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PAGE 16—APRIL 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Maryland Board Rulings
To Be Appealed To Court
BALTIMORE, Md.
D ecisions by the state Board of
Education in two cases of
Negro pupils contesting county-
desegregation policies are to be
appealed to U. S. district court, an
attorney for the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Col
ored People has announced. The
state board ruled that both cases,
one challenging gradual desegre
gation in St. Mary’s County and
the other school bus segregation
in Charles County, raised legal
questions beyond its province.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
School enrollment data in Balti
more city show that the increase
in Negro elementary pupils since
1945 is more than three times the
white increase, with Negroes mov
ing toward a majority in the
school system as a whole. (See
“Under Survey.”)
Looking toward the day when Ne
groes will outnumber whites in the
city, the Baltimore Urban League said,
“The non-white segment will have to
develop the discipline to handle pro
ductively its power to procure many
things for which it formerly had to
contend. It also will have to cultivate
the will to maintain and expand the
varied civic responsibilities and en
deavors which once were almost exclu
sively within the province of the ma
jority group.” (See “Community Ac
tion.”)
of
Chief Judge J. DeWeese Carter
the state circuit court that includes
Talbot County ruled in March that the
two persons arrested for picketing de
segregated schools in Easton last Sep
tember would have to stand trial on
conspiracy charges. L. Francis Berry
and Mrs. Elsie Andrews were indicted
on nine counts by a Talbot County grand
jury in November. Two counts were
quashed after a court hearing in Feb
ruary. State’s Attorney Henry P.
Turner announced that he would seek
an early trial.
Baltimore’s school population has
risen from 105,012 to 159,727 since 1945,
an increase of 52.1 per cent in the post
war years, according to enrollment data
compiled by the Baltimore Department
of Education. The bulk of the increase
has come in the elementary grades and
in the number of Negro pupils in those
grades.
Of the 34,860 additional elementary
pupils, 7,820 are white and 27,040 Negro.
The number of white secondary stu
dents has continued to grow, but in the
current school year for the first time
the white secondary gains failed to off
set white elementary losses, producing
the first numerical decrease in the total
white school population. The elemen
tary grades are now almost equally
divided in the number of white and
Negro pupils, and Negroes are expected
to be in the majority next fall. They
are approaching a majority in the
school system as a whole.
BIRTH RATES, MIGRATION
Four factors contribute to the chang
ing complexion of the public schools:
the higher Negro birth rate coupled
with Negro in-migration, the much
higher proportion of white students
who enter private and parochial schools,
and the white movement to the suburbs
beyond the city line. School statisticians
point out that the number of white
births per 1,000 residents has remained
around 20 to 21 since 1950, while the
Negro birth rate has risen from 31.8
to 36.9.
The percentage of white resident
children bom in Baltimore who six
years later entered the first grade was
72 per cent in 1940, 52 per cent in 1944
and 50 per cent in 1951. This means that
half the potential first-graders in the
white population either moved away in
the past six years or entered non-public
schools, and since no marked increase
in non-public school attendance has
taken place, the likely conclusion is
that most of these children have left
the city limits.
The Negro trend has been in the op
posite direction. Nearly all the Negroes
bom in recent years within the city
limits have entered city schools, along
with the children of new Negro resi
dents. For Negro resident births and
subsequent entrance into first grade six
years later the figures were 132 per
cent in 1940, 93 per cent in 1944 and
114 per cent in 1951 (that is, became
first-graders last fall). The figures of
more than 100 per cent indicate the
heavy influx of new Negro families
during the war years and in the period
since 1950.
The Maryland General Assembly
concluded its 30-day, predominantly
fiscal session early in March without
having any bills that touched on de
segregation up for its consideration,
other than Sen. Harry A. Cole’s peren
nial attempt to win Maryland ratifica
tion of the Fourteenth Amendment to
the U. S. Constitution. Sen. Cole, a Bal
timore attorney and the only Negro to
win a seat in the upper chamber, had
thought that his resolution had a good
chance in an election year, but it again
failed to win a constitutional majority.
Status of Former White Maryland Schools
Fall of 1955
Fall of 1956
Fall of 1957
Desegregation | n
former white schools
Desegregation In
former white schools
Desegregation in
former white schools
State of Maryland
Allegany
Anne Arundel
Baltimore City
Baltimore
Calvert
Caroline
Carroll
Cecil
Charles
Dorchester
Frederick
Garrett
Harford
Howard
Kent
Montgomery
Prince George’s
Queen Anne’s
St. Mary’s
Somerset
Talbot
Washington
Wicomico
Worcester
Total publie
Number of
Number of
Total publie
Number of
Number of
Total publie
Number (
schools
schools
Negro pupils
schools
schools
Negro pupils
schools
sehools
941
128
5,592
951
205
10,968
974
257
34
13
151
35
12
160
36
15
64
—
—
66
10
77
67
17
163
59
4,601
167
70
9,242
169
73
82
13
205
87
24
385
93
46
16
—
—
16
—
15
13
—
—
12
12
21
2
15
22
1
7
22
1
25
2
12
24
1
16
23
3
19
—
—
17
1
5
17
1
31
—
—
31
—
31
38
—
—
39
3
49
39
14
21
—
—
20
—
20
23
—
—
23
2
13
24
7
17
—
—
17
2
9
17
1
16
—
—
16
16
91
22
496
97
49
686
102
47
103
8
65
103
17
155
112
17
15
—
—
14
—
14
20
—
—
18
18
22
—
—
22
—
22
20
—
—
20
2
9
18
3
45
9
47
47
11
155
48
12
25
—
—
21
—
—
21
17
—
—
17
—
—
18
Number of
Negro pupils
17,597
196
173
14,826
844
10
16
2
161
51
7
936
214
11
150
Data provided by the Maryland State Department of Education
not sufficiently and correctly stimulated
and balanced.
The Maryland Commission on Inter
racial Problems and Relations in its an
nual report to Gov. Theodore McKeldin
commended law-enforcement officials in
Talbot County “for their prompt inter
vention and enforcement of the law in
Easton when attempts were made to
picket two integrated schools.” The re
port spoke of the indictment by the
county grand jury of two persons “who
defied a police ban against picketing in
September” and added, “The failure of
persons of this kind to win public sup
port is truly a tribute to Easton and
Talbot County.”
The annual report of the Baltimore
Urban League also was concerned with
problems related to the expanding Ne
gro community.
Discussing the concentrations of Ne
gro families in the core of the city and
in the older residential areas, which
white families have vacated, the Urban
League found that “successful adapta
tion to the demands of urban living, on
the part both of old residents and re
cent in-migrants, is a vital requirement
if Baltimore is to continue to flourish.”
Two League programs to be given
major attention are, “strengthening the
minority family in the urban setting”
and “adapting changing population roles
to the highest possible potential in com
munity development.”
Pointing to estimates that Negroes will
represent half the population of Balti
more by 1975, the Urban League report
looked toward the day when Negro
Baltimoreans will be in the majority.
“Failure to meet this challenge courag
eously and intelligently will permit the
development and possible eruption of
tensions which would tear apart the se
renity that has characterized Baltimore
to date,” the League said. Its report
suggested:
“The nonwhite segment will have to
develop the discipline to handle pro
ductively its power to procure many
things for which it formerly had to con
tend. It also will have to cultivate the
will to maintain and expand the varied
civic responsibilities and endeavors
which once were almost exclusively
within the province of the majority
group. The successful assumption of
those obligations well might tarnish the
glitter of integration if, in terms of cul
tural maturity, the nonwhite group is
WHITE RESPONSIBILITY
“The white population of the city
must share equally in the preparation
for the future. It will have to accom
modate itself to the many changes that
will result from the loss of numerical
superiority. It will have to accept the
reality of equality of opportunity in the
full sense of the word.
“In short, both segments of the total
community, during the intervening
years, must face the necessity of
schooling themselves in the real mean
ing and practice of equality of oppor
tunity, respect for human dignity, dis
charge of civic responsibilities and the
promotion of intergroup cooperation on
a level which has been a dream up to
the present.”
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
The state Board of Education re
leased in March its formal opinions in
two county desegregation cases that it
had decided orally on Feb. 26. One case
represented a challenge of gradual de
segregation in St. Mary’s County, and
the other a challenge of segregated
school buses in Charles County. Both
counties lie in southern Maryland,
where the proportion of Negroes runs
high in a generally rural, conservative
environment.
Changes in Baltimore Enrollment
Grade Level
‘Elementary
Secondary
“Vocational
Total
Year
White
Negro
Per Cent N<
1953
56,028
36,101
39.2
1954
54,908
39,725
42.0
1955
54,343
43,077
44.2
1956
53,752
47,033
46.7
1957
51,958
50,977
49.5
1953
26,669
12,444
31.8
1954
27,912
13,749
33.0
1955
29,673
15,063
33.7
1956
30,573
16,130
34.5
1957
31,696
17,521
35.6
1953
3,509
3,282
48.2
1954
3,791
3,603
48.7
1955
3,897
3,730
48.9
1956
3,758
3,750
49.9
1957
3,658
3,917
51.7
1953
86,206
51,827
37.5
1954
86,611
57,077
39.7
1955
87,913
61,870
41.3
1956
88,083
66,913
43.2
1957
87,312
72,415
45.3
♦Elementary Includes kindergarten, grades 1 to 6, and opportunity classes.
♦♦Vocational includes occupational and shop centers.
“The county superintendent of
schools in good faith has carried out
the policy of the Charles County Board
of Education. In accordance with the
advice given the state Board of Ed
ucation by the attorney general’s office,
the question of whether the policy of
the county board violates the constitu
tional rights of the appellants in this
case is not within the scope of the
powers of the state Board of Educa
tion, since it is a purely legal ques
tion. Accordingly, the appeal is dis
missed.”
Much the same decision was reached
in the St. Mary’s County case; namely,
that legal questions were raised that
were beyond the province of the state
board to decide. In this case William
Groves sought to have his two chil
dren, Joan Elaine and Thomas Con
rad, enrolled at a white high school.
The county desegregation policy pro
vided for the desegregation of only the
elementary grades in the school year
1957-58.
The actions before the state board
served to exhaust the Negro appellants’
administrative remedies and set the
stage for court action. The NAACP at
torneys for the Harts and Groves im
mediately made their next step clear.
“We are taking it to federal court,”
said Mrs. Juanita Jackson Mitchell,
who has appeared in most of the de
segregation cases in Maryland.
and then withdrew. George Washing
ton Williams, who also has represented
the Petition Committee, had said ear
lier that he might try again for the
U. S. Senate, but he did not file. The
deadline for candidates has now passed.
Williams, believing that southerners
might get the wrong impression from
a report in Southern School News on
the small number of votes he received
in his 1956 bid for office, said that read
ers of this publication should appreci
ate the difficulties that a segregation
candidate has in getting financial back
ing and favorable newspaper play in
Maryland. In a statement submitted to
Southern School News, Williams said,
in part:
“The biggest enemy and obstacle in
the fight of those who are defending
the Constitution, the states’ rights, and
race integrity in the North and border
states, is the repeated remark; ‘We
can’t do anything about it’—an abject
surrender . . .
In Charles County, Mr. and Mrs.
Gilbert C. Hart sought to have their
son, Gilbert Jr., transported by the
white school bus to the desegregated
school where he is a second-grade
pupil. The county school superinten
dent, C. Paul Barnhart, had turned
down the transportation request on the
ground that the desegregation policy
set by the county board of education
specifically stated that “there will be no
change in the school bus transporta
tion policy for the school year 1957-58.”
Segregation-desegregation was not
expected to become a major political
issue this year in Maryland as no
prominent segregationist is running for
statewide office. C. Maurice Weide-
meyer, who frequently represents the
pro-segregation Maryland Petition
Committee, filed for the Republican
nomination to the attorney generalship
Louisiana
(Continued From Page 14)
Testimony showed that Barnhart had
offered segregated bus transportation to
the Harts, but they had refused the
service, saying that it would stigmatize
the child in the eyes of his white class
mates, if he were to come to school in
a bus other than the one the other
pupils rode. Instead, the Harts drove
the child to school themselves and ap
pealed to the state board. The latter
held a hearing and decided as follows:
the five-year period to construct the ad
ditional buildings and hire the extra
teachers required to handle the in
creased enrollment.
The Orleans system is under a fed
eral court order enjoining it from op
erating segregated schools. Issued more
than two years ago, the ruling is still
under appeal and has not been put into
effect.
tional Negro teachers will be absorbed
in that way.
“No matter what happens here in re
gard to school integration, we will con
tinue, for a long, long time, to have pub
lic schools which are used entirely or
almost entirely by Negroes,” Tureaud
concluded.
NO PLANNING BEGUN
Neither the school board, composed of
five elected members, nor the appointed
superintendent has begun a plan for
eventual integration. Officials decline to
comment on how increased Negro en
rollment might affect desegregation
planning or realization.
A. P. Tureaud, Negro attorney who is
chief legal counsel for the NAACP in
New Orleans, told SSN the decrease in
white proportion of the public school
student body will not complicate the de
segregation process.
“Admittedly, there is a greater prob
lem absorbing Negro teachers into an
integrated system than Negro students,”
he said. “I don’t believe you will find
here any indiscriminate assigning of Ne
gro teachers to so-called white schools.
Orleans School Board special attorn®!
Gerard A. Rault (employed to defen
the Bush v. Orleans School Board suj
asked the U. S. Fifth Circuit Court 0
re-hear his plea that failure of pla®
tiffs to post $1,000 bond promptly when
Federal Judge J. Skelly Wright ga£
his anti-segregation decree voided 1
injunction. . ,
Last month the appellate court ruw“
that the tardy posting of bond was
mere irregularity” and that the ini'®*
tion of February 1956 was not affect®"-
At the same time, State Atty.
Jack Gremillion asked the appeals co
to re-hear the case involving adnuttan
of Negroes to LSU, Southwestern
isiana Institute, McNeese College
‘GEOGRAPHICAL SEGREGATION’
“The school board here is trying to
solidify the pattern of ‘geographical seg
regation’ of Negroes by building its new
so-called Negro schools in areas already
Negro-dominated,” he added. “As the
Negro population of these areas in
creases, and along with it the school-age
population, the existing schools will be
expanded, with additional classrooms
and cafeterias, and so forth. The addi-
Southem Louisiana College. ^
On March 28 the federal district co
denied a rehearing of both cases
set April 2 for arguments on reqU
for a summary judgment making
Orleans Parish injunction P erm8l '^ aI t
and setting a time limit for the 5
of integration.
Gremillion’s contention that f ed
court erred in declaring state
gation laws (Acts 15 and 249 of }
unconstitutional topped his list of ^
ceptions. & *
MONEY MAJOR PROBLEM
“The biggest boost that could be
given to our fight would be to elect a
statewide officer in one of the border
states, and this can be done with
enough campaign funds to get our pro
gram to the people. Getting the money
is the major problem, as the govern
ments and churches have the mass of
the people so intimidated and awed
that they have become virtually, from
a public and other standpoint, inert and
spineless . . .
“There would be a good chance of
electing a United States senator in
Maryland if sufficient money could be
supplied to conduct a vigorous cam
paign. If this could be done it would
answer the cowardly and futile-minded.
It would be the biggest boost possible
to the cause, not only of the South, but
all over the country . . .”
# # *