Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 14—JUNE 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
LOUISIANA-
Schools Barred To Citizens Councils;
Court Upholds Orleans Injunction
NEW ORLEANS, La.
he Orleans Parish School
Board’s refusal to let the Citi
zens Councils use school buildings
for meetings left the latter group’s
officials “surprised and shocked.”
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
Citizens Councils received an
other rebuff—from a top labor
union official who answered criti
cism over election of an NAACP
member as vice president of the
Louisiana State Labor Council
AFL-CIO. (See “Miscellaneous.”)
The U.S. Supreme Court held May
26 that a preliminary injunction in
Bush v. Orleans School Board should
not be thrown out on a bond-posting
technicality and a federal judge took
under advisement new pleadings in the
case. One side asked for an immediate
permanent injunction against segrega
tion, and the other for a halt to the
litigation on grounds that the listed de
fendant, the Orleans school board, does
not have authority to designate racial
policies in city schools. (See “Legal
Action.”)
The Rainach segregation committee
was sitting tight on its new segregation
bills, and the legislature rocked along
for the first two weeks of its regular
biennial session without seeing any in
troduced. (See “Legislative Action.”)
Council of a resolution “deploring” the
election of E. A. Bryant as a vice pres
ident of the State Labor Council. The
Citizens Council identified Bryant as “a
Shreveport Negro who is president of
the city’s chapter of the NAACP . . .
an organization infiltrated by Commun
ists, socialists and subversives.”
EDITORIAL BRINGS REPLY
Two days later, Shannon editorialized
that union members should be more
careful of whom they elect, or else
“they shouldn’t be surprised to learn
suddenly that their state council has
endorsed President Eisenhower’s race
mixing, coercive Committee on Gov
ernment Contracts.”
Bussie replied that Bryant had in fact
been recently re-elected a vice presi
dent at large of the state council, and
was in his fourth term as vice president
of the Shreveport Central Trades and
Labor Council. All these elections were
by “democratic process,” he said, and
The Journal had never previously crit
icized Bryant’s position in the labor
movement.
The U.S. Supreme Court held May 26
that the preliminary injunction in Bush
v. Orleans School Board should not be
thrown out on a bond-posting techni
cality. (See Southern School News,
MISSISSIPPI—
March 1958.) The Supreme Court ac
tion upheld the Fifth Circuit Court
ruling of last Feb. 19.
School board President Emile Wagner
said, however, this ruling “has no ef
fect” on a plea for dismissal involving
Act 319. This is also Judge J. Skelly
Wright’s off-the-record opinion.
The school board, through attorney
Gerard A. Rault, last month contended
in a new plea for dismissal that state
law (Act 319 of 1956) makes the state
legislature the authority for racial pol
icy in New Orleans schools; also that
the school board is not the proper de
fendant in the Bush suit. Rault con
tends, in effect, that the nearly five
years of litigation in the case so far
have been in vain, and the plaintiffs
should start again from scratch by su
ing the state government (for which
they would need approval of the leg
islature) .
Federal District Judge J. Skelly
Wright, who wrote the basic opinion in
the case in February 1956, heard these
arguments during May, and took the
pleadings under advisement.
NEW AREA OF LITIGATION
Rault told interviewers the latest de
velopments “open a whole new avenue
of litigation.”
But A. P. Tureaud, attorney for the
Negro nlaintiffs, calls the invoking of
Act 319 “a sophisticated means of re
stating a condemned and forbidden law.
“This law is just as invalid as the
earlier segregation measures the court
threw out in 1956,” he said. “We are
still fighting on the same ground as be
fore.”
Act 319 is the school board’s “last
resource,” Tureaud commented.
“They’ve saved it for two years like a
few pennies in the bank. But their in
vestment didn’t gather much interest,
and now they are bankrupt.”
Judge Wright’s decision is expected
in June.
LEGISLATIVE ACTION
Two weeks of the eight-week legis
lative session were past by the end of
May, and hundreds of bills were in the
hoppers of the two houses. But none
bore the label of the Rainach segrega
tion committee, which is expected to
produce a multi - measure package
aimed at strengthening the state’s seg
regation position.
State Sen. William Rainach of Ho
mer, committee chairman, was holding
good to earlier statements that the seg
regation bills would be kept secret until
the moment of introduction, and that
they would be among the last to be in
troduced.
He was active in conferences between
teachers’ organizations and state admin
istration officials on tax raise propos
als for underwriting teachers’ pay. But
he was brushing off all inquiries about
segregation bills.
‘PRIVATE’ SCHOOL PLAN
Capitol sources predict that one pro
posal will provide for closing of public
schools ordered to desegregate, and for
their re-opening as “private” schools.
Exercising his police powers, the gov
ernor would order segregation for the
private schools.
As his reason for secrecy and lack of
haste in putting the new segregation
bills before the legislature, Rainach said
this: “We want to have the benefit of
the most up-to-date thinking and the
latest legal developments in segregation
Year-End Summary
1) U. S. Supreme Court ap
proved the lower court’s invali
dation of Louisiana’s pupil as
signment law.
2) Segregation leaders agreed
in principle on a legislative pro
posal to close public schools
rather than desegregate them.
3) U. S. Fifth Circuit Court af
firmed district court desegrega
tion orders for New Orleans pub
lic schools and four state colleges
4) Integration of these four col
leges continued another year
without racial incidents.
5) Attorneys for the Orleans
Parish School Board invoked, in
the Bush case, Act 319 of 195g
which, if it stands, would dis
qualify the school board as de
fendant and revert the drawn-out
litigation to its beginning.
litigation throughout the South. We will
amend and re-write our bills, if neces
sary, up to the moment of introduction.”
The action of the Louisiana Parent
Teacher Association in adopting a pro
segregation resolution at Baton Rouge
last month had an aftermath in New
Orleans.
A Citizens Council official alleged
that a former state PTA president, Mrs.
Paul A. Blanchard, “spearheaded a
fight to stop passage” of the resolution.
Then the Council spokesman, Louis P.
Davis Jr., charged that Mrs. Blanchard
(Continued On Next Page)
The lawsuit - beleaguered Orleans
Parish School Board took a 4-1 stand
against letting Citizens Councils use
school properties for meetings. The
board majority said they had a policy
of barring “controversial or semi
political organizations,” and they felt
the Citizens Councils came under those
categories.
Previously, the school board had
made a similar denial to the NAACP.
A motion to let the Council use the
school properties was presented to the
May 13 meeting by school board Presi
dent Emile A. Wagner. It failed to re
ceive a second. Wagner is not a Citi
zens Council member.
COUNCIL LEADERS SPEAK
Before taking its May 13 action, the
school board heard pleas from the two
most influential Citizens Council figures
in South Louisiana—Dr. Emmett Lee
Irwin, a physician who is chairman of
the Citizens Councils of Greater New
Orleans, and Leander Perez, district at
torney for St. Bernard and Plaquemines
parishes (counties).
They said they were “surprised and
shocked” at the refusal.
“You can’t disregard the rights and
pleas of a public which wants to work
with you,” Perez told the board. He re
minded the board it is currently ap
proaching the “same public” for support
in raising “millions of dollars for school
facility expansion.”
The latent hostility between organ
ized labor and the Citizens Council
movement in the state flared during the
past month, ignited by an editorial in
the pro-Council Shreveport Journal.
By the time the fires were banked,
the state’s top-ranking AFL-CIO offi
cial was on record as suggesting that
Citizens Council members were at
least as much interested in combating
organized labor as in thwarting racial
integration. The same officials also said
that the NAACP is no more helpful to
the labor movement than the Councils.
“ . . . There is serious doubt in the
minds of most members of the trade
union movement as to their [the Citi
zens Councils 1 real purpose in organiz
ing,” wrote Victor Bussie of Shreve
port, president of the Louisiana State
Labor Council AFL-CIO. “When an
examination is made of the roster of
officers of the Citizens Council of
Louisiana, it reveals the names of a
number of those people who have done
everything they possibly could to de
stroy the trade union movement.”
The Bussie letter was addressed May
6 to George W. Shannon, editor of the
Shreveport Journal. On April 26, the
Journal printed a news account of the
adoption by the Shreveport Citizens
Ousted Negro Professor Seeks To Enter University
JACKSON, Miss.
N egro Prof. Clennon King,
whose anti-National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Col
ored People newspaper articles
caused a mass walkout of Alcorn
A&M College for Negroes, has ap
plied for admission to the all-white
University of Mississippi. He filed
his application after being dis
charged from the faculty of Alcorn
College a year after his newspaper
articles appeared in the Jackson,
Miss., State-Times. (See “In the
Colleges.”)
Mississippi graduates 3,200 from
its senior colleges, with a larger
number than in the past to remain
in the state, especially Negroes
who plan to teach school. (See
“In the Colleges.”)
Construction of separate new school
buildings for whites and Negroes con
tinues in the absence of legal action to
enforce the U. S. Supreme Court’s de
segregation decisions. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
CAN CLOSE SCHOOLS
The 1958 biennial session of the legis
lature adjourned May 10 after vesting
Gov. J. P. Coleman with authority to
close any school or college facing inte
gration. He is also authorized to pre
vent trespassing on properties of schools
he orders closed. (See “Legislative Ac
tion.”)
A bill under which white Citizens
Councils could have been “employed”
with public funds to publicize the state’s
position on segregation died on the
House calendar at adjournment of the
legislature. (See “Legislative Action.”)
Only one of a series of proposed
amendments to the constitution, de
signed to strengthen state segregation
laws against legal attacks, gained adop
tion at the recent legislative session.
The proposal, to be voted on in the
Aug. 26 election, would liberalize the
method for amending the 1890 state
charter. (See “Legislative Action.”)
President J. D. Boyd of Alcorn Col
lege has notified Prof. Clennon King,
history teacher, that his contract will
not be renewed at the end of the cur
rent term June 30.
President Boyd, who succeeded Dr.
CLENNON KING
Applies at University
J. R. Otis after his release following the
March 8, 1957 student walkout in pro
test at King’s anti-NAACP articles, no
tified the history instructor that “you
are free to leave the campus at any
time you wish.” King in addition had
a church assignment during week ends,
and is now at Gulfport.
Dr. E. R. Jobe, executive secretary of
the Board of State Institutions of High
er Learning, said Boyd “is apparently
acting in the best interest of the col
lege.”
HELD UP, HE CLAIMS
King charged that his dismissal was
decided on after the student walkout,
but held up over a year “until those
who are interested in what I stand for
forget why I was finally dismissed.
“I am Mississippi’s sacrificial offering
to the NAACP,” King was quoted as
saying. “I have tried to be a friend to
Mississippi, but Mississippi has rejected
my friendship.”
In a formal statement, the Board of
Trustees pointed out that King was
first employed by Dr. Otis for a one-
year term, and then by President Boyd
for a second one-year term.
“During these years Prof. King has
chosen not to cooperate with the ad
ministration of the college in the or
derly development of the instructional
program of the institution, but has
chosen to disregard the policies of the
college and to disrupt its orderly oper
ation,” the board said.
The board also asserted that it “has
protected Prof. King’s right to academic
freedom and owes him no further obli
gation.”
APPLIES TO UNIVERSITY
Meantime, King has applied to the
University of Mississippi for the purpose
of furthering his work on a doctorate.
He has been sent the necessary applica
tion forms, which require letters of
endorsement from five alumni of the
college in the county of the applicant’s
residence.
King inserted a full-page advertise
ment in a Gulfport newspaper asking
for letters from alumni of the Univer
sity of Mississippi. He has received no
responses. He is a native of Georgia.
The rule relative to sponsorship by
five alumni of the university or college
affected was adopted by the Board of
Trustees of State Institutions of Higher
Learning after Medgar Evers, formerly
of Mound Bayou but now field repre
sentative of the NAACP in Jackson, ap
plied for entrance to the University of
Mississippi Law School. Although
Evers’ application was filed before the
rule, it was never processed.
REMAIN IN STATE
A survey by United Press Interna
tional disclosed that about 3,200 seniors
will become college graduates in Mis
sissippi at the current commencement,
Year-End Summary
1) Mississippi had its first
school-entry attempt in several
years at the college level when
Prof. Clennon King, former fac
ulty member at Alcorn A&M
College who was ousted in a
controversy over anti-NAACP
newspaper articles he had writ
ten, sought to enter the all-
white University of Mississippi.
2) A speed-up in physical
equalization of white and, Negro
schools was under way with the
earmarking of 55.7 per cent of
general revenues for education
over the next two years.
3) The legislature implemented
pro-segregation measures by giv
ing the governor the power to
close schools threatened with in
tegration.
4) Mississippi’s 2,500 school dis
tricts were reorganized into 151
areas by the July 1957 deadline.
5) A pro-integration address at
all-white Millsaps College
sparked a controversy which re
sulted in the college board an
nouncing that it has always had
a pro-segregation policy.
and that a larger percentage will re
main in the state than previously.
The survey disclosed that Negro stu
dents are staying more than the whites.
Most of the Negroes plan to teach school
under the new Negro-white equaliza
tion program which calls for improved
facilities and salaries without regard to
race. Salaries are based on training and
experience, with a larger number of
Negro teachers improving their train
ing in order to get in the higher salary
schedule.
From Mississippi’s ten white colleges
and universities there are 2,738 candi
dates for bachelor degrees. The four
Negro colleges have 481 graduating.
Dr. Boyd of Alcorn A&M College for
Negroes said most of his graduates plan
to stay in Mississippi and teach or do
county agent or home demonstration
work.
PLAN TO TEACH
Dr. J. H. White, president of Missis
sippi Vocational College for Negroes at
Itta Bena, said “only one or two of the
45 graduates plan to leave for out-of-
state jobs.” He said most of them will
teach in Mississippi.
Dr. Ben Hilbun, president of the
white Mississippi State University (the
name was changed from State College
to State University at the recent legisla
tive session), said more job opportuni
ties are being provided as the state
grows industrially.
“All who can find job opportunities
in Mississippi will stay,” he said. “A fe"
years ago, virtually no engineering
graduates were staying in the state
Now a great many are. For example 4
of our 32 civil engineering graduates
are going with the state Highway D e "
partment.”
At the University of Mississippi- D r -
J. D. Williams, the chancellor, said em
ployers are being more discriminating
this year.
SALARIES UP
“Instead of engineers getting five, J°
offers, they’re getting only three,’
said. “But their starting salaries, esp®^
cially those of chemical engineers, ha'
increased.”
Projects for construction of ne '_
buildings under the state’s Neg^
white school equalization program th '
far approved total $42,638,210. About
per cent of the funds have been to
Negro facilities, an indication of
disparity that existed prior to the b
preme Court’s decision. , -
Ultimate cost of the equalization
(Continued On Next Page)