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page 14—APRIL 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
S. C. Conventions Place Politics To Fore In Race Relations Area
COLUMBIA, S. C.
HE RACE RELATIONS AREA in
South Carolina took on polit
ical overtones in March as both
Democrats and Republicans held
state conventions, while candi
dates for state and county office
stepped up the tempo of their
campaigning. (See “Political Ac
tivity.”)
In the Lowcountry, Presbyte
rian and Protestant Episcopal
churches continued to make state
ments and take action aimed at
severing connections with the Na
tional Council of Churches be
cause of its stand in favor of racial
integration. (See “Community
Action.”)
Legal action against four men arrest
ed for dynamiting the Gaffney home of
a woman who had suggested a “mod
erate” approach to desegregation was
delayed beyond the March term of court
and may come up in July. (See “Legal
Action.”)
The holding of state conventions of
both the Democratic and Republican
parties of South Carolina during March
projected the race question farther into
politics. The matter already had en
tered discussion of political candidates
for state office, although it could not be
described as an “issue” since there was
no variation from the pattern of espous
ing continued segregation.
Gov. George Bell Timmerman Jr., in
his keynote address to the state Demo
cratic convention on March 25, slapped
at the U. S. Supreme Court for its de
segregation decisions, censured the dis
patch of federal troops to enforce inte
gration at Little Rock, condemned what
he called the infiltration of Communists
into churches and schools, and asked
whether all these things were not part
of a pattern of “artful planning” aimed
at destroying the sovereignty of the
states and the federal-state balance of
government.
The convention itself adopted a brief
resolution calling on the state party to
“continue its just and historical fight for
states’ rights and against the unj ust and
unlawful legislation sponsored in Con
gress in the name of civil rights by any
political party whatsoever.” A sprinkl
ing of Negro delegates attended the
Democratic convention, but did not take
part in any floor debate.
SEEK DELETION
Many more Negroes were delegates
to the state Republican convention, held
the following day, also in Columbia.
They sought unsuccessfully for the
deletion from the party platform of
these three sections: one stating that the
race problem can best be handled at the
local level; a second advocating the
cause of states’ rights, and a third ask
ing restriction of the jurisdiction of the
U. S. Supreme Court.
The Rev. I. DeQuincey Newman of
Charleston and Elliott D. Turnage,
Darlington attorney, both Negroes, con
tended that inclusion of such state
ments would alienate much of the Ne
gro support the Republican Party
should have in the state. Turnage, who
said he could support for public office
a candidate who believed in segregation
but not one who proclaimed that belief
from the rooftops, added these com
ments:
“The Negro does not desire to dom
inate the Republican Party, but if the
party says to 150,000 Negro voters the
same thing the other party says, then
we have got no selling point ... We are
not going to make an issue of segrega
tion or rush into white schools, but we
should not alienate the Negro vote.”
The convention, nevertheless, voted
99 to 55 to retain in its platform the
states’ rights assertions and other fea
tures objected to by the Negroes. The
split was primarily along racial lines,
but a number of white delegates joined
the Negroes in their position.
On March 7, one of the three an
nounced candidates for governor in the
forthcoming Democratic primary de
tailed a course of action which he pro
posed as one means of meeting the
threat of racial integration in public
schools. Donald S. Russell, formerly
president of the University of South
Carolina, projected a tuition plan as
“one course we could pursue, which, it
would appear, should be immune from
attack before the Supreme Court of the
United States.”
The Russell plan, discussed earlier in
this and other states, calls for the giv
ing of state grants to students provided
they enrolled in schools meeting state
standards. Here’s how Russell described
the essence of his plan:
GIST OF PLAN
“The state and the school district in
volved would provide the student with
his tuition to attend a school, private or
otherwise, of his choice in a reasonable
radius of his home; but the student
himself would select voluntarily the
school he would attend and that school
would not be under the control of the
state. It would be in the nature of a
scholarship, no different in principle
from the national college scholarships
now advocated in Congress or the
scholarship grants made to the veterans
of the last war. These tuition grants
would be made without discrimination
as to race or creed and would, in no
view of the matter, offend the terms of
the Fourteenth Amendment as inter
preted by the Supreme Court. . .
“Unless the whole concept of private
education is to be voided by a head
strong Supreme Court—and I am sure
neither the North nor the South would
permit this—the court could not in
validate under the Constitution such a
system, which involves no discrimina
tion of race but bases public aid to edu
cation upon grants, not to specific
schools but to the students to be bene
fited themselves.”
Four Negroes are among candidates
for the state House of Representatives.
A Charleston attorney, John H. Wright-
en, sought election unsuccessfully late
last year to a vacancy in the House
created by the death of a member, and
will run again in the June prmiary. The
other three Negro candidates for the
House are from Richland County. They
are the Rev. Will 1 am McKinlev Bow
man, Wilson Miles and A. P. Williams,
all of Columbia.
VOTE DRIVE PUSHED
Efforts to promote Negro registration
continue in the state. There also were
evidences in March of Negro efforts to
secure political action on the local
level. In Florence, a meeting of some
200 Negroes was told that “unity at the
polls” would help bring them the civic
improvements they sought. A Rock Hill
Negro, C. A. Ivory, complained in a
letter to the editor of the Evening Herald
that state Sen. Robert W. Hayes was not
giving consideration to the needs of Ne
groes of York County.
Legislation recommended by Gov.
Timmerman to create a continuing com
mittee to investigate communism in the
state, especially in the Negro colleges,
remained in the Senate Judiciary Com
mittee during March. Several white
trustees of Benedict College, which had
been charged by the governor with har
boring Communist-affiliated persons in
its faculty, joined in a board statement
that no evidence of such affiliation had
been found. A scattering of letters to the
editors of various newspapers also ex
pressed sentiment favoring the Negro
schools and cautioning against hasty or
ill-advised investigations.
On the other hand, the proposed in.
vestigation drew support from several
Democratic meetings at the precinct and
county level, and from veterans’ organ
izations. On March 9, the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, in spring rally at Gaffney
unanimously approved the governor’s
efforts.
LEGAL ACTION
Four men charged with the dynamit
ing of a Gaffney home will undergo a
request for indictment at the July term
of general sessions court in Cherokee
County. Solicitor J. Allen Lambright of
Spartanburg said the action was delayed
beyond the March term on request of
defense counsel, state Sen. John C. Long
now in attendance at the 1958 session
of the General Assembly. The dyna
miting is attributed to reaction against
a statement made by Mrs. James H.
Sanders in a 1957 booklet entitled
South Carolinians Speak. In the pub
lication, sponsored by a group of clergy
men as an expression of “moderate”
statements on race relations, Mrs. San
ders suggested that school integration
might be started at the first grade level,
and thereafter broadened. Her home
was dynamited on the night of Nov. 19,
1957. No one was injured.
Arrested for the offense were John
D. Painter, 30, of Draytonville; Luther
E. Boyette, 32, of Gaffney; James R. Mc
Cullough, 25, of Gaffney; and Cleatus
Sparks, 24, of Alma Mills. A fifth de
fendant, Robert P. Martin Jr., 34, of
Alma Mills, was killed accidentally in
late February when crushed by a car
on which he was working.
The Rev. Dr. Harold Ray Martin,
moderator of the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church, USA, told an
audience of Charleston Negroes on
(Continued On Next Page)
Louisiana Legislator Sees Idea of ‘Racial
Separation’ As Exportable To ‘North*
NEW ORLEANS, La.
OUISIANA’s SEGREGATION LEADER,
State Sen. William Rainach,
declared that not only will the
South retain “racial separation,”
but eventually will export it to “a
very receptive North.” (See “Po
litical Activity.”)
Rainach and the legislative seg
regation committee that he heads
were putting the finishing touches
on new segregation bills they will
introduce at the legislative session
starting May 12.
A Negro leader revealed that Negro
students will apply for admission to the
first class at the recently-established
Louisiana State University branch at
New Orleans. This move was likely to
affect the appropriation which the new
college would have to get from the leg
islature to stay in operation. (See “In
the Colleges.”)
The Orleans Parish School Board,
which has been fighting a federal court
desegregation order for more than two
years, expects Negro students to com
prise 58,000 of the anticipated 100,000
enrollment for the 1963-64 term. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”) On
March 28 federal district court denied
a rehearing in this case and set a time
for hearing arguments on a date for
desegregation. (See “Legal Action.”)
A number of Negro high school grad
uates were scheduled to apply for ad
mission in the new branch of Louisiana
State University at New Orleans when
its registration office opened April 1.
“They have contacted me, and they
will be there,” said attorney A. P. Tu-
reaud, plaintiffs’ counsel in several
school desegregation suits in the state.
“LSUNO,” as the new school is called,
begins operations this fall with a fresh
man class, using buildings and grounds
of a lakefront air station recently
turned over by the U. S. Navy. The
land is owned by the Orleans Parish
Levee Board, a state agency.
A class will be added each year for
the next three, until LSUNO is a full-
fledged four-year college at the start of
the 1961-62 term.
NO NEGRO UNDER-GRADS
LSU at Baton Rouge has had no Ne
gro undergraduates, although a 1955
federal court decision (in Tureaud v.
LSU Board of Supervisors) restrained
the barring of Negroes solely because of
their race. A. P. Tureaud Jr., son of the
attorney and plaintiff in this case, en
rolled instead at Xavier University, a
Catholic-affiliated college for Negroes in
New Orleans. LSU graduate school has
admitted Negroes for some five years.
If the Negro effort succeeds, LSUNO
would be the fifth tax-supported college
in Louisiana to be integrated.
If the application of Negroes to
LSUNO comes off as scheduled, there
could be repercussions in the state leg
islature in May. LSUNO has funds only
for the first year of operation. Much
larger appropriations will be needed to
provide the faculty for a full-sized col
lege and construct the permanent build
ings to replace the prefabricated tem
porary buildings which will be used this
fall.
NEGRO BRANCH, TOO
Another proposal due for introduction
in the legislature would establish in
New Orleans a branch of the state Ne
gro university, Southern, located at
Scotlandville.
Southern University students, during
the month, heard an Ohio college presi
dent tell them to “abandon the concept
of inferiority.” He was Dr. Charles H.
Wesley of Central State College, speak
ing at the 44th annual founder’s day
exercises.
That concept, he said, regards Negroes
as “lazy, untrustworthy, diseased in a
certain way, and retarded in intelli
gence.” He challenged the students to
“climb over the concept of inferiority
and achieve your own personal integ
rity.”
The session of the legislature opening
May 12 will be closely watched, politi
cal observers say, for signs of a “seg
regationist for governor” movement.
If there is one, its candidate will
likely be State Sen. Rainach of Homer,
chairman of the Joint Committee on
Segregation. The Rainach-led commit
tee will introduce a new “package” of
segregation-preserving bills, its third
since the U. S. Supreme Court’s de
segregation order.
The special attention which will be
directed at Rainach in May by political
factions feeling out the early indicators
of the 1960 gubernatorial race does not
mean that he would have any major
anti-segregation opposition in the cam
paign.
RAINACH MAJOR ISSUE
Every formidable political figure in
the state is on record as favoring con
—New Orleans Item
STATE SEN. RAINACH
Segregation Law Sponsor
tinued racial segregation. But Rainach
is unique in that he is the only politi
cian of statewide dimensions who is
known solely for leadership in the seg
regation movement.
There is certain to be a candidate
backed by Gov. Earl Long, who can
not succeed himself under state law.
Long has been a heavy vote-getter
among Negroes, and by White Citizens
Council standards is less than rock-firm
on the segregation question. That is, he
has failed to use his considerable per
sonal influence with legislators on be
half of segregation measures. (“What
for?” he has said. “They all pass with
out a dissenting vote anyway. And be
sides, the fewer laws the better.”)
Another likely gubernatorial candi
date is New Orleans Mayor Chep Mor
rison, who polled nearly all the city’s
31,000 Negro votes in winning a fourth
term recently. He favored continued ra
cial segregation and the enforcement of
segregation laws, Morrison said during
the campaign in response to a Citizens
Council query of candidates. Still, he
has been criticized by speakers at coun
cil rallies in New Orleans as being
“wishy-washy” on segregation.
KENNON MAY TRY AGAIN
Robert F. Kennon, Long’s predeces
sor as governor, may try for the post
again. But he would first have to re
nounce his backing of President Eisen
hower, who has lost considerable sup
port in the state since the Little Rock
incident.
Questioned by Southern School
News about his ambitions for~ higher
office, Rainach said “I’m out to help
win the struggle for the preservation of
the South’s political and social structure
and not for personal gain.”
The Homer businessman was known
as a “quiet man in the back row” dur
ing his two House terms from 1940 to
1948, and as a state senator from 1952
to 1954. Then, after the historic Supreme
Court ruling, he immediately became
Louisiana’s segregation leader and
spokesman, steering in 1954 the passage
of the first state laws in the nation spe
cifically designed to circumvent the
Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He
was one of the organizers of Citizens
Councils in the state, and is now presi
dent of the Association of Citizens’
Councils of Louisiana, Inc.
LEGAL ADVISERS
Rainach describes himself as a dealer
in home appliances, plumbing contrac
tor, and cattle farmer. As a non-lawyer,
he has relied, in the drafting of bills,
on such men as W. M. Shaw of Homer,
chief counsel for the segregation com
mittee, and Leander Perez, south Lou
isiana political leader.
Some 13 school segregation laws de
signed by this team have been put up
to legislative vote, and all passed with
out a single “nay.”
REASON FOR POSITION
His decision to lead a segregation
“crusade” in the state, Rainach told the
SSN correspondent, does not stem from
any particular incident in his experi
ence.
“My motivation,” he said, “is a gen
eral conviction that racial separation is
right for the South, the nation, and
every place where whites and Negroes
are expected to get along while living
on and using the same land.
•LARGER SCHEME OF THINGS’
“Certainly,” he added, “I and those
like me want separate schools. But these
are only part of the larger scheme of
things. If segregated schools go by the
board, so will the whole social and po
litical structure of the South, and event
ually of the whole country.”
Northerners are coming to realize
this, too, Rainach declared. He said that
southern pro-segregationists had
“turned the corner” of integrationist op
position in the South and are “begin
ning to turn it in the North.”
The North will eventually see that
the southern majority is correct on the
segregation question, Rainach said, and
take up southern mores for its own
protection.
COMMENTS ON AD
“I have become more than ever con
vinced of that by reading the letters
I’ve received commenting on our ad
vertisement in a New York paper,” he
said.
(The Rainach committee ran a full-
page ad in the Herald Tribune Feb. 17
explaining “the position of the South
on race relations.”)
“The response from northerners has
been 4-to-l in favor of our stand,”
Rainach said. “What impresses me most
is the apparent caliber of people who
agree with us. We hear from business
men writing under their regular let
terheads, from New York city school
teachers describing the conditions in ra
cially mixed schools as horrible.”
NEED SALES CAMPAIGN’
“From the response to our ad, I’m
convinced the South has a product for
which there is a demand in the North—
a racially separate social system. All
we need do is conduct a reasonable sales
campaign.”
Rainach laughed off reports that cer
tain leading schoolmen opposed the clos
ing of public schools faced with immi
nent integration, which Rainach has in
dicated will be a provision in the new
legislation.
Orleans Parish School Board officii
expect the preponderance of Negro stu
dents in the city’s public schools to in
crease to about 16,000 in the next fi' e
half
years.
Presently, slightly more than
New Orleans’ 82,644 public elemental
school students are Negroes. (The Cath
olic parochial school system in New 0“
leans has about 55,000 enrollment, wi
whites predominating about 3 to 1.)
Dr. Stanley Fitzpatrick, head of
Orleans board’s department of resear s.
census and planning, made the atten
ance evaluation. He predicts enrollm e
of 100,616 for the 1963-64 term.
GREATEST INCREASE NEGRO .
“The greatest increase is anticiP 3 * ,.
in the enrollment of Negro childr®^
Fitzpatrick said in a report to ^
school board. “The highest enrolling
predicted for Negro children during
[five-yearl period is 57,933 for the s®
sion 1963-64. It is expected that N e ^
enrollment will continue to rise e '
higher.” m
The board itself disclosed that it
have to issue $42,463,300 in bonds du r
(See LOUISIANA. Page 1<»)