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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER 1957—PAGE 9
Louisiana Keeps Calm As All Schools,
Except Colleges, Remain Segregated
NEW ORLEANS, La.
L ittle of the tension and none
of the violence that marked
the return to school across Louisi
ana’s northern border, in Ar
kansas, characterized the month
in this state.
The reasons were obvious:
There hasn’t been a court de
cision on a school segregation
case since June. The uneasiness
caused among segregationists by
the steady run of reverses in fed
eral courts has been replaced by
calm. They say they know that the
state legislature meets (next May)
before another school term starts,
and they can pass new segrega
tion laws if they feel it is neces
sary.
The second reason is that Louisiana
has no desegregation below the college
level. All the 625,000 public school stu
dents are in segregated classes.
FIRMLY SEGREGATIONIST
The tone of public statements by local
government officials and white citizens
was firmly segregationist, and groups
like the NAACP were staying in the
background. (See “What They Say” and
“Community Action.”)
The one dispute between Negro par
ents and a school board, occurring in
Lake Charles, revolved around the dis
tance Negro children had to travel to
school, not the fact that it was segre
gated once they got there. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”) Parents
whose children were assigned to a
school 10 miles distant tried to register
them at nearby Melrose school, used by
white children. Turned down, they boy
cotted the distant school until the Cal
casieu Parish school board promised
construction of a closer Negro school by
next September.
Louisiana’s sports segregation law
(Act 579 of 1956) was a topic of news
again. A football game between Tulane
University and the U. S. Military Acad
emy was switched from New Orleans
to West Point at the Army’s request.
(See “Miscellaneous.”)
President Eisenhower’s federal troop
use in Little Rock was greeted with
unanimous disapproval by Louisiana
political figures.
Gov. Earl Long said the President
made a serious mistake in encroach
ing on states’ rights.”
Members of Louisiana’s delegation in
Congress had these comments:
VIOLATES PLEDGE’
Rep. Hale Boggs: The action was “a
violation of Mr. Eisenhower’s repeated
pledges.”
Rep. F. Edward Hebert: “The police
date which we denounced as Russian
as now become the method of forced
c °mpliance in the once land of the free
■ • Communism has gained its most
Mississippi
(Continued From Page 8)
ex tent of overcrowding the dormitories.
L>r. E. R. Jobe, executive secretary
? . e Board of Trustees of State Insti-
tions of Higher Learning, said “this
th° W th R as been building up for the last
ree years and shows no sign of
^ackening.”
New dormitories are under construc-
ti° n state colleges, and the situa-
°n is expected to be eased by next
yea L Dr. Jobe said.
fer*° V Coleman said in a press con-
te ence that legislators “sincerely in
tin » • * n the maintenance of segrega-
l< * n the face of the new Civil Rights
for have no choice but to vote
MU 3 cons titutional convention.” He
4 ask for the convention at a Nov.
®P®cial legislative session,
lion ”° Se W ^° vote against the conven-
hjjjt' Vl tt have to assume the responsi-
W” ^° r tk e disaster which may fol-
Re said.
t,w 6 S°vemor plans to name an at-
Spg e V in each of the 82 counties to a
Civ C , la ' committee to study the new
defe ^’L'hts bill and to plan the state’s
th e eilSe against it. He has discussed
0 le€t ? e S re gati° n question in “closed”
a'gs with legislators because to do
powerful propaganda weapon. President
Eisenhower has obviously capitulated
to the NAACP.”
Rep. Otto Passman: “The President’s
force action . . . constitutes another
dangerous step toward obliteration of
the last remaining vestiges of the con
stitutional guarantees of a republican
form of government.”
Sen. Russell Long: “This will merely
make a bad situation worse, this vio
lation of his pledged word by the Presi
dent.”
SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT
Support for the President’s action in
Arkansas came from the Rev. A. L. Da
vis Jr., president of the New Orleans
Interdenominational Ministerial Al
liance, and the Rev. T. J. Jemison in
Baton Rouge.
“The breakdown of law and order in
Little Rock left the President with no
alternative,” Jemison said.
Davis termed the calling out of federal
troops “overdue but necessary . . . All
our constitutional rights and interna
tional prestige stood to be destroyed by
the anti-integration riots in Little
Rock.”
FAUBUS PRAISED
Before the President acted on Sept.
24, and while Gov. Orval Faubus had
the Arkansas National Guard ringing
Central High School, the use of this
force to preserve order was generally
praised by white officials in Louisiana.
Gov. Faubus’ “actions thus far [Sept.
4] demonstrate that governors of the
states can handle the school crisis by
interposing the state’s police powers
against arbitrary and illegal actions of
the federal courts.”
State Sen. William Rainach, Citizens
Council president and legislative segre
gation leader, made this statement in a
telegram to Gov. Faubus at a time when
the Arkansas National Guard was still
un-federalized, and “keeping peace” in
Little Rock on the governor’s order.
TELEGRAM CAMPAIGN
The Rainach sentiment was shared by
Citizens Councils throughout the state.
The Councils organized a telegram cam
paign, wiring Gov. Faubus their support
while he was blocking Little Rock inte
gration with the National Guard.
In New Orleans a look was taken at
the other side of the coin, and the view
er saw “the Negro maturing much dur
ing the past three weeks of school vio
lence.” He was Clarence Laws, NAACP
field secretary in New Orleans who had
been in Little Rock during the begin
nings of the crisis.
“The courage and determination of
both parents and students of Little Rock
must be commended and admired,”
Laws said. The entire South, he added,
must share “the responsibility for the
folly of Gov. Faubus.”
Laws made his statements at a meet
ing of the National Federation of Fed
eral Employes, Local 169, in the YWCA
building. Laws was introduced by Ar
thur J. Chapital, president of the state
NAACP, who is a Post Office employe.
EISENHOWER CRITICIZED
Laws criticized President Eisenhower
(before the posting of federal troops in
otherwise “would be to tip off the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.”
In a memorandum to members of the
legislature, Gov. Coleman warned that
“if the Negro can command the vote
under the Civil Rights bill, then he can,
as a matter of course, get everything
else.”
“I do not believe that even my per
sonal antagonists in the legislature wish
to play straight into the hands of the
NAACP and the race-mixers,” he told
the lawmakers. “A little cool-headed
thinking right now is necessary.”
Gov. Coleman said he plans a meet
ing soon of the State Sovereignty Com
mission to discuss the new Civil Rights
law.
“With the defenses that are planned
and certain necessary changes in the
state constitution the people of Missis
sippi will escape any substantial injury
from this federal legislation,” the gov
ernor said without elaborating further.
Little Rock) as “one of the greatest sin
gle contributors to this deplorable situa
tion. Eisenhower has never placed him
self solidly behind school integration.
He has never spoken out in a challeng
ing, strong voice in support of compli
ance with the school integration laws.”
At the same time Dr. Emmett Lee
Irwin, chairman of the New Orleans
Citizens Council, was saying that “it is
pitifully laughable when President Ei
senhower speaks of his oath to defend
the U. S. Constitution, and then says
that the Supreme Court’s unlawful de
cision must be enforced. The two views
are incompatible, and if he is true to
his oath he must defend the constitu
tion against the Supreme Court.”
Camille Gravel of Alexandria, state
Democratic national committeeman, said
he believed Gov. Faubus’ stand did not
hurt the party nationally. “It wasn’t a
political situation at all,” he said.
COUNCILS FLAYED
The Citizens Councils are ruled by
“unbridled prejudice,” Gravel told a
Young Men’s Business Club meeting in
New Orleans.
He said “some of these people want
to boil the Negroes in oil, but there just
isn’t enough oil in the South.” Gravel
reaffirmed his stand that the segrega
tion ruling must be recognized as “the
law of the land”—by those who don’t
agree with it as well as by those who
do. The civil rights bill, he said, is “es
sentially good,” because it “guaranteed
the right to vote.”
“The gradual willingness of officials
to permit qualified people to vote, re
gardless of race, would have come about
in Louisiana whether the civil rights bill
passed or not,” Gravel said. “We were
headed in that direction.”
NEGRO MASONS MEET
A Negro Masonic gathering in New
Orleans was told that “the Negro is do
ing nothing wrong” when he “fights for
full freedom and the equal opportuni
ties promised by the Constitution.”
Charles F. Williams of Memphis, pres
ident of a lodge in Tennessee, made the
statement at an Americanism Day meet
ing honoring Prince Hall, founder of
Negro Masonry in America.
“There can be no compromise in this
fight,” Williams said.
A Citizens Council rally in New Orleans drew an estimated 3,500 persons who
cheered state and out-of-state speakers who predicted “race war” in the North
and the “zero hour in the segregation fight.”
put Negroes in white schools.”
The Sept. 16 meeting was the first
since Jackson G. Ricau, former news
paperman and public school teacher, be
came the Citizens Councils’ first full
time, paid executive director.
OTHER OUT-OF-STATERS
Harris and two other out-of-staters
were advertiesd as rally principal
speakers — the Rev. Carey Daniel of
West Dallas, Texas, and the Rev. L. D.
Foreman of Little Rock. State Sen.
Rainach and Leander Perez, south Lou
isiana political figure, also spoke and
received some of the loudest cheers of
the crowd.
Rainach called interposition the best
and last resort of southern governors
when “the zero hour in the segregation
fight comes.”
This is because, he said, non-south-
emers will join in “the southern drive
to breathe new life into the moldering
10th amendment to the Constitution,
which says that powers not delegated
to the federal government are reserved
to the states. Preservation of internal
peace is one of these states’ rights.”
A drive to more than double the
number of Negro voters registered in
Orleans parish was launched by the
Interdenominational Ministerial Alli
ance. The Rev. Robert D. Sherard of the
Beecher Memorial Congregational
Church was appointed head of the voter
drive. He said the goal is to add 45,000
Negro registrants to the 35,000 already
on the voter rolls.
After that goal is reached, the Al
liance president, Dr. A. L. Davis, said
the voter drive will be made statewide.
About 3,500 persons turned out at the
height of tropical storm Esther’s driv
ing rains to attend a Citizens Council
rally in New Orleans’ Municipal Audi
torium.
They heard Roy V. Harris, publisher
of an Augusta, Ga., weekly newspaper
say that “a race war is in the making
. . . and it won’t start South of the Ma-
son-Dixon line, but in the big cities of
the North.”
But in Georgia, he said, the governor
will call on the services of every white
man in the state to prevent integration.
It will take the armed forces of the
United States to overpower Georgia and
a regular teacher as implied in his con
tract, Prof. King is still on the state
payroll.
After a conference with college board
officials they said the Negro professor
“may be permitted to stay on the
campus for awhile and make adjust
ments.” No further explanation of his
status was given.
Prof. Clennon King charged President
J. D. Boyd of Alcorn College has
“exiled” him from the campus by giv
ing him an assignment to an off-campus
extension service with headquarters at
Brookhaven.
Although he said he would rather
be discharged unless given the status of
/ (L ' ,
WHAT THEY SAY
Gov. J. P. Coleman has made no di
rect statement on the use of troops in
Arkansas. He said, “The unfortunate
turn of events in Little Rock has not
changed the firm resolution of the state
of Mississippi to control its internal af
fairs in public schools and otherwise
because we know it to be for the best
interest of all concerned, both white and
Negro.”
Gov. Coleman said further:
What one obtains by force of the
United States army, they will have to
have the army to maintain, and troops
cannot operate a public school system.
“I must point out the sad fact that in
a large measure Arkansas brought these
unhappy events upon itself. It was the
local school board there which, over two
years ago, recommended the integration
of the races in Little Rock. It is the local
school board which is continuing to keep
the school open in the face of circum
stances prevailing.
“The people of Mississippi may be as
sured that the governor and the legis
lature have no intention of surrender-
only by whites. What they wanted, they
said, was to have Melrose school turned
over to Negroes.
On Sept. 1 and 4 the Negroes ap
peared at Melrose and attempted to reg
ister their children. They were turned
away by the principal, Mrs. Guy K.
Herbert.
SCHOOL BOYCOTTED
The parents boycotted St. Johns
school, 10 miles across town, from
school opening on Sept. 3 until a meet
ing with the Calcasieu school board on
Sept. 17. Then most of the Negroes
agreed to accept the assignment of their
children in grades five through eight
to St. Johns, provided the board would
build a new Negro school in Fisherville
by next September. Some were reported
continuing the protest and enrolling
their children in schools outside the dis
trict.
A Negro high school in Fisherville
housed all elementary grades last year.
This year, with enrollments up, only
grades one through four were able to
stay in the Washington High building.
School board president C. J. Drost
assigned the 97 students in grades five
through eight to a plant 10 miles away,
and provided bus service.
Melrose school, with 180 capacity,
“was financed and built as a white
school and will stay white,” Drost and
parish school Supt. H. A. Norton said.
Louisiana saw its first march on a
white school by Negro parents during
September, but the issue was not seg
regation. It was a protest against the
10-mile bus ride Negro children of the
Fisherville community in Lake Charles
were ordered to take to the segregated
school assigned to them across town.
The group of 300 parents led by the
Rev. V. E. Washington and Mrs. Clara
Rious told the Calcasieu Parish school
board they were not seeking integra
tion of Melrose school, located in pre
dominantly Negro Fisherville and used
ing at any time or place to any unjusti
fied, illegal, unconstitutional interfer
ence with the rights of this state and of
its people.,” he said. “We did not make
the mess in Little Rock. Let us not lose
our heads and permit it to cause a mess
here in Mississippi.”
A statewide campaign against certain
literature of the Methodist church has
been launched in Mississippi. Copies of
a resolution condemning “repeated
presentation of the topic of integration
in the church literature” have been
sent to every Methodist adult class
superintendent in the state.
Heading the committee sending out
the resolution is John S. Kochtitzky of
Jackson. The suggestion is that it be
adopted statewide and copies sent to
the editorial staff of the church papers
as well as the publishing house in
Nashville.
The protest resolution urged the edi
tors “that if they insist on discussing
the race question they should include
arguments on both sides.” It also as
serted that many churches in Missis
sippi have ceased using the church
literature “largely because of the con
tribution of such articles and matters
of similar nature therein.”
CHURCH POSITION DEFENDED
At a meeting held at New Albany,
Dr. Henry M. Bullock, editor of about
32 publications of the Methodist church,
defended his position for articles which
appeared in the Wesley Quarterly in
July and August. Dr. Bullock, formerly
of the Mississippi Methodist Conference,
The U. S. Military Academy and Tu
lane University agreed to shift their
Nov. 16 football game from New Or
leans to West Point. Army Secretary
Wilbur Brucker said the shift was made
on Defense Department request “after
a further study of Louisiana segrega
tion laws showed that a segregated seat
ing arrangement would have to be ob
served in the seats sold by West Point.”
Louisiana Congressman E. Edward
Hebert said the Army had “become a
full partner in the campaign against the
South.” Hebert said he did not favor
the sports segregation law, “but I de
fend the right of a state to pass its own
laws.” He criticized the Defense De
partment for “pasing judgment on the
laws of a sovereign state.”
# # #
said the publications are for the entire
nation and several foreign countries
“and it is impossible to please every
segment of the country in each article
that appears in the publications.”
Dr. Bullock assured the 350 attending
the New Albany meeting Sept. 8 that
“it is not our purpose to advocate
either segregation or integration but
to promote Christian brotherhood.” He
said the church’s official position “is to
support the Supreme Court’s decision.”
CITIZENS COUNCIL STATEMENT
A Citizens Council group said the
new Civil Rights law “will result in
millions of white southerners uniting
with a fierce determination to protect
their families and their freedoms at
all costs.”
“We will not be intimidated, nor will
we be swayed from our purpose by any
federal civil rights bureau, attorney
general or the like,” the council’s state
ment released in Jackson by Editor W.
J. Simmons said. “These people are
bitterly opposed to the principles which
are dearer to us than life, and we will
tell them now exactly where we stand
and what we intend to do.
“If this be contempt, then by the
eternal they may make the most of it,”
the Citizens Council group said. “This
bill is the supreme attempt of the left
wing pressure groups to bring the tyr
anny of big government crashing down
upon the heads of patriotic Americans
who happen to disagree with their
policies and sociology.”
# # #