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PAGE 4—NOVEMBER 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Maryland Finds Number of Negro Pupils
In Mixed Schools Is Double Last Year’s
Maryland Desegregation Status, 1957
County I
Total
Percentage of
Number of Schools
Number of Negroes
Enrollment
Negro Pupils
White
Negro
Mixed
In Mixed Schools
Allegany
15,832
1.8
20
i
15
196
Anne
Arundel
34,087
17.4
36
17
17
173
Baltimore
72,779
5.6
37
9
49
839
‘ * Calvert
3,707
52.8
8
7
0
0
‘‘Caroline
4,095
30.3
8
4
0
0
Carroll
10,306
4.6
18
2
1
14
Cecil
8,811
5.9
18
3
3
Not released
Charles
6,626
46.1
6
10
1
4
‘Dorchester
5,782
34.6
22
9
0
0
Frederick
13,209
9.2
19
7
13
170
Garrett
4,687
0
20
0
0
0
Harford
14,453
11.1
15
2
6
47
Howard
7,302
15.2
11
5
1
11
‘Kent
3,110
28.7
11
7
0
0
Montgomery 63,191
4.8
49
6
48
1,245
Prince
George’s
57,228
12.71
76
19
18
224++
‘Queen
Anne’s
3,400
29.9
11
3
0
0
*St. Mary’s
5,153
27.5
13
5
0
0
‘Somerset
4,210
41.6
12
10
0
0
Talbot
3.980
31.9
7
8
3
11
Washington
17,695
2.1
35
1
11
143
‘Wicomico
9,161
26.1
16
5
0
0
‘Worcester
5,129
37.3
11
7
0
0
County
Total
373,933
11.9%
479
147
186
3,077
Baltimore
City
159,556
43.2%+
Not yet
available
State
Total
533,489
21.6%+
‘Policy of desegregation, but no Negro transfers
“No announced policy
+1956-57 percentage
t+Preliminary estimate
BALTIMORE, Md.
HE NUMBER OF NEGRO pupils
now attending formerly all-
white county schools in Maryland
is more than double last year’s
figure.
A survey by Southern School
News finds that 23 per cent of
county schools, apart from those
in Baltimore City, have both
white and Negro pupils and that
7 per cent of county Negro pupils
attend the mixed schools. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
A cross was burned and anti-inte
gration posters mounted on the fence
outside the governor’s mansion, as state
and county police searched to no avail
for the persons responsible for previous
incidents at the southern tidewater
town of Deale and at Easton, on Mary
land’s Eastern Shore. (See “Commun
ity Action.”)
SOME RE-SEGREGATION
Some re-segregation was reported in
Montgomery County as all six Negro
students in an otherwise white junior
high school requested and received
transfers to an all-Negro junior high.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
The Maryland State Teachers As
sociation reaffirmed its support of inte
gration and recommended at its annual
convention that “teachers, pupils and
other citizens . . . cooperate in bringing
about this change.” (See “What They
Say.”)
A survey of the 33 accredited junior
and senior colleges in Maryland, made
by Southern School News, has found
that only two have definite policies of
admitting only white students. On some
campuses, including one seminary, the
issue has not arisen. (See “In the Col
leges.”)
The Maryland State Teachers Asso
ciation held its annual convention in
October, but without the customary
opening address of welcome by the
governor. The association’s executive
board decided not to extend an invita
tion to Gov. Theodore McKeldin to
speak to the teachers, following the
governor’s veto of a teachers’ pay raise
bill last spring.
Among the actions of the convention
was passage of a desegregation resolu
tion which read:
“It is a matter of public record that
this organization has welcomed all
Maryland educators into its member
ship for the past six years. This experi
ence has been entirely positive and has
enabled the association to move ahead
toward its objective of serving all youth
and closer to the ideal of representing
the entire united profession.
COOPERATION ASKED
“In accordance with the recent de
cision of the Supreme Court of the
United States which declared racial
segregation in public schools to be un
constitutional, the Maryland State
Teachers Association believes that in
tegration in this state should be effect
ed in a fair and lawful manner. We rec
ommend that teachers, pupils and other
citizens throughout the state cooperate
in bringing about this change.”
Gov. McKeldin continued in October
to be critical of Gov. Faubus of Arkan
sas, and the Little Rock situation. The
burning of a cross (see “Community
Action ’) in front of Government House,
the executive mansion in Annapolis, did
not diminish McKeldin’s support of
desegregation, and there was a sugges
tion in one speech that he indirectly
blamed the cross-burning on Gov.
Faubus.
Describing Faubus as the “sputtering
sputnik from the Ozarks” in an address
before a local Republican organization,
Gov. McKeldin said, “He has aroused
again those ugliest of human passions
which cause people to commit such ig
nominious deeds as the transforming of
the Cross—the symbol of Christian love
—into the fiery emblem of human hate,
the flame of shame that marks the
hooded coward under the cover of the
night.”
POLITICAL AMBITIONS
McKeldin is Maryland’s first two-
term Republican governor, and he is
limited by the state constitution to two
terms. Next year is his last as the state’s
chief executive. He has said that he
would like to return to Baltimore as
mayor, a position he held prior to
1947. He is also reported to be inter
ested in the U. S. Senate. Segregation
ists have accused him of making a po
litical play for the Negro vote in Bal
timore, where Negroes represent ap
proximately 30 per cent of the city pop
ulation.
The governor’s immediate reaction to
the cross-burning in front of his official
residence was a public statement as fol
lows, in part:
“This morning’s cross-burning near
Government House could not, of course
have any possible effect on Maryland’s
long-established traditions of respect
for and obedience to the law. It changes
nothing in either the commendable po
sition of officialdom of the state and its
civil divisions or the praiseworthy sup
port of the general populace in the
cause of human rights.”
A survey of county school systems in
Maryland by Southern School News
shows that 13 out of 23 counties have
some mixed schools, which is the same
number of counties as last year. Seven
of the remaining counties have some
form of desegregation policy. Two
counties, Calvert and Caroline, have no
announced policy and Garrett County
has no Negro pupils.
A total of 186 schools in the 13 coun
ties have both white and Negro pupils,
which represents 23 per cent of all
county schools. The number of inte
grated schools now exceeds the num
ber of schools which continue to have
all-Negro enrollments.
Desegregation began in the counties
of Maryland in the fall of 1955, a year
after the Baltimore city school system
began the transition. In September,
1955, there were 1,018 Negroes enrolled
at 68 integrated schools in eight coun
ties. Last year there were 1,727 Negroes
at 138 integrated schools in 13 coun
ties. While the number of counties this
fall remained the same, the number of
Negroes in mixed schools has more
than doubled, reaching 3,077 with one
county not reporting. Mixed schools
total 186, 48 more than last year.
7% NEGROES MIXED
The nearly 3,100 Negro pupils in for
merly all-white schools represent 7 per
cent of the Negro school enrollment in
the counties. Montgomery County has
48 mixed schools out of 103; Frederick,
13 out of 39; and Anne Arundel, 17 out
of 70. In two western Maryland coun
ties, Allegany and Washington, inte
gration is almost complete. One all-
Negro school remains in each of these
counties.
Some re-segregation has been re
ported in Montgomery County, which
borders on the District of Columbia
and has the numerically largest amount
of desegregation among Maryland coun
ties—1,245 colored pupils in 48 predom
inantly white schools.
All six Negro pupils enrolled at North
Bethesda Junior High School requested
and received transfers to the all-Negro
Lincoln Junior High. Some complained
of an inconvenient bus schedule which
required them to walk half a mile,
whereas the Lincoln bus comes by their
homes. Others gave “unpleasantness”
and “heckling” as their reasons. The
transfer students included one girl
who had been the only Negro pupil at
North Bethesda last year.
The Montgomery County Sentinel, a
weekly newspaper at the county seat of
Rockville, reported that in addition to
the six pupils from North Bethesda, an
other two Negroes originally enrolled
at Western Junior High had transferred
to Lincoln. A dozen cases of re-segrega
tion were reported last year in Mont
gomery County, all at the secondary-
school level and partly attributed to the
difficulties some children have in mak
ing the change from elementary to jun
ior high classes.
Maryland’s two 1957 trouble-spots re
mained in the news in October on a
diminished scale.
In Easton, where an unexploded bomb
was found in September in front of the
home of two Negro children attending
an integrated school, county and state
police continued to search without suc
cess for the responsible party. The fa
ther of the children received an anony
mous postcard from further down the
Eastern Shore which read, “Fizz first
time—boom soon.”
On Oct. 11 a group of local citizens
offered a $500 cash reward for informa
tion leading to the arrest and conviction
of whoever planted the two sticks of
dynamite on the lawn of the Session
Boyd home.
NO CLUES IN DEALE
In the tidewater town of Deale, in
southern Maryland, another shortage
of clues was reported. There, in Sep
tember, the young son of a Negro phy
sician had been enrolled in the first
grade annex of a white school. Bricks
were thrown through the school win
dows one night, after which the Negro
physician was warned to get out of
town and a cross was burned on his
lawn. The child was removed from the
school and enrolled in a private school
in Washington where the bulk of the
doctor’s practice is conducted. The
Deale home was retained for weekends.
Gov. McKeldin offered protection to
the Negro surgeon if he wanted to re
turn his son to the Deale school and
also ordered the state police to supple
ment the Anne Arundel County police
search for the brick-throwers and
cross-burners. On Oct. 15 the superin
tendent of state police, Col. Elmer F.
Munshower, reported to the governor
that: “Frankly, we haven’t discovered a
great amount of information” Col. Mun
shower said that his men were still
working on the case.
PLACARDS ON FENCE
The state police also reported no prog
ress in the apprehension of the persons
who hung anti-integration posters and
a burning cross on the ornamental iron
fence outside the governor’s mansion in
Southern School News
Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate, unbiased
information to school administrators, public officials and interested lay citizens
on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme Court opinion of
May 17, 1954 declaring segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. SERS
is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor anti-segregation, but simply
reports the facts as it finds them, state by state.
Published monthly by Southern Education Reporting Service at 1109 19th Ave.,
S., Nashville, Tenn.
Second class mail privileges authorized at Nashville, Tenn., under the authority
of the act of March 3, 1879.
OFFICERS
Frank Ahlgren Chairman
Thomas R. Waring Vice-Chairman
Don Shoemaker Executive Director
Patrick McCauley, Assistant to the Executive Director
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Frank Ahlgren, Editor, Memphis Com
mercial-Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor, Vander
bilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
Luther H. Foster, President, Tuskegee
Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
Coleman A. Harwell, Editor. Nashville
Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.
Henry H. Hill, President, George Pea
body College, Nashville, Tenn.
C. A. McKnight. Editor, Charlotte Ob
server, Charlotte, N.C.
Charles Moss, Executive Editor, Nash
ville Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
George N. Redd, Dean, Fisk University,
Nashville, Tenn.
Don Shoemaker, Exec. Director, Sou.
Education Reporting Service
Bert Struby, Editor, Macon Telegraph,
Macon, Ga.
Thomas R. Waring, Editor, Charleston
News & Courier, Charleston, S.C.
Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of
Schools, Richmond, Va.
CORRESPONDENTS
ALABAMA
William H. McDonald, Assistant
Editor, Montgomery Advertiser
ARKANSAS
William T. Shelton, City Editor, Ar
kansas Gazette
DELAWARE
William P. Frank, Staff Writer, Wil
mington News
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Jeanne Rogers, Staff Writer, Wash
ington Post & Times Herald
FLORIDA
Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami
Herald
GEORGIA
Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The Macon
News
KENTUCKY
Weldon James, Editorial Writer,
Louisville Courier-Journal
LOUISIANA
Leo Adde, Staff Writer, New Orleans
Item
MARYLAND
Edgar L. Jones, Editorial Writer,
Baltimore Sun
MISSISSIPPI
Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau,
Memphis Commercial-Appeal
MISSOURI
Robert Lasch, Editorial Writer, St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
NORTH CAROLINA
Jay Jenkins, Raleigh Bureau Chief,
Charlotte Observer
OKLAHOMA
Leonard Jackson, Staff Writer, Okla
homa City Oklahoman-Times
SOUTH CAROLINA
W. D. Workman Jr., Special Corre
spondent, Columbia, S.C.
TENNESSEE
James Elliott, Staff Writer, Nashville
Banner
Wallace Westfeldt, Staff Writer,
Nashville Tennessean
TEXAS
Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bureau,
Dallas News
VIRGINIA
Overton Jones, Associate Editor,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
WEST VIRGINIA
Thomas F. Stafford, Assistant to the
Editor, Charleston Gazette
MAIL ADDRESS
P.O. Box 6155, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tenn.
Return Postage Guaranteed
Annapolis. The placards read: “Down
With Traitor McKeldin!” “Save Our
Southern Way of Life!” “States’ Rights
and Segregation or Secession!” A fourth
poster quoted a little used verse of the
state anthem, “Better the fire upon thee
roll, better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
than crucifixion of the soul—Maryland!”
The retiring grand jury in Anne
Arundel County took note of the trou
ble at Deale in its Oct. 18 report. The
jury said: “We feel that this is a very
serious situation, and we would like a
report from the Police Department and
school board as to what measures are
being taken to protect the children,
catch the offenders and prevent fur
ther actions of this kind.” County Police
Chief Wilbur C. Wade said a report
would be forthcoming shortly.
Nearly all the public and private col
leges and universities in Maryland
either have admitted Negroes or have
policies under which qualified Negro
applicants may be enrolled.
The number of Negro students is not
a matter of record, but it is known
that Negroes have been admitted to the
undergraduate and professional schools
of the University of Maryland, Johns
Hopkins University, Goucher College,
Loyola College, College of Notre Dame,
St. John’s College, Peabody Conserva
tory of Music, Maryland Institute, Bal
timore College of Commerce and Wash
ington Missionary College. Conversely,
white students have been admitted to
Morgan State College, which is pre
dominantly Negro.
Maryland’s five state teachers colleges
were desegregated by the Maryland
Board of Education in 1955. Also oper
ated on a non-segregated basis are the
public junior colleges in Montgomery,
Washington, Harford, Frederick, and
Baltimore counties and Baltimore City.
NO NEGRO APPLICANTS
The one public institution at which
the issue has not arisen is St. Mary’s
Seminary Junior College, a small state-
supported school in southern Maryland.
No Negro applications have been re
ceived there, but it is presumed that
qualified applicants would have to be
considered.
Hood College, a private girls’ college,
has no Negro student but will consider
qualified applicants. Similar policies are
held at several Catholic institutions in
addition to those already enrolling Ne
groes.
Washington College, a private co-ed-
ucational college on the Eastern Shore,
expresses willingness to admit qualified
Negroes who hold state scholarships-
Western Maryland College, a Meth
odist institution, has no policy at this
time, but has not admitted Negroes in
the past.
2 HAVE ONE-RACE POLICY
Of 33 accredited junior and senior
colleges in Maryland, two report that
they have definite policies of serving
only one race. Both are in Baltimore
and have all-white enrollments: th c
University of Baltimore and the East
ern College of Commerce and Law.
A number of the private colleges of
Maryland receive some state aid in re '
turn for scholarships which are dis£
tributed by legislators, usually through
competitive examinations. The question
was raised last year by Washington Co'
lege as to whether this state aid mad®
it obligatory to accept Negro studen
under the Supreme Court non-segreg a '
tion decrees.
The attorney general in an opim® 11
dated May 11, 1956, reviewed the P 61 "^
nent Maryland court decisions and sal
“The mere donation by the legislate
of public funds to a private education®
institution does not in itself convert
private corporation into a public on e
particularly where, as here, the a PP^
priation is in consideration of
granting of a specific number of sc
arships and represents less than 20 Pu
cent of the private institution’s budlF
The opinion concluded, “Such
as the board of governors may
with respect to the admission of an
plicant who desires to enter Washing*-^
College is not state action. According
the recent decision of the S u Pyf^
Court in the case of Brown v. Bo& T
•rtTg5Jl
Education is not applicable to "
ington College.” „ t
# *