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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY 1958—PAGE 13
Baltimore Shows 50 p. c. Rise in Negro
Vttendance at Once All-White Schools
[ e . BALTIMORE, Md.
Ot. ^TIMORE IN ITS FOURTH YEAR of
^desegregation has recorded a
* f of nearly 50 per cent over the
as ,evious year in Negroes attend-
oi . formerly white schools, but
'*5 , r e than 80 per cent of the Ne-
": r -pupils continue to attend
^ 5gro schools under Baltimore’s
lijuntary desegregation policy.
C .-jtistical data released by the
ler ^jartment of education show
jjy one additional mixed school
a-tjthe current year, with a result-
he 3 t increase in the proportion of
pt >gro pupils in schools previously
t e grated. (See “Under Sur-
)
Compulsory desegregation was
iis jarred during January in Montgomery
jfflty, which borders on the District of
35 Jumbia, when the county school board
1( j jted to close out the two remaining
egro secondary schools. (See “School
, e «rds and Schoolmen.”)
4 “Selective integration” was put to a
jv gal test before the U. S. Fourth Cir-
to jt Court, sitting in Charlotte, N.C.,
or jen NAACP attorneys challenged
ut irford County’s gradual desegrega-
J1 * plan, which includes a special
et ieening of Negroes seeking early en-
le ace to white high schools. (See “Le-
i Action”)
, r Hie U. S. Fourth Circuit Court heard
plguments in mid-January on the legal-
i 7 the gradual desegregation pro-
t 51,1 in Hartford County. Originating
] Stephen Moore Jr. v. Board of Ed-
_ Wion of Harford County, the case
j! “ 'n and out of the U. S. District
y jut in Baltimore on three occasions
tore a seven-year desegregation
-stable was devised to the satisfac-
■ of Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen.
Jhe plaintiffs, represented by three
“CP lawyers, took an appeal to the
ptuth circuit, their attorneys arguing
5 Harford County was not moving
| ^“deliberate speed but with delib-
delay.” The plaintiffs contended
: r Charlotte that the “clear inference
j® the record has been that the sole
f , a the delay has been reluctance
i 4 admit” Negro children to white
. -“Ools.
^dson K. Barnes, a Baltimore attor-
; ^representing the county school
: defended the county’s efforts to
. ? about orderly segregation. One
^ of the case is the test it affords
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 12)
attended the meeting. Two stu-
s Poke briefly. At the end Mrs.
.^saret C. Jackson, president, said
, ague was broke and a collection
* taken up.
'^R° GROUP MEETS
LhT ^ e ® ro organization, the Great
ly die Rock Improvement League,
^first public meeting Jan. 9.
^ 50 persons attended including
y -1 Bates, state NAACP presi-
y he Bev. Oliver W. Gibson, pres-
organizer, outlined the aims
b^.^fague as about the same as
y ° .Ihe NAACP. The difference, he
'•s p ln Bue method of achieving the
■> (q l Hson said the League would
''vji 6arn for Negroes their rights and
Without the use of court liti—
> 0 ^ Mrs. Bates wished them well,
a ^ a ^ er Ike League met again
Ut present but this meeting
Cl0s ed to the press.
of “selective desegregation.” Part of the
Harford desegregation plan calls for
screening Negro applicants to white
high schools during the transition pe
riod, and NAACP attorneys have argued
that the selective process imposes a
“clearly unconstitutional burden” on the
one racial group.
1ARSHALL HEARD
Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel of
x NAACP, returned to his hometown
: Baltimore for a celebration of the
Sh anniversary of the Emancipation
■oclamation and urged an unrelenting
egro effort to end all forms of racial
sregation. (See “What They Say.”)
The Maryland General Assembly
zets in February for a short, 30-day
ission devoted primarily to budgetary
itters. No advance notice was given
: proposals either for or against school
segregation.
The jostling field of Democrats ready
and willing to take over the executive
office to be vacated at the close of
Gov. McKeldin’s second term was nar
rowed in January when the two lead
ing aspirants joined forces. Baltimore’s
Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro Jr.
dropped out of the gubernatorial race
to accept a place on the ticket headed by
J. Millard Tawes, now state comp
troller. D’Alesandro will run for the
U. S. Senate against an even more
crowded field but will have the advan
tage of organized political backing as
part of the dominant Democratic slate.
Desegregation is not openly a public
issue in Maryland political campaign
ing. At a Negro ceremony marking the
95th anniversary of the Emancipation
Proclamation, a spokesman for Mayor
D’Alesandro told the audience that
while progress toward full freedom may
seem slow, “remember, it is inevitable.”
Tawes said the progress in Maryland
would continue, “if I have anything to
do with it.” And George P. Mahoney,
who is running against D’Alesandro,
denounced Gov. Faubus as an office
holder who hated people and prom
ised, “I will make you feel you voted
for a man who was on the square.”
The chief counsel of the NAACP,
Thurgood Marshall, speaking in Balti
more, expressed pride in “what we’ve
done on integration of schools” in the
city and some counties, and said there
was no “rhyme or reason” why he could
stay in a hotel in St. Louis, Louisville,
or Corpus Christi, but “can’t stay in a
hotel in Baltimore or eat in a decent
restaurant.” He urged support of an
anti-discrimination bill now before the
City Council.
Addressing a capacity crowd in a
Negro church, Marshall spoke in crit
ical terms of Governors Faubus, Griffin
and Almond and exhorted his listeners
not to relax what he called their efforts
to achieve fully equal status:
“When people say, ‘we shouldn’t push
too fast,’ ‘we should take it easy,’ I’ve
been trying to find out what they mean
when they say ‘too fast.’ You know, in
this program of action we’ve been car
rying on in the last few years, I’m
afraid that we’re moving too slowly
with it; in fact, we’re moving back
wards.
NOT ‘YESTERDAY’
“We’ve got to remember these de
cisions came down in ’54—three and a
half years ago. That wasn’t yesterday.”
introduced by Gov. Faubus, Hoyt
spent part of his speech discussing the
effect on international affairs of the
Little Rock integration crisis. He said
he was not trying to place blame on
anyone or even discuss whether it was
right or wrong for nine Negroes to be in
Central High School. But the fact that
he was on the subject of Little Rock
apparently was too much for some
of his listeners and a disputed number
of them walked out. At least two edi
tors later said they walked out because
of the subject matter of the speech. One
of them, Keith Tudor of the Southern
Standard at Arkadelphia, a member of
the board of the association, asked the
board the next morning to vote a form
al apology to Gov. Faubus. The board
refused.
£ ar Hoyt, editor and publisher of
'\ r Ver Post, spoke at the mid-
the Arkansas Press
° n at Little Rock. After being
Mrs. L. C. Bates, Arkansas president
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, reported
an attempt to bomb her Little Rock
home on New Year’s Eve. She said the
bomb, a crude device in a bottle, went
off in the driveway and caused no dam
age to the house. Two weeks later
somebody threw a rock through a bed
room window.
Marshall recalled how long the Lucy
case in Alabama and the Hawkins case
in Florida were before the courts and
then got onto the subject of achieve
ment levels:
“They say they can’t integrate the
schools because the colored people, on
a whole, on achievement tests, make an
average lower than the white average.
I was mad when I first heard about it,
and I checked with our experts, and
they say it’s true. So what? There are
colored people who are above the av
erage, they just haven’t been on the
other side. And our democracy is based
on individuals. . . .”
In urging his audience not to slow
their efforts, Marshall gave this inter
pretation of the legal status of segrega
tion. “On May 17, 1954, the Supreme
Court issued its decision. Reading be
tween the lines of that decision, it is
obvious that any form of racial segre
gation is gone—it’s unlawful. That will
not come to full fruition unless the
people want it thus.”
UNDER SURVEY
The Baltimore Department of Educa
tion in January completed its tabulation
of white and Negro pupils by schools
and programs, providing the first indi
cations of what has taken place in the
current or fourth year of desegregation.
In making the data available to South
ern School News, school statisticians re
ported that it is increasingly difficult,
and may become impossible, to reach an
accurate racial breakdown of school en
rollment. Similar difficulties are en
countered in trying to make an analysis
of their findings.
Officially there are no such things in
Baltimore as “white” and “colored”
schools, and even unofficially it is hard
in some instances to make meaningful
distinctions. For purely statistical pur
poses here, however, “white” schools
are considered to be those that had all-
white enrollments prior to the Supreme
Court decision of 1954 or that have
been built since that date to serve pre
dominantly white areas. A “colored”
school is one so classified before segre
gation or, if new, one that has a pre
dominantly Negro enrollment.
This arbitrary classification, necessary
to keep the year-to-year statistics on
the same basis, includes as “white”
no less than nine schools in which the
Negro pupils now greatly outnumber
the white ones, because of changing
residential patterns. Under the former
system of segregation, these schools by
now would have been classified as col
ored. In another instance, when one
large new school has replaced two small
formerly all-white schools that grad
ually became predominanty Negro,
the new school is classified here as
“colored,” since its enrollment is 1,223
Negroes and 40 whites.” (See table on
this page.)
UP 50 PER CENT
Within this frame of reference, the
1957-58 enrollment data show that Bal
timore has 13,603 Negroes currently en
rolled in 71 white schools, an increase
of nearly 50 per cent over the previous
year. The integrated Negroes repre
sent 18.8 per cent of the total Negro
Course of Desegregation in
Baltimore*
Elementary
Number of Schools
1954 1955
1956
1957
5| White
44
40
31
31
1 Negro
50
46
44
45
1| Mixed
39
47
61
62
Total
133
133
136
138
Junior High
White
3
0
0
1
Negro
4
5
4
5
§ Mixed
5
8
10
8
Total
12
13
14
14
. Senior High
If White
2
1
1
0
1 Negro
2
2
2
2
Mixed
5
6
6
8
Total
9
9
9
10
Vocational
White 4
Negro 4
Total
9
8
8
7
All Schools
White
53
43
34
33
Negro
60
57
53
55
Mixed
50
63
80
81
Total
163
163
167
169
•Figures furnished by Baltimore Department of Education on basis of Oct. 31 enroll
ment, 1954-57.
Elementary schools in the tabulation include shop centers, occupational and
elementary-Junior high school combinations. Junior high schools include only those
in separate buildings. Senior high schools include junior-senior high com
binations. Vocational includes vocational-technical and general vocational.
enrollment, which means that more
than 80 per cent of Negro pupils con
tinue under Baltimore’s voluntary de
segregation policy to attend Negro
schools. The number of Negroes enter
ing white schools and their percentage
of the total Negro enrollment over the
four-year period are as follows:
Year
Number
Per Cent
1954 ....
1,576
3.0
1955 ...
4,601
7.4
1956 ...
9,242
13.8
1957 ...
13,603
18.8
The movement of white pupils into
Negro schools over the four-year period
has been negligible. In the first year
there were four in four schools; in the
fall of 1955, 19 in seven schools; and
last year, 24 in 10 schools. But addi
tional white pupils have remained in
schools in which they have become
the minority and in one instance have
increased their numbers. School No. 1,
which last year had 130 white and 231
Negro pupils, is recorded this year as
having 163 white and 269 Negro pupils.
When the 10 Negro schools with a
scattering of white pupils are added to
the 71 white schools having some Negro
enrollment, a total of 22,573 Negro pu
pils are found to be in mixed class
rooms, or 31.2 per cent of the Negro
enrollment. The percentage of white pu
pils in mixed classes is more than twice
as high: 87,312 white children are in
schools having one or more Negroes
enrolled, or 67.2 per cent of the white
enrollment.
As has been true since the start, most
of the integration has occurred, numer
ically speaking, on the elementary level.
But it is now quite extensive in the
secondary schools as well. All of the
“white” high schools now have some
Negroes enrolled, ranging from a single
Negro pupil in a student body of 1,660
at one school to 310 in an enrollment of
1,381 at the new Southwestern High
School.
—Arkansas Gazette Photo
Four Central High School girls led singing of “Dixie” at the Mothers’ League
meeting Jan. 20. At right is Mrs. Margaret Jackson, president of the pro-segrega
tion organization. Girls also led singing of “White Central” to the tune of “White
Christmas.”
The state adjutant general’s office re
ported that the strength of the Arkan
sas National Guard was about 9,500 at
the end of December, about 500 below
the desired level. Maj. Gen. William
C. Page said that about 120 men had
not re-enlisted because of the integra
tion duty and that another 700 to 800
had said they would not re-enlist be
cause of it.
The integration timetable was stepped
up in Montgomery County during Jan
uary when the board of education
scratched a $1,698,500 request for a new
junior high school in the Rockville
(county seat) area and moved, instead,
to spend about a third of that sum on
the expansion of the existing all-Negro
Carver Senior High School to serve as
an integrated high school. The existing
sub-standard Negro junior high also is
to be closed out, and the building con
verted to warehouse use.
The county’s professional school staff
had recommended closing out the jun
ior high and making Carver serve as a
junior-senior high for the Negro sec
ondary students who have not as yet
been assigned to predominantly white
schools. In response to a question by a
school board member in December, the
staff members had said that lack of
space and programs precluded closing
out the Negro secondary schools alto
gether.
At a school hearing in January, how
ever, civic groups advocated the use of
the Carver building as a junior high
for both races. Faced with a $13,800,000
request for school construction funds,
along with a $26,100,000 request for
school operating funds, the seven-
member board of education by majority
vote adopted the economy suggestion
that saved the cost of a new school
and spelled the eventual end of all
separate facilities for Negroes on the
secondary school level. The voting was
close, with one minority board member
charging that school construction plans
were being used to accelerate and en
force desegregation.
# # #
The cost of maintaining the troops at
the school is down to about $100,000 a
month, with 420 guardsmen still on fed
eral duty. Back in October when the
entire guard was on duty the cost was
$1,754,861.
An appraisal of Little Rock unsym
pathetic to Gov. Faubus came out dur
ing the month in a book An Epitaph for
Dixie, by Harry S. Ashmore, executive
editor of the Arkansas Gazette at Little
Rock (Norton, 1958). Ashmore, whose
editorials in the Gazette have carried
criticism of Faubus since the governor
called out the troops the night of Sept.
2, sees Faubus as going against the
sense of the times in a changing South.
He attributes Faubus’ motives to a mis
reading of practical politics that, in the
short view, might win him a third
term as governor but that also leaves
him in a comer where he has no free
dom of action and no course to pursue
except to keep the Negroes out of Cen
tral High by whatever means are neces
sary. The most important result may be,
Ashmore suggests, that the new Con
gress will be so stirred up on civil
rights because of Little Rock that inte
gration will actually be speeded up
instead of delayed. # # #