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News
Objective
VOL. IV, NO. 8
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
$2 PER YEAR
FEBRUARY, 1958
‘Little Rock’ Bills Urged
Before 5 Legislatures
T egislatures in five states—one of them a border state—have before them bills or proposals for so-
called “Little Rock” legislation, or measures designed for automatic school-closing if federal troops are
used in an attempt to enforce desegregation.
Georgia saw its first suit filed for school entry since the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision against segre
gation, while Oklahoma reported the first new planned desegregation of a school district since November.
A legislative committee in Delaware approved a “Little Rock” bill and two committees in the Mississippi
legislature had a similar measure before them. Georgia’s Gov. Marvin Griffin, South Carolina’s Gov.
George Bell Timmerman Jr. and Virginia’s Gov. J. Lindsay Almond also recommended bills to close
public schools should federal troops be sent to patrol school grounds in support of court orders.
Florida and Texas presently have such legislation in force.
Also for the first time, Negro students
Cal Alley in the Memphis Commercial Appeal
sought admission to the University of
South Carolina at Columbia.
In New York, Atlanta and elsewhere,
spokesmen for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People
called for continued efforts to bring
about school desegregation (see state
reports and “National Affairs” section of
District of Columbia report), but in
Virginia it was indicated that no efforts
would be pressed to desegregate under
existing court orders during the current
school year.
COURT ACTION HEIGHTENED
Court activity was stepped-up in sev
eral areas, with these developments:
• In Florida, Negro publicist Virgil
Hawkins renewed his nearly decade-
long effort to gain admisflon to the Uni
versity of Florida law school..
• In North Carolina, the state su
preme court ruled Greensboro had act
ed legally (this was a test of the state’s
pupil placement law) in enrolling Negro
children in all-white schools.
• In Virginia, a special federal court
9 of 145 Laws Ruled Unconstitutional
Qf the 145 school segregation laws
added to the statute books in 11
fetes during the past four years, nine—
®duding two pupil placement acts and
3ore recently three of Virginia’s six
®ti-NAACP laws—have been declared
-’constitutional in court tests.
One law—a pupil assignment statute
3 North Carolina—has been approved
3 effect.
According to a survey by Southern
chool News, six other state laws, bi
dding placement acts in Alabama and
°rida, have been attacked in court
*dons. But decisions in these cases
have not been rendered yet or
ave been inconclusive.
J®. all, about 150 court actions in-
. vin g school segregation and related
rjtes have been handled by state and
:“ era l courts since 1954. In many of
school segregation provisions on
■I before 1954 were held, gen-
y, in conflict with the constitutional
^ciples enunciated by the U.S. Su-
7’ ne Court in the Brown decisions of
^ and 1955.
Ute
la
COURTS, TOO
some cases state, as well as federal,
V. otaitj uo W Cll do lCvlCi ell,
.V s held school segregation legisla-
V e l acted P rior to 1954 to be invalid,
McKinney v. Blankenship involv-
) ^ools at Big Spring, Texas. And
. ther instances, such as Aaron v.
* n R°ck, no ruling on the
^ hutionality of school segregation
>iLj aS re 1 u * ret i when the defendants
cded their invalidity.
) illustrated in the table on page 2,
wf es m . whicl1 desegregation is
are still in the news, some with
^ati nS ° r odler action recorded last
d J® or expected this month. Of these,
bat Ve t * le Principle of pupil assign-
4s
n . < ^ ec ^ 311 With All Deliberate
W (Harper & Bros., 1957): “Pupil
^“nent in 1957 appeared as the focal
^ of legislative resistance to the
4^ i segregation] decisions for one
% f ° Unt reas on. Of the legislation
, r tested in court, only placement
n given tentative approval.”
f
, I^ L ACEMENT test
^ as in the cases involving North
\ a s assignment law adopted in
t * srL in , a . CaSe see king desegregation
0<d in McDowell County, both
s and state courts upheld the
Pt act’s requirement that ad-
, We remedies, as distinguished
from judicial remedies, be exhausted
and that relief be sought on an indi
vidual rather than a class basis. Finally,
in 1956 when a district court refused a
judgment without regard to the place
ments act’s provisions, the plaintiffs
sought a circuit court mandamus (in
Carson v. Warlick) to require this pro
cedure of the district court. It was in
this connection that the circuit court
ruled the North Carolina act “not un
constitutional on its face.” The U.S.
Supreme Court refused to review this
decision.
Conversely, and previously, a federal
district court had held Louisiana’s
placement act “unconstitutional on its
face,” (Bush v. Orleans Parish School
Board) and subsequently a district
court in Virginia made a similar ruling
on the assignment act in that state
(Newport News and Norfolk cases). In
both instances, the courts looked be
yond the assignment act itself and saw
other legislation which showed the in
tent of the placement laws was to pre
serve segregation contrary to the prin
ciples announced in the Brown case.
Again in both instances the Supreme
Court refused to review.
COMPANION ACTS EYED
In Louisiana, the companion legisla
tion considered by the district court in
so ruling was the Police Powers amend
ment to the state constitution listed
below. In Virginia it was an appropria
tions act which defined the term “effi
cient system of education” used in the
assignment law as meaning “separate.”
However, the situation regarding the
status of Virginia’s placement act has
been clouded by subsequent court de
cisions. In Allen v. Charlottesville
School Board and in Thompson v. Ar
lington County School Board, different
district courts have enjoined enforce
ment of the placement act as though it
were valid, holding simply that it can
not be used to segregate students in
the public schools. The Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals has been asked to rule
specifically on which portions of the act,
if any, are unconstitutional.
Besides the placement acts, the fol
lowing pieces of pro-segregation legis
lation have been held invalid by fed
eral courts in the designated cases:
POLICE POWERS
1) The Louisiana Police Powers
amendment to the state constitution,
adopted in 1954, which provided “in the
exercise of the police powers of the
state of Louisiana ... all public ele
mentary and secondary schools in the
state of Louisiana shall be operated
separately for white and colored chil
dren. . . .” (Bush. v. Orleans Parish
School Board.)
2) Louisiana Act 15 of 1956 providing
that “no person shall be registered at
or admitted to any publicly financed
institution of higher learning of this
state unless he or she shall have first
filed with said institution a certificate
addressed to the particular institution
sought to be entered attesting to his or
her eligibility and good moral charac
ter. This certificate must be signed by
the superintendent of education of the
parish, county or municipality wherein
said applicant graduated from high
school, and by the principal of the high
school from which he graduated.”
(Ludley v. Board of Supervisors of
LSU.)
3) Louisiana Act 249 of 1956 provid
ing for removal of any teacher “advo
cating or in any manner performing
any act toward bringing about inte
gration of the races within the public
school system [i.e., signing a certificate
of eligibility for a Negro to seek admit
tance to a white college].” (Dudley v.
Board of Supervisors of LSU.)
VOLUNTARY SEGREGATION
4) Tennessee Act 11 of 1957 authoriz
ing school boards “to provide separate
schools for white and Negro children
(Continued On Page 2)
Alabama 9
Arkansas 12
Delaware II
Disk of Columbia . . 6
Florida 15
Georgia 4
INDEX
Kentucky 14
Louisiana 14
Maryland 13
Mississippi 5
Missouri 2
North Carolina .... 8
Oklahoma 5
South Carolina .... 7
Tennessee 10
Texas 3
Virginia 16
West Virginia 8
struck down so-called “NAACP laws”
while the state supreme court upheld
legislative right of investigation of
NAACP membership rolls.
A summary of major developments
state-by-state during January follows:
Alabama
A large field of candidates, all pledged
to maintain segregation, entered the
race for the Democratic nomination for
governor. In answering a school entry
suit, the first of its kind in Alabama,
Birmingham’s board of education con
tended that petitioners were premature
in going to federal court and should
have awaited administrative action.
Arkansas
Little Rock’s Central High School,
scene of bombing threats and incidents
involving students, still claimed the
spotlight. Elsewhere in Arkansas seven
integrated school districts reported all
was quiet.
Delaware
The education committee of Dela
ware’s lower House reported favorably
a bill to close any public school where
federal troops were called “to prevent
violence or alleged acts of violence.”
District of Columbia
Reading readiness tests showed almost
50 per cent of elementary children in
“low normal” or “poor risk” categories
though the majority are average or
above in intelligence.
Florida
A Negro publicist who has been try
ing for nine years to enter the Univer
sity of Florida law school filed a new
action in federal court but was unable
to get an injunction for immediate ad
mission.
Georgia
Ten Negro parents filed suit on behalf
of 28 children to gain entry to all-white
McKnight
Harwell
Two SERS Directors
Attend NATO Session
Two directors of Southern Education
Reporting Service were among 37 world
leaders in the fields of education and
public opinion who met in Paris last
month for a conference to explain
operation of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO).
Representing journalism in the United
States were Coleman A. Harwell, editor
of the Nashville Tennessean and chair
man of the Associated Press Managing
Editors Association, and C. A. Mc
Knight, editor of the Charlotte Observ
er. Both have served on the SERS board
since 1954. McKnight is former execu
tive director of SERS.
The third U. S. delegate was Prof.
Harold C. Deutsch of the University of
Minnesota. According to press dis
patches, the 37 delegates were selected
by NATO officials on the basis of wide
influence in their field. The week-long
session was designed to spread knowl
edge about the workings of NATO.
# # #
schools in Atlanta. The legislature had
at least eight new pro-segregation
measures before it, including three
dealing with schools.
Kentucky
Adair County, first district to deseg
regate under court order, reported its
schools “pretty quiet” and that after two
years “people just don’t talk about it
any more.”
Louisiana
A growing number of school board
officials were reported opposed to
pr^iected legislation which would close
public schools rather than permit them
to be desegregated.
Maryland
A study of desegregation in Baltimore
showed that in the fourth year of the
program enrollment of Negroes in for
merly all-white schools had increased
50 per cent over the previous year but
that more than 80 per cent continued
to attend all-Negro schools.
Mississippi
A bill closing schools if federal
troops are used to enforce integration
was pending in two legislative commit
tees. Another bond issue to finance a
second $27 million expenditure for
equalization of school facilities was
authorized.
Missouri
St. Louis schools, reporting on the
influx of new students in Negro areas
noted that more than one-third of them
had come from Mississippi.
North Carolina
Lumbee Indians of Robeson County
routed a Klu Klux Klan rally after
Klansmen had burned crosses before
Indian homes. The state supreme court
ruled that the Greensboro school board
acted legally in assigning six Negro
children to all-white schools last fall.
Oklahoma
One new district—Bristow in Creek
County—announced plans for 1958-59
secondary school desegregation under
the stress of financial difficulties inci
dent to operating separate schools.
South Carolina
An undisclosed number of Negro col
lege students sought—and were denied
—admission to the all-white University
of South Carolina in a move linked to
state withdrawal of approval of teacher
training at a Negro college. Legislation
was recommended for school closing in
the event federal troops are ordered in
to a school situation.
Tennessee
Two of the state’s four largest cities,
Nashville and Knoxville, face show
downs during 1958 on desegregation and
college admission is an issue in a third
city, Memphis.
Texas
Dallas, under a court order to deseg
regate “with all deliberate speed,” asked
a federal court what it should do in the
light of a state law which bars state aid
to a district that desegregates without
a referendum.
Virginia
Three of the state’s “NAACP laws”
were held unconstitutional in a 2-1 de
cision by a special three-judge federal
court while a state court upheld '
lative subpoena of the NAACP
bership lists. A bill to clor
patrolled by federal troops
mended by incoming Go-
Almond and adopted b;
West Vi-
Desegregation at
West Virginia St?
nounced a succ
president.