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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY 1958—PAGE 5
i
Three Cases In Florida
Move Toward Decisions
MIAMI, Fla.
LL THREE LEGAL CHALLENGES to
school segregation in Florida
1 moved closer to final decision in
April. (See “Legal Action.”) The
attack on the pupil assignment
law was argued before the U. S.
Fifth Circuit Court and dates
were set for the taking of testi
mony in two other cases.
' Signs began to appear that seg
regation again will be a prime is
sue in the 1960 political cam-
< paigns. (See “Political Activity.”)
dynamite blasts
Two dynamite bombs exploded in
Jacksonville April 27, doing minor
1 damage to the Weldon Johnson Junior
High School for Negroes and the Jack
sonville Jewish Center.
It was the second such incident in
Florida in little more than a month. An
explosion in Miami in March caused
damage estimated at $30,000 at the Beth
El Synagogue.
< As in the Miami case, anonymous
telephone calls were made in connec
tion with the violence. Jacksonville
Jewish leaders were told the explosions
/ were the work of the “Confederate
Underground.”
Rewards mounted for information
leading to the arrest of those respon-
( sible. Gov. LeRoy Collins expressed
“shock and disappointment” and called
on all state agencies to bring out the
facts. The legislative investigating com
mittee looking into organizations that
stir up racial agitation sent an agent
to the scene.
A survey showed a “slow letting-
down in many informal ways” in Flor-
' ida’s segregation picture. (See “Miscel
laneous.”)
have based their entire defense on
grounds that they are legally bound by
the pupil assignment law.
The Gibson case, too, moved toward
a decision. District Judge Joseph P.
Lieb set June 17 for taking testimony
and hearing oral arguments.
HEARING PROMISED
Virgil Hawkins, the Daytona Beach
Negro who has been trying for eight
years to enter the University of Florida
School of Law, was promised a hearing
on his latest court action “some time
after June 18.” (Hawkins v. Florida
State Board of Control.) District Judge
Dozier DeVane at Tallahassee made this
statement after taking under advise
ment a plea by the state for more time
to prepare an answer.
Hawkins, in his new action, asked that
the Board of Control be restrained from
interfering with his admission to the
law school. Judge DeVane denied the
petition on grounds there was no
urgency to justify it.
The Court of Appeals said Judge De
Vane erred and remanded the case for
an early hearing on its merits.
State Sen. Harvie Belser of Bonifay,
who walked out of the Senate chamber
last fall and threatened to resign over
failure of the legislature to pass a strong
segregation law, said in an interview
that southern states are further from
integration today than ever before.
Political commentators saw in this a
bid by Belser to use the segregationist
banner in a race for statewide office.
Belser said the successful candidate for
governor in I960 must take a firm stand
against integration.
“The lukewarm moderates are part of
the past,” Belser said.
i
Sup?
LEGAL A
CTION
CURRENT STATUS: Hearing
after June 18 expected in suit
seeking Negro entrance at Univer
sity of Florida law school. Oral
testimony to be taken June 17 in
district court in Dade County suit.
5th Circuit Court decision awaited
in appeal of Palm Beach County
case.
All three Florida suits attacking va
rious aspects of school segregation were
active during April.
The first specific attack on Florida’s
so-called “model” pupil assignment law
designed, in the words of Gov. LeRoy
• Collins, to preserve segregation “for the
foreseeable future,” was argued before
the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans.
(Holland v. Board of Public Instruc-
I tion of Palm Beach County.)
William M. Holland Sr., West Palm
Beach Negro, asks that the assignment
law be declared unconstitutional be
cause it barred his son from attending
a nearby white school. Holland’s at
torney said assignments were made in
such a way that only Negroes attended
, the Pleasant City school and only white
children the neighboring Northboro
school.
TESTIMONY ON DISTANCE
1 Testimony was offered that the Hol
land family lived only six blocks from
the Pleasant City school and 1.5 miles
from Northboro.
i L C. Smith, attorney for Holland,
ar gued that the student’s application for
transfer to the Northboro school was
denied on grounds of color and that as-
( S1 gnment was set up on a discriminatory
basis.
W. C. Mehrtens, attorney for the
School board, contended the assignment
, hw was not an issue in the case and
that it makes no mention of race or
color.
Misconception claimed
* 1 sc hool board attorney said Hol-
huM’s suit was based on a misconcep
tion of the Supreme Court segregation
Mandate that segregation because of
< race or color is unconstitutional. Ne-
Sroes have taken the position, Mehrtens
t°ld the appellate court, that attendance
^cas must be shuffled to achieve inte
gration.
The court did not require aggressive
? e P s to be taken, Mehrtens contended,
u t only that no child be denied an edu-
cation because of race or color.
v ital to second case
The decision of the appellate court
olr| S CaSe be vital to a second a
p case (Gibson et al v. Board
wb(i c Instruction of Dade Count
. , lc h is a direct attack on segregat
°°ts. Attorneys for the school boa
‘HATRED, SECTIONALISM’
The statement brought a reply from
Rep. W. C. Herrell of Miami, who
charged Belser with promoting “hatred
and sectionalism.”
“Sen. Belser charges that Florida is
weak in peaceful racial progress and
yet, in these tense times throughout the
nation, Florida is one of the few states
without racial incident,” said Herrell.
John L. Boyles, capital correspondent
for the Miami Herald, said Belser has
“deposed Sumter Lowry as the ex
tremists’ champion.”
Major Developments
Since 1954
1) There is not a single Negro
attending an integrated public
school or college in the state.
2) Three court challenges are
undecided although none is less
than two years old.
3) Florida has adopted a strong
pupil assignment law which Gov.
LeRoy Collins said will preserve
school segregation “for the fore
seeable future.”
4) Gov. Collins has attracted
national attention as a spokesman
for the “moderate” point of view
and says that eventual integra
tion is inevitable.
Lowry ran for governor in 1956 with
segregation as his sole issue, piling up
the second largest vote in a field of four.
NEGRO VOTER DRIVE
A drive to increase the number of
Negroes on the voter registration list
was pushed by the Florida NAACP. The
Rev. A. Leon Lowry, president of the
Florida Conference, said the group was
particularly interested in several north
west and north central counties where
Negro registration is practically non
existent.
In Gadsden County, Lowry said, only
five are registered although Negroes
make up 49 per cent of the population.
In nearby Liberty County only one Ne
gro is registered. Lowry said lack of
Negro registration in this area consti
tutes a “crisis.”
CURRENT STATUS: All public
colleges segregated. One private
college accepts Negroes.
The student senate of the University
of Miami, a private institution with
about 10,000 students, voted 14 to 11 to
ask the administration to end segrega
tion.
The resolution also called on all stu
dent organizations to remove restrictive
clauses concerning race, color, religion,
creed or national origin from their con
stitutions or charters.
“No further groups espousing such
REV. TRAFFORD MAHER
Heads Human Rights Commission
clauses shall be admitted to the Univer
sity of Miami,” the resolution said.
Paul Siegel, a senior, offered the pro
posal and led the debate. After the vote,
from which three members abstained,
Siegel said: “The Senate has shown a
mature attitude.”
JURISDICTION QUESTIONED
Dick Knight, president of the student
body, opposed the resolution. He said
the question was not within the sphere
of student government.
Dr. H. Franklin Williams, UM vice
president and director of community
affairs, called the resolution “an inter
esting expression of student opinion.”
“Undoubtedly it will be of interest to
the Board of Trustees,” Dr. Williams
said. “The trustees, however, make the
final decision in these matters, and this
one is quite complex.”
CURRENT STATUS: All of
state’s 67 school districts segregated
at all levels.
Florida’s Negro teachers met in an
nual session separately from the white
Florida Education Association and
heard a speaker tell them they must
achieve equality for themselves and
their pupils and not have equality
“handed on a silver platter.”
“You can achieve equality under law
and opportunity to match your ability,”
said Dr. Rembert W. Patrick, professor
of history at the University of Florida.
“Every child who leaves your school
without a burning desire to register and
vote in adulthood will be an example of
your failure.
“The Negro has always been limited
by law, custom or public opinion from
realizing his full potential. But it is
both legally and morally wrong to keep
the Negro a second-class citizen.”
In rapid succession in April, the city
of Miami abandoned segregation on the
buses and the city-owned golf course.
In both cases, the courts had ordered
integration and the city’s decision was
not to appeal the rulings.
The transition was accomplished
quietly and prompted a newspaper
survey which disclosed a number of in
stances of integration that had occurred
without attracting public notice.
“There has been a slow letting-down
in many informal ways,” commented an
executive of the Florida Council on Hu
man Relations.
While the survey showed segregation
is rigidly enforced in schools at all
levels, several church groups have
moved to integrate. The youth camp of
the Episcopal Church of South Florida
and the Conference Center of the Con
gregational Churches at Avon Park are
integrated. The Methodist Youth Camp
at Leesburg has some integrated activ
ities.
Buses have had integrated seating for
some time in Daytona Beach. Miami
abandoned segregated seating in April
though passengers generally follow the
old seating patterns.
The city of West Palm Beach took
steps to dispose of its golf course on
which Negroes began playing in April
under a court order. The state, which
gave the site to the city with a deed
restricting it to public use, agreed to
remove the restrictive clause. This
would permit the city to sell the land
for private residential and industrial
development.
CURRENT STATUS OF LEGIS
LATION: 6 laws and 3 resolutions
adopted to strengthen school seg
regation.
# # #
Members Of Missouri's
Commission Take Posts
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
he newly-established Mis
souri Commission on Human
Rights was sworn in at Jefferson
City, April 14. Composed of 11
members appointed by Gov.
James T. Blair—one from each
congressional district of the state
—the commission expects to hold
its first meeting in June.
Designated by the governor to
head the commission was the Rev.
Trafford P. Maher S.J., director of
the Department of Education and
of the Human Relations Center at
St. Louis University.
The naming of the commission, which
includes three Negro members, followed
by nearly a year the passage of an
authorizing bill by the General Assem
bly. What Gov. Blair, a Democrat,
wanted was something close to a fair
employment practices commission. The
Missouri House voted on the proposal
four times before it eventually passed.
In the Senate, the proposed commis
sion’s powers to move against religious
discrimination were stricken out. Also
stricken by the Senate was authority to
hold hearings and subpoena witnesses.
FUNCTION DEFINED
“The function of the commission,” the
law reads, “shall be to encourage fair
treatment for and to foster mutual un
Major Developments
Since 1954
1) Missouri is near the end of
the fourth academic year follow
ing the Supreme Court decision.
School desegregation has been
accomplished in all the larger
cities, with segregation still prac
ticed only in scattered rural com
munities and the cotton-growing
“bootheel” section in the south
east part of the state.
2) State political campaigns
during the school desegregation
process have been conducted
without any notable reference to
the issue by candidates of either
party.
3) Public colleges and the state
university in Missouri continue to
operate on desegregated lines
without much mention being
made of the matter.
4) Except for isolated incidents
amenable to control by local
police authority and school ad
ministrators, there has been no
violence in Missouri relating to
school integration.
5) Missouri experience has
shown, say observers, that the
physical process of integrating
schools does not immedately elim
inate all problems of racial prej
udice or iron out disparities
caused by differences in prior
training and background.
derstanding and respect among, and to
discourage discrimination against, any
racial or ethnic group, or its members.”
The Missouri law defines discrimin
ation as “any unfair treatment based on
race and national ancestry.” Powers
and duties of the commission include
the following:
1) To cooperate with other organiza
tions, private and public, to discourage
discrimination.
2) To conduct research projects or
make studies into and public reports on
discrimination in Missouri.
3) To receive and investigate com
plaints of discrimination and to recom
mend ways of eliminating any injustice
occasioned thereby.
REPORT ANNUALLY
4) To make an annual report to the
governor and General Assembly of its
activities under the authorizing act.
5) To encourage fair treatment for all
persons regardless of race or national
ancestry.
Father Maher, 44, was born in Platte
Center, Neb. He holds degrees from St.
Louis University and the Catholic Uni
versity of America, where he received
his Ph.D. in 1952. He taught at several
high schools in the west and midwest,
was on the faculty of Catholic Univer
sity from 1949 to 1951, and then joined
the faculty here. At St. Louis Univer
sity, he founded the first Human Rela
tions Center under Catholic auspices.
CHAIRMAN INTERVIEWED
In an interview with Southern
School News, Father Maher said he
had gotten sufficiently well acquainted
with the commission’s membership to
know that they were in substantial
agreement as to what should be done in
Missouri. He outlined this as follows:
“Social justice in all fields should be
made possible and should constantly
obtain. Practically, this means that in
the areas of housing, education, em
ployment, and public accommodations
every person—no matter what his color
or national ancestry — should get
strictly just treatment on his individual
merits. . . .
“I sincerely believe our national in
tegrity demanded the integration of the
schools. My conviction is that all human
beings are more alike than they are
different. If they are all alike they can,
given equal opportunity, measure up to
their potential.
•EDUCATIONAL LAG’
“Because of our past history, there
is the problem of educational lag. This
will cause some temporary difficulties
in educational systems, but wise and
skillful school administrators, with their
teachers, can rather rapidly take care
of these difficulties.”
On the question of apparent differ
ences in achievement in peoples of dif
ferent races and backgrounds, Father
Maher said a person could attain only
what he was permitted to attain. A key
factor in a child’s development, he said,
is how the child is taught to think about
himself.
“If you take a youngster—-I don’t care
what color he is—and tell him by word,
and gesture and attitude, ‘You are less
good,’ he actually becomes convinced of
it. This becomes a motivating force in
his life.”
The American Personnel and Guid
ance Association, a professional associa
tion of some 10,000 members, held its
1958 convention at St. Louis on March
31-April 3. One purpose of the group is
to assist development of personnel and
guidance work in educational institu
tions.
At a research symposium, Merritt C.
Oelke, associate professor of education
at Florida State University, made a re
port concerning performance of Negro
veterans on nine tests. In the study, 513
Negroes who served in World War II
were tested under auspices of the Vet
erans Administration at a white univer
sity near the Gulf of Mexico. Another
171 were tested at the VA guidance
center of a Negro university in the same
state.
TESTS UNSATISFACTORY
“While many people have been con
cerned with emphasizing the difference
between white and Negro groups on
tests,” Oelke said, “it is extremely im
portant to our national welfare to be
able to separate Negro from Negro as
well as white from white for employ
ment and guidance purposes. It has
long been apparent to many working
with testing the Negro group that the
usual tests available have not given the
information necessary to do a satisfac
tory job of guidance. Particularly in the
South has this been true, since the ma
jority of the tests on the market were
developed for and were standardized
on groups which could not be consid
ered comparable to the Southern Negro
group.”
The tests were given between June
1946 and June 1948. Tests used were the
following: Otis Beta; Otis Gamma;
Scovill Classification Part I; Survey
Space Relations; Minnesota Spatial Re
lations; Bennett Mechanical Compre
hension; Minnesota Mechanical Assem
bly Set 2; Purdue Pegboard, and Min
nesota Clerical.
In the Minnesota Mechanical Assem
bly Test, which involves putting to
gether simple items such as a spring
clothespin, pliers, spark plug and the
like, subjects tended to be concentrated
at the higher end of the scale and there
was no tendency toward correlation be
tween the scores and the amount of
education completed. In all the other
tests, the Negro veterans tended to
bunch toward the lower end of the
scoring scale and there was a tendency
for correlation between scores and
education.
SEES RELATIONSHIP
“In general,” Oelke said in summary,
“the data indicated that a positive re
lationship existed between test per
formance of these Negro veterans and
the level of education completed, and
there was a tendency for the score to
concentrate toward the end of the scale
representing poorer performance. It is
entirely possible that cultural changes
and opportunities may have altered
during the last few years which could
modify the results of this study, partic
ularly in the area of mechanical com
prehension . . .
“One fact stands out on most of the
tests: the scores tend to concentrate in
a way which undoubtedly reduces the
ability of the tests to distinguish in-
(See MISSOURI, Page 9)