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PAGE 12—JULY 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
NORTH CAROLINA-
Negro Students Seek To Broaden ’Token’ Integration
RALEIGH, N.C.
n three Piedmont cities where
limited integration came last
year without the pressure of spe
cific legal compulsion, a move
ment to remove the “token” label
rolled up momentum.
Applications on behalf of ap
proximately 60 Negroes in Char
lotte and Mecklenburg County,
Greensboro and Winston-Salem,
asking enrollment in schools here
tofore exclusively or almost ex
clusively for whites were on file.
(See “Community Action.”)
Exerting similar pressures in North
Carolina’s far-Eastern section where
Negro population is highest, for the first
time since the Brown decision, 24 filed
application with Craven County’s school
board asking transfer from one rural
school to another. (See “Community
Action.”)
Meanwhile, Gov. Hodges hailed as
“very wonderful, indeed,” the U. S. dis
trict court decision giving Little Rock’s
Central High a two-and-a-half year
breather from its integration mandate.
(See “What They Say.”)
The prospect that Indians in Warren
and Halifax counties may be the first to
obtain tuition grants for operation of a
private school in order to perpetuate
segregation loomed when the Haliwas
asked for funds under the Pearsall Plan.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Applications by Negroes for admis
sion to white schools came in approx
imately the same numbers as a year ago
at Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-
Salem.
Then the school boards selected 12
for admission, actually admitted 11 and
DELAWARE-
WILMINGTON, Del.
rri he state Board of Education
of Delaware may go to the
U. S. Supreme Court in an at
tempt to avoid drafting a general
desegregation plan for all the seg
regated districts of Delaware, as
ordered by the U. S. Third Cir
cuit Court.
The state board argues that this
is the task and responsibility of
the local school districts. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Another school district in northern
Delaware—the city of New Castle-
arranged to complete desegregation of
its school system. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
On May 28, 1958, Chief Judge John
Biggs of the Third U. S. Circuit Court
that sits in Philadelphia, handed down
an opinion that virtually ordered the
state Board of Education of Delaware to
follow the desegregation directive of the
district court.
Judge Biggs—a native of Delaware—
said the state Board of Education was
the proper agency in Delaware to for
mulate a plan of desegregation for those
districts that do not have plans or are
too slow in formulating plans.
In effect, Judge Biggs’ opinion up
held the decision written in the summer
of 1957 by Judge Paul Leahy when he
was chief judge of the U. S. District
Court of Delaware. He has since re
signed.
Seven local school districts are in
volved in this series of suits, instituted
by Louis L. Redding of Wilmington on
behalf of a number of Negro children
seeking admission to the schools in
Milford, Milton, John M. Clayton Spe
cial School District, Clayton, Seaford,
Laurel and Greenwood—most of them
in southern Delaware.
ODD LINEUP
The state board appealed Leahy’s de
cision to the circuit court and the ap
peal, found counsel for the local
districts and the Negro children lined
up together on the same side.
The state board argued the job of
formulating a plan of desegregation
should be on the shoulders of the local
school trustees. The lawyers for the lo
cal districts and for the Negro children
argued before the court of appeals that
the directive of District Judge Leahy be
upheld.
When Chief Judge Biggs handed
found last month that 10 had completed
the school year. Fifty-five had applied
last year in the three cities.
In preparation for next fall, 60 sought
to break the school color barrier, most
of them seeking transfers but a few
asking for original enrollment in white
schools. Of these, 23 filed with the
Charlotte city school board; 10 with the
Mecklenburg county board; 19 in
Greensboro and 8 in Winston-Salem.
Mecklenburg County school board,
reluctant to follow its big municipality,
Charlotte, in trail-blazing token deseg
regation, denied all 10. Thus the Meck
lenburg board repeated its action of
last year. Parents of the applicants this
year were the same ones who asked
last year for reassignment. The board’s
attorney explained the board “took into
consideration the crowded conditions in
the schools and gave careful considera
tion to the best interest of each child
involved.”
ASK HAVELOCK ADMISSION
The 24 applicants before Craven
County’s school board sought admission
to the rural white school at Havelock.
Most of them have been attending
school at Beaufort, in neighboring Car
teret County. The Negro children are
residents of Craven County’s Harlowe
and Craven Comers communities. Res
idents attributed the reassignment re
quest in some measure to discontent
among Negro families when consolida
tion affected their Craven Comers ele
mentary school last year.
Kelly M. Alexander, NAACP presi
dent for North Carolina, said at Char
lotte he would expect that a few more
applicants for transfers will come else
where in the state within the next few
weeks.
down his opinion—upholding the dis
trict court—there was a dual flurry
among local school officials in southern
Delaware and among the officials of the
state Department of Public Instruction.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
SPECIAL. CLOSED MEETING
The state Board of Education held a
special meeting—in executive session—
with Atty. Gen. Joseph Donald Craven
in attendance.
And the board members decided to
explore every possible legal avenue for
two purposes:
1) To avoid the responsibility of for
mulating a general desegregation plan.
2) To put the burden on the local
school districts, with the state board
merely reviewing plans of desegregation
and acting on them.
Subsequently, the state board re
quested Atty. Gen. Craven to exhaust
all available legal channels in appealing
the decision of the circuit court.
ARGUMENTS UNANSWERED
The state board’s statement read in
part: “It is the consensus of the meet
ing that the opinion [of the circuit
court] did not rule upon many of the
basic arguments which had been made
to the court on behalf of the state Board
of Education.”
On June 13 the attorney general’s
office filed with the circuit court in Phil
adelphia a motion for a reargument in
the seven school segregation cases. Sev
en days later—without comment—Judge
Biggs handed down a decision, refusing
the reargument.
It is now expected that the attorney
general’s office will try the Supreme
Court.
DELAYS EXPECTED
In effect this is expected to delay the
ultimate date when the state board will
have to make known its plan of deseg
regation for all segregated school dis
tricts in Delaware.
Such a plan reportedly exists, but
its exact nature is not known.
One result of continuing the litiga
tion is expected to be delaying, beyond
school opening next fall, a desegregation
showdown in southern Delaware.
Soon after the Third Circuit Court
handed down its opinion May 28, more
than 100 local school board members
held a special meeting in Georgetown,
Sussex County.
These 100 local school board members
came from districts in Delaware’s two
lower counties—Kent and Sussex—
where there is no desegregation of any
kind except in the state’s capital, Dover,
also the seat of Kent County.
Ralph Grapperhaus of Shelbyville in
Sussex County, a member of the state
He expects them, said Alexander, be
cause the time for applying for transfer
of assignment varies from one school
board to another and it would be un
likely that all have been able to get
their petitions presented.
One of the 23 asking transfers before
the Charlotte board is Alexander’s son,
who also applied last year and was
turned down.
Success of the movement to broaden
integration here will doubtless depend
on legal action, in almost all instances
outside the most populous centers. Ac
tions are pending affecting Raleigh,
Durham, Caswell and Montgomery
counties in federal courts.
SEES ‘NEW QUESTIONS’
Alexander said that “after this year
if the denials [of applications now
pending] are marked, it will raise new
questions about the North Carolina law
as it is being applied.”
Of 19 applications at Greensboro, 13
ask reassignment. The school board will
pass on them in July or August. It will
not take action on six others, which are
requests for initial assignment to white
schools. The school board’s regulations
provide that children who have not
previously attended schools in Greens
boro must go to school in their district
when the school year begins and make
a transfer for reassignment only at that
time.
Of eight asking transfer at Winston-
Salem, five seek to attend Reynolds
High School where a single Negro girl
was admitted last year to mark the first
time racial barriers had been lowered
in Winston-Salem schools. The school
board will make its decision probably
in July.
At Yanceyville, just south of the Vir-
Board of Education, attended the session
which was closed to the press. Another
state board member on hand was Har
old B. English of Laurel.
APPEAL IS REQUESTED
The meeting concluded with a reso
lution calling upon the state Board of
Education to appeal the circuit court’s
opinion. Representatives of those school
boards that are specifically involved in
the litigation abstained from voting on
the resolution.
The resolution was presented the next
night to the state Board of Education
which followed the request of the 100
school board members.
Meanwhile, at the north end of the
state, the board of education of the
city of New Castle (six miles south of
Wilmington) asked the state Board of
Education to approve a plan for com
plete desegregation of the school dis
trict, beginning in September.
ginia border, a pro-segregation organ
ization offered support to a similar group
in Virginia. The Caswell County chap
ter of the Patriots of North Carolina,
Inc., disclosed it has sent a resolution
to the Virginia Defenders of State Sov
ereignty and Individual Liberties.
“We support your ideals on segrega
tion of schools even if it means opera
tion of private schools in Virginia,” the
resolution stated. “We also pledge our
financial support. We do not approve of
“token integration.”
KLAN DRIVE HALTED
A reappearance of the Ku Klux Klan
at Burlington, one of the few Klan dem
onstrations since renewed Klan activ
ities early this year ran into difficulties
with the Lumbee Indians, was short
lived when police broke up a recruit
ing drive.
Representatives of three Klavems
moved recruiting activities to the out
skirts of Burlington after police scat
tered a meeting on the town’s main
street.
Gov. Hodges’ reaction was immediate
to the decision affecting Central High
School in Little Rock. As chairman of a
committee of the Southern Governors
Conference whose attempt to mediate in
an effort to get federal troops out of
Arkansas had proved fruitless, the ten
sion in Arkansas had caused him con
cern for many months. Of the decision
authorizing two-and-a-half years de
lay Hodges commented:
“It is very wonderful.” To North Car
olina’s governor the decision seemed
Since the fall of 1954, New Castle has
had a partial desegregation program.
SOME MIXED, SOME NOT
The New Castle school district has
a total enrollment of 2,124, distributed
among four elementary schools and one
junior-senior high school. Of the total
enrollment in the past school year, 191
were Negroes. They were in classes on
the following basis:
William Penn Junior-Senior High
School: 1,230 pupils, including 40 Ne
groes. Carrie Downie Elementary: 687,
including 91 Negroes. Wilmington Ma
nor Elementary: 611, all white. Manor
Park Elementary: 539, including three
Negroes. Booker T. Washington: 57, all
Negroes.
Under the new system, all grades and
all schools will be open to qualified
Negroes.
# # #
proper recognition of a “practical situa
tion.”
Atty. Gen. Malcolm Seawell, a Hodges
appointee, commented: “I feel that in
the circumstances that exist in Little
Rock that was a good thing for him to
do.”
CAN’T ‘SELECT LAWS’
But a short time before, Seawell had
said in an address at Pembroke: North
Carolinians cannot “select the laws
which we will obey and breach those
laws which we do not like.”
And Seawell said if North Carolina
ever closes its schools as an answer to
the racial segregation problem “our
progress will come to an end.”
Speaking to seniors at Pembroke
State College, Seawell said: “I do not
like the action of the Supreme Court of
the United States in the segregation
case, but I know that, when that court
speaks, its words become the law and
remain the law until that court changes
its mind or until the people change
the law. I know that in a democratic
form of government we must obey the
law. I know that we cannot select the
laws which we will obey and breach
those laws which we do not like.”
DIGGS COMMENTS
Rep. Charles C. Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.)
commented in an interview at Charlotte
that he had found communications ex
isted between the races in North Car
olina as a “first step” toward resolving
the problem of segregation. But he
added: “I don’t think anyone should be
lulled to sleep by the progress made in
this state. People should still work vig
orously toward the goal all Americans
should seek in this crisis.”
In Greensboro, City School Superin
tendent Ben L. Smith said that in work
ing for desegregation of public schools,
“I simply stood for that which I believed
right, lawful and best for all people.”
Speaking to the North Carolina Con
ference (Central Jurisdiction) of the
Methodist Church, Smith declared: “I
have seen something of what prejudice,
discrimination and hatred can do. I have
understood as never before what it is
to be the brunt of these things.
“I have never wanted to be a martyr.
I only wanted to stand in my place of
duty and to do my job.” Smith was
severely criticized by some for his part
in Greensboro’s “token” school integra
tion, and stones were hurled at his home
and through windows several times in
the past year. He retired in June as su
perintendent, and will be succeeded by
Asst. Schools Supt. Phillip J. Weaver.
Upon his retirement he was honored by
the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce
and received a $5,000 check from school
personnel to provide him a trip to Eu
rope.
& 4
The long-delayed integration test suit
at the state’s capital, Holt v. City of
Raleigh School Board, will be heard by
U. S. District Judge Edwin Stanley of
the Middle District of North Carolina
July 14.
Stanley consented to hear the case,
brought as the initial test in the Eastern
District federal court, even though he
was burdened with similar cases in his
own district.
He will hear the case without a jury,
thus overruling at the outset one of the
school board’s contentions that in view
of North Carolina’s provisions for an
administrative remedy they are entitled
to a jury.
The trial was delayed because of the
illness of Judge Don Gilliam, who had
set a date of May 12 for the hearing.
SOUGHT TO EXPEDITE
Chief Judge Simon E. Sobeloff of the
Fourth Circuit Court subsequently
looked into the situation, attempting to
expedite a hearing.
One of the attorneys for Joseph
Hiram Holt Jr., the 15-year-old Negro
who is applying for transfer to Raleigh’s
Needham Broughton High School, de
clared: “We think he ought to get a
hearing long before school opens in the
fall.”
Meanwhile, in one of those pending
cases in Greensboro, Stanley extended
the time through June 27 for the Dur
ham City Board of Education and the
state Board of Education to answer a
suit seeking to end segregation in all
public schools of North Carolina.
The case, McKissick v. Durham City
Board of Education, is the newest of
several pending suits. Filed on behalf of
two Durham Negro children denied
transfer to white schools, it seeks to test
the whole structure of laws passed to
deal with segregation-desegregation
since 1955, including Constitutional
(Continued On Next Page)
State Board May Take Appeal To U. S. Supreme Court
Shown here are state and local police officials from all parts of Delaware who
recently took part in a two-week seminar on police-community relations at the
University of Michigan. Discussions covered a variety of problems in handling
community tensions including racial problems. Delaware’s participation in the
seminar was sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Shown
here are: Standing left to right: State Police Capt. Horace Willey, Wilmington
Detective Robert Stout, State Police Lt. William Hutchinson, Elmer Paul Brock,
regional director of NCCJ; Patrolman David Todd of Smyrna, Patrolman Ronald
Bramble of Newark, Sgt. Jack Roe of Dover, State Police Lt. Hugh Collins; seated
left to right: Mrs. Robert L. Dickey of Laurel, Mrs. Samuel Handloff of Newark,
Wilmington Detective Martin Krasnick, State Police Cpl. Charles Reilly, State
Police Capt. John Herbert, State Police Sgt. John Rodgers, State Police Lt. Gran
ville Allen, Chief Norman Griffith of Seaford. and Lt. Emory Brittingham of
Lewes.