Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 12—JANUARY 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Race Violence, Amity Mix
In S. C. During Month
COLUMBIA, S.C.
ECEMBER BROUGHT conflicting
incidents of racial violence
and racial amity to South Caro
lina.
In the aftermath of a dynamit
ing in Gaffney, five men were ar
rested on charges of blasting the
residence of a white woman who
had written a “moderate” state
ment on race relations in which
she proposed beginning school
desegregation at the first grade.
The circuit solicitor pledged
strong action and disclosed he
had received a threatening note.
(See “Legal Action.”)
KKK dissension continued to be mani
fest, resulting in one federal court civil
action and the formation of a new pro
segregation group. (See “Legal Action.”)
Probable candidates for state office in
the 1958 elections continued to call for
school segregation in their talks before
South Carolina audiences. (See “What
They Say.”)
State law enforcement agents and
Cherokee County sheriff’s officers on
Dec. 6 announced the arrest of five men
on charges of dynamiting the Gaffney
home of Dr. and Mrs. James H. Sand
ers. Chief J. P. Strom of the State Law
Enforcement Division said the five men
were members of an “independent” Ku
Klux Klan organization. He gave their
names as John B. (Junior) Painter, 30;
Luther E. Boyette, 32; James R. Mc
Cullough, 25; Cleatus H. Sparks, 24; and
Robert P. Martin Jr., 35. Martin is a
machine operator; the others are tex
tile mill workers.
The Nov. 19 dynamiting of the Sand
ers home is attributed by police officers
to Mrs. Sanders’ having contributed a
“moderate” statement on race relations
to a compilation of 12 such views pub
lished under the title, South Caro
linians Speak. In her statement, Mrs.
Sanders suggested the possibility of
initiating school integration with first
graders.
2 ADMIT BOMBING
Two of the arrested men, according
to Chief Strom and Sheriff Julian B.
Wright, signed statements admitting
their participation in the dynamiting.
Each of the five has been charged on
four separate counts of assault and bat
tery with intent to kill, and on another
count of conspiracy to destroy real
property.
Meanwhile, Solicitor J. Allen Lamb-
right, who has called for stricter laws
which would strengthen the hand of au
thorities in dealing with bombings, dis
closed that he had received a threaten
ing note signed “KX.K.” A similar note
was received by State Law Enforce
ment Department officer O. L. Brady.
The note to Lambright, mailed from
Charleston, said, “You’re next.” The
Federal Bureau of Investigation has
been asked to investigate the threaten
ing letters.
KKK disputes continued throughout
December, with one group filing suit
in federal court against another which
allegedly has infringed on a copyrighted
Klan manual. The suit was brought by
Eldon L. Edwards of Atlanta, who terms
himself the Imperial Wizard of the U. S.
Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
The defendant is Robert E. Hodges of
Columbia, named as head of the South
Carolina Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan. Damages sought include $250 as
“gains and profits” obtained through
sales of the manual to Klansmen.
RED SHIRTS ASK CHARTER
A rift in the KKK ranks in York
County, as reported by the Rock Hill
Evening Herald, led to the formation
of a new pro-segregation group seek
ing to be chartered by the state as “As
sociation of Southern Red Shirts, Inc.”
George Tinker, a Fort Mill radio and
television repair man and former Klan
officials in the area, said he left the
KKK in protest against indiscriminate
cross-burnings in the York County area.
Secretary of State O. Frank Thorn
ton, meanwhile, has twice sent back the
application for charter to its originators.
In his latest letter to Tinker, Thornton
called attention to the historic signifi
cance of the term “Red Shirts” in South
Carolina, and suggested that the desig
nation be left unmolested to perpetuate
the memory of Gen. Wade Hampton’s
followers who restored Democratic,
white political control to South Caro
lina after Reconstruction. On a strictly
legal note, Thornton advised the appli
cants that they would have to provide
the Department of Public Welfare with
additional information before they could
be chartered as a charitable organiza
tion.
The Rev. John B. Morris, one of five
clergymen who initiated and compiled
the South Carolinians Speak booklet of
moderate racial views, criticized pub
lic officials for not taking a strong stand
against incidents such as the Gaffney
dynamiting. The Dillon minister’s state
ment, widely distributed in “Letters to
the Editor” columns of South Carolina
newspapers, drew a retort from Rep. E.
LeRoy Nettles of Florence County who
said in part:
“He [Morris] reasons like a man who
would find a town without a fire depart
ment, set fire to a house and then
A public display of biracial amity was recognized in Columbia, S. C., on Dec. 18 when Mayor J. Clarence Dreher, J r
presented a plaque to a group of Columbia High School students who had voluntarily restored the residence of an aged
Negro woman to standards acceptable to the city’s housing ordinances. Working in groups of as many as 50 at a time on
week-ends and holidays, the high school boys and girls did a full-scale rehabilitation job. Shown above with Mayor Dreher.
at left, are representatives of the student volunteers who performed the work. From left to right are Mayor Dreher, Prin.
cipal J. E. Alliston, Dean Major, Nancy Able, Betty Masters, Anita Law, Miss Chistine Webb (faculty adviser for the project).
Roger Smarr, general student chairman for the project, and Erskine Clark, publicity chairman.
charge the mayor of the town with ar
son. If the bombing of the woman’s
house in Gaffney is associated with her
expressed views on segregation that ap
peared in the book of which Rev. Mor
ris is one of five publishers, then where
does the responsibility rest?”
Donald S. Russell, who resigned re
cently as president of the University
of South Carolina in what is generally
accepted as a preliminary to announcing
as a candidate for governor, addressed
the Horry County Citizens Council on
Dec. 12, saying, among other things:
DUTY . . . COMMANDS’
“Duty to youth and nation commands
[the South] to retain that system of
public education that keeps out of the
school room those tensions and distrac
tions that destroy educational stand
ards and pervert public education from
its true role into the plaything of irre
sponsible politicians and the misguided
dweller of the ivory tower. It finds its
support in the common experience of
all people who have been confronted
by the problem of minorities and who
have ascertained that only through sep
arate systems may both races develop.
It seeks to secure to both races the op
portunity to preserve their own sep
arate cultures and heritages, each with
its own pride of race and tradition.”
Dr. Roma Gans, professor of edu
cation at Teachers’ College of Colum
bia University, wrote the Columbia
school board in December, after a visit,
that she was most impressed by the high
professional attitude of Negro teachers
in Columbia and by the serenity of the
educational community.
Lt. Gov. E. F. Hollins, appearing at
an open meeting before the S. C. con
gressional delegation in Columbia on
Dec. 9, said the state’s biggest prob
lem was the maintenance of separate
schools. He attributed the movement
of Negroes from the South to the North
to the soil bank program which is cur
tailing agriculture rather than to any
resentment over segregation.
The students of the Columbia High
School were honored in December by
the presentation of a plaque for their
volunteer work in helping rebuild and
improve the sub-standard dwelling of
an aged Negro woman. The high school
students volunteered to repair the
house when it was learned that the
Negro woman’s residence could not
meet city housing standards.
In Greenville, a 13-year-old white
school boy who delivers evening pa
pers in a Negro section was robbed
of $18 by a young Negro. Negroes on
the boy’s route expressed concern and
distress over the incident and together
contributed $18.50 with which to repay
the carrier.
Negro individuals and representa
tives of between two and three dozen
Negro organizations have formed a
“South Carolina Political Action Com
mittee” to stimulate registration of Ne
gro voters in the state. A special effort
is being made to have all eligible Ne
groes registered in time to vote in the
1958 Democratic primary elections for
governor and other state and local of
fices. The decennial re-registration of
South Carolina voters now is under way
throughout the state.
A Negro candidate for the House of
Representatives in Charleston County
(to fill a vacancy left by death) ran sec
ond in a field of four but trailed far
behind the leading candidate. The burn
ing of a cross in front of the home of
the Negro candidate, John H. Wrighten,
about a week prior to the election drew
statements of condemnation from all
three white candidates in the race.
James McBride Dabbs, Sumter Coun
ty farmer and former college teacher,
is the new president of the Southern
Regional Council, a bi-racial organiza
tion with headquarters in Atlanta. He
succeeds another native South Car
olinian, Marion A. Wright, now of Lin-
ville Falls, N. C., as head of the SRC.
Both men previously had served as
presidents of the old South Carolina Di
vision of the SRC. That division since
has become the South Carolina Coun
cil on Human Relations.
The Antioch Baptist Church of Cam
den adopted a resolution in December
opposing admission of Negroes to white
colleges and seminaries supported by
the Southern Baptist Convention and
called upon the convention president,
Rep. Brooks Hays of Arkansas, to state
his position with respect to segregation <
in the church.
The Lamar Citizens Council of Dar
lington County received a charter as
an eleemosynary corporation in .
December from the secretary of state.
Rep. O. L. Warr, Darlington County
legislator, was listed as chairman of
the group.
A group of more than 200 robed 1 ■,
Klansmen gathered on the steps of the ;
South Carolina Statehouse on the af
ternoon of Dec. 7 in the formation of a j
human cross. Imperial Wizard E.L. Ed
wards of Atlanta (see “Legal Action ) .
told reporters the demonstration was (
held to advertise a subsequent Kla®
rally that night at Dentsville on the out- i
skirts of Columbia. Edwards blamed re
cent violence at Birmingham and at C
Gaffney on splinter groups of Klansmen. j
At Rock Hill, the Star Transit Co- '«
ceased operating the city buses which
have been boycotted by Negroes in pr°'
test against segregated seating thereon
# # * ' s
0
Desegregated Negro College in West Virginia Subject of Study
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
T^he State Board of Education,
as the first move in a long-
range program to strengthen
Bluefield State College as a unit
in West Virginia’s system of
higher education, has begun a
search for a new president.
Dr. S. J. Wright resigned last
summer to accept the presidency
of Fisk University in Nashville,
Term., and the college has been
under the direction of an acting
head ever since.
Bluefield has been regarded as a prob
lem college since it was desegregated in
1954 along with West Virginia Univer
sity and eight other state colleges. Fre
quent studies of the problems there have
been made by special study groups, the
last winding up its work in mid-De
cember.
CONTINUATION RECOMMENDED
The 10-man committee of citizens
from the Bluefield area, assisted by the
state board’s special consultant, Dr.
Earl W. Anderson of Ohio State Uni
versity, recommended that Bluefield be
kept open but only after certain
changes are made in its course of
study. There has been agitation in some
quarters to close it.
It is the highest cost college among
the nine operated by the state board,
and its enrollment has shown no
marked increase since 1954, though en
rollment elsewhere has increased
steadily.
Bluefield, literally situated on the
West Virginia-Virginia border, was
opened in 1896 as the state-supported
Bluefield Colored Institute. Its name
was changed in 1943 to Bluefield State
College.
TYPES OF DEGREES
It confers the degrees of bachelor of
arts and bachelor of science, associate
in secretarial science (two years), and
a two-year diploma for study in the
trades. It is accredited by the North
Central Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools, and its teacher
education program is accredited by the
American Association of Colleges for
Teacher Education.
Bluefield has been, since its incep
tion, one of the two colleges in West
Virginia primarily for Negroes. The
other is West Virginia State College
near Charleston, but since 1954 West
Virginia State has attracted a large
number of white students from the
heavily populated Kanawha Valley.
Bluefield, however, has run into diffi
culties on this score. In the first
term after the Supreme Court’s deseg
regation decision, only three white stu
dents enrolled. The number since has
been 17 in 1955-56, 22 in 1956-57, and
33 in the current year. Approximately
half of the whites are part-time stu
dents.
HIGHEST ANNUAL COSTS
The main problem treated in the re
port was that of costs. Bluefield, it
said, had an annual student cost this
term of $1,124 compared to an average
at other state colleges of $885. It ex
ceeded all others in personal services,
current expenses, repairs and altera
tions. Only in the item of equipment
was it below one other institution.
Bluefield currently has the lowest
enrollment of any state college—339
students. In 1926-27 enrollment went
above 300 for the first time, reached a
peak of 617 in 1947-48 during the heavy
influx of GI students, and has stabilized
since at just a little above 300.
“The reason or reasons for the failure
of Bluefield State College to raise its
enrollment in line with other state col
leges,” the report says, “may be diffi
cult to ascertain. It is believed that one
reason for the decline since 1948 can
be attributed partly to declining em
ployment in the bituminous coal mines
resulting from mechanization of the
mines.
PEOPLE MOVED AWAY
“This has resulted in separating
many Negroes from employment in
addition to the large number of white
employes who were laid off. Many of
these people moved away from the
mining areas to other localities and
other states in order to find jobs. For
the unemployed miners remaining in
the area, it made it more difficult, if
not impossible, to send their children to
college.”
It’s not possible, the survey group
said, to get exact or authoritative figures
on Negro population or the trend of
Negro population in the area served by
the college. The belief is, however, the
committee said after consulting with
county school officials, Bluefield State
staff members and others in the area,
that the “Negro population is static, if
not declining.”
The Census Bureau recently an
nounced that the West Virginia popu
lation has dropped 2.5 per cent from
1950 to 1957, and the committee con
cluded that the Negro and white popu
lation in southern West Virginia de
clined by a like percentage. The com
mittee said also:
DECLINING BIRTH RATE
“It is known, from figures collected
by the Division of Vital Statistics of the
West Virginia Department of Health,
that the Negro birth rate has declined
from 1948 to 1956 in those counties in
southern West Virginia with the largest
Negro population.”
Further examination of records at
the capitol—those of the State Depart
ment of Education—revealed that 14
Negro high schools in seven southern
West Virginia counties had a total en
rollment in 1955-56 of 4,093 students.
Of this group, 641 were graduated, of
which 117, or 18.25 per cent, planned
to go on to college. Some 83 per cent
were to enter college in this state.
The situation among Negro children
compares with an enrollment of 23,401
students m the white or desegregated
high schools, of which 3,768 were grad
uated, and 879, or approximately 23 per
cent, planned to go on to college.
The committee then observed: “In
view of the efforts of the school officials
to recruit new students for the college
over the past several years, and the
failure to raise enrollment, it is your
committee’s conclusion that enrollment
will not be raised substantially from
the Negro population within or outside
West Virginia.
NEED WHITE STUDENTS
If unit costs are to be reduced,
therefore, by raising enrollment, it can
be done only by a large number of
white students enrolling. As pointed out
earlier in this report, the process
integration has already made stea.
progress.
The college has for many years
beet
operated as a teacher training ins J'
tion. The trend in students enrol 1 ® 8
for teaching has been downward in
cent years, while those for pb>’ 5 j^.
education and vocational training
been upward. To provide for better'
n-do!'
cational instruction a half-million - '
lar building was erected five years at"
Vocational courses include auto ®^
chanics, basic drafting, basic elecW^
brick laying and masonry, u P^ 0 “^ii
ing and furniture repair, plumbing
heating and carpentry. However, 1
been found that these courses are ..
properly offered in vocational sen ^
at the high school level, rather tbaj*^_
college. Several counties in the t^.
field area are better equipped f° r
training than the college.
CLASSES ARE SMALL ^ °
An analysis of the curriculum, ^ ^
size, and teacher load levels r® ^ . *
that a great number of classes a** ^ .
ing held for a very few studefi®^
study group said. The pupil'l^^f
ratio is about nine-and-a-half- _
compared to double that figure a
state colleges. For the first sern< h a t S >
this year, an analysis showed ^
per cent of the students are in ^ ^
of less than 10. Commented the <
group: * Ha
“It appears that certain co ursP ’ e3 cf be
offered each year and sometime^ ; to
semester for too few students-
.yr ^
appears that it has been a P° 'flrs 1 Ijj
offer all, or most of the cours^ ^ ^
other state institutions offer th
(Continued On Next Pagw