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NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
OL NEWS
Objective
$2 PER YEAR
APRIL, 1958
Legal Action Features
Relatively Quiet Month
L egal action on widely separated school segregation-desegregation fronts highlighted a month
which otherwise was relatively quiet. Again during March as during December and January, no an
nouncements of further school district desegregation were made, though extension of present programs
was announced in Louisville, Ky. and in a Delaware school.
Pine Bluff, Ark., which announced a plan two years ago for September 1958 desegregation, said the
plan would be delayed because of events in Little Rock.
The number of desegregated districts in 17 states and the District of Columbia still stands at 764 out of
3,008 having pupils of both races.
—Nashville Tennessean
The Southern Education Reporting Service Board of Directors met March 9 at
SERS headquarters in Nashville. Shown here are from left to right, seated, Don
Shoemaker, SERS executive director; Frank Ahlgren, board chairman; and
Thomas R. Waring, vice chairman; standing, Coleman Harwell, Dean George N.
Redd, C. A. McKnight, Dr. Luther H. Foster, Bert Struby, Dr. Harvie Branscomb
and Charles Moss. Not present for the picture were Dr. Henry Hill and H. I.
Willett.
On the legal front were these key
actions:
• Trial of a Birmingham school en
try suit attacking Alabama’s pupil
placement act—its first pro-segregation
law—was set for early this month.
• Two West Virginia counties, where
it was charged desegregation “prog
ress” was slow, faced a possible
NAACP suit.
• Orleans Parish (New Orleans), La.
and four state colleges lost appeals for
rehearings on school entry cases and
the federal court fixed April 2 for
SERS Board
Votes ’61
Extension
Directors of Southern Education Re-
je I porting Service, publishers of Southern
* School News, have voted to extend the
4 life of SERS beyond the present grant
period which expires June 30, 1959.
! The action was taken at the annual
board meeting in Nashville March 9.
SERS activities are financed by rev
enues from the sale of its publications
' an< f by a grant from the Fund for the
•• Advancement of Education, an indepen-
5 dent agency established by the Ford
5* Foundation. The Fund began its sup
port of SERS in 1954 and has renewed
■t since then in biennial grants. The
1- current grant, covering the two-year
- 1 period 1957-59, is for $231,000.
t
OFFICERS RENAMED
Directors also re-elected the present
' °fficers and four members of the board
- whose terms expire July 1. The officers
are: Frank Ahlgren, chairman, who is
editor of the Memphis Commercial Ap
peal; Thomas R. Waring, vice chairman,
who is editor of the Charleston News
end. Courier, and Don Shoemaker, SERS
executive director. Terms are for one
year.
The directors re-elected for regular
1 fhree-year terms are: Ahlgren; Dr.
| Harvie Branscomb, chancellor of Van
derbilt University; Dr. Luther H. Fos-
jfb president of Tuskegee Institute, and
Struby, general manager of the
Macon Telegraph and News.
The resolution seeking the extension
°f SERS read:
<Ee it resolved that the Chairman
j*d the Executive Director be au
thorized to prepare a statement ex
pressing the sentiments of the Board
°f Directors of SERS and requesting
extension of the project until June
30, 1961.”
Directors heard a report from Shoe-
oker on revenues and circulation of
uthern School News, the preparation
“a comprehensive microfilm of the
ERS documentary collection, which
°w numbers more than 100,000 items
d which will be offered for sale to
raries and news media, and discussed
for improving and extending
^ERS services.
BEg AN in 1954
SERS has been in continuous opera-
a < bn^ nCe after its establishment by
of six southern editors and six
J^em educators. It also publishes
tatus of School Segregation-Desegre-
StatM”* * * g * * al 11 Southern and Border
. ®>” a periodic statistical summary
'^°h has gone through four printings
out rev * s * ons - Last November it brought
a lauder Harper and Brothers imprint
'vhiL > k, With All Deliberate Speed,
12 C ” wen f mt° a second printing Feb.
i an{ f which has been widely acclaimed
^viewers North and South.
also regularly services news
WLl Sbo Dkd ?
Community’s Attitudes
Are Subject Of Survey
KNOXVILLE, Tenn'.
rxiHE city school board is faced with a federal court suit seeking
desegregation of the public schools. What is the background
against which the issue will be resolved in this East Tennessee city less
than 20 miles from where troops were dispatched to quell disorders
stemming from desegregation of the Clinton High School in 1956?
The Knoxville system provides edu
cational opportunities for some 23,000
youngsters, about 18 per cent of them
Negro. During the 1956-57 school year
there were in the system 23 elementary
and 10 high schools for white pupils
with a total valuation in land, buildings
and equipment of about $12.3 million.
For the Negro children there were
seven elementary and three high
schools valued at about $2.5 million.
Teaching staffs consisted of 671 white
instructors and 151 Negroes.
Court action was begun in 1956 on
behalf of 14 Negro students asking that
they be admitted to public schools in
the city without regard to race. The
Knoxville Board of Education some
two years previously had announced
that it was studying methods of com
plying with the Supreme Court decree
of 1954 against segregation in public
schools.
MORE TIME GIVEN
Three months ago the federal district
court where the suit was filed declined
to set a date for immediate hearing of
the case. Instead, additional time was
allowed by the court so that new mem
bers of the school board might better
acquaint themselves with the situation.
Because of the pressures, legal and
social, Knoxville might be said to be a
community in transition—or at any
rate, one considering typical problems
in this area. Accordingly, last month
Southern School News undertook to
determine, by means of extensive in
terviews by an educator skilled in in
terviewing techniques, with persons in
the Knoxville community leadership
structure, just what is the atmosphere
in which segregation-desegregation de
cisions are being made.
Interviewed were 19 public officials,
political leaders, lawyers, businessmen,
ministers, newspapermen and civic
workers. The “sample,” chosen carefully
and upon expert advice, is believed to
represent the attitude of many who
guide municipal decisions. Following is
a summary of what they said.
media, colleges, scholars and govern
mental agencies with factual and back
ground information about school segre
gation-desegregation. Shoemaker re
ported on hundreds of such calls from
all over the world.
Foster and Struby, elected to three-
year terms, first were elected in 1957
to fill unexpired terms. # # #
All considered themselves well-in
formed on the issue, noting without
exception that they had heard, read
and talked a great deal about it. All
but three of the 19 viewed the Supreme
Court decision on the matter as the
“law of the land.” Of the three dis
senters, one, an attorney, called the de
cision “off beat.” Another, a school
board member, said flatly “the Supreme
Court decision was wrong,” adding,
“but I can’t say too much about it. I’m
a politician.”
The interviewees classified themselves
by noting the degree with which they
agreed or disagreed with the decision.
Five strongly approved, eight approved
with reservations and six strongly dis
approved.
Thus, even among those strongly dis
approving of the decision, three recog
nized it as the “law of the land,” but
with qualifications. For example, a
northem-bom industrialist said, “It’s
the law of the land all right. But laws
alone will not accomplish desegregation.
It will have to be a process of change
by the people of the community.”
On the other hand, a newsman, also
a transolanted northerner, who strongly
supported the Supreme Court decision
said: “It is the law. If you believe in
democracy and Christian principles,
there can be no other way.”
FAVOR GRADUALISM
If Knoxville must desegregate, the
interviewees were asked, how should it
be accomplished—gradually or all at
once?
Sixteen of the 19 preferred a gradual
plan; 14 of them specified the program
should begin with the first grade and
then a succeeding grade for the next 11
years. Of the remaining two “gradual
ists” one said start at the high school
level one year and the elementary
grades later. The other had no firm
opinion on this.
Of the three who preferred to see
desegregation accomplished all at once,
two were Negroes, the third a white
housewife. She didn’t specify how or
why. One of the Negroes, an attorney,
said: It’s going to be a headache any
way. It would be better to have 12
headaches at the same time and get it
over with. Besides, the gradual ap
proach gives the ‘opposition’ longer to
organize.”
(Continued On Page 2)
hearing arguments on a request for a
summary judgment in the Orleans case
setting a time limit for the start of
public school integration there.
• And in Virginia the state decided
not to appeal a U.S. Supreme Court
denial of a review of court-ordered
desegregation in Prince Edward Coun
ty.
SHOWDOWN IS SEEN
This decision apparently headed
Virginia’s school-closing plans for a
showdown in September. (Prince Ed
ward has said it would close its schools
rather than see them integrated, and
state law now provides for this con
tingency in every district.)
There was relatively little legislative
activity.
Virginia’s General Assembly com
pleted action on new pro-segregation
laws and a Louisiana legislative com
mittee readied new bills for the May
session. Kentucky and Maryland legis
latures adjourned without discussing
the issue, and in Delaware a “Little
Rock bill” to close schools policed by
federal troops was voted down for the
third time but remained alive.
Two major acts of violence, at least
one of them linked to school segrega
tion-desegregation, were reported dur
ing the month with the bombing of
Jewish community centers in Miami
and Nashville. The Nashville bombing
was accompanied by a threat against
the life of a federal district judge. In
North Carolina courts and police moved
against Ku Klux Klan figures involved
in violence.
A summary of major developments
state-by-state during March follows:
Alabama
Alabama’s pupil placement law, chal
lenged by four Negro children who
have sought to enter two all-white
schools in Birmingham, will get its first
legal test in federal court early this
month.
Arkansas
Desegregation at Pine Bluff, sched
uled for September 1958, will be post
poned because of events in Little Rock.
Gov. Orval Faubus filed as a candi
date for a third term.
Delaware
A “Little Rock” school-closing bill
was defeated for. the third time in the
legislature but kept alive by a parlia
mentary maneuver. Each vote has been
closer. Racial and community relations
betterment efforts were reported from
several areas.
District of Columbia
Carl F. Hansen, a leading adminis
trative figure in Washington school de
segregation, was named acting superin
tendent of the capital’s school system.
Florida
One witness stalked out and 15 were
cited for contempt in a legislative probe
of possible ties between integration
leaders and communism.
Georgia
The county unit electoral system,
long regarded as a segregation bulwark,
was challenged by Atlanta Mayor Wil
liam B. Hartsfield in a lawsuit. Effect
of the system is to insure rural domi
nation of the legislature.
Kentucky
Segregation-desegregation was not
raised one way or the other in the bi
ennial session of the legislature. Louis
ville is closing a Negro school this
summer, at a sizable saving, and trans
ferring pupils to mixed schools.
Louisiana
As Sen. William Rainach’s committee
prepared new pro-segregation bills for
the May legislative session, the segre
gation leader said that the South would
not only retain “racial separation” but
would export the idea to “a very re
ceptive North.”
Maryland
Appeals were planned by the NAACP
from two rulings by the state Board of
Education considered adverse to Negro
plaintiffs in two counties. Negro ele
mentary enrollment since 1945 in Bal
timore has increased at three times the
white increase.
Mississippi
Public schools gave way to other is
sues, including a voter registration suit
and controversy over discussion of
segregation-desegregation at two col
leges.
Missouri
St. Louis reported as a “perplexing
problem” the necessity of absorbing
large numbers of Negro children who
have moved into local schools from the
South.
North Carolina
Judges, juries and police were
cracking down on Ku Klux Klan ac
tivities, and both segregationists and
integrationists were attacking operation
of pupil placement.
Oklahoma
A local district offered the first test
of the state’s fiscal policy which en
courages desegregation, seeking con
tinued state aid for separate schools.
South Carolina
Democratic and Republican state
conventions projected the race ques
tion farther into politics, while candi
dates in the forthcoming Democratic
primary stepped up their activities.
Tennessee
Persons as yet unnamed dynamited
the Nashville Jewish Community Cen
ter in an incident linked with school
segregation-desegregation. The capital
city’s school board got conflicting pro
posals on further steps in court-or
dered desegregation and the board ap
proved a year-at-a-time plan.
Texas
Thirty-five Texas colleges are de
segregated in practice and eight others
as a matter of policy, the first compre
hensive statewide survey showed.
Virginia
The state said it would not ask for
a rehearing in the Prince Edward
County case, denied review by the
U.S. Supreme Court. The legislature
completed action on new pro-segrega
tion laws.
West Virginia
NAACP attorneys may seek legal
action to speed up desegregation in
Cabell and Raleigh counties, where it
is charged “progress” of desegregation
is slow. # # #
INDEX
Alabama
8
Kentucky ....
8
Arkansas
. 12
Louisiana . .
14
Delaware
Dist. of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
. 15
4
9
13
Maryland
Mississippi
Missouri
North Carolina
16
5
3
6
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
West Virginia
7
14
10
II
2
3