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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER 1957—PAGE 5
Texas Town
AUSTIN, Texas
Uleasanton, a South Texas
•l town, ordered its schools inte
grated in the first test of a new
state law requiring voter approv
al. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The school board president at
San Marcos, whose high school
was integrated three years ago,
said too-rapid integration is hurt
ful to the Negroes and causes
them to drop out of school. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Houston, the nation’s largest segre
gated school system, was ordered by
U. S. Dist. Judge Ben C. Connally to
integrate “with deliberate speed.” No
date was set to begin. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
LOOK TO DALLAS
Segregated Texas districts generally
are looking to Dallas for direction on
integration planning. A three-judge
federal court on Nov. 22 will hear the
district’s appeal from an order to inte
grate in January. (See “Legal Action.”)
Gov. Price Daniel indicated he would
submit an anti-troop bill for action to
the Texas legislature’s special session
which will end on Nov. 13. The session
was called for other purposes, but de
bate on the Little Rock situation has
been a main topic. (See “Legislative
Action.”)
President Eisenhower wrote to Gov.
Daniel that troops were sent to Little
Rock “to support our federal court
system—not to enforce desegregation.”
(See “What They Say.”)
The state’s leading Negro paper said
editorially “Equal Schools May Require
U. S. Operation.” (See “What They
Say.”)
COLLEGES SURVEYED
A survey showed that Negroes are
attending integrated colleges of Texas
to about the same extent this year as
in 1956-57. (See “In the Colleges.”)
Former Gov. Allan Shivers predicted
that a third party will emerge in the
United States if existing major parties
“persist in ignoring true majority senti
ment in pursuit of minority bloc votes.”
(See “Political Activity.”)
Sixty members of the Texas legisla
ture were among 2,700 listeners at a
Houston address by Gov. Marvin Grif
fin of Georgia, urging a strong states’
rights organization. (See “Political Ac
tivity.”)
Some Texas Republican leaders as
serted that the Little Rock episode had
not hurt the party politically in Texas,
but there were signs of widespread de
fection, including resignation of long
time GOP workers. (See “Political Ac
tivity.”)
East Texas white citizens showed a
mounting resistance to the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, which moved its Nov.
1-2 convention from Longview to Dallas.
(See “Miscellaneous.”)
Voters at Pleasanton, a farming-
ranching town 45 miles south of San
Antonio, approved integration of pub
lic schools at all levels in the first test
of a new state law, H.B.65. (See SSN,
J une 1957.)
The legislature passed the law for
bidding future integration until a
school district’s voters approve. Viola-
Uon would subject the district to loss
°f state funds and its officials to fines
U P to $1,000.
Pleasanton, in an area where integra-
*° n generally had taken place before
me law was passed, had been con
fronted with a choice of putting 36 Ne-
Sr° students into class with nearly
,450 whites—or loss of accredited
Pending for the whole system. The
fgro facilities had been declared in
adequate by the Texas Education
Agency.
TO 88
Voters approved integration by 343 to
• The district has a population of
about 5,000.
Supt. J. D. Klingman announced that
segregation will be abolished immedi
ately.
■mlveston, Port Arthur and several
ler districts earlier had postponed
to integrate this fall because of
I new law. They made no effort to
d an election, which can be called
Petition of 20 per cent of a district’s
ters.
ITte Dallas school board intends to
c °urt interpretation of the act,
is caught in a conflict between
e deral
—court order to integrate and
^te law requiring voter approval
Is First to Hold Referendum Under New State Law
Neither has Dallas held an election.
(See “Legal Action.”)
At San Marcos, school board Presi
dent Frank Taylor commented that in
tegration at the high school level
which started three years ago had
proved hurtful to the Negroes. The dis
trict’s population is growing, but the
number of Negroes in high school has
declined from 56 to 29.
“The colored children have been hurt
by integration here,” said Taylor.
“Neither the Negro children nor their
parents were ready for integration. Few
were good students—and its wasn’t a
matter of race or intelligence. It is
just that the Negro children did not
have the background, nor the interested
parents, to see that they did well in
high schools.
“Negro students generally quit school
just as soon as they get past the com
pulsory attendance age (17). Only one
was graduated at San Marcos last year.”
Taylor believes that in time Negroes
may do well in integrated schools. San
Marcos maintains separate elementary
schools and there is no demand for in
tegration, Taylor said. The district has
no segregated high school.
UVALDE EXPERIENCE
At Uvalde, Supt. M. B. Morris asserted
that “integration of all races as we have
it in the Uvalde schools would bring
joy to any school.” The West Texas
district has 25 Negroes among 2,750
students. It also has many Latin-Amer-
icans and some Orientals.
LEGAL ACTION
U. S. District Judge Ben C. Connally
ordered integration of schools in Hous
ton “with all deliberate speed” but he
did not set a definite date for mixing
the races. (Benjamin et al v. Houston
ISD. See SSN July, 1957 and earlier.)
School board members hailed the de
cision as “fair” and “wise.” They indi
cated no appeal is planned. It is un
known whether an appeal will be made
by the Negro plaintiffs. Deadline for
appeal is Nov. 14. Some Negro leaders
expressed dissatisfaction with Judge
Connally’s order. (See text on this
page.)
“Any delay will be warranted only
if the board immediately comes to grips
with its problem,” said Connally. “A
court of equity will not countenance
inordinate delay or evasion where the
enjoyment of a constitutional right is
involved, though its recognition and
enforcement be difficult and unpopular.”
Attention is being focused by other
districts on the hearing Nov. 22 before
a three-judge U. S. court at Fort
Worth of the appeal by Dallas Inde
pendent School Board from a trial
judge’s order for integration at the
mid-winter term in January 1957.
(Borders v. Rippy. See SSN, October
1957 and previous issues.)
The board plans also to seek a declar
atory judgment to determine validity of
a state law (H.B. 65) requiring approval
at an election before any district inte
grates in the future.
NO PLAN READY
Dr. Edwin L. Rippy, president of the
Dallas board, said it had studied its
integration problem extensively but
has no plan ready for immediate ap
plication in event the appellate court
sustains the January order. Dr. Rippy
said a long-range plan of the board
has been “confused by litigation in fed-
•It' You Both Would Stop
Pushing So Hard—*
—Houston Post
eral courts and by direit conflict be
tween state and federal law on inte
gration.”
The National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People mean
while withdrew its appeal from a state
court decision enjoining it from alleged
illegal acts in Texas. (State of Texas v.
NAACP. See SSN July 1957 and pre
vious.) Dist. Judge Otis T. Dunagan of
Tyler had ordered the NAACP to stop
fomenting litigation in Texas, among
other things.
Gov. Price Daniel indicated that he
would accede to demands of East Texas
legislators to present an anti-troop bill
to the Texas legislature before its spe
cial session ended on Nov. 13.
If the lawmakers failed to pass this
and several local bills waiting late in
troduction, Daniel said it would be
their own fault' for taking so long on
the original proposals to the 30-day
session—lobbyist regulation and water
conservation.
Daniel hinted that he does not intend
to call a second special session on seg
regation-desegregation topics. The pro
posed law to close schools where vio
lence occurs or troops are stationed is
“more than just a segregation law.” He
said persons favoring such a law in
clude many who have no objection to
integrating the races.
PASS RESOLUTIONS
The Texas House of Representatives
passed two resolutions condemning use
of troops in school integration. The
strongest, HCR 3, was written by Reps.
Joe N. Chapman of Sulphur Springs
and W. T. Oliver of Port Neches.
HSR 12 by Rep. Louis Dugas Jr. of
Orange charged that President Eisen
hower acted illegally when he sent
paratroopers to Little Rock.
The Chapman-Oliver resolution said
the Texas legislature specifically re
quested that the President refrain from
sending federal troops to Texas to en
force “modern sociological concepts.”
Texas can police its own area, the legis
lators declared.
WHAT THEY SAY
President Eisenhower said in a letter
to Gov. Daniel that U. S. troops were
sent to Little Rock to “support our fed
eral court system—not to enforce de
segregation.”
In a telegram to the President on
Sept. 24, Gov. Daniel had asked
whether Mr. Eisenhower intended to
“occupy with troops every non-inte-
grated school in the South?”
The President’s reply came in a letter
marked “personal” but released here by
Gov. Daniel. It said:
“I am sorry to see that your Septem
ber 24th telegram wholly misses the
point in respect to the mission of fed
eral soldiers in Little Rock. They are
not there to enforce desegregation; they
are there to support our federal court
system; to uphold the law which the
state has blocked and which the local
community has been unable to uphold
lacking state support.
FEARS ‘ANARCHY’
“No one is more determined than I
am to get federal troops out of Little
Rock at the earliest date consistent
with respect for the law. To remove
them before then, however, would be
to acquiesce in anarchy and, ultimately,
the dissolution of the Federal Union.”
Gov. Daniel, a Democrat who sup
ported Republican Eisenhower for
President in 1952, commented that “I
am pleased to note that he is deter
mined ‘to get the federal troops out of
Little Rock’ at an early date.”
“This does not alter my opinion that
it was a great mistake and a tragic
precedent for the President to resort to
armed force to carry out a court decree
concerning the operation of a public
school,” the governor added.
SEE ‘U. S. OPERATION’
The Houston Informer, Texas’ leading
Negro newspaper, said editorially:
“Equal Schools May Require U. S.
Operation.”
. . Now if the die-hard segrega
tionists keep on insisting upon the right
to provide unequal educational oppor
tunity for Negro citizens, there will be
no choice but to start a campaign to
broaden the school construction pro
gram to include the building and oper
ation by the federal government of such
schools as may be required to guar
antee equal education to all American
citizens, and especially Negro citizens,”
the editorial said.
Dr. J. Reuben Scheeler, chairman of
the department of history and geog
raphy at Texas Southern University,
charged in an address to the Houston
Negro Chamber of Commerce that
much money and effort is being spent
there to stir racial strife.
BRITON HEARD
Another speaker at Houston, British
official Harold Cooper, said that Rus
sians are making political capital
abroad of America’s racial disputes.
Cooper is a former administrator of the
Gold Coast and Nigeria.
Respect and obedience for court de
cisions was urged by 173 Houston
ministers, representing most denomin
ations, in a plea for cooperation when
the city’s schools are integrated. “We
believe that for an individual or group
to defy decisions with which he or they
are not in agreement is to encourage
other dangerous elements in our society
to follow the same destructive proced
ure for their own ends,” the statement
declared.
IN THE COLLEGES
A survey by The Dallas Morning
News indicated that Negroes are at
tending integrated colleges in Texas to
about the same extent as in 1956-57. At
least seven senior colleges and 18
junior colleges in the state have aban
doned segregation as a policy. No offi
cial figures are available on Negro en
rollment, but informed sources esti
mate the present total is about 300.
The largest number, 173, is enrolled
at the University of Texas here. In
cluded are 119 undergraduates and 54
in the graduate school. Enrollment last
year was estimated at 200.
“Scholastic attrition” on undergrad
uates was reportedly high last year,
part of the university’s effort to im
prove its academic standards.
In addition to regular colleges, most
medical and theological colleges in
Texas now admit Negroes with white
students.
LIST OF COLLEGES
Integrated senior colleges include
Lamar Tech at Beaumont, Texas West
ern at El Paso, North Texas State at
Denton, and Texas College of Arts and
Industries at Kingsville, all tax-sup-
ported; Wayland Baptist College at
Plainview and Midwestern University
at Wichita Falls, both private.
Eighteen tax-supported Texas junior
colleges, perhaps more, now admit Ne
groes with white students. These are
at Wharton, Amarillo, Cisco, Corpus
Christi, Borger, Gainesville, Wichita
Falls, Big Spring, Laredo, Odessa, Edin
burg, Paris, San Angelo, San Antonio,
Uvalde, Temple, Brownsville and Vic
toria.
A conservative Texas political leader,
former Gov. Allan Shivers, predicted
that a third political party would re
sult “if the two major parties persist in
ignoring true majority sentiment in
pursuit of minority bloc votes.”
Shivers spoke to the American
Bakers Association in a Chicago con
vention. The Texan, a Democrat, twice
led supporters of Republican Dwight D.
Eisenhower to victory in Texas.
The ex-governor said there is no
certainty a third party will be formed.
“It takes a brave man to contemplate
the prospect of leading, helping to form,
or just joining a third party,” said
Shivers.
HEAR GRIFFIN
Sixty members of the Texas legisla
ture rode chartered buses, furnished
free by East Texas members, to hear
Gov. Marvin Griffin of Georgia make
a speech at Houston. An estimated
2,700 persons heard Griffin plead for
formation of “the biggest, most reso
lute organization in the South” to fight
for states’ rights.
Republican party spokesmen con
tended that the use of U. S. troops in
Little Rock had not damaged the GOP
politically in Texas. But surveys by
The Dallas Morning News and others
indicated widespread defections both
among former Eisenhower Democrats
and among Republican party regulars.
R. E. Kennedy of Kilgore, long-time
Republican leader, resigned as chair
man of the Gregg County GOP com
mittee.
Jack Porter of Houston, Republican
national committeeman, said the Little
Rock eruption will have no permanent
harm to the party. “The fundamental
reason is because the Republican party
is the only party where conservative
thinking people can go,” said Porter.
Charles Thomas, former Secretary of
Navy under Eisenhower, predicted that
GOP fund-raising would not suffer
after there is a cooling-off from Little
Rock. “Arkansas’ Gov. Orval Faubus
put everybody in a difficult spot,” said
Thomas in Dallas. “He is an evil man.”
MISCELLANEOUS
The National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People moved its
Nov. 1-2 convention from Longview to
Dallas after a controversy over whether
violence would occur from meeting in
Longview, an East Texas city.
Petitions are being circulated at
Rockwall, north of Dallas, calling on
President Eisenhower to resign. The
petitions prepared by a group of in
dustrial and business leaders declare:
“We the undersigned believe that your
actions against the State of Arkansas
and the people of Little Rock make you
unworthy to hold office as President...”
U. S. Rep. Wright Patman, Democrat
from Texarkana, said use of troops is
“shocking to me.” He termed it “an
illegal and unconstitutional way.”
The Rev. Ralph D. Abemethy, a Ne
gro integration leader from Montgom
ery, Ala., said in Dallas: “We have
come out of the Little Rock situation
stronger.”
# # #
Houston Told: Proceed ‘With All Deliberate Speed"
Following is the text of the order by U.S. District Judge
Ben C. Connally in the case of Benjamin v. Houston Inde
pendent School District, issued Oct. 15:
’T'he above entitled and numbered cause having come on to
be heard by the court on application of plaintiffs for
declaratory judgment and for permanent injunction, and the
minor plaintiffs having appeared herein by and through
their next friend and attorneys of record, and the defend
ants having appeared by and through their attorneys of
record, and all parties having announced ready for trial, the
court proceeded to hear the pleadings, evidence and argu
ment of counsel, and having heretofore filed its findings of
fact and conclusions of law herein, it is therefore:
ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that Art. 7, Sec.
VII of the Constitution of the state of Texas, Art. 2900,
2922-15 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas are unconsti
tutional and void insofar as such constitutional and statu
tory provisions require the segregation of the races in the
public schools operated by the defendants herein;
It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that the policy
and practice heretofore adopted by the defendants pursuant
to the above mentioned constitutional and statutory provi
sions under which the defendants in the maintenance and
operation of the public schools within the territorial limits
of the Houston Independent School District have required
and enforced racial segregation be, and same are hereby
held to be, unlawful and violative of the constitutional rights
of the minor plaintiffs herein.
It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that the de
fendants, Houston Independent School District, a body cor
porate, Dr. W. W. Kemmerer, James M. Delmar, Mrs. Frank
Dyer, Dr. Henry A. Peterson, Mrs. A. S. Vandervoort, Mrs.
Earl Maughmer Jr. and Stone Wells, as officers and mem
bers of the board of trustees of the Houston Independent
School District and their successors in office, their agents,
servants and employes, and those who may act in concert
with them who shall receive notice of this order, be and
are hereby restrained and enjoined from requiring segre
gation of the races in any school under their supervision,
from and after such time as may be necessary to make
arrangements for admission of children to such schools on
a racially non-discriminatory basis, with all deliberate
speed, as required by the decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
349 U.S. 294.
It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that a bond
be filed by plaintiffs herein in the sum of One Thousand
Dollars ($1,000) for the payment of such costs and damages
as may be suffered by any party who is found to be wrong
fully enjoined or restrained herein, said bond to be ap
proved by the clerk of this court.
The action will be retained on the docket for such further
orders as may be necessary. # # #