Newspaper Page Text
MARYLAND-
southern SCHOOL NEWS—JULY 1958—PAGE 5
L. S. Supreme Court Lets Stand Harford County Gradual Program
BALTIMORE, Md.
r I ''he Supreme Court in June
declined to review the Har
ford County school case, letting
stand a seven-year desegregation
program that includes a special
screening process for Negroes
seeking to enter white high
schools in advance of the time set
forth in the grade-a-year sche
dule. (See “Legal Action.”)
Howard County has announced
that its voluntary desegregation
program will be extended to in
clude the seventh grade next fall.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”) This makes seven coun
ties in which additional grades or
schools will be desegregated in
September.
Testimony was heard in U. S. Dis
trict Court at Baltimore on two inte
gration disputes, one involving school
bus segregation and the other concern
ing two Negroes who sought admission
to a white secondary school in a
county where desegregation initially
was adopted only on the elementary
level. (See “Legal Action.”)
ROW OVER TEACHER
Controversy arose in Prince George’s
County over the forced resignation of
a teacher who made some disputed
comments to his class about the treat
ment of Negroes in Georgia. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Walter Sondheim Jr., former presi
dent of the Baltimore school board,
commented in an interview on why
Baltimore desegregated in 1954 in the
way that it did and why it might be
more difficult today, if Baltimore were
only just now facing the problem. (See
“What They Say.”)
A rr —
' SCHOOL BOARDS
\ AND SCHOOLMEN
With its decision to open the seventh
grade of white schools to Negro pupils
next fall, the Howard County Board of
Education has entered the third stage
of its desegregation program. The first
five grades in Howard County schools
were desegregated in the fall of 1956,
and the sixth grade in the 1957-58
year.
While Negroes represent about 15 per
cent of Howard’s school population, few
have exercised their transfer privileges.
Under the voluntary desegregation
program there were nine Negroes en
rolled at two formerly all-white schools
in 1956-57, and seven at one school
during the past school year.
The school administration in Prince
George’s County had the makings of a
cause celebre on its hands in June over
the firing of a teacher for making con
troversial remarks to his seventh-grade
class in social studies. The nature of
the remarks became a part of the con
troversy.
READ NEWS STORY
The teacher, Alan Goodsaid, read his
class a news account in the Washington
Virginia
(Continued From Page 4)
be he high or low, can dictate to any
member as to what his course should
be.” His remark was the outgrowth of a
two-day debate by the general council
of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest
ern Virginia over the segregation issue
during its meeting in Roanoke in May.
Specifically, the debate was over
whether the church-owned summer
cam P, Hemlock Haven, should be the
scene of integrated youth conferences.
Most of the laymen were for segrega
tion and most of the clergy for integra
tion. A decision on the camp was post-
P°ned by putting the matter into the
bands of a commission for study.
FIRST NEGRO GRADUATES
Vernon Dudley, 17, of Roanoke, last
month became the first Negro to grad
uate from an integrated high school in
Virginia. Dudley received his diploma
from the integrated Roanoke Catholic
High.
Michigan Gov. G. Mennen Williams,
delivering the commencement address
at Hampton Institute (Negro), said that
social maturity requires elimination of
the evil of discrimination based on col-
or > race, creed or national origin.” He
said discrimination exists throughout
the country but “is yielding under the
Ga., of alleged police brutality and
voting restrictions. He then told his
Post of charges by Negroes in Dawson,
class, according to reports from school
officials, that such accounts made him
“ashamed to live in America.”
Goodsaid, who describes himself to
the press as a man with “socialistic
views,” claimed that he said that the
alleged brutalities “almost made me
ashamed of the human race.”
Assistant County School Supt. George
E. Robinson, who gave the teacher a
choice of resigning or being suspended,
told the press that regardless of how
the remark was phrased, “we cannot
accept that kind of teaching.” Robin
son also said that while Goodsaid was
considered to be a man who worked
well with his pupils, his fellow teachers
at two other schools where he had
worked had “ostracized him because of
his constant, overbearing arguments
and politics.”
SOUGHT RETURN
Having turned in his resignation,
Goodsaid then sought to have the resig
nation returned so that he could be
fired instead. Under Maryland school
regulations, a teacher with tenure has
the right, if suspended, to have a hear
ing with counsel before his local school
board and, if dissatisfied there, to carry
an appeal to the state Board of Educa
tion. Goodsaid told reporters he wanted
a hearing because of the doubt cast on
his patriotism by the school officials’
version of his class remarks.
The ousting of Goodsaid was picked
up by the Associated Press and given
prominent display in Baltimore and
Washington newspapers. The following
day Gov. Theodore McKeldin wrote a
letter to the Prince George’s County
Board of Education in which he said
that “since Mr. Goodsaid apparently
feels that he is the victim of an in
justice, and that his reputation has
been damaged by the action of his su
periors, I believe that the board should
become involved and that Mr. Goodsaid
should be afforded the right of a hear
ing at the very least.”
After a meeting during the last week
of June between Goodsaid and the
county school officials, the ousted
teacher’s lawyer told the press that no
suit was planned and that he expected
the case to be worked out amicably.
He declined to elaborate.
In rejecting the request of NAACP
lawyers that it review the validity oi
Harford County’s desegregation pro
gram, the U. S. Supreme Court ended
three years of litigation in one of
Maryland’s northernmost counties
Some racial mixing began in Harford
schools in the fall of 1956, with In'-
legal action since that time concerned
with the speed with which the couth -
was moving. (Roslyn Slade et al. -
Board of Education of Harford County.)
The program that eventually proved
acceptable to Chief U. S. District Judge
Roszel C. Thomsen provided for grad
ual desegregation over a seven-year
period, starting in the elementary
schools and then advancing a grade at
moral and legal pressures of a rededi-
cated America.”
Riot squads were being trained last
month in the police departments of the
city of Richmond and the county of
Fairfax. The 48-man squad in Richmond
and the 50-member unit in the northern
Virginia county were said to be pre
pared to handle any of a variety of pub
lic disturbances that might arise, in
cluding racial conflicts.
BATTLE NOT CONSULTED
Ex-Gov. John S. Battle, member of
the federal Civil Rights Commission,
said he was not consulted as to the
employment of Thomas W. Young,
president of the company that publishes
the Norfolk Journal and Guide, as a
consultant to handle public informa
tion for the commission. The Guide is
a Negro weekly which has been strongly
critical of Virginia’s pro-segregation
policy. Also appointed as a public in
formation consultant was Malcolm E.
Oliver Jr., a white Virginia newsman, a
native of Danville.
Taking note of President Eisenhower’s
conference June 23 with four Negro
leaders, the Arlington chapter of the
pro-segregation Defenders of State Sov
ereignty and Individual Liberties ap
pealed to the President for equal time
to discuss the school segregation situa-
tinn in Arlington County.
# # #
a time through secondary schools. A
special provision was made whereby
Negroes could qualify themselves for
admission to white high schools in ad
vance of the time set for desegregating
high school grades, if their applications
were approved by an evaluating com
mittee of school officials.
TWO NEW CASES
No sooner was the Harford case set
tled than two new ones were heard by
Judge Thomsen. Both had been before
the state Board of Education for an
exhaustion of administrative remedies.
(See Southern School News, March
and April 1958.)
The first of the two cases heard to
gether in two days of oral testimony
involves a Negro elementary pupil who
attends an integrated school but whose
request to ride the white school bus
had been rejected by Charles County
school officials. (Gilbert G. Hart Jr. v.
Board of Education of Charles County.)
According to the testimony before
Judge Thomsen, only the Hart boy was
involved in the legal action, because
the other two Negro youngsters who
attend the Indian Head school, which
is the only one with mixed classes in
the county, live near enough to walk
to classes.
The case came close to becoming
moot when Col. Frank B. Wade, presi
dent of the Charles County school
board, told Judge Thomsen that school
officials had informed the Harts prior
to the hearing that their boy could ride
a white bus next September. Col. Wade
also testified that the board had adopted
a policy of allowing Negroes admitted
to white elementary schools to ride the
white school buses, provided they lived
on a white bus line serving elementary
schools only.
URGES CLASS ACTION
Tucker R. Dearing, a Baltimore attor
ney active in NAACP cases, urged that
the case become, in effect, a class action
by having a court injunction against
racial discrimination in school bus as
signments affecting any Negroes who
may attend integrated schools in Charles
County. Judge Thomsen made clear his
reluctance to issue any general orders
to a county school board in the ab
sence of testimony that children were
being hurt by the present policv, but
he said he would consider written ar
guments by the opposing attomevs and
render an opinion, probably in August.
In the second case (Thomas Conrad
Groves et al v. Board of Education of
St. Mary’s County) the parents of a
Negro boy and his sister, aees 14 and
16, brought suit because they were
denied admission to white secondary
schools under a county desegregation
program that was limited at the outset
to elementary grades. The case repre
sented more than a straight segregation
issue in that the father of the two
plaintiffs testified that the white school
offered educational opportunities su
perior to those obtainable at the col
ored school to which his children were
assigned.
WILL BE ADMITTED
Again the case was partially settled
in advance because the St. Mary’s
board in April had announced that vol
untary desegregation would be extended
to grades seven, eight and nine next
September. Under this policy, the
younger of the two Groves children,
Thomas Conrad Groves, would be ad
mitted to the school of his choice.
Judge Thomsen noted, after hearing
the testimony, that only the Groves
girl would be denied the school of her
choice in St. Mary’s County, since there
are no other Negro applicants to white
schools. The judge indicated that he
felt it should be possible for county
school officials to work something out
in her case, and suggested consultation
with William C. Rogers Sr., chairman
of the Maryland Commission on Inter
racial Problems and Relations. He re
served his own judgment until August.
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
uiafA.YW.- ..
For the first time since the U. S. Su
preme Court decision of 1954 there
were indications that integration might
become an open and major issue in
Maryland political campaigning, with
both Democrats and Republicans mak
ing a conspicuous bid for the sizeable
Negro vote. The argument, if it de
velops, will not be for and against in
tegration but rather a conflict of claims
as to which party has done more to
eliminate discrimination.
The platform adopted by the Demo
cratic ticket, which is headed by State
Comptroller Millard E. Tawes as the
gubernatorial candidate and Mayor
Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. as the sena
torial candidate, calls upon school
boards throughout the state to fulfill
the “true spirit” of the Supreme Court
decision and adds, “The Republican
state administration, despite its public
pronouncements to the contrary, has
failed miserably to take any action
where it has exclusive jurisdiction over
this subject.”
The Republioan platform, adopted a
few days prior to the Democratic one,
calls not only for comple integration of
schools but also for the end of discrim
ination in all public facilities, private
employment and private accommoda
tions operating as public conveniences.
The contrast between the two platforms
brought the comment from Rep. James
P. Devereux, Republican candidate for
governor and hero of Wake Island, that
the Democrats “gave an apparently
hastily drawn ‘me too’ to the strong
Republican plank on the ending of ra
cial segregation in the schools but . . .
completely evaded the other major
points in civil rights.”
An honorary degree of doctor of law
was conferred by Morgan State College
at its June commencement exercises
upon Walter Sondheim Jr., who was
president of the Baltimore Board of
School Commissioners when its action
in dropping all racial barriers was
taken just 17 days after the May 17,
1954 decision of the Supreme Court.
The predominantly Negro college,
which has had some integration of its
own, cited Sondheim for his community
services with “especial acclamation” for
his nine years on the Baltimore school
board.
GIVES INTERVIEW
The conferring of a degree on Sond
heim was taken as an occasion to in
terview him on behalf of Southern
School News as to how the Baltimore
action looks to him in the light of four
years’ experience. Since the first day
WALTER SONDHEIM JR.
“Full Plunge . . . Quickly
of this year, Sondheim has been off
the school board and serving as chair
man of the Urban Renewal and Hous
ing Agency. The questions and answers
were as follows:
Question: Mr. Sondheim, do you feel
this honor belongs to the whole school
board?
Answer: If any special honor is at
tached to obeying the law of the land,
then it belongs to the nine school board
members who voted unanimously to
desegregate and even more to Dr. John
H. Fischer and the school staff that was
handed the job of putting a principle
into practice.
Q. Yours was the first school board
in the South to adopt a definite deseg
regation program. Looking back, would
you have used a different approach, giv
en a chance to start over?
A. Not at all. Speaking, that is, for
myself, and I really believe for those
who were then my fellow board mem
bers. We took the full plunge and got
it over with quickly. It still seems the
better way for Baltimore, rather than
trying to edge in gradually and pro
longing the period of change. We did
not want to do anything that suggested
hesitation on our part or created the
impression that we considered the
change to be a long and difficult one.
Q. At the time you acted, there had
been little expression of public opinion
here, either for or against desegregation.
How did the school board know that
the people of Baltimore would go along
with its move toward immediate inte
gration?
A. The Supreme Court had spoken.
That means a lot in a place like Balti
more. We school board members as
sumed, and rightly so as it turned out,
that Baltimoreans naturally would ex
pect to have their city comply. We knew
that many people would wish that the
change did not have to happen, but we
did not believe that many would feel
strongly that it should not happen,
once the court had spoken.
Q. During the disturbances in south
Baltimore after desegregation began,
some of the protest leaders complained
that they had never been given a chance
to air their views. In retrospect, would
it have been better to have held a pub
lic hearing before the school board
acted?
A. How do you debate a clearly
stated constitutional right? A Supreme
Court decision is not a thing on which
people can vote. A public hearing
might, perhaps, have allowed a few
people to let off some steam, but it
would not have changed their feelings
in the least and probably would only
have stimulated more futile opposition.
Q. Were you influenced by the fact
that some Negro suits were pending
against the school board?
DID NOT BULK LARGE
A. The suits indicated the mounting
dissatisfaction with segregation among
Negro groups and the likelihood that
we would be faced with increasing con
troversy. But I do not believe the suits
bulked large in the school board’s de
cision. I would say that school board
members were motivated almost en
tirely by a sense of moral responsibil
ity; that is to say, segregation had been
declared wrong, and compliance was
right. Or, perhaps I should say it was
a combination of moral responsibility
and feasibility, because the fact that
there was nothing to hold Baltimore
back had a lot to do with it.
Q. Many of the supposed experts in
the field of desegregation believe that
a great deal of preparatory work with
pupils, teachers and the public should
precede actual mixing of classes. How
did you get along without preparation
in Baltimore?
A. That’s a question you should ask
John Fischer, because we left the ad
ministrative details to the superintend
ent and his staff. But remember, Balti
more teachers had long experienced
mixed meetings and workshops. Pupils
had some experience with joint pro
grams. The climate seemed as favorable
in Baltimore as it ever was likely to
be, no matter how much the subject
was discussed.
Q. Also, you had already begun some
desegregation at Poly, hadn’t you?
ADMITTED IN 1952
A. Yes, we had admitted Negroes to
the advance college preparatory course
at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute,
one of our then-white high schools, in
the fall of 1952, which was two years
before the Supreme Court ruled out
segregation. The easy adjustment there
was an encouraging factor in our 1954
discussions.
Q. Do you think that it would be
much harder today to do what you and
the other school board members did
four years ago?
A. No doubt about that at all. The
resistance in the South, which in the
case of Little Rock actually has been
given some lower-court credence, un
questionably would make Baltimore’s
position more difficult, were we to be
only now facing up to the problem.
WERE NOT SURPRISED
But I’ll stick my neck out and add
this: Desegregation didn’t simply catch
the people by surprise in 1954. I think
Baltimore would do it all over again
today, if it came to that. This is the
largest of southern cities, standing at
the head of the South, and the people
of Baltimore want, I believe, to have
their city identified with justice, prog
ress, and the national viewpoint. We
would have more of a controversy to
day, and perhaps more resistance, but
the majority of the people, I feel con
fident, would be strongly on the side
of law and order and would abhor any
attempts to make this another Little
Rock or a little anything else.
Q. Your citation from Morgan says
that the school board’s action in 1954
set an example for the nation at large.
Was that the board’s intent?
A. Believe me, we were not trying
to set an example for any other city,
or to become the first to desegregate
or in any way to reflect on what other
school systems were doing. We had our
own job to do, and did it in the way
that seemed best for Baltimore.
# # #