
City still keeps student statistics ac
cording to race, hence can compare the
degree of racial mixing today with that
of the first year of integration in 1955-
56.
It seems evident from the figures, says
Hazlett, that desegregation in Kansas
City occurred simultaneously with an
important change in the population
movement of Negroes. Prior to the Su
preme Court decision, Negroes were
confined almost entirely to a central
area of Kansas City north of Linwood
boulevard. The business boom of the
’50s and the migration of Negroes from
the South brought many Negro families
to Kansas City just as the schools were
being desegregated.
NEGRO AREA EXPANDS
During the past few years, Negroes
have moved in large numbers south of
Linwood boulevard and pushed steadily
toward the southeast. The result has
been a decided increase of mixed schools
in the area and, as whites gave way in
one block after another to Negroes, a
rapidly rising percentage of Negroes in
some schools.
The study shows that out of 84 ele
mentary schools reporting for the city as
a whole, 40 have mixed student bodies
today as compared with 36 a year ago.
However, at the secondary level out of
19 school units reporting, 11 have mixed
student bodies as compared with 13 so
reporting a year ago.
All-white schools a year ago num
bered 30 elementary and three second
ary. This year’s figures show 38 elemen
tary and five secondary units so report
ing.
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
est Virginia last month be
came the first of the states
formerly requiring school segre
gation to complete the desegrega
tion process in compliance with
the U. S. Supreme Court’s deci
sion.
A Southern School News
roundup of the state’s most sensi
tive counties disclosed this fact at
mid-month when it was learned
that agriculture-rich Hampshire
County opened two of its schools
to Negroes.
Hampshire had been regarded as the
last of the hold-out counties, but the
desegregation move was made quietly
at Romney High School and Capon
Bridge Elementary School Sept. 4, when
four Negroes applied for admission.
TWO OTHERS. ALSO
Two other Eastern Panhandle coun
ties—J efferson and Hardy—also
dropped the segregation bars this term,
and a sprinkling of Negroes made the
switch.
With these actions the integration
situation in West Virginia took on this
complexion: 24 counties fully desegre
gated, 19 partially desegregated and 12
no Negroes. „
Numerically, approximately 10,000' of
the state’s 25,000 Negro school children
are now in desegregated schools. The re
mainder by choice are still attending all-
Negro schools. West Virginia has ap
proximately 391,000 white children in
public schools.
Ten days after the school opening a
number of white children at one Logan
County high school threatened to bolt
the classrooms in protest of Negro child
ren in their midst. The principal said he
couldn’t stop them from walking out,
but he warned that he could keep them
from coming back. Agitation thereafter
disappeared, and nothing since has hap
pened.
400 WALK OUT
Then, near month’s end, 400 white
students at Welch High School refused
to attend classes in protest against de
segregation. The students, part of the
1,000 comprising the school’s student
body, refused to listen to pleas from
Principal E. W. Richardson when classes
opened on Sept. 26.
Eight Negro students enrolled in the
school returned to their homes shortly
after the demonstration began, Richard
son said. He gave no cause for the ac
tion, but it was thought to have been a
precautionary measure.
Richardson said the students gathered
in advance of regular school hours at
the foot of a hill leading to the building.
The principal said when he learned of
the action, he went down and talked to
the students. He said Mayor B. F. How
ard also arrived on the scene but left in
disgust when the students failed to heed
his pleas to go to school in a normal
manner.
POLICE EYE MARCHERS
After the talks the students, carrying
signs, “We Support Little Rock,” began
marching through the business section
of the city. Both city and state police
took up positions to keep a close watch
on the crowd to see that no property
damage or other outbreak of violence
occurred.
It was the second such demonstration
at high schools in the state during a 24-
All-Negro schools a year ago totaled
five at the elementary level and one at
the secondary. This year there are six
all-Negro elementary schools and two
secondary schools without white stu
dents.
Thus the figures indicate that, while
the number of mixed elementary
schools has risen slightly, so has the
number of all-white and all-Negro
schools to keep pace with the growing
over-all school population. The changes
therefore probably do not result from
any basic trend toward or away from
mixed schools, but simply reflect the
movement of Negro population south
ward into formerly white neighbor
hoods.
On the frontier of this movement the
schools are mixed, but as whites move
out the schools become more heavily
Negro. Some schools in the older sec
tions near downtown show declining
Negro attendance.
WHITE EXODUS?
The report appears to give little sub
stantiation to expectations that integra
tion might result in wholesale reduction
of the white student population or an
overwhelming influx of Negroes into
the system.
hour period. On Sept. 25, 75 students at
Beaver High School in Bluefield staged
a similar demonstration, but school au
thorities said everything was normal at
the school next day. At Welch the day
after the students struck, all but a
handful were back in their classrooms.
The West Virginia legislature will be
summoned into a pre-legislative confer
ence in White Sulphur Springs Nov. 15-
16 to discuss major state problems,
among them schools.
The conference, unique in legislative
activity here or elsewhere, is being fi
nanced by the Ford Foundation as an
experiment. Sponsors wonder if better
understanding of a state’s complex prob
lems won’t result from a discussion of
them before the actual work of the leg
islative session begins.
The West Virginia branch of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People held its annual con
vention at Clarksburg Sept. 15-16 and
passed a resolution asking the 1958 leg
islature to pass laws protecting civil
rights and to establish a fair employ
ment practices committee. (See “Legal
Action.”)
The NAACP decided at Clarksburg to
urge county boards of education to de
segregate teachers along with Negro
children in the state, and passed a reso
lution calling for petitioning of South
ern District Federal Court to reopen
cases against boards of education in Lo
gan, Raleigh, Mercer, McDowell and
possibly Cabell counties for failure to
desegregate their schools “with delib
erate speed.”
At the start of integration in Septem
ber 1955, the Negro enrollment in ele
mentary schools was 8,896. At the start
of the second year, 1,176 more Negroes
enrolled, representing an increase of 11
per cent, while white enrollment
dropped by virtually the same number
—1,173 fewer, or a decline of three per
cent.
However, at the start of the third year
last month white enrollment in elemen-
State NAACP President T. G. Nutter
of Charleston said the conference was
pleased with reports of partial desegre
gation this year in Jefferson and Hamp
shire counties, but was disturbed that it
isn’t moving any faster in the several
southern counties which desegregated
only after federal court action.
The Harrison County Board of Edu
cation has moved for dismissal of a court
action brought by the NAACP last fall,
and Nutter said his group would make
a full study of the Harrison situation be
fore agreeing to the dismissal. He noted
that from outward appearances, deseg
regation has been “very satisfactorily
completed, teachers and all.”
Gov. Cecil Underwood condemned at
Sea Island, Ga., Sept. 25 the action of
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus and sup
ported President Eisenhower in his use
of troops to quell rioting at Little Rock.
Underwood’s statement came during
a closed-door session of the governors,
last of their four-day meeting at Sea
Island, when they passed a resolution
asking the President to withdraw fed
eral troops from Arkansas. He refused
right up to the end to go along with the
rest of the conference on this request.
Underwood looked critically at what
he termed the efforts of Gov. Faubus “to
use a conference of governors as a tool
to further his own purpose.” He said
also that Faubus moved in a manner
[while here] clearly calculated to reap
maximum publicity for himself at the
expense of this conference.”
The Little Rock situation, Underwood
said, “is first and foremost a problem
for the state of Arkansas. Since that
state failed, during 22 days of confused
tary grades showed an increase of 1,963
over last year, or five per cent, while
Negro enrollment increased only 321 or
three per cent. Thus in the third year,
white enrollment is 34,375 as compared
with 33,585 at the beginning of integra
tion, and Negro enrollment is 10,393 as
compared with 8,896.
Negroes in elementary grades repre
sented 20.9 per cent of the total at the
(Continued On Next Page)
agitation, to preserve the peace, it then
became a problem between Arkansas
and the federal government.”
County superintendents in most par
tially desegregated counties contacted
after schools opened in September said
that few Negro children made the switch
to previously all-white schools, even in
counties where the voluntary program
was instituted last year or the year be
fore.
Mercer County was the exception.
Desegregation was begun there in the
fall of 1956 with 184 Negroes changing
to white schools, but this year only 150
chose mixed schools. Supt. W. R-
Cooke offered no explanation.
Elsewhere there was no change, or
the increase in Negro enrollment at de
segregated schools was slight. Here is
the situation in brief in the bulk of the
partially desegregated counties (the first
column indicates the total number of
Negro children in the system):
Negroes
Negroes Attendin
In System
MiY-ed Schools
1957
1956
Berkeley .
. 200
8
6
Greenbrier
. 371
327
327
Hardy ....
. 87
25
0
Logan ....
.2,500
300
150
Mercer . ...
.2,000
150
184
McDowell .
.5,000
275
275
Summers .
. 160
75
55
Wyoming .
. 600
15
10
Hampshire
. 17
4
0
Jefferson .
. 688
7
0
Raleigh, another county that removed
its segregation barriers last year and
experienced a slight switch of Negroes
to white schools, is the only school sP'
tern in the state where no information
can be obtained as to the current deseg
regation situation.
Supt. Sherman Trail, appointed oiw
last July, said his office keeps no recor'
on the number of children integrated'
and he had no idea what the situation
was two weeks after the school term
started. .
All seven of the Negroes who shifted
in Jefferson County enrolled at SheP
herdstown High School. In Hardy Co"®
ty the 25 to make the change went
Moorefield High School.
The NAACP, at its Clarksburg con
vention, passed a resolution asking
and local chambers of commerce
state labor organizations to assist 1 [
removing restrictions on Negro emP ^
ment. Willard L. Brown of Charles ^
the NAACP’s legal adviser, said
Virginia is slowly losing its Negro P P f
lation because of the difficulty they
in finding employment. __oolU'
The NAACP passed another p .
tion in which it asked President
hower to “stand firm in sustaining ^
position of the federal governmen
the Supreme Court regarding
gation. It also sent a telegram w
President condemning Gov. Faut>
the position he took at Little Rock- ^ ,
T. G. Nutter was re-elected
president, and other officers re- e
include: the Rev. C. Anderson ^
vice-president; The Rev. J. Carl if
ell, secretary; and Mrs. MemP ^ f
Garrison, treasurer.
West Virginia Completes Process of Desegregation
( iDesegregation begun in 1957
] Desegregated prior to 1957
O No Negroes in district
West Virginia last month became the first state which formerly required school
segregation by law to end compulsory segregation in all its biracial school districts.
The process was completed when three northeastern districts (school districts
coincide with county lines) began the desegregation process this fall. Note that
some counties which have no Negro children also have announced policy desegre
gation.