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PAGE 8—JULY 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 7)
Little Rock said Hays had been a mem
ber of the Urban League advisory
board, not executive board, but no
longer was a member of either the
board or the league. The Arkansas Ga
zette then mentioned that Guthridge
had once been a contributor to the
Urban League. Guthridge said he didn’t
remember giving to the Urban League
but that if he did, it was before he
found out what the league stands for.
CANDIDATES RAP FAUBUS
In the gubernatorial campaign Judge
Lee Ward and Chris E. Finkbeiner
were hard at work, and Gov. Faubus
officially opened his drive for a third
term the night of June 28. On integra
tion, Judge Ward stuck to his opening
theme—that Faubus was just using the
issue to try for a third term and was
following no real belief or principle.
Finkbeiner, in his first criticism of Fau
bus, said Faubus was trying to “keep
things churned up to keep people fight
ing and mixed up . . . labor fighting
management, country folks fighting city
folks and white people fighting Ne
groes.” He called this the maneuver of
divide and conquer. In his pre-cam-
paien speeches the governor reviewed
the accomplishments of his administra
tion, defended his use of troops at
Little Rock and attacked his critics,
especially newspapers and magazines.
Some of the behind-the-scenes ma
neuvering that went on at Little Rock
just before integration was started last
September was disclosed for the first
time during June.
First came a long question-and-an-
swer interview with Gov. Faubus,
copyrighted and published in the mag
azine U. S. News and World Report,
about his role in the Little Rock crisis,
including his meetings with School
Supt. Virgil T. Blossom during August.
He said that a good deal of the in
formation about possible violence on
which he based his call of the National
Guard to surround Central High School
came from Blossom.
Then the Little Rock school board,
for the first time since the trouble
started, answered an attack. The school
board released two statements, one of
them consisting of excerpts from a
statement Blossom made voluntarily
last Sept. 7 to the FBI. It told of Blos
som’s meeting with the governor. The
other was the board’s own statement
of its dealings with the governor after
Aug. 15 and up to Sept. 1.
TROUBLE OR NOT
From these statements it was learned
that Faubus and Blossom conferred
several times before Aug. 15 and once
again on the night of Sunday Sept. 1,
two days before school started. Faubus
said that Blossom kept telling him
there was going to be trouble at Cen
tral High and that he needed help.
Blossom said that his sole mission was
to get from Gov. Faubus a statement
that no violence would be tolerated
and that he never thought there would
be trouble and didn’t tell Faubus there
would be any.
On Aug. 15, Blossom and Wayne Up
ton, then school board secretary, met
with Faubus at the governor’s mansion.
On Aug. 27, the entire school board
with Blossom and attorney A. F. House
met with Faubus at a downtown hotel.
On the night of Aug. 30, the entire
board with Blossom and attorney Rich
ard C. Butler met with Faubus again.
The board says it also wanted a “no
violence” statement from Faubus but
couldn’t get it. It said Faubus felt him
self committed to use the new state
segregation laws and asked about ar
rangements to have those laws tested
in court. One suit, in which William F.
Rector is plaintiff, was filed at the be
hest of the school board. Later another
was filed by Mrs. Clyde Y. Thomason,
and the board said Faubus had that
one originated. Both suits are still in the
state courts at Little Rock.
NO PROSPECT
Blossom made one more trip to the
mansion on the night of Sept. 1 and
said Faubus then agreed with him that
there was no prospect of violence un
less it came from outsiders and that
this was remote.
Then there was a telephone call from
Blossom to Faubus on the afternoon of
Sept. 2, a few hours before the National
Guardsmen took over the school. Fau
bus said Blossom asked for personal
protection for his family. Blossom said
he did not.
After the school board statements
were published Faubus said he stood
by his version in U. S. News and World
Report. It does not mention any meet
ings with the school board but only
Blossom and Upton. Faubus made no
reply to the school board statements
but said he might later.
MEMBER DISAGREES
Later one school board member, Dr.
Dale Alford, said he had been opposed
to issuing any statement and did not
agree with some of the impressions left
by the statements issued. He would not
elaborate. Upton then said that four of
the six board members had approved
the statements, that one was out of
town and couldn’t be reached and that
Dr. Alford had been invited to read
the statements if he wanted to.
The state Board of Education for
mally rejected the Thomas plan at its
meeting June 9 on the ground that it
had no legislative authority to inter
vene in desegregation matters. The ac
tion was a formality. For the Thomas
plan to have had effect, it was to have
been started before the federal court
hearing June 3 on the Little Rock plea
for a delay in integration. Herbert L.
Thomas Sr., Little Rock insurance
executive, created the plan which
would have a state commission, with
permission of the courts, help local
districts decide what to do about inte
gration.
Mrs. Louis Pattillo has a teaching
contract for next year at North Little
Rock after all. She had said in May
that she was being fired because of her
connection with the trouble at Little
Rock. Her daughter is one of the nine
Negroes who attended Central High.
The North Little Rock school board
said the issuing of her contract was
routine.
Ernest Green, the Negro who was
graduated from Little Rock Central
High School in May, was formally ac
cepted as a scholarship student June 19
at Michigan State University. After the
first announcement that he was to get
a scholarship there had been rumors at
Little Rock that his grades didn’t hold
up and that he wouldn’t get it.
Minnijean Brown, the Negro girl who
was expelled from Central High School
: n March and finished the school year
in New York city, said in a Look mag
azine article that she would try to re
turn to Central in September. This was
before the federal court ruling to post
pone integration at Little Rock.
The nine Negro students who entered
Central High under armed guard last
September and Mrs. L. C. Bates of
Little Rock, state NAACP president,
received a round of applause and
awards at Chicago and New York dur
ing the month. Among their trophies is
the Spimgam Award given annually
by the NAACP for outstanding achieve
ment in race relations.
GUARD STRENGTH NORMAL
Arkansas National Guard authorities
had been afraid that the use of the
Guardsmen on federal duty at Central
High might cut down enlistments but
the Guard strength was up to normal
at the end of the school year, state Adj.
Gen. Sherman T. Clinger said. In ad
dition, the state saved enough money
while the Guardsmen were being paid
by the federal government to start con
struction on a new headquarters build
ing at Camp Robinson near North Little
Rock.
Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta
Constitution, spoke at a civic dinner
honoring the Arkansas Gazette for the
two Pulitzer Prizes it won in covering
the Little Rock school crisis. He
praised the Gazette and spoke of spine
less newspapers that he said are “al
most neurotically sensitive to criti
cism.”
At a meeting of the Capital Citizens
Council at Little Rock on June 24, Jim
Johnson said that if his proposed con
stitutional amendment did not get on
the November ballot, “the battle for
segregation in Arkansas is lost.” John
son’s proposal has several provisions
relating to ways of maintaining segre
gated schools. It must have 40,000 sig
natures by July 5 on petitions to get it
on the general election ballot. Johnson
also is running this year for a seat on
the state supreme court.
On the same night the Arkansas
Christian Movement held a “Freedom
Dinner” at Little Rock at $10 a plate
to raise money to fight anti-integration
laws. About 60 Negroes attended. The
Rev. Roland A. Smith of Little Rock,
nresident of the movement, called Fau
bus a “demagogue” for using troops at
Little Rock and said Negroes were “not
going to be satisfied with anything but
the best.”
# # #
iJext oj /^udcfe ejCcmfey 4 ^t)ecision
4 It Being in the Public Interest . . .
Here are extensive excerpts from the memorandum
opinion issued June 20 by Federal District Judge Harry J.
Lemley in the Little Rock case of Aaron v. Cooper.
. . . The petition for a stay with which we are concerned
was originally filed by the board on Feb. 20, 1958; that plead
ing, reduced to essentials, alleged that federalized National
Guardsmen were on duty at the school and were preventing
interference with the attendance of the Negro students, that
a small group of students with the encouragement of certain
adults had created almost daily incidents making it difficult
for pupils to learn and teachers to teach, that there existed
unrest among students, parents and teachers which likewise
made it difficult for the school district to maintain a satisfac
tory educational program, and that educational standards
were being impaired. . . .
Subsequently, the board filed a substituted petition con
taining allegations more or less similar to those of its orig
inal pleading, and praying that a stay be granted until Jan
uary 1961. . . .
When this matter was called for trial on the morning of
June 3, the board, without objection on the part of the plain
tiffs, filed an amendment to
the substituted petition al
leging more definiely the
respects in which it con
tends that the educational
program at Central High
School has been impaired
due to the alleged situation
at Little Rock. It is said in
the amendment that the
educational program has
suffered and will continue
to suffer; that the board
has had to divert funds in
an attempt to solve the
problems with which it has
been faced, which funds
would otherwise have been
used for normal education
al purposes such as teach
ers’ salaries, plant main
tenance and new construction . . .
While the plaintiffs have not filed any formal pleading
directed at the amendment to the substituted petition, we
shall treat the amendment as traversed, and will also consider
that the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss extends to the same,
as well as to the other pleadings filed by the board.
It is the theory of the board, reflected in its pleadings, evi
dence and briefs, that the plan of integration which it adopted
in 1955, upon the assumption that it would be acceptable and
workable, has broken down under the pressure of public
opposition, which opposition has manifested itself in a num
ber of ways hereinafter mentioned, and that as a result the
educational program at Central High School has been
seriously impaired, that there will be no change in condi
tions between now and the time that school opens again in
September 1958 and that if the prayer for relief is not granted
the situation with which the board will be confronted in
September will be as bad as, if not worse, than the one under
which it has labored during the past school year, and that it
is in the public interest that the requested delay be granted.
While the plaintiffs deny, at least formally, that the educa
tional standards at Central High School have been impaired,
it seems to us that their fundamental position is, that even
if it be assumed that everything that the board alleges is
true from a factual standpoint, nevertheless the board’s diffi
culties stem entirely from popular disagreement with the
principle of integration, which disagreement does not form a
proper legal basis for permitting the board to postpone the
operation of its plan. . . .
In addition, the plaintiffs contend that the board does not
actually stand in need of any relief. As touching the situation
inside the school, they urge that the board could have
solved its problems during the year just past had it taken a
firmer disciplinary stand, and that if such a stand is taken
this fall the problems can still be solved; and they contend
still further if a stay should be granted it will be more diffi
cult to put the plan back into effect in 1961 than it would
be for the board to persevere with it this coming year. With
regard to the situation outside the school, the plaintiffs argue
that the board’s proper remedy is the commencement of
criminal proceedings or the seeking of injunctive relief against
the persons responsible for the disorders.
Those conflicting theories present two basic questions for
our decision, namely, whether or not this court, sitting as a
court of equity, has the power to grant the relief sought, and,
if so, whether or not the board has made a showing sufficient
to justify the granting of that relief. . . .
As to the first question, there can be no doubt that this
court has “jurisdiction,” in the sense of “power to act,” to
grant the relief sought. . . .
. . . The existence of such jurisdiction in a case of this
kind appears to have been specifically recognized in the sec
ond Brown opinion. ...
To hold that once a plan of integration has been approved
and ordered into effect by a federal court, all of the details
of that plan, including the commencing date and the rate of
progress toward complete elimination of compulsory segre
gation, become immutably fixed would negate the concept of
equity’s “practical flexibility” in shaping its remedies, and
would be an unwarranted limitation upon its “facility for
adjusting and reconciling public and private needs. . . .
As we approach the second question in this case, it should
first be said that it cannot be seriously contended that the
board did not make a “prompt and reasonable start” toward
a transition from a racially segregated to a racially inte
grated public school system. . . . The real problem is whether
or not the board now needs more time to make the transition
“in an effective manner,” and whether or not the granting
of such “is necessary in the public interest and is consistent
with good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date.”
At the hearing on the petition, which extended from June
3, into the afternoon on June 5, the board called to the
stand its president, Mr. Wayne Upton, its superintendent of
schools, Mr. Virgil T. Blossom, certain members of the ad
ministrative staff of the high school, and certain classroom
teachers. While the attorneys for the plaintiffs diligently
cross-examined the main witnesses called by the board,
they did not put on any proof of their own tending to
contradict the factual aspects of the testimony of the
board’s witnesses, but confined their evidence to the
testimony of two expert witnesses, namely, Dr. Virgil M.
Rogers, dean of the School of Education of Syracuse Univer
sity, Syracuse, N. Y., and Dr. David G. Salten, superintendent
of schools at Long Beach, Long Island, N. Y. Those witnesses
gave it as their opinion in general that to grant the petition
would be unnecessary and undesirable, and that the board
should keep its plan in operation while using stricter discip
linary procedures . . .
From the practically undisputed testimony of the board’s
witnesses we find that although the continued attendance of
the Negro students at Central High School was achieved
throughout the 1957-58 school year by the physical presence
of federal troops, including federalized national guardsmen,
nevertheless on account of popular opposition to integration
the year was marked by repeated incidents of more or less
serious violence directed against the Negro students and their
property, by numerous bomb threats directed at the school,
by a number of nuisance fires started inside the school, by
desecration of school property, and by the circulation of
cards, leaflets and circulars designed to intensify opposition
to integration. Mr. J. O. Powell, the vice principal, summed
the situation up by saying that the first year of operation
under the plan was one of “chaos, bedlam and turmoil” from
the beginning.
The incidents and other matters just referred to, plus the
presence of the troops, which was in and of itself a distract
ing influence, created throughout the year a situation of ten
sion and unrest among the school administrators, the class
room teachers, the pupils, and the latters’ parents, which
inevitably had an adverse effect upon the educational pro
gram; and we find that said program was seriously impaired,
that the orderly administration of the school was practically
disrupted, and that educational standards have suffered. We
further find that unless a stay is granted, the same situation
will prevail when school opens in September, and that the
impairment of the educational program and standards will
continue, and will probably grow worse . . .
It is important to realize, as is shown by the evidence, that
the racial incidents and vandalism which occurred at Central
High School during the past year did not stem from mere
lawlessness on the part of the white students in the school,
or on the part of the people of Little Rock outside the school;
nor did they stem from any malevolent desire on the part of
the students or others concerned to bomb the school, or to
bum it down, or to injure or persecute as individuals the
nine Negro students in the school. Rather, the source of the
trouble was the deep seated popular opposition in Little Rock
to the principle of integration, which, as is known, runs
counter to the pattern of southern life which has existed
for over three hundred years. The evidence also shows that
to this opposition was added the conviction of many of the
people of Little Rock, that the Brown decisions do not truly
represent the law, and that by virtue of the 1956-57 enact
ments, heretofore outlined, integration in the public schools
can be lawfully avoided....
Getting back to the effects of the events of the past school
year on the educational program at Central High School,
we find more specifically that those events have had a serious
and adverse impact upon the students themselves, upon the
classroom teachers, upon the administrative personnel of the
school, and upon the over-all school program. . . .
As far as the students themselves are concerned, we think
it obvious that the incidents and conditions that have been
described could not have been good for them emotionally;
but aside from that, their education has certainly suffered
and under existing conditions will continue to suffer, as is
shown by the testimony of the classroom teachers called
by the board. . . .
Mr. Blossom stated that one of his greatest concerns dur
ing the year was the health and welfare of the teachers, and
that he felt very strongly that the teachers were under more
strain than the students
since they had upon their
shoulders the responsibili
ty for the physical welfare
and educational progress of
every student in the school,
and that “they took that
responsibility to heart and
it affected many of them,
and that was reflected in
many of the conferences I
had with them as indi
viduals.” . . .
It is too clear to require
discussion that the experi
ences of the classroom
teachers and of the admin
istrative staff must have
produced at least some loss
of personal efficiency on
their part, with corre
sponding damage to the educational program. More serious,
however, is the fact it has been necessary to divert the
time and talents of the trained administrative personnel
from their normal duties in dealing with the many complex
problems involved in the operation of a high school like
Central to purely disciplinary matters; and we find, as al
leged by the board, that the efforts of the administrative
staff to cope with the integration problems with which they
have been confronted have consumed an undue amount of
their time and energy; and we agree with Mr. Blossom in
his statement that the diversion of administrative skills and
energies to discipline maintenance during the past year may
have been one of the highest prices that the school district
has had to pay. At least one serious result of such diversion
is that the curriculum planning which had been previously
emphasized at Central, has been seriously impeded. In ad
dition, the building program has been held up although the
District’s enrollment is rapidly increasing, with an accom
panying need for more facilities.
As stated, the evidence further showed that the school dis
trict has had to shoulder substantial financial burdens on
Judge Lemley
Supt. Blossom