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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL 1958—PAGE 13
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 12)
term, a move long expected. He said he
was running because he wanted to con
tinue as governor and because he
thought he could win.
He denied that his actions in the
Little Rock school crisis had anything
to do with it. He would have done the
same, he said, whether he was running
again or not. He did say that public
reaction since then had helped him to
decide to run.
Faubus said the integration and
“states’ rights” issues probably would
overshadow others in the campaign but
that he thought others were just as im
portant—specifically the industrializa-
I tion program and the improvement of
state services.
ONE OTHER CANDIDATE
One other candidate, Chris E. Fink-
( beiner, a wealthy Little Rock meat
packer, is in the race thus far. Another
four or five public figures are still pros
pects.
Several governors have tried for third
terms but only one in the history of
Arkansas made it. He was Jeff Davis,
elected in 1900, 1902 and 1904.
The governor has been busy recently
making “non-political” speeches around
the state at civic club meetings. In
nearly all of them he makes some ref
erence to the Little Rock matter and
‘Surprise, Everybody,
Surprise’!
—Arkansas Gazette
his role in it. His theme is that he acted
correctly, that in similar circumstances
he would act the same way again, that
the integrationists ought to put across
their program by persuasion not by
force.
NEW PLAN AFOOT
At Washington on March 20, for a
White House conference on what to do
about the recession. Faubus was inter
viewed by an Arkansas Gazette re
porter and mentioned a new plan to
restore harmony in Arkansas. He said,
“Many people are interested in trying
to restore harmony to the state. A plan
of harmony is now in the making.
“I am not at liberty to say who the
leaders of this plan are. They came to
me voluntarily. . . . What they want to
do quietly is to bring the extremists on
both sides together and restore the vol
untary plan of integration that we had.
A. great deal of progress had been made.
But the plan was stopped by those who
tried to force integration. The role of
the integrationist should be to promote
’t through the traditional democratic
nrocesses and not try to force it.”
1 NO DETAILS
Back at Little Rock, he said he had
talked to only one person about it and
didn’t know the details but he thought
it would mean trying to persuade the
eight Negro students at Central High
to return to the all-Negro high school
ne xt fall. What he meant by “the vol-
i Un tary plan of integration” was not
e xplained.
Former Gov. Sid McMath took an in-
.ect swipe at Faubus in a speech on
nver development before a Little Rock
c ivic club. “The investment dollar seeks
an environment of law and order where
differences are settled in the courts and
not by resort to mob rule and military
Power,” he said, and was interrupted by
applause. Describing the industrial po-
sntial of the Arkansas River valley he
added, “But we cannot accomplish this
y seceding from the union.”
UNDER SURVEY
in^ 16 state Board of Education, meet-
S March 10, announced that it had
eff C1C *ed not to make a study of the
ects of the Supreme Court’s desegre-
^a.wn decisions, at least until pending
Ration on the issue is completed. It
as an unexpected development. Such
study had been requested by the
1 p? vernor ’s Advisory Committee on
ucation, the Arkansas School Boards
ociation, the Arkansas Education
Ration and the Arkansas Congress
Sa j,^arents and Teachers. The board
f 0 ’t would keep the recommendation
r study and. would re-evaluate it
35 events develop. # # #
Georgia Unit Rule Under Fire From Atlanta’s Mayor
ATLANTA, Ga.
eorgia’s unique county unit
voting system, long held by
public officials to be of great value
in maintaining segregation, is un
der fire. Mayor William B. Harts-
field of Atlanta filed a federal
court suit asking that the system
be declared unconstitutional. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Dismissal of an Atlanta deseg
regation suit was asked on
grounds Negro plaintiffs had
shown no racial discrimination in
the city schools. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
The state Board of Education pre
pared to hear the appeal of a school
teacher who resigned and was denied
reinstatement by a rural county school
board because she permitted a white
boy to ride a Negro school bus to his
home when her car broke down one
afternoon. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The political season opened with Lt.
Gov. Ernest Vandiver far ahead as a
gubernatorial candidate and a big field
shaping up for the lieutenant gover
norship. All of the candidates and
would-be candidates were campaign
ing hard against integration. (See “Po
litical Activity.”)
A suit to declare the county unit
system unconstitutional was filed in
Atlanta. Defenders of this unique
method of primary election vote count
ing have contended that it is a bul
wark in the maintenance of racial seg
regation in Georgia.
Under the system, the eight most
populous counties have six unit votes
each, the next 30 most populous coun
ties have four unit votes each and the
121 least populous counties have two
unit votes each. In the Democratic
primary, tantamount to election, a suc
cessful candidate for governor must
get a majority of the 410 county unit
votes rather than a majority of the
popular vote. The unit system meas
urement is also used to determine
county representation in the House.
As a result, rural counties have
dominated the legislature and con
trolled statewide elections. Unit system
supporters contend this keeps control
out of the hands of large Negro “blocs”
in the larger cities. Critics of the sys
tem claim big city voters are not given
adequate representation in the making
of laws and their strength at the polls
is diluted.
The system has been tested three
times before.
REPERCUSSIONS EXPECTED
If the Supreme Court should rule on
the issue prior to its summer recess—
and thus prior to the September Dem
ocratic primary in Georgia—and if the
ruling should hold the countv unit
system unconstitutional, widespread
changes and repercussions in Georgia
politics might be expected.
Gov. Marvin Griffin, Lt. Gov. Ernest
Vandiver and Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook,
among others, were bitter in their de
nunciation of Mayor Hartsfield for
initiating the suit.
In another case, the Atlanta Board
of Education asked the U. S. District
Court to dismiss a school desegregation
suit filed by 10 Atlanta Negro parents.
The dismissal was asked on grounds
that the Negro plaintiffs have not
shown racial discrimination in the city
schools.
ATLANTA CASE CONTENTIONS
The defendants in the suit (Calhoun
v. Latimer) asked dismissal with con
tention that:
1) It does not appear that the plain
tiffs have been denied admission to any
school on account of race or color.
2) The plaintiffs have failed to seek
administrative remedies by seeking a
hearing before either the city or the
state boards of education on the mat
ter of admission of individual Negro
students to white schools.
3) “No controversy of a justiciable
nature” now exists.
State Revenue Commissioner T. V.
Williams said “every legal means”
would be used by the state in efforts
to collect a tax assessment of $17,000
against the NAACP. The levy repre
sents taxes for the years 1946 through
1956. Williams denied the NAACP’s re
quest for tax-exempt status, filed on
grounds the organization is of a chari
table nature.
The state Board of Education sched
uled an April 24 hearing on the appeal
of a white teacher who was asked to
quit after permitting a white child to
ride home in a Negro school bus. Mrs.
A. B. Baskin, 64-year-old Lanier Coun
ty teacher, requested the hearing after
she resigned at the request of the local
board. State Board Chairman George
Whitman Jr. said he wanted to be sure
all board members would be present
when the case is presented.
The Baskin case began several days
before Christmas. The teacher inad
vertently kept her fourth-graders in
after the bell had rung on a day when
the Lakeland school was dismissed
early. The school buses left without
her pupils.
Two faculty members loaded their
cars and took all but three of her stu
dents to their homes. Mrs. Baskin said
she would carry these three home in
her car.
FLAT TIRE
As the party prepared to enter the
car, the teacher discovered she had a
flat tire. She saw a school bus coming
and flagged it down. It was a Negro
school bus, but Pat Taylor, the nine-
year-old son of a Knight community
farmer, said the bus went right by his
house.
Paul Taylor, the boy’s father, said he
“blew my top” over the incident at
first. He went to County School Supt.
J. W. Threatts and expressed his feel
ings. “As far as I was concerned,” said
Taylor, “that ended it.”
But it was not ended. Talk over the
incident continued in the Knight com
munity and in other parts of Lanier
County. Threatts suggested to Mrs.
Baskin that she apologize to the Tay
lors, but she didn’t get around to it
until after the Christmas holidays. Tay
lor signed a statement absolving her,
and Pat said he did not want his
teacher to quit.
RESIGNATION OFFERED
In mid-January, County Board
Chairman Wallace Thigpen and Vice
Chairman John Crum, accompanied by
Threatts, went to Mrs. Baskin’s home
to discuss the situation. She was told
a large group was expected to be
present at the next board meeting to
demand her dismissal. She was also
told that she would be recommended
for re-hiring when the next term be
gan and the ruckus had died down.
Mrs. Baskin resigned.
Later Mrs. Baskin reviewed the
events in her mind and came to the
decision that she had been forced to
quit. She was concerned at the rumors
and gossip going around, she said. She
decided to assert what she said she
believed were her rights and asked for
reinstatement as a teacher.
Lanier is a rural county with 1,100
white and 350 Negro students. There
has been no racial trouble there in the
past, according to old-timers. But the
Baskin case has been a primary topic
of conversation in recent weeks.
STATE FUNDS THREATENED
School officials seem to be greatly
alarmed that Mrs. Baskin had violated
state segregation laws and thus caused
Lanier County to be threatened with
losing its share of state education
money. Crum is worried about what
Gov. Griffin and the States’ Rights
Council of Georgia think about the in
cident.
A States’ Rights Council official, the
Rev. W. T. Bodenhamer, who is paid
executive secretary of the organization
as well as a representative to the Gen
eral Assembly and a member of the
state Board of Education, talked to
Crum and others and, said Crum, left
no doubt in their minds that the coun
cil viewed the situation with alarm.
School officials agree Mrs. Baskin is
no integrationist. They do believe she
made a mistake which could have cost
the county dearly.
When the Lanier board refused to
reinstate her, Mrs. Baskin appealed to
the state board.
GEORGIA TEACHERS MEET
The Georgia Education Association
held its annual meeting in Atlanta.
The white teachers’ organization voted
to “reaffirm belief in the desire for a
continuation of equal but separate pub
lic schools.” Among other resolutions
adopted by the GEA was one asking
the Georgia congressional delegation to
actively support a federal assistance
program to states which will guarantee
an adequate educational program
“while preserving the American heri
tage of local control over education.”
Dr. Raymond G. Wilson, executive
secretary of the Commission on Sec
ondary Schools of the Southern Asso
ciation of Colleges and Secondary
Schools, was asked in an Atlanta inter
view what would happen to the ac
crediting of private schools created to
maintain segregation.
Dr. Wilson said such private schools
would probably keep their accredita
tion—at least temporarily. He said
school consolidations and similar
changes have raised the question be
fore. The SACSS continued accredi
tation for a temporary period, he said,
at least until the institutions stabilized
and new inspections could be made.
In Summerville, a judicial recount of
bond election ballots invalidated a
$300,000 improvement program for
Chattooga County schools. The earlier
count showed a majority of 68 votes
in favor. The recount showed the bond
issue failed by 28 votes. In the cam
paign prior to the election, some op
ponents had objected to the fact that a
new gymnasium for Negroes was in
cluded in the program. (See Southern
School News, March 1958.)
Avowed candidates and would-be
candidates flocked to Savannah for the
annual convention of the Georgia As
sociation of County Commissioners.
The meeting of the politically-powerful
group is traditionally the kickoff sig
nal for campaigning.
All of the major candidates will be
in favor of continued firm resistance
to the U. S. Supreme Court desegre
gation decision. But, so far, only one
major candidate for the governorship
is in sight. He is Lt. Gov. Ernest Van
diver. Quiet but effective support for
his candidacy by Senators Talmadge
and Russell has practically assured him
of the gubernatorial nomination in next
September’s primary despite the oppo
sition of Gov. Marvin Griffin’s admin
istration.
The Griffin administration is still
seeking a candidate to run against
Vandiver. Gov. Griffin cannot succeed
himself. The original choice, former
State Highway Chairman Roger Law-
son, has dropped out.
ALL-OUT OPPOSITION
Vandiver unofficially opened his
campaign with a hometown rally in
which he declared his all-out opposi
tion to desegregation.
Several candidates were likely to
offer for the lieutenant governorship.
Among the possibilities:
Former Rep. Garland Byrd of Butler.
An attorney who says his bid for office
is being supported by Talmadge, Byrd
has suggested that those who make a
living in Georgia be required to sign
a loyalty oath to uphold the state Con
stitution provision which provides for
separation of the races.
VIGOROUSLY PRO-SEGREGATION
Rep. Charles Gowen, a Brunswick
lawyer. Gowen received some support
from anti-Griffin and anti-Talmadge
voters in his unsuccessful bid for the
governorship in 1954. This time, he ap
pears to be emphasizing his pro-seg
regation stand more vigorously than in
the past.
Rep. A. A. Fowler Jr. of Douglasville.
Fowler is one of the incoroorators of
the American Resettlement Foundation.
This private corporation was formed
to purchase houses in well-to-do white
residential neighborhoods in the North
with an eye to leasing the houses
cheaply to selected Negro families.
State Sen. Peyton Hawes, Elberton
businessman. Hawes, strongly for seg
regation, was the Griffin administration
floor leader in the Senate.
As the county commissioners gath
ered in Savannah, Griffin, Talmadge,
Vandiver and others reasserted pledges
to continue resistance to racial integra
tion.
COOK SEEKS 4TH TERM
Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook announced
he would seek a fourth term to succeed
himself “so that I can best defend
Georgia’s segregation laws.”
Cook announced that Georgians al
ready registered to vote will not have
to re-register under a new registration
law. The bill was passed in the 1958
legislature and signed by Gov. Griffin.
The attorney general’s statement,
made as a member of the state elec
tion laws committee which recom
mended the proposal rather than as a
public official, differed with the inter
pretation of Sidnev Haskins, president
of the Atlanta Metropolitan Voting
Council. Haskins had claimed that per
sons not registered in 1956 would be
barred from voting in 1958 under the
new act.
Cook said, however, that a person
who fails to vote and subsequently be
comes disqualified by having his name
removed from the voters list would be
compelled to register again under the
law.
ATLANTA VOTE THREATENED
The registration bill, generally re
garded as being aimed at preventing
additional Negro voter registration,
would lop 30,000 voters off the lists in
metropolitan Atlanta alone, Haskins
said.
The board of the League of Women
Voters of Atlanta opposed the measure.
Mrs. Dan Byrd Jr., of the Atlanta
Voters’ Guild, said the inconvenience
inherent in the new regulations would
cut down the number of citizens who
vote.
Negro voter registration continues to
lag in the South despite a campaign
sponsored by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (see SSN,
March 1958), an Associated Press sur
vey showed.
Georgia was reported to have about
one million white registered voters and
150,000 Negroes with no upsurge noted
following the SCLC’s Lincoln Day ral
lies.
Gov. Marvin Griffin signed into law
several measures dealing with racial
matters (see Southern School News,
March 1958). He also authorized a leg
islative investigation of controversial
bi-racial Koinonia Farms and ap
proved a resolution aimed at the
NAACP through a study of laws
against barratry.
The barratry resolution does not
name the NAACP, but it notes that
school integration lawsuits have been
filed since the 1957 act prohibiting bar
ratry, or promotion of litigation, was
adopted; and the bill’s author, Rep.
Harold Murphy of Haralson, said the
NAACP is the only organization he
knows of that might be promoting liti
gation.
The state Board of Regents voted to
establish new entrance requirements
for University System schools. The re
gents said the new criteria would be of
assistance to alumni, ordinaries and
clerks of superior courts in making
appraisals of applicants.
Race is not mentioned but the action
is interpreted as being designed to
make it more difficult for Negroes to
enter public white colleges.
Applicants are now required to have
the endorsement of two alumni and
certain elected county officials. A fed
eral suit has been filed to test the
validity of the entrance regulations at
Georgia State College in Atlanta.
DEBATERS START TOUR
Two Mercer University seniors
dropped out of school to tour the North
and take the South’s side in debating
racial issues. Martelle Layfield Jr. of
Columbus and Beverly B. Bates of
Atlanta, acting without official sanction
of the Baptist school at Macon, will
take the affirmative of the subject: Re
solved: That racial segregation of the
South should be maintained.
The students, who will debate in the
Midwest and Far West this summer,
said they hoped thereby to strengthen
the lines of communication and “to
create better understanding” between
different sections of the country.
Dr. Mozell C. Hill, head of the At
lanta University department of sociolo
gy, said Atlanta’s basic issue today is
freedom and equality of human oppor
tunity and treatment. He told the
Hungry Club that Atlanta, like Little
Rock and Levittown, must some day
stand accountable for its meaning of
democracy.
William Crim, secretary-treasurer of
the Georgia State AFL-CIO, admitting
union drives in the South have had
disappointing results, was asked if the
general pro-integration stand of labor
nationally had hurt labor in the South.
“We just don’t discuss that,” Crim said.
A resolution to oppose a U. S. Senate
bill designed to curb the activities of
the Supreme Court was passed at a re
gional meeting of the American Bar
Association in Atlanta. But the asso
ciation reserved the right to criticize
any case of the court.
Two Georgia congressmen, Rep. E. L.
Forrester and Rep. James C. Davis,
sharply criticized a proposal in Wash
ington by Arkansas Congressman
Brooks Hays asking a study of school
integration problems by a civil rights
committee of the Congress.
# # #