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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY 1958—PAGE 15
Two Maryland Counties
Plan Additional Steps
Negro
7,692
V
X
X
X
X
X
Negro
V
\
\
X
N
• \
4,809
\
\
V"o
•Tff
\
Negro
** ^
\
X ’*£» \
X
X
3.607
X
\
\
\
X
4,766
\
\
4,454
*& \
8,805
*hi te
Whi te
■ .
White
'h
10,105
7,261
14,020
7,298
14,938
7,522
Resident
Cr. 1
Resident
Cr. 1
Resident
Cr. 1
Births
1946
Births
1950
Births
1957
1940
*12,027
1944
*11,752
1951
=16,327
= 13,712
=18,829
= 22,630
The above graph relates resident births in Baltimore to first-grade enrollment
six years after the births were recorded. Note that about half of the w'hite children
born in 1951 entered school last fall, whereas Negro enrollment totalled 113 more
than the number of births recorded six years previously. This indicates the move
ment of white families out of the central city and the movement of Negroes into
the city.
BALTIMORE, Md.
wo Maryland counties in
April reported plans for the
desegregation of additional grades
next fall, as other counties an
nounced dates for the filing of Ne-
i gro applications for transfer to
white schools. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Integration in Montgomery
County was slowed down by a
county council budget-cutting
move that eliminated two educa-
• tion items, totaling $754,450, which
would have converted the two re
maining Negro secondary schools
, to other uses. Council President
Wilbur N. Baughman spoke in
favor of using the Negro high
school as an integrated vocational
school and said that both the jun
ior and senior high schools could
continue on a segregated basis,
i pending further study. The action
was considered in some quarters
to be an effort to forestall complete
desegregation in the county. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Two suits were filed in U. S. district
court by NAACP attorneys. One chal-
, lenges gradual desegregation in St.
Mary’s County, and the other contests
the continuation of segregated bus
transportation to an integrated school
in Charles County. Also in April, the
conspiracy indictments against two an
ti-integration school picketers in Tal
bot County were stetted. (See “Legal
Action.”)
1 A survey of teachers associations in
Maryland shows that separate white
and Negro teacher organizations con
tinue to function in 15 of the 22 coun-
( ties having teachers of both races, al
though some mixing of pupils has taken
place in 13 counties. (See “Under Sur
vey.”)
CURRENT STATUS: Second de
segregation suit filed in St. Mary’s
County, desegregation of school bus
asked in St. Charles County suit.
Suits filed three days apart in the
U. S. district court in Baltimore fol
lowed the decisions of the state Board
, of Education in February that both
cases raised legal questions beyond its
administrative province.
The first case (Gilbert G. Hart Jr. v.
Board of Education of Charles County)
involves a Negro second-grader who
attends a formerly all-white school at
Indian Head but whose request to ride
the white school bus has been denied
under a county policy of not desegre
gating school transportation at this
time.
The suit contends that the boy is de
nied the right to ride the school bus
that goes by his home “solely because
of his race or color.” The county’s offer
to transport the boy on a Negro school
h us was rejected by his mother as a
violation of “her rights to equal pro
tection” under the Constitution. NAACP
attorneys have asked the court for an
“arly review.
The second case (Thomas Conrad
Groves et al v. Board of Education of
St. Mary’s County) involves a Negro
boy and his sister, ages 13 and 14, who
were denied admission to a white high
school last fall because the county de
segregation program initially opened
only the elementary schools to Negro
transfer applicants.
The two Groves children were among
66 Negroes who went into district court
in 1956 seeking admission to white
schools in St. Mary’s County. Chief
Judge Roszel C. Thomsen ruled then
that the plaintiffs had to exhaust their
administrative remedies by first apply
ing to the schools of their choice and,
if denied admission, taking an appeal
to the state Board of Education. The
present suit contends that the Groves
children have now exhausted their ad
ministrative remedies and that the de
nial of admission deprives them of a
constitutional right.
ACTION SHELVED
The legal action against two segre
gation demonstrators in Talbot County,
hanging fire since September, was
shelved in April when the county pros
ecutor, Henry P. Turner, accepted medi
cal testimony that one of the defend
ants had a heart ailment. The defend
ants, L. Francis Berry and Mrs. Elsie
Andrew, had been arrested on the
opening day of school last fall for pick
eting in defiance of police orders. They
had been indicted by a county grand
jury on several conspiracy counts.
The motion to have the case removed
from the open docket to the stet docket
was entered by Turner, after Berry had
presented a medical certificate. “Obvi
ously, I don’t want to endanger the
man’s health by prosecuting him for a
misdemeanor,” Turner told the court,
citing the case load in the current court
term as another reason for deferring
action.
“The purpose of these arrests was to
avert a riot,” he said, “and since that
threat no longer exists, we can place
the case on the stet docket.” Turner
explained that the action did not
amount to a dismissal but took the case
out of the active status.
CURRENT STATUS: 21 of 23 bi-
racial school districts desegregated.
The Montgomery County Council put
at least a temporary stop to plans to
close out all the Negro secondary classes
in Montgomery County by eliminating
the budget items that would have (1)
converted the substandard Lincoln
Junior High into a warehouse and
maintenance shop and (2) expanded
Carver Senior High into an integrated
junior high school.
The county council as keeper of the
county purse strings thereby overruled
the county board of education, which
decided on the two moves by a split
vote last January. The closing of the
Lincoln school has been part of the in
tegration planning for some time, and
Negroes gradually have been trans
ferred to other schools to make the
closing possible. It is expected that the
school board will go through with its
plans to terminate instruction at Lin
coln, since the building is not considered
fit for classroom use.
The conversion of Carver to an inte
grated junior high was a proposal of
more recent origin and in the nature of
a school economy move. The profes
sional school staff committee on de
segregation has based its plans for in
tegration in 1958-59 on the closing of
the Lincoln school and the use of Car
ver as a combined Negro junior-senior
high. At the same time, the county su
perintendent sought $1,698,500 for a new
junior high in the same area. The school
board sought to save $1 million of that
sum by dropping the plans for a new
school and using an expanded Carver in
its place.
FURTHER STUDY NEEDED
The county council quashed the plans
after arguments that the closing of Car
ver should have further study in the
light of vocational training needs in the
Major Developments
Since 1954
1) The immediate acceptance by
state and local officials of the May
17, 1954 decision and their ex
pression of willingness to move
toward compliance.
2) The removal of all racial
bars in Baltimore schools at the
start of the 1954-55 school year.
3) The admission in the fall of
1955 of some Negroes to formerly
all-white schools in eight of
Maryland’s 23 counties.
4) The expansion of desegrega
tion in 1956-57 that brought mixed
classes to five additional counties.
5) The short life of anti-inte
gration demonstrations in the face
of prompt police action and lack
of public support.
county. Nearly all the Carver students
are taking vocational courses. Observers
close to the situation consider the ac
tion to have been an effort to delay
integration or at least to preserve the
present desegregation timetable. The
school board members who favored the
Carver closing are now disturbed over
the unsettled problems that remain,
both in terms of the need for a new
junior high and the need to house
school maintenance personnel.
The board of education for St. Mary’s
County announced in April that volun
tary desegregation would be extended
next fall to grades seven, eight and
nine. May 14 was set as the registra
tion date for prospective transfers and
for all pupils entering first grade next
fall.
St. Mary’s opened all its elementary
schools (grades 1 to 6) to Negroes last
fall on the basis of individual applica
tions. Four applications were received
from Negroes seeking admission to ele
mentary grades, and all four were ap
proved by the school board. None of the
four pupils exercised his transfer right,
so no mixing occurred.
READY FOR REQUESTS
The Kent County Board of Education
has reaffirmed its policy of standing
ready to consider Negro requests for
transfers to white schools and has set
May 18 as the deadline for transfer ap
plications. In past years in this and
most other Eastern Shore counties, no
applications have been received.
From the Eastern Shore county of
Worcester, School Supt. Paul D. Cooper
reported: “Our policy permits the trans
fer of any child from any school he
now attends to any other school upon
proper application. To date there have
been no applications for transfer. Trans
fer application dates have become rou
tine. An announcement is made in the
early summer, and applications are ac
cepted up to the week before the open
ing of schools. The exact dates have not
been determined this year, but I antici
pate no change in this.”
Anne Arundel County will desegre
gate its fifth and sixth grades next fall,
making all grades of all elementary
schools open to both races in the third
year of its transition program. The first
three grades were desegregated in the
fall of 1956, and the fourth grade this
past fall. Under the policy established
by the county board of education in
1956, desegregation was to have pro
ceeded at the rate of at least one grade
a year.
Carroll County, which in the past two
years has had one integrated school,
after having two in 1955, has announced
a continuation of its policy of receiving
Negro applications for transfer to white
schools. The school board in an April
statement said that it would continue
to operate existing schools and exist
ing bus routes “for as long as need for
such facilitities exists.”
Somerset County, which ranks third
among Maryland counties in percent
age of Negro pupils in its school sys
tem (41.6 per cent), is proceeding with
its voluntary desegregation program,
which so far has not resulted in any
transfer requests. A deadline for trans
fer applications has not as yet been set
for the fall semester.
Somerset’s school superintendent, C.
Allen Carlson, reports that since the
beginning of 1958 three new schools
have been in use for Negro pupils. A
new eight-room consolidated school has
replaced three two-room Negro schools.
A modem three-room building has
taken the place of an old two-room
structure, and a former four-room
school has been moved to new quarters
on an eight-acre site.
Queen Anne’s County, which lies on
the Eastern Shore, has announced the
continuation of its policy of voluntary
desegregation and set June 1 as the
deadline for Negro transfer applica
tions. No applications have been re
ceived during the past three years in
which the policy has been in effect.
POLICIES REMAIN
No change in present policies has oc
curred in Caroline County, which is
one of the two Maryland counties where
desegregation has been discussed by
school officials but no desegregation
program announced.
Baltimore County anticipates close to
total desegregation. The assistant su
perintendent in administration, Homer
O. Elseroad, reported: “Practically all of
our 90 schools are desegregated, and
several new schools that are opening
this fall, plus a couple of schools which
had been segregated because of severe
crowded conditions, will be operated on
a desegregated basis next September.”
Harford County is proceeding under
its court-approved plan which provides
for the desegregation of all six grades
of three additional elementary schools
next September. Ten elementary schools
and the sixth grade at one high school
are currently desegregated, and the re
maining elementary schools are to be
opened to Negroes in September 1959.
The grade-a-year desegregation of sec
ondary schools is scheduled to begin
with the seventh grade this fall.
White and Negro teachers have sep
arate associations in 15 of Maryland’s
23 counties. Seven counties and Balti
more City have integrated teacher or
ganizations, and the remaining county
has no Negroes.
The Maryland State Teachers Asso
ciation, with which the local groups are
federated, has been integrated for the
past five years. Its meetings and activi
ties include both white and Negro
teachers, and it has a Negro member
on its executive board. The counties
having separate teachers associations
include Anne Arundel, Charles, Har
ford, Howard, Prince George’s and Tal
bot, in all of which some integration of
pupils has taken place.
American guides at the United States
pavillion on the grounds of the Brus
sels Worlds Fair include a 22-year-old
Baltimore Negro girl, Delores Alston.
Interviewed by the Berlin correspond
ent of the Baltimore Sun, Miss Alston
said she had already been asked ques
tions about Little Rock, Montgomery
and the Emmett Till case and antici
pated more integration queries from fair
visitors.
Asked how she answers such ques
tions, Miss Alston said, “I tell people
that we recognize the problem in Amer
ica and are doing something about it
I mention the Supreme Court decision,
and I try to point out that these inci
dents represent progress in most cases.”
CURRENT STATUS OF COL
LEGES: All public colleges deseg
regated in practice or principle. 18
private colleges desegregated.
# # #
i
Tennessee
(Continued From Page 14)
bring chaos,” she said. “In an educa
tional institution teachers cannot do
their best in the midst of excitement
and turmoil.”
One of the principal objections raised
by the plaintiffs was that the separate
schools, as they now exist, were not
Cfual, particularly in the fields of spe-
1 cial education. They said the vocational
training program offered Negro students
w as inadequate and that classes for
Mentally retarded Negro children and
i those with deficient sight were also in
adequate.
Supt. Oliver said the board of educa
tion is working on plans to provide the
Negro children with the same training
received by white children in these
fields. He said education in this respect
* s inadequate for both white and Negro
, students.
fewer disturbances
Another main point of testimony for
tbe plaintiffs was they believe there will
. less trouble and fewer disturbances
u the entire system is desegregated
n ext fall than if it is done one year at
a time.
Witnesses urging immediate desegre
gation were Ennix, Dr. Herman Long,
director of the race relations depart
ment of the Congregational churches
with offices at Fisk University, and Mrs.
Preston Valien, a sociologist and wife
of Fisk’s sociology department chair
man.
All three agreed that the grade-a-
year plan did not, in their opinion, meet
the requirement of “all deliberate
speed,” established in the decision of
the U. S. Supreme Court in 1954.
UNIT PLAN OFFERED
Dr. Valien was the educator who
recommended that the court order de
segregation over a two-year period on
the “unit plan.” He said the more peo
ple there are involved in any change,
the less res’stance to change. He said
also the erade-a-year plan deprives too
many children of their “freedom of
choice” provided in the 14th amend
ment of the U. S. Constitution.
Judge Miller gave attorneys for the
plaintiffs and school board 24 days in
which to file briefs supporting their
arguments. A decision in the case is
expected by mid-May.
The trial of Frederick John Kasper
on charges of inciting to riot resulting
from the disturbances that marked the
beginning of school desegregation in
Nashville was postponed from April 4
until the May term of court.
SERVING TIME
The reason is that Kasper is serving
a one-year sentence in the federal
penitentiary in Tallahassee, Fla., for
contempt of federal court for violating
an injunction against interference with
the peaceful desegregation of Clinton
High School.
The legal hassle between two rival
groups of the Ku Klux Klan went to
federal court in Chattanooga April 25.
Eldon R. Edwards of Atlanta, Ga.,
who says he is the founder and leader
of the U. S. Klan, Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan, filed suit against the Dix'e
Klan, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for
alleged infringement of copyright. His
suit asks the court to enjoin the Dixie
Klan from using the Kloran (a ritual)
and costumes, insignia and other para
phernalia used by the U. S. Klan.
The Dixie Klan, in an answer filed
with the court, denies all of Edwards’
allegations. The Dixie Klan reply not
only denied that Edwards originated or
authored a Kloran, but said, as a mat
ter of fact, Edwards had copied ver
batim the Kloran, constitution, laws,
ritual, insignia, customs and names
which have been in general use by
various Klan organizations for a num
ber of years.
No date has been set by the court to
hear the suit.
On April 6, Vice President Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan of India, arriving in
Nashville to deliver a speech at a Fisk
University convocation, touched on the
desegregation subject briefly in an in
terview. He said:
“It is clear to us that you are trying
to effect some kind of harmony among
the races, and that even now, the pro
cess is at work. This is important to the
people of Africa and Asia, and it will
improve your relations with those
countries. As to what must be done,
that is something you musk ask the
colored people themselves. But I would
ask you to speed up.”
Mrs. Daisy Bates of Little Rock, Ark.,
president of the Arkansas conference
of the NAACP, said the “decent police”
of Nashville meant the difference in the
degree of violence experienced by
Nashville in desegregation when com
pared to the situation at Little Rock
Central High School.
WHY FEW CHANGED?
Here as “Woman’s Day” speaker at
Lee Chapel AME church, Mrs. Bates
said she was curious why only a few
Negro children enrolled in the formerly
all-white schools in Nashville, although
many were eligible. She said she hoped
every child who was eligible to attend
a desegregated school here would do so
next year.
Mrs. Bates received a scroll from the
Nashville branch of the NAACP for
her “courageous stand” in the Little
Rock controversy.
CURRENT STATUS of segrega
tion-desegregation in Tennessee:
LEGISLATIVE ACTION: 8 laws
and a resolution dealing with
school segregation enacted.
COLLEGES: All state-supported
colleges desegregated in practice or
principle. Five private colleges de
segregated.
# # #
