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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH 1958—PAGE II
Testing, Gradual Desegregation Approved In 2 Maryland Counties
iscretion lAJaS
Harford County Plan Affirmed
Following is the major portion of the decision rendered by the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals Feb. 12 in the case of Slade v. Harford County Board of Educa
tion:
This is an appeal in a school segregation case involving the public schools of
Harford County, Md. The school board of the county had adopted a plan for the
gradual desegregation of elementary schools over a two-year period and high
schools over a period of five years. At the suggestion of the district judge, the
plan was amended to provide for the transfer of qualified students in high school
grades pending the final elimination of segregation in those grades. As so amended
the plan was approved by the judge and a decree was entered enforcing it and
making special provision for the admission of two Negro children who had been
parties to a prior action. The facts are fully set forth in the opinion of the district
judge, and we think that his discretion was properly exercised for reasons ade
quately stated in the opinion, to which nothing need be added.
Affirmed.
P
roper
BALTIMORE, Md.
he U. S. Fourth Circuit Court
upheld in February a deseg
regation program in Harford
County that includes the use of
intelligence and achievement tests
to screen Negro applicants to
white high schools during a tran
sition period. An NAACP spokes
man said that the case (Stephen
Moore Jr. v. Board of Education
of Harford County) would be
taken to the Supreme Court. (See
“Legal Action.”)
The state board of education
held an all-day session in early
February to hear parental appeals
from local school board rulings in
two southern Maryland counties.
One appeal challenged the contin
uation of segregated bus transpor
tation to an integrated school. The
other case concerned two Negro
children denied admission to a
white high school in a county
where only the first six grades
were desegregated as an initial
move toward nonsegregated
schooling. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
The state board decided on Feb. 26
that the county superintendents in both
cases had properly exercised their re
sponsibilities under the policies set by
their county school boards and that the
i complaints against those policies posed
legal questions beyond the administra
tive province of the state agency.
Plans for further integration in Fred-
i erick County next fall include closing
out one small Negro school altogether,
partially shutting down two other Ne
gro schools and eliminating all separate
seventh grade classes. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
By upholding U. S. District Judge
Roszel C. Thomsen in the Harford
County school case, the Fourth Circuit
Court lent added weight to both grad
ual desegregation and “selective inte
gration” in Maryland. (See text on this
page.)
NAACP attorneys had argued that a
seven-year desegregation time-table in
Harford County, which borders on
I Pennsylvania and has a small propor
tion (11 per cent) of Negro children,
was “deliberate delay” rather than de
liberate speed. Judge Thomsen, how
ever, said in his opinion that the county
1 was “justified in making the plan on
a year-to-year basis so that the ma
jority of pupils enter at the beginning
of the high school program.” The appel
late court confirmed Thomsen’s deci
sion.
The NAACP attorneys also had chal
lenged a special feature of the Harford
desegregation plan, a provision for
screening Negroes who applied for ad-
Louisiana
(Continued From Page 10)
, differently.” Commenting on Dr. Irwin’s
charges regarding NAACP linkage with
Communists, Robinson said, “The
NAACP is trying to save the country
( from organizations like the white Citi
zens Councils and all the Dr. Irwins
scattered throughout the nation.”
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVITY
William M. Shaw, secretary of the
Association of Citizens Councils of
Louisiana, predicted in The Councilor,
the organization’s publication, that fed-
1 eral agents will become more active in
the South as a result of civil rights
legislation passed by the last Congress.
In an article titled “If the FBI Comes
to See You,” Shaw wrote that “ a citi-
2e n is not required to give information
° r answer questions of any investigat-
ln 2 officer . . . Federal investigators are
•' never trying to help anyone interested
*n protecting and preserving our south
ern way of life. Hence, any information
'vhich you give them will be used
i a gainst you and your friends if it is
Possible to do so.”
A Kiwanis Club meeting in a New
Orleans hotel heard one of the defense
I lawyers at the Clinton, Tenn., contempt
hial, W. E. Michael of Sweetwater,
« enn -> urge an all-out fight against
ever y lawsuit which would give inte-
< Nation a foothold.”
Michael also said the Supreme Court
^interpreted the 14th Amendment in
e school segregation cases. “It cited
( 0 laws as precedent,” he told the Ki-
mission to white high school grades in
advance of the years set for the deseg
regation of these grades. The NAACP
asserted that the screening imposed an
unconstitutional burden on Negro
pupils. But Judge Thomsen found the
screening acceptable, since it allowed
all Negroes to apply to the schools of
their choice and made their acceptance
dependent on educational factors rather
than race. He stressed that at the end
of the transition period a Negro child
must have the same options as a white
child.
The screening process by which Ne
groes could gain admittance to white
high school classes in advance of the
desegregation timetable was the coun
ty’s answer to an earlier criticism of
Judge Thomsen that the high school
plans were “too vague” to have legal
effect. “You can’t just go creeping
along,” he told county school officials
last April, adding: “I have no desire to
run the school system of Maryland or
Harford County, but I’ve got to give
people their constitutional rights.”
IN COURT IN 1956
Harford County was taken into Fed
eral Court for the first time early in
1956. Then the county school board an
nounced that desegregation would begin
in September, 1956, and the Negro
plaintiffs dropped their suit. Subse
quently county school officials decided
to limit desegregation in the 1956-57
school year to the first three grades of
two schools. The disappointed applicants
to other schools and other grades re
turned to Federal Court, where Judge
Thomsen ruled they must first exhaust
their administrative remedies at the
state board of education.
When the state board approved the
county’s plan, which by then had been
revised to cover other grades and
schools, the applicants went a third
time before Judge Thomsen, this time
with Thurgood Marshall among others
to represent them. It was at the third
hearing in April 1957, that Thomsen
remarked that the county was “creep
ing along” and suggested that attor
neys for both sides work out a better
program. Two months later the new
timetable and screening process was
announced, and the judge gave his ap
proval, now upheld on the appellate
level. The Supreme Court is the next
step, according to an announcement of
Tucker Dearing, a Baltimore attorney
for the NAACP.
Harford County had 14 Negroes en
rolled at two formerly white schools in
the fall of 1956, and 47 at six schools
this past fall.
EASTON CASES ACTIVE
Two persons who were indicted on
nine-point conspiracy charges in Talbot
County for picketing schools in Easton
last September were still in the courts
in February. Some county observers
had thought that the county prosecu
tor’s office, having obtained the indict
ments, would let further action go by
default. But the defendants, L. Francis
Berry and Mrs. Elsie Andrew, revived
interest in the case by entering a mo
tion in the local circuit court to quash
charges.
wanians, “but went to textbooks writ
ten by Socialists and Communists.”
DAs MEET
The May 17, 1954 decision was also
criticized at a meeting of 150 state dis
trict attorneys and assistants in New
Orleans. “The Supreme Court relied on
a huge amount of psychological evi
dence in reaching its decision, and just
about every one of the sources” has
been attributed to communistic organi
zations, Charles A. Riddle Jr., Avoyelles
Parish district attorney said.
Thompson L. Clarke of St. Joseph,
moderator of a panel discussion on civil
rights, told the attorneys they “couldn’t
expect too much favorable action in
federal courts,” and that they were
“dead wrong if you think the civil
rights issue is not going to touch your
district sooner or later.”
State Atty. Gen. Jack Gremillion, who
called the meeting, urged the attorneys
to “become more active” in opposing
integration.
Sen. Allen Ellender, on the new bill
before Congress which would provide
federal financial aid to communities
who require it to comply with the Su
preme Court’s school desegregation rai
ling: “It is nothing more than a federal
bribe. The so-called liberal bloc in
Congress would make almost a quarter
billion dollars available for school con
struction to states and their agencies
At a hearing on Feb. 21 the state’s
attorney for Talbot County, Henry P.
Turner, agreed to drop two of the nine
counts because the conspiracy charge
did not state the purpose for which the
picketing of schools was conducted. The
motion to quash takes precedence over
arraignment, which is the prosecutor’s
next step after indictment.
The Maryland General Assembly
neared the close of its 30-day short
session in February without segrega
tion-desegregation becoming an issue.
The only bill approaching the subject
was State Sen. Harry A. Cole’s third
annual attempt to win legislative ap
proval for Maryland’s ratifying the 14th
Amendment to the U. S. Constitution,
Maryland has never ratified the amend
ment that underlies so much of the
civil rights court decisions. Up until the
closing week of the session, Sen. Cole
had not been successful.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
An all-day hearing was held in Feb
ruary by the state board of education
to air complaints of Negro parents in
two southern Maryland counties.
Charles and St. Mary’s. It raised the
number of desegregation cases heard by
the state board to five in three years.
In one of the complaints, which raised
a new issue in Maryland, Mr. and Mrs.
Gilbert O. Hart, of Indian Head in
Charles County, contended that the
county school superintendent had exer
cised “unreasonable, arbitrary and ca
pricious discrimination against Negro
children” in denying their son trans
portation on the same school bus that
carries his white schoolmates.
Mrs. Hart testified that she lived 1.1
miles from the integrated school at
tended by her son and that the bus to
the school, used to transport the white
pupils, stopped a block from her house.
She said that she had inquired in the
fall of 1956 and again last June about
having the bus pick up her son, and
that after a number of exchanges Supt.
C. Paul Barnhart had offered to have
a Negro bus carry her son to the white
school on its way to a nearby Negro
school.
HUMILIATE, STIGMATIZE’
The boy’s mother refused the segre
gated transportation, she said, because
“I thought it was humiliating and would
stigmatize my boy” in the eyes of his
white schoolmates. She pointed out that
her son was allowed to travel with his
white classmates when they go on trips
during school hours.
Supt. Barnhart testified that the sit
uation on buses during school hours
was different from that on buses
going to and from school, because dur
ing class trips teachers were in attend
ance. Going to and from school he said,
pupils were not under school discipline
which agree to integrate their schools.
No coating, sugar or otherwise, will
ever make such a proposal acceptable to
the people of the South.”
Werner C. Knoop, mayor of Little
Rock, visiting New Orleans: “What
happened in Little Rock could happen
in any number of southern cities. [What
can prevent it from happening is] more
understanding and moderation.”
MISCELLANEOUS
In an advertisement in the Feb. 17
New York Herald Tribune, the Louisi
ana joint legislative committee on seg
regation explained “the position of the
South on race relations.”
The advertisement carried the state
seal and the names of the 11 members
of the committee. Sen. Rainach, chair
man, said the $3,500 cost of the ad was
borne by “private and not state funds.”
Northerners were urged, in the text
of the ad, to adopt the South’s system
of racial separation so that they could
“adjust themselves to the more than
one-half of the Negroes in this country
who will five in the North by 1980.”
Addressed to “the people of New
York city,” the statement asserted that
“years of experiment and experience”
went into the setting up of “the nor
mally cordial relationships between
southern white and colored peoples.”
Rainach said a New York newspaper
was selected for the ad because “ that
city is having its share of severe racial
problems, and at the same time is the
fountainhead of the whole integration
movement in the United States.”
# # #
and that with children of all ages as
passengers, there was the usual horse
play and some incidents of rough be
havior on both white and Negro buses.
DANGER NO REASON
Both Barnhart and the county school
board president, Col. Frank B. Wade,
spoke of the possible trouble if buses
were desegregated. This brought objec
tions from Mrs. Juanita Jackson
Mitchell, one of the two NAACP at
torneys representing the Harts. She
cited court decisions holding that pos
sible danger to the public peace was
not sufficient reason to delay integra
tion, where ordered. Mrs. Mitchell was
overruled on her objection and filed an
exception to the testimony of the
county officials.
The legal arguments appeared to cen
ter primarily on whether the Supreme
Court’s school desegregation decisions
included school buses. While taking
such a question to the state board of
education is presumed to be a neces
sary step in exhausting administrative
remedies, the state board followed the
policy of ruling only on administrative
questions and leaving the legal ones to
the courts.
GRADUAL PLAN CHALLENGED
The other case before the state board
represented a challenge of gradual de
segregation in St. Mary’s County, where
the first six grades were placed on a
nonsegregated basis this past fall. Wil
liam Groves, an electrical contractor in
the town of California, appealed the
county ruling which barred his son and
daughter from a white school. Groves
was one of about 50 Negro parents who
entered a suit in federal court in 1956,
seeking desegregation in St. Mary’s.
Groves testified that he wanted his
children to go to the presently all-white
Great Mills High School rather than
the Negro Jarboesville school because
the white school was physically better
than the Negro school and offered
science and commercial courses, foreign
languages and driving instruction which
were not available at Jarboesville.
BIRACIAL RECOMMENDATION
A Baltimore attorney, H. Vernon
Eney, representing the county school
system, said that it was the school
board’s policy, based on recommenda
tions of a biracial citizens committee,
to accept Negro transfers only at the
elementary school level during the first
years of desegregation.
The newly married Mrs. Arthur P.
Gough, who as Miss Lettie M. Dent
served for nearly 30 years as St. Mary’s
County school superintendent, testified
that in turning down the Groves chil
dren she had only followed school
board policy. The present school super
intendent, Robert E. King, replied to
the criticism of the Jarboesville school
by saying that a new building was now
under construction, that a commercial
course and driver training had been
inaugurated last fall and that the
science program was equal to that in
the white school. Foreign language in
struction was lacking, he said, owing to
the small number desiring it.
Again, the arguments appeared to
boil down to a legal question; in this
case the question of whether the de
segregation of the first six grades con
stituted deliberate speed. St. Mary’s
County as of last fall had 5,153 public
school children, of whom 27.5 per cent
were Negroes. In opening white ele
mentary schools to Negroes on a volun
tary basis, school officials received four
elementary school applicants, all for
the sixth grade, and all four transfers
were approved. None of the four ac
tually enrolled when school opened, so
that schools in St. Mary’s remain un
mixed.
NAACP attorneys attempted to draw
out Supt. King as to what further de
segregation steps the county intends to
take. King said that the school board
had discussed the subject but had not
yet made any public decision. He said
that the board was likely to make an
announcement by the end of the cur
rent school year. He also said that if
the four Negroes whose transfers were
approved had enrolled in the sixth
grade, as expected, and had made sat
isfactory progress, he presumed that
they would have gone on to junior high
with their white classmates, carrying
integration to the secondary level.
FREDERICK PROCEEDS
Further integration moves were an
nounced in Frederick County, which
lies in west central Maryland and has
a 9.2 per cent Negro school population.
Frederick County opened three white
schools to Negroes on an emergency
basis in 1956-57 and then began a for
mal desegregation program last fall that
enrolled 170 Negro pupils in 13 for
merly all-white schools.
The policy announced by the county
school board for next fall is a continua
tion of the current program, which is
frankly aimed at eventually achieving
complete integration and closing out
some small, scattered and generally de
crepit Negro schoolhouses. One more
school, which last fall was desegregated
only at the first grade level, has been
added to the list of 19 at which “all
children, regardless of race, residing in
the prescribed attendance area of the
appropriate school will be enrolled.”
Four of the schools have secondary as
well as elementary grades.
OTHER GRADES TO MIX
In addition, the third grade is to be
desegregated in two schools in which
only the first two grades were mixed
last fall, and the fourth grade is to be
added at another school that had the
first three grades desegregated at the
outset of the current school year. Also,
the seventh grades of two secondary
schools are to be mixed for the first
time next fall, and additional mixed
grades are listed at two previously de
segregated secondary schools. Further,
Negroes in grades 10 and 11 who live in
the prescribed attendance area are to
have an opportunity to pursue the
academic course at Frederick High
School.
The only Negro secondary school re
maining in Frederick County will be
the Lincoln school, with grades eight
through 12, and the academic students
there will have the option of transfer
ring to the white high school prior to
their senior year.
The county school board also an
nounced that the public junior colleges
would be open to students “of all
races.”
MISCELLANEOUS
The NAACP has played an unusual
role in Baltimore by entering one side
of a school site dispute in which the
Negro community was divided. The
proposed site for an elementary and a
junior high school called for razing
three residential blocks as the first
stage of an extensive urban renewal
project in a predominantly Negro area.
Residents of homes slated to be tom
down voiced their opposition before the
City Council, backed by NAACP
spokesmen, while other Negro organi
zations supported the school plans. The
City Council after some initial hesita
tion approved the school site by a large
majority vote.
In a statement to the Afro-American
the president of the NAACP, Mrs. Lillie
M. Jackson, projected the controversy
into a much larger context by saying,
“It is important to tell you of the ex
treme lengths to which the school
board, urban renewal officials and cer
tain political leaders in our city have
gone in a sinister attempt to set the
community against the NAACP in the
Harlem Park matter. This is the same
type of action our branches are facing
all over the South today.” # # #