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News
Objective
VOL. V, NO. 3
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
$2 PER YEAR
SEPTEMBER, 1958
Integration Pace Rests With Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court last month met in extraordinary session to consider aspects of the Little Rock, Ark. school de
segregation case. The issue before the court was whether popular opposition to desegregation, so strong as to disrupt
orderly educational processes, is sufficient reason for delaying implementation of the principles laid down in 1954 and 1955.
The court is comprised of, left to right, seated: Associate Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo L. Black, Chief Justice Earl
Warren, Associate Justices Felix Frankfurter and Harold H. B urton. Standing are Associate Justices William J. Brennan, Jr.,
Tom C. Clark, John M. Harlan, and Charles C. Whittaker.
T he South, looking to the
U.S. Supreme Court for a
precise definition of “deliberate
speed,” opened its fall school term
against a background of wide
spread legal jousting over the seg
regation-desegregation issue.
After an inconclusive extraor
dinary session Aug. 28, the Su
preme Court called another for
Sept. 11 to hear further argument
in the Little Rock Central High
controversy with the question
awaiting answer: Shall Central
High open again as a desegregat
ed or as a resegregated school?
VIRGINIA’S PROBLEMS
To the east, at the other end of the
tier of states embracing the South,
Virginia faced the prospect of some
schools failing to open on schedule in
the clash of federal and state authority
over desegregation.
Complying with a federal court or
der, the Norfolk school board an
nounced assignment of some Negroes
to white schools from which they had
been barred heretofore solely because
of their race. Virginia has a law to
close any desegregated public school,
and Gov. J. Lindsay Almond has said
he would enforce it.
With the South’s schools entering
their fifth year since the Supreme
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
he Little Rock school board
delayed the beginning of
classes in the city’s high school
until Sept. 15, pending a decision
by the U.S. Supreme Court on
whether desegregation at Central
High may be postponed.
Fast-paced legal activities which
preceded this board action saw:
(1) the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court
overrule Judge Harry Lemley’s
decision granting a two-and-a-
half-year delay in integration; (2)
a stay of the circuit court’s deci
sion to permit appeal; and (3) an
extraordinary session of the U.S.
Supreme Court to hear arguments
which will determine whether
Central High should open this
month as an all-white or desegre
gated school. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
When the NAACP went to the U.S.
Supreme Court trying to get the Lem-
ley ruling out of the way, Gov. Orval
E. Faubus called the Arkansas Legis-
Texts and documents bearing on
the Little Rock situation are on
Pages 3 and 4.
lature into special session. It quickly
approved his program of new laws de
signed to enable him to delay integra
tion at Little Rock or in similar situa-
ions elsewhere. (See “Legislative Ac
tion.”)
REITERATE stand
On Aug. 21 both President Eisenhow
er and Gov. Faubus restated their posi-
i°ns on complying with Federal court
orders on integration. The President
they had to be enforced, prefer-
: yby the states, but by the national
government if necessary. The governor
said he would not use the military to
?, °f ce integration and that, anyway,
,„ e ^segregation decisions were illegal,
(bee “Political Activity.”)
Settle R oc k schools were to open
P • 2. The school board postponed the
te to Sept. 8 to give time for legisla-
tj V ® oourt developments. Later the
• Supreme Court said it was expect-
Court’s 1954 desegregation decision, the
score was as follows:
A total of 792 school districts, count
ing Little Rock, have begun or com
pleted the desegregation process. Bi-
racial districts still segregated number
2,095. There are 2,889 districts in the
region having both white and Negro
pupils within their boundaries. All but
15 of the desegregated districts are in
the border states.
For the 1957-58 school year, 13 new
ing a Sept. 15 opening date and the
school board arranged to accommodate
the Court. (See “Legal Action.”)
OTHERS UNCHANGED
Eight other school districts in Arkan
sas, with integration begun previously,
plan to continue this year with their
policies unchanged. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
A state court in Pulaski County up
held the validity of two of the four
segregation laws adopted by the 1957
General Assembly. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
The eight other desegregated school
districts—aside from Little Rock—ap
parently will continue integration.
Three of them declined to say anything
ahead of time, the other five said there
was no change in their policy from the
1957-58 school year.
School officials in Charleston, Ozark
and Van Buren, all in northwest Ark
ansas, replied “no comment,” as always,
to questions about integration (see SSN
January and June 1958). Hoxie, Fay
etteville, Hot Springs, Bentonville and
Fort Smith reported no change in pol
icy.
The superintendents of these districts
were interviewed by Southern School
News the day before the special session
began. To a man they preferred to avoid
publicity. As one of them put it, “We’ll
just not start talking about that. We’ll
keep our mouths shut and pray every
body else does likewise.”
Two of the eight, Van Buren and
Hoxie, are under federal court orders
to desegregate. The other six began de
segregation voluntarily.
If any other Arkansas district was to
integrate for the first time in 1958, it
wasn’t known publicly.
MORE APPLICANTS
Three more Negro students applied
Aug. 25 for permission to enroll in
white schools at Little Rock but their
applications were denied the next day.
Supt. Virgil T. Blossom explained that
as of that time, the school board was
proceeding under the Lemley ruling of
delaying integration two and one-half
years. Two of the three, William Massie
Jr. and Carolyn Kendricks, applied to
enter Central High, and Sondra John-
(Continued On Page 2)
school districts, including Norfolk, Va.,
have announced policies or plans for
ending segregation, and 19 others have
announced plans to extend or expand
existing desegregation programs.
Other developments by states:
Alabama
A ruling is anticipated by the Su
preme Court in October on a petition
by Negroes to knock out the state’s
Pupil Placement Law.
Arkansas
Aside from Little Rock, Arkansas has
eight other desegregated school dis
tricts in which there is no apparent
change in policy.
Delaware
The state appealed to the U.S. Su
preme Court a lower court order deal
ing with administrative responsibility
for statewide desegregation, rather than
with compliance which was not at issue.
District of Columbia
School officials anticipated that Ne
gro enrollment, which was 71.2 per cent
last year, would increase slightly in
the new term, with overall enrollment
in October reaching 113,505 white and
Negro pupils, an increase of 2,391.
Florida
Integration was accepted in principle
at the graduate school level. One of
two Negro applicants qualified for ad
mission to the school of law.
Georgia
Georgians edged toward a Sept. 10
Democratic primary — equivalent to
election—with candidates for governor
and other state offices arguing over who
was the most segregation-minded.
Kentucky
Some school districts prepared for
slight expansion in the desegregation
program already extended to about 80
per cent of the state’s school-age Ne
groes.
Louisiana
A new college integration suit was
filed by 11 Negroes seeking admittance
to the Louisiana State University
branch at New Orleans.
Maryland
Some additional grades or schools
were integrated but general picture re
mained about the same with 14 per cent
of all Negro pupils in mixed classes in
roughly one-fourth of all schools.
Index
State Page
Alabama 11
Arkansas 1&2
Delaware 7
District of Columbia 5
Florida 9
Georgia 12
Kentucky 16
Louisiana 5
Maryland 8
Mississippi 4
Missouri 12
North Carolina 13
Oklahoma 15
South Carolina 16
Tennessee 10
Texas 14
Virginia 1&6
West Virginia 14
Mississippi
The gap between white and Negro
school systems was reported more than
half way closed under an equalization
program designed to discourage inte
gration.
Missouri
Officials estimated 95 per cent of the
state’s Negro children live in districts
where schools are integrated to some
degree.
RICHMOND, Va.
SERIES OF FAST-BREAKING late
August legal developments
made it appear certain some
schools in one or more Virginia
localities would fail to open on
schedule for the fall term because
of federal court desegregation
orders.
The Norfolk school board, un
der pressure from a federal dis
trict court, announced it would
immediately assign 17 Negro stu
dents to six white high and junior
high schools to which they had
applied. The board said it was
acting contrary to what it be
lieved to be in the best interests
of both white and Negro children.
The board then asked the court
to defer the Negro enrollments
until September 1959. (See “Le
gal Action.”)
Thus the stage was set for the show
down on “unappealable court orders”
which Gov. J. Lindsay Almond has
Portions of the court decision in
the Prince Edward County Case
and the Norfolk school board de
cision to admit Negro pupils are on
pages 6 and 7.
said would bring the state’s school
closing law into play. Norfolk schools
are scheduled to open Sept. 22.
Charlottesville and Arlington County,
both under desegregation orders, were
the other two key spots in the clash
between the state’s “massive resist
ance” policy and federal authority.
Charlottesville postponed its school
opening from Sept. 2 to Sept. 15 be
cause of uncertainty over the integra
tion issue. (See “Legal Action.”)
The pressure was removed from
Prince Edward County by a federal
district court order giving the county
until 1965 to begin desegregation. New
port News, under order to desegregate
this month, apparently will not face
an immediate showdown because the
legal situation there has been clouded
somewhat by the recent merger of
Newport News with the neighboring
city of Warwick. (See “Legal Action.”)
North Carolina
Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-
Salem continue “token” integration but
an effort by a Negro pupil to enter a
Raleigh white school was rebuffed.
Oklahoma
Seven more school districts desegre
gated, accompanied by violence in one.
South Carolina
Two new integration petitions were
filed in Clarendon County, from whence
came one of the five cases on which
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its
historic 1954 decision.
Tennessee
Nashville desegregated its second pri
mary grade in carrying out a court-
approved “stair-step” program; Mem
phis State University may postpone
desegregation for another year.
Texas
Bloomington School district voted to
desegregate, making 124 integrated out
of more than 700 biracial districts.
Virginia
Charlottesville and Arlington joined
Norfolk in postponing school opening
in face of federal court orders and state
threats of closure.
West Virginia
All bi-racial school districts had
complied with court-ordered desegre
gation, but 18 partially integrated
counties indicated little change in the
picture.
The state Pupil Placement Board
turned down applications from Negro
students to enter white schools in Rich
mond and Warren County. It appeared
that legal maneuverings would delay
any showdown in those two localities.
(See “Legal Action.”)
Gov. Almond, meanwhile, reiterated
his stand: “There will be no enforced
integration in Virginia.”
Here’s the way the situation devel
oped in each of the affected localities
last month:
Norfolk—On Aug. 18 the Norfolk
school board denied the applications of
151 Negro children seeking admission
to nine white schools.
Sixty-three of the applications were
rejected on the ground the children
had not submitted to the tests and in
terviews prescribed in the local assign
ment plan adopted by the board. (See
Southern School News, August, 1958.)
Applications from the other 88 were
denied for what the board termed edu
cational and psychological reasons. The
board said of the 88 who took the tests,
60 “were clearly unsuitable for the as
signment requested . . . The vast ma
jority failed to meet the minimum
scholastic requirements” and the oth
ers were denied “for equally cogent
reasons,” the board added.
‘ISOLATION . . . DETRIMENT’
Of the remaining 28 who did take
the tests, four were turned down be
cause “the isolation [of the Negroes
among white children] would be detri
mental to educational progress and may
well cause emotional instability and
even detriment to health.”
The other 24 had sought admission
to schools in the Norview section of
Norfolk. The board said “racial con
flicts have occurred in this area in the
past, and the board is of the opinion
that integration there would renew
such conflicts and produce grave ad
ministrative problems within the school
system ...”
Earlier the same day (Aug. 18) U.S.
District Judge Walter E. Hoffman had
conducted a hearing on a motion by
21 Negro pupils to declare the school
board’s pupil assignment plan invalid
on the ground it was discriminatory.
During the hearing he promised he
(Continued On Page 6)
ARKANSAS
Central High’s Opening
Delayed For Litigation
VIRGINIA
Norfolk Board Assigns
Negroes To White Schools