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PAGE 10—JULY 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TEXAS-
Dallas Will Continue Segregation;
Houston Starts Training Program
DALLAS, Texas
T he Dallas School Board
announced that segregation
will continue during the next
school year. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
Houston launched its summer
training program designed to up
grade Negro teaching. There was
no difficulty despite efforts to or
ganize a boycott among Negroes.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
A poll showed Gov. Price Daniel to
be a heavy favorite for re-election by
Texas voters, with pro-integration Sen.
Henry B. Gonzalez a weak third choice.
(See “Political Activity.”)
WON’T SNOOP
Gordon M. Tiffany, new director of
the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, said
in Dallas the agency does not intend
“to go snooping” with the Federal Bu
reau of Investigation into civil rights
complaints. (See “What They Say.”)
Jackie Robinson, one-time star ath
lete, in a speech at Houston deplored
the plea for “patience” in achieving
rights for Negroes. (See “What They
Say.”)
The Texas Court of Civil Appeals set
bail at $15,000 for Bryant W. Bowles
Jr., segregationist charged with murder,
in overruling an East Texas district
judge who had denied bail. (See “Legal
Action.”)
FILE PARK SUIT
Four Negro dentists at Houston filed
a federal lawsuit to halt adoption of
segregation at a county park beach.
(See “Legal Action.”)
The Texas Methodist Conference
averted a possible dispute over integra
tion by omitting from its report a six-
man committee recommendation to ad
mit Negroes to a summer church camp
in East Texas. (See “Miscellaneous.”)
will continue segregation at least for
another year.
There was no specific direction on
how Attorney Thuss should proceed
with the litigation to clear up the con
flict between federal court orders and
the state law. The Fifth Circuit Court
at New Orleans has dismissed the dis
trict’s effort to get judicial interpreta
tion. (Dallas ISD v. Edgar.)
SUIT IS NEXT STEP
Apparently the next step will be to
file suit in state court, seeking inter
pretation. Other segregated Texas
schools are believed likely to wait upon
the outcome of Dallas’ case before
making any move. Exceptions may
come in a few cases like Pleasanton,
where voters last fall approved integra
tion of 36 Negroes with 1,450 white
students. (See SSN, November 1957.)
The district faced loss of accredited
standing for all schools because its fa
cilities for Negroes were rated inade
quate.
Before the Dallas school board meet
ing, President Rippy and Supt. W. T.
White had commended Judge Lemley’s
decision in the Little Rock case but
said it had no bearing on Dallas.
At Houston, a summer training proj
ect to improve the instruction of
Negroes got under way smoothly de
spite efforts to have Negroes boycott it.
(See SSN, May 1958 and previous.)
The Harris County Council of Organi
zations and a Negro dental society had
urged the boycott.
CALLED ‘PEEPHOLE’ PLAN
More than 200 pupils and 110 teach
ers were enrolled in the project. It will
demonstrate to the Negro teachers how
to accelerate pupil-training. White sup
ervisors are directing the instruction,
using Negro students in the demonstra
tion. Teacher-observers watch the
classes through one-way glass, which
does not permit the students to see
those outside the classroom. This de
vice was criticized by some Negro lead
ers as a “peephole” plan.
The instruction program is the first
step announced by the Houston board
toward compliance with a court-or
dered “deliberate speed” desegregation.
Houston board majority members have
indicated they intend to follow the Dal
las legal precedents toward integration,
although the Houston board has argued
over the best course to follow.
After several months without a sup
erintendent, the Houston board chose
Dr. John McFarland for the position.
Dr. McFarland comes from Amarillo,
where schools are integrated. He will
be succeeded at Amarillo by Dr. Rob
ert R. Ashworth, formerly superintend
ent of schools at Corsicana.
TEACHES WHITES
A Negro has been teaching white
students regularly in Falfurrias, a South
Texas community, without friction.
That was reported in the Corpus Christi
Caller-Times by its staff writer, Jake
Lewis.
Mrs. Ruth E. Best was chosen as a
music teacher for white students after
Brooks County’s only all-Negro school
was closed. In the school year just
closed, she taught music to more than
700 students, all white, in elementary
schools of Falfurrias and Encino.
Supt. Morris Strong said the arrange
ment has “worked out fine.”
“If there’s any friction or dissension,
I haven’t heard about it,” the superin
tendent told reporter Lewis.
Mrs. Naomi Lee Askey, principal of
one elementary school where Mrs. Best
teaches, added: “We don’t think any
thing about it. She’s just one of us.”
There now is no Negro student in
the county.
—Corpus Christi Caller-Times
When the only Negro school in Brooks County, Texas, was closed, Mrs. Ruth
E. Best (above) was kept in the school system as a music teacher. During the
school year just ended she taught music to some 700 pupils, all white, there being
no Negro students now in the county. The superintendent and a principal said
the arrangement woked out satisfactorily with no “friction or dissension.”
tion to the U. S. Senate, rancher-busi
nessman William A. Blakley of Dallas
told a Kilgore (East Texas) audience
that he has not “accepted the inevita
bility of integrated schools” and that he
believed forced integration would lead
to federal control over education.
Blakley served briefly as a U. S.
senator on an appointive basis. He did
not run for the place when the incum
bent, Ralph Yarborough, was elected in
1957 for an unexpired term.
In Dallas, congressional candidate Joe
Pool criticized the U. S. Supreme Court
for “attempting to legislate in the field
of integration as well as other fields.”
Barefoot Sanders, his opponent, voic
ed support of the Dallas school board
while criticizing “those who, for selfish
political purposes, kindle the fires of
racial dissension.”
A private survey agency, The Texas
Poll, said in a report published on June
5 that 60 per cent of Texas Democrats
plan to vote for re-election of Gov.
Price Daniel at the party primary on
July 26. This nomination virtually
assures election in Texas.
Runner-up in the poll with 16 per
cent of the votes was W. Lee O’Daniel,
former governor who ran third in the
race against Daniel two years ago.
Henry B. Gonzalez, state senator from
San Antonio, received only 6 per cent
support. Gonzalez is an active advocate
of integration.
In the race for Democratic nomina-
WEST VIRGINIA-
Schools Are Reported Not Affected
By Court’s Ruling In Little Rock
The Dallas school board announced
that its 141 schools will remain segre
gated during the year starting in Sep
tember. It instructed its attorney, An
drew J. Thuss, to begin legal action to
resolve a conflict between federal court
orders for the district to abolish seg
regation “with deliberate speed” and
a state law providing penalties for any
district which integrates without voter
approval. (See Southern School News,
June 1958 and previous issues.)
The announcement by Dr. Edwin L.
Rippy, board president, was based on
unanimous consent of the board.
“The school board has instructed the
superintendent of schools that there
shall be no alteration of the present
status regarding segregation of races
within the schools of this district for
the school year beginning in Septem
ber 1958,” Dr. Rippy said.
NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCE
The official added that the Dallas
board’s action was not influenced by
the course taken by any other city. It
came a few days after U. S. District
Judge Harry J. Lemley had ordered
postponement of desegregation in Little
Rock. But the Dallas board had an
nounced several months ago that it
would declare its policy for next fall
after schools were dismissed in June.
Dr. Rippy said the Dallas board’s lat
est decision was in line with its policy
to pursue a course which will “lead to
a sound and trouble free solution to in
tegration.”
R. E. Davis, a segregationist leader
from Oak Cliff, a section of Dallas con
taining many Negroes v commended the
board’s decision. yy^Jiad urged the
board not to set up y gradual plan
of integration. If the board chose to
order desegregation. Davis said it
should “kill us and get it over with.”
Davis was identified as a leader in
the Ku Klux Klan and the white
Citizens Council.
HE IS ‘DISAPPOINTED’
Edwin C. Washington Jr., field rep
resentative of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People
in Dallas, said he was “very disap
pointed” at the board’s decision. He
declared that the board should have
made a “prompt and reasonable” effort
to follow the court’s integration orders.
Applause greeted Dr. Rippy’s state
ment at the meeting that Dallas schools
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
T he suspension of desegrega
tion in Little Rock, Ark., by
U. S. Judge Harry J. Lemley
found school and Negro leaders in
this border state undisturbed.
Both State School Supt. R. Vir
gil Rohrbough and T. G. Nutter,
state president of the NAACP,
said that desegregation has moved
too far in West Virginia to be af
fected by a staying action farther
south. Neither said he could find
any interest in moving back to
ward the segregated school pro
gram which existed prior to the
Supreme Court ruling of 1954.
The Little Rock troubles last fall
stirred some pro-segregation activity
in West Virginia’s most southern coun
ties—Mercer and McDowell. But as
both Rohrbough and Nutter sized up
the situation, this feeling spent itself
when popular support failed to rally.
MAY SLOW GRADUAL PLANS
Supt. Rohrbough said the 2%-year
delay in Little Rock’s program of grad
ual desegregation, granted by Judge
Lemley, may slow the program in
southern counties, where a similar
gradual program has been adopted. But
generally speaking, he added, there will
be no change in the orderly shift from a
segregated to a desegregated program.
West Virginia became the first south
ern or border state to officially adopt
desegregation in all of its school dis
tricts. This happened at the opening of
school last September. More than a
dozen and a half counties, however, are
doing it by stages.
Most county superintendents report
that they prefer the single program for
both races. It is less costly, they main
tain, permits them to use teaching talent
more advantageously in areas where
teacher shortages exist, and offers equal
educational advantages to all children.
Nutter said no further legal action
is being considered at this time against
the Raleigh County school board. He
met recently with the superintendent
there, and said the conference was so
satisfactory that the suit he was think
ing of reinstituting two months ago will
not be filed.
Raleigh Comity was ordered by U. S.
Judge Ben Moore two years ago to start
desegregation on a voluntary basis. The
NAACP became displeased with devel
opments, particularly where teachers
are concerned. No Negro teachers have
been placed in desegregated schools.
Nutter arranged the conference with
the Raleigh superintendent after com
plaints from Negro citizens in Beckley,
the county seat. “They were satisfied
with the progress being made,” he said.
ASSURANCES GIVEN
As a result of the conference, Nutter
said he has been given assurances that
Raleigh County “will five up to the
letter and object” of the court ruling.
The first court action brought since
1954 to force a county to desegregate
teachers is still pending. Mrs. Anna
Starling of Williamson brought the suit
against the Mingo County Board of Ed
ucation.
Mrs. Starling has asked U. S. Judge
Harry Watkins to grant “an interlocu
tory and permanent injunction” against
the Mingo board. She holds that she
was refused employment during the
school year just closed.
The suit was not an NAACP-spon-
sored action, although Willard L.
Brown of Charleston, an NAACP coun
sel in previous court suits, is one of her
lawyers.
ENROLLMENT DECLINED
Mingo County Supt. Troy Floyd said
that discrimination didn’t enter into the
board’s failure to place her last term.
She was not rehired, he explained, be
cause enrollment at her school had de
clined so much that only one instead
of two teachers was needed.
In commenting on desegregation,
Nutter said he was pleased with results
so far in West Virginia. He pointed
specifically to Kanawha County, the
state’s largest, and put Ohio and Wood
in similar categories. All three are
highly industrialized.
“Kanawha County has gone farther
than any other county,” Nutter said.
“Teachers, as well as students, are com
pletely desegregated. In Ohio and Wood
almost the same situation exists.”
He also was complimentary of devel
opments in Harrison, a heavily popu
lated upstate county. A court action
was required there two years ago to
make the program complete.
‘GETTING BETTER’
Looking at the state at large, he said,
“it’s [desegregation] getting better all
the time.”
He was not uncritical of his own peo
ple. “Logan County is not satisfactory,”
Nutter noted, “but I blame the colored
people. They haven’t sent their chil
dren to the desegregated schools.”
Negro parents actually opposed de
segregation in Logan County, he went
on. “We had to integrate over their pro
tests.”
Raleigh is another county he put in
the “not satisfactory” category.
“When Negro parents send their chil
dren to integrated schools,” he re
marked, in looking at the issue state
wide, “the situation will be all right.”
He said that in some instances Negro
teachers also didn’t cooperate.
CORDIALLY TREATED
Negro children find, once they enter
desegregated school, that they’re cor
dially treated by white children and
teachers, Nutter said.
He was high in his praise also of de
segregation at West Virginia State Col
lege, an all-Negro institution until 1954.
Desegregation has worked there better
than at any state-owned college, he
went on.
West Virginia State represents deseg
regation in reverse. Instead of Negroes
moving into it, white students have been
the enrollees. As a result, the ratio is
about 6 to 4 with Negro students still in
the majority. West Virginia State is at
Institute, about 20 miles from Charles
ton.
U. S. Rep. John Dowdy of Athens,
Texas, said in Washington that the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People is trying to have “the
President tell the courts what to do” in
advocating federal assistance in appeal
ing from Judge Lemley’s Little Rock
decision. “The best solution is to leave
the people of Little Rock alone and let
them work out the problem for them
selves,” said Dowdy.
In Dallas, Director Gordon M. Tif
fany of the new federal Civil Rights
Commission said that it does not in
tend “to go snooping” with Federal
Bureau of Investigation agents.
“Our records will be our own,” said
Tiffany. “They won’t become a part of
the FBI investigations.”
‘NEBULOUS STATE’
The Dallas Morning News editorially
described as “reassuring” Tiffany’s “no
snooping” remark. But it added that
the commission “seems to be in a ne
bulous state . . . not based on sound
governmental theory.”
“It is the kind of thing that could
become oppressive under future
amendments of the law or court de
cisions,” the editorial said.
Other comments during the month
included:
Dr. James M. Nabrit Jr., dean of law
at Howard University, said in Houston
that the South will accept desegrega
tion and that Negroes should “raise the
level of achievement in everything we
do by 100 per cent” to be ready to
accept their new role.
Former athlete Jackie Robinson, also
speaking at Houston, deplored pleas for
“patience” in achieving Negro rights.
“If I and all Negroes don’t press for
our rights now, my children will be
pressing for their children’s rights in
the next generation.”
A Raleigh County Circuit Court or
der removing H. Dale Covey and A. P.
Leeber from office as members of the
county board of education was voided
by the state supreme court last month.
Covey was board president.
The board was directed to reseat them
and to refrain from interfering with the
(See WEST VIRGINIA, Page 16)
The Texas Court of Criminal Ap
peals ordered $15,000 bond set for Bry
ant W. Bowles Jr., segregationist leader
charged with murder in Hardin County.
The district judge had refused to set
bail for Bowles’ release. This decision
was reversed by a 2 to 1 ruling of the
appellate court, which first had agreed
with the lower court.
Bowles was jailed at Kountze on May
4 on a charge of killing his brother-in-
law, James Earl Harvey, with a shot-
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