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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE 1958—PAGE II
MARYLAND-
Pupil Transfers Planned In Extension Of County’s Desegregation
BALTIMORE, Md.
S EVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADE Ne
gro pupils are to be trans-
'ferred to white schools in Wash
ington County next fall, as a third
desegregation step that will re
duce separate Negro classes to
the first six grades of one school
serving a Negro residential area.
(See “School Boards and School-
W.”)
The number of integrated Ne
gro teachers in Baltimore is put
i at more than 600 as the city
marked the fourth year of Su
preme Court compliance. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
i
Supreme Court review of Harford
County’s desegregation timetable is
sought by the National Association for
, the Advancement of Colored People.
(See “Legal Action.”)
Baltimore’s Mayor Thomas D’Ale-
sandro Jr., a supporter of school inte-
i gration, topped a six-man field in win
ning the Democratic nomination as
United States senator. (See “Political
Action.”)
, Achievement levels in Montgomery
County have risen substantially since
1955, the year desegregation began. (See
“Under Survey.”)
( Results of the California Tests for
mental maturity and achievement in
Montgomery County show substantial
improvement among sixth and ninth
graders since 1955, the year desegrega-
1 tion began in the county. Eighth graders
were found to be achieving at the
ninth grade level in all test subjects
except spelling, whereas as sixth grad-
1 ers in 1955 these same pupils were un
der-achieving in all six subject areas.
In the second month of the sixth
grade, Montgomery pupils were ex
pected to show an eighth-month level
of achievement, or 6.8 (the national
norm is 6.1). The tests found the sixth
graders to have a median achievement
of 7.5 in reading vocabulary; 7.2 in read
ing comprehension; 6.9 in arithmetic
reasoning; 6.4 in arithmetic fundamen
tals; 7.4 in English mechanics and 7.4 in
'spelling. These results represented ad
vances of from four to 13 months over
test results in 1955.
Ninth graders also registered higher
1 test results than in 1955. Against a na
tional norm of 9.1, their median achieve
ment in reading vocabulary rose from
9-3 in 1955 to 10.2 in 1957; from 9.6 to
110.2 in reading comprehension; from
9-9 to 10.3 in arithmetic reasoning, 9.1
to 9.7 in English mechanics. Only their
spelling was off. Against a national norm
i °f 9.1 and a 1955 achievement level of
9-6, this year’s ninth graders scored a
median spelling achievement level of
8.8.
asked for breakdown
Maxwell E. Burdette, assistant su
perintendent of Montgomery schools in
charge of educational services, was
esked on behalf of Southern School
News if any racial breakdown of the
achievement results were available.
Burdette replied that the test results
'vere not tabulated separately by race
®ud that “to do so, we believe, would
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 10)
Bouth. The effect of the valiant strug-
of white parents against armed
’yght has caused integration to be in
disrepute not only in the South but in
the North, East and West.”
baubus campaigning
In his third term campaign, which so
tar consists of speeches to school groups
i ?ud civic clubs, Gov. Faubus is develop-
and elaborating on his position on
kittle Rock school issue and his
theories about desegregation.
Iu a similar situation he would call
°ut the troops again, he says, and nearly
a Ways refers to the evidence he has
yet disclosed that there would have
violence if he had not called out
e troops. The majority approved of
^ S c ^Ihng the troops, Faubus says, and
e will always try to do what the ma-
°nty wants whether that is right or
Wrong.
talk^ ere arC *" wo n6W hi his
One is that a middle ground may be
cause much misunderstanding and con
fusion.”
Calling attention to the improvement
in median scores since 1955, Burdette
wrote: “This improvement cannot be
related to desegregation. The scores of
all races are included in the statistics
for each year; however, the white popu
lation has increased very much more
rapidly during these years than has
the Negro population.”
“After we have been desegregated
several years,” Burdette said, “we shall
probably make a study to determine
what improvement, if any, has occurred
in the standard test scores of Negro
children. We feel that a study such as
this would be premature at this time.”
With only a small percentage of Ne
groes in its school population, Mont
gomery County has numerically more
integration than any other Maryland
county: 936 Negroes in the past school
year have been attending 47 formerly
all-white schools.
Interest in the primary elections of
May 20 was centered in a six-man race
for the Democratic nomination for
United States senator. All of the other
campaigns for statewide office were cut-
and-dried on both the Democratic and
Republican sides of the ballot.
Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., three-term
mayor of Baltimore, won the senatorial
nomination, polling about 5,000 more
votes than George P. Mahoney, a con
tractor and perennial candidate for high
office. While gaining only a third of the
popular votes in the divided field,
D’Alesandro won 83 of the 152 state con
vention votes. The unit votes are the
ones that count in a Maryland primary,
as in Georgia.
Segregation-desegregation was not
an issue in this race, but D’Alesandro
had put his own position on record in
a letter to the Baltimore Afro-Ameri
can, which had criticized his campaign
platform for not stating support for the
Constitution and the Supreme Court
decisions. The mayor wrote:
GIVES STATEMENT
“Of course I will support the Consti
tution and of course I will support the
decisions of the Supreme Court. My
views are public knowledge. I have
stated repeatedly and publicly that the
decisions of the Supreme Court are the
law of the land and it is the duty of all
good citizens to abide by the law.”
D’Alesandro wrote that “when the
Supreme Court of the United States
outlawed segregation in the public
schools, the D’Alesandro administration
acted immediately to comply, with the
result that Baltimore was the first city
in the country to do so.”
D’Alesandro will run in November
against Republican Sen. J. Glenn Beall
on a Democratic ticket headed by J.
Millard Tawes, the party’s almost
undisputed gubernatorial candidate,
Tawes’ Republican opponent will be
Gen. James P. S. Devereux, the hero of
Wake Island, presently a congressman.
On the basis of past performances, seg
regation-desegregation is not likely to
become an issue in these races.
However, it is expected to become
something of an issue in Anne Arundel
County with the filing of C. Maurice
Weidemeyer as an independent candi
date for the Maryland Senate. Weide
meyer, a former Annapolis magistrate,
is one of the principal spokesmen for
possible between believers in segrega
tion and integration. Earlier he had said
everybody had to be one or the other
and should say which. He has never
said which he is.
His other new point is that the Su
preme Court decisions on desegrega
tion are not the law of the land, a posi
tion exactly opposite the one he held
up through September 1957. He used to
declare that the court decisions were
the law of the land and that those de
cisions and the federal laws had to be
obeyed. Now he says the decisions are
just the opinions of nine men, overturn
ing years of precedents, and that they
will not be accepted by the people; that
they are not the law of the land because
laws can be made only by the Congress
or the people.
RUNS FOR COURT
Jim Johnson of Crossett, segregation
ist leader, is running for a position on
the state supreme court. He is opposing
an incumbent member, Justice Minor
Millwee of Little Rock. He also is spon
soring a proposed constitutional amend
ment designed to maintain segregation.
the pro-segregation Maryland Petition
Committee. In May he qualified as a
candidate by submitting a petition with
1,174 signatures.
WOMAN LOSES
An aspect of the primary results in
Anne Arundel was the apparent defeat
of Mrs. Pauline W. Remey, first woman
to serve on the county board of com
missioners. When a school integration
disturbance arose in the tidewater town
of Deale last fall and Gov. McKeldin
called for vigorous police action, Mrs.
Remey advised the governor to “keep
his mouth shut” and said that the peo
ple of Deale would not “take” inte
gration.
Mrs. Remey went down to defeat in
a Democratic reform movement that
swept out all but one of the present
Democratic board. The unofficial re
turns gave her opponent an edge of only
eight votes, making her margin of de
feat the narrowest of all the losing
candidates.
Segregation-desegregation also be
came a post-election issue in one south
ern Maryland contest.
The winner in a three-man race for
the Republican nomination for Con
gress in the Fifth District, comprised of
five southern Maryland counties, was
Robert E. Ennis of Prince George’s
County. Instead of the usual letter of
congratulations and pledge to close
ranks, Ennis received a letter from Wil
liam R. Martin, campaign manager for
one of the losing candidates, saying that
he would get no help from Martin in his
campaign against Democratic Rep. Rich
ard E. Lankford.
Martin, also from Prince George’s
County, listed Ennis’ “stand on the race
question” among his reasons for with
holding support. “Your resignation from
the Republican Club over Little Rock,”
Martin wrote, “was an insult to the
basic principles of the Republican Party
. . . Your appearance at the NAACP
meeting in Baltimore last week proved
to me that you were a hypocrite. I sin
cerely hope some other candidate will
put himself before the voters in No
vember.”
NAACP attorneys in mid-May asked
the U. S. Supreme Court to review the
Hartford County school case (Roslyn
Slade et al v. Board of Education of
Harford County) that has been in and
out of lower courts since 1955. The Ne
gro appellants are challenging the sev
en-year timetable of desegregation
adopted in the county and also a transi
tion plan to screen Negro applicants
to white high schools.
In asking for a review, NAACP at
torneys maintained that “the evil of
racial segregation still permeates” Har
ford County’s desegregation program
and that “every effort has been made
to continue the overall pattern with as
little desegregation as possible, so that
non-segregation would be the exception
rather than the rule.”
The presiding bishop of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church’s second
district told the graduating class of a
public Negro institution on the Eastern
Shore that its members would have to
The Synod of Arkansas, Presbyterian
Chinch U. S. (Southern) reaffirmed
its position against segregation in its
annual meeting at Arkadelphia. In a
statement that deplored the Little Rock
school crisis the Synod said, “The
Presbyterian Synod of Arkansas has
repeatedly affirmed in the past in state
ments of 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1957, and
now reaffirms its conviction that en
forced segregation of the races is dis
crimination which is out of harmony
with the teachings of the scripture,
Christian theology and ethics.” The
Synod represents about 30,000 Arkansas
residents.
Thirty members of the Methodist
Women s Society of Christian Service
from Arkansas and Tennessee spent
two days at a camp near Little Rock
studying the issues involved in the de
segregation situation. It was a private
meeting but before it started somebody
reproduced copies of their program and
mailed them to persons not invited, in
Year-Entl Summary
1) More than a fourth of all
Maryland •public schools became
integrated in 1957-58 as Negroes
in larger numbers entered for
merly all-white schools in Balti
more city and 13 counties.
2) An abortive dynamiting in
Easton and broken school win
dows at Deale marked the first
violent anti-integration activity
in Maryland.
3) Alleged intimidation scored
its first success in Maryland with
the withdrawal of a Negro child
from a white school at Deale,
while police action cut short
anti-integration demonstrations
in Easton.
4) Elsewhere in Maryland in
tegration was seldom a headline
issue, either locally or as a leg
islative or political debating
point.
5) Gradual desegregation, in
cluding screening Negro appli
cants to white high schools, was
approved in Harford County by
the U. S. Fourth Circuit Court in
a case being appealed by Negroes
to the Supreme Court.
prove their worth as college graduates,
for “possession of a diploma will not
be enough.” The Rev. Frank Madison
Reed of Washington spoke at the com
mencement exercises of Maryland State
College, saying:
“As we move into a world of integra
tion, you must buckle down and master
fundamental liberal arts courses, and
other types, too. The age of ‘Give me a
chance’ is gone. Nobody is interested
in Negro education any more. If you
do not go into the world equipped, you
will be in for a rude shock ... If you are
a college graduate, produce and prove
it. The possession of a diploma, I as
sure you, will not be enough.”
Washington County in western Mary
land is to take its third desegregation
step this fall with the transfer of sev
enth and eighth-grade Negro pupils to
integrated junior high schools. The
move will reduce segregated schooling
in the county to the first six grades of
one school serving a Negro residential
section of Hagerstown, the county’s
principal city.
Washington County has one of the
lowest percentages of Negro pupils in
the state — 372 Negroes in a school
population of 17,695 as of last fall. One
Negro school in Hagerstown with grades
one through 12 formerly served the
entire county.
As its first desegregation step, the
county in the fall of 1955 permitted Ne
groes living outside Hagerstown to at
tend the white schools closest to their
homes. Then in the fall of 1956, upon
the completion of a second high school
in Hagerstown, grades nine through
12 were closed out at the Negro school
and the pupils divided among the two
predominantly white high schools.
CAN CLOSE GRADES
A second new high school has now
been completed in Hagerstown, which
permits use of the former Hagerstown
High School as a junior high. With ad
ditional junior high space thus avail
eluding some newspapers. In a state
ment issued after the meeting, the
women said they also had received
anonymous telephone calls “in an ap
parent effort to discourage attendance
and participation.”
The Augusta Methodist Church noti
fied Philander Smith College at Little
Rock that it was withholding its con
tribution to the college because “of
policies of the college relative to the
employment of certain instructors,” ap
parently meaning Lee Lorch, mathe
matics professor. Except to indicate that
the Augusta church’s contribution had
been a small one the college made no
comment. Lorch has been accused of
Communist activity in the past and
Gov. Faubus has said that Lorch and
his wife helped stir up the school
trouble at Little Rock. Philander Smith
is a college for Negroes supported by
the Methodist church.
Dr. W. M. Caskey, head of the de
partment of political science and eco
nomics at Mississippi College, a South
ern Baptist college, spoke to about 300
persons at a White Citizens Council
rally, criticizing among others Rep.
able, the seventh and eighth grades at
the Negro school can be closed out and
the children redistributed. The remain
ing elementary grades represent the
nearest schooling for many Negro resi
dents of the city.
The fourth anniversary of the Su
preme Court decision in the Brown
case was commemorated in the May 17
issue of the Baltimore Afro-American
through interviews with school officials.
Dr. Houston R. Jackson, assistant su
perintendent of Baltimore city schools
(formerly head of the Negro school di
vision) was quoted as saying: “We don’t
have any more integration problems.
No teachers or students have trans
ferred because of inability to get along.
The only statistics we gather by race
any more are figures to be used in plan
ning buildings.”
A review of desegregation in Balti
more showed that the number of Negro
pupils in formerly all-white schools has
increased from 1,576 in 50 schools in
the fall of 1954 to 14,826 in 73 schools
in the fall of 1957. The 14,826 integrated
Negroes are out of a total Negro school
population of 72,415. Thirty-three
schools, mostly elementary, remain all-
white, and 55 schools are all-Negro.
STATISTICS GIVEN
School statistics reported by the Afro
indicate that of the ten senior high
schools in Baltimore, one remains all-
white, two are all-Negro and the rest
are integrated. Among junior highs,
eight are mixed, one all-white and one
all-Negro.
A previously undisclosed figure re
ported in the Negro semi-weekly news
paper was Dr. Jackson’s estimate that
more than 600 Negro teachers now serve
on integrated school staffs. School of
ficials had said earlier in the school year
that there were no figures on teachers
by race. The new fair-employment
practices law in Baltimore forbids ask
ing an employe’s race or nationality.
In the fall of 1956 school officials re
ported 464 Negro teachers on 29 mixed
school staffs.
Reviewing the statewide picture, the
Afro quoted Dr. David W. Zimmerman,
assistant superintendent of Maryland
schools, as saying, “All the counties have
taken affirmative action. No counties
have said they won’t integrate.”
Desegregation in the counties began
in the fall of 1955. At that time there
were 991 Negroes in 69 formerly all-
white schools in eight counties. Last fall
there were 2,771 in 184 schools in 13
counties.
The fifth annual legislative session of
the Model Youth City Government,
sponsored by the Baltimore public
schools, saw an 18-year-old Negro girl,
Emily Carolyn Ford, serve as mayor of
Baltimore. An honor student at Doug
lass High School and a church organ
ist, Miss Ford was elected to her high
office by representatives of six schools,
who gave her 42 out of a possible 60
votes.
The Anne Arundel County Board of
Education renamed Dr. David S. Jen
kins for a four-year term as county
school superintendent. Dr. Jenkins has
been in the cross-fire of county disputes
over educational standards, report
cards, desegregation and school plant
needs, and earlier this year his reap
pointment was in doubt. But the
school board, after appearing to be split
in the spring, acted unanimously in re
taining his services. # # #
Brooks Hays of Little Rock; Billy
Graham, the evangelist; and Harry S.
Ashmore, executive editor of the
Arkansas Gazette. He called Hays “that
so-called liberal who seems to have
brought on much of your troubles”;
wondered why Graham was coming to
Little Rock to have a revival just be
fore school opens next fall, and com
pared Ashmore to Benedict Arnold and
Judas Iscariot. (Graham’s revival at
Little Rock actually is scheduled for
August 1959, not 1958). Dr. W. O.
Vaught Jr., pastor of the largest South
ern Baptist church at Little Rock, next
day wrote Dr. Caskey a letter, deplor
ing his appearance before the segrega
tionists and the remarks he had made.
A weekly newspaper owned by Mrs.
L. C. Bates, state NAACP president, and
her husband is about to go out of busi
ness, the paper said in its edition of
May 30. An editorial in the Arkansas
State Press said that successful boycotts
by segregationists and apathy of Ne
groes toward the paper’s position was
responsible. The Bates have published
the paper at Little Rock 17 years.
## #