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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—SEPTEMBER 1958—PAGE 15
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
M ore racial barriers came
tumbling down in August as
Oklahoma’s public schools swung
into a new academic year—their
fourth under official desegrega
tion.
At least seven new districts,
four of them in Little Dixie, ad
mitted Negroes to previously
white classes for the first time. In
one of the districts the desegrega
tion was preceded by a brief
spurt of violence, one of the few
such incidents inspired by deseg
regation in Oklahoma. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Two other districts extended integra
tion from the high school level to the
elementary grades.
2 MORE CASES
On the legal front two districts were
confronted with court action over al
leged failure to admit Negroes to white
schools. But a third district in the same
area desegregated its grade school in
response to a 1957 court order. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Finally, the state’s only Negro uni
versity learned that the Legislature,
though unhappy over high per capita
operating costs, apparently will not seek
to have it closed. (See “In the Col
leges.”)
The first of an estimated 542,000 Okla
homa school children ended their sum
mer vacations and began the annual
trek back to classes late in August. The
rest, accounting for three-fourths of
the total, delayed their return until
after Labor Day.
Of the districts which started their
fall semesters early, four were dis
covered to have admitted Negro stu
dents to white classes for the first time.
Two of them are in Atoka County,
where feeling against public school in
tegration was reported as adamant as
anywhere else in the entire Little Dixie
area. They are the county seat, Atoka,
and Stringtown, to the north of it.
The third newly desegregated district
is Graham in Carter County, which first
tried unsuccessfully to work out ar
rangements with neighboring districts
for transfer of enough Negro students
to keep a separate high school open.
The fourth is Fort Gibson in Muskogee
County.
MORE DISTRICTS DESEGREGATE
Scheduled to have desegregated
classes for the first time when the fall
semester began the first week in Sep
tember were Bristow in Creek County,
the Star district near Oklahoma City,
and Springer in Carter County.
By the time classes were in full sway,
the total of Oklahoma school districts
which are desegregated—or have begun
the desegregation process—will reach
238. An estimated 258,834 white chil
dren and 25,843 Negro pupils are ex-
Texas
(Continued From Page 14)
A district court at Kountze, in south
east Texas, sentenced to life imprison-
Rient segregationist Bryant W. Bowles
Jl, on a charge of murdering his broth
er-in-law, James Earl Harvey, in a
family dispute. Bowles moved to Texas
a fter helping to organize the National
Association for the Advancement of
White People in the Washington, D.C.,
area.
Bowles is expected to appeal. He sa
he did not intend to kill his relative, b
only to punish him for slapping M:
Bowles, an expectant mother.
The AFL-CIO Committee on Politi
cal Education complained in Washing-
° n that Robert G. Storey, vice chairman
0 *ke U.S. Civil Rights Commission, had
contributed $500 to the campaign of Dal-
as r ancher-financier William A. Blakley
f° r the U.S. Senate.
Blakley was defeated in the July
emocratic primaries by incumbent Sen.
1958 J 1 Yarborou S h - (See SSN August
lakley advocated segregation
arborough was elected as a “1
some Negroes charged he too
segregation advocate.
Eighteen fully state supported col-
§es in Texas, including two attended
OKLAHOMA
Racial Barriers Are Discarded By Seven
More School Districts In Sooner State
pected to be in “integrated situa
tions.”
It was Springer, a small school hug
ging a main north-south highway in
the southern part of the state, that
caught the eye of Oklahomans. Until
now the state had accomplished deseg
regation with virtually no untoward
incident.
Then, in early August, there was a
report that two Springer school board
members had been beaten during an
official board meeting. Six patrons who
reportedly protested the board’s plans
for desegregating the school were ar
rested and later were charged with in
citing a riot.
THREATS RECEIVED
The two injured school board mem
bers, Charles H. Lain, 46-year-old
farmer, and Jack Burch, 35-year-old
rancher and cave explorer, told a
Southern School News correspondent
they have received reports of threats
by the six men to try to block integra
tion when school started. Neither
board member appeared too con
cerned.
The beating incident occurred at the
board’s Aug. 4 meeting, while gasoline
b ; ds were being discussed. According
to the accounts of witnesses, the six
men walked in late protesting the in
tegration proposal and also the re
sults of a spring school board election
in which Lain figured.
One of the six, Richard Jolly, an oil
field worker, said they had figured out
that Lain was responsible for the plan
to admit Negroes to the school. He
pulled out a knife and invited Lain to
fight. Lain said he replied that he didn’t
wish to fight, turned to phone the
sheriff, “and the building fell in on
me.”
When Burch and the other board
members tried to restrain Jolly, they
were told by the five men who came
with him not to interfere.
HOSPITALIZED 9 DAYS
Lain received a brain concussion
and had to be hospitalized nine days.
Burch sustained a deep cut over the
left eye and four stitches were required
to close it.
The six men were arrested the next
day. Jolly was charged with two counts
of assault and battery and one count
of disturbing the peace. The other five
—Wayne Patton, Haskell Patton, Mill-
idge Shangles, Clarence Terry and
Irvin Lathum—were charged with dis
turbing the peace. All pleaded innocent
and went free after posting bonds to
await hearings.
Later in the week a grand jury,
which was in session in Ardmore, the
county seat, investigated and recom
mended the more serious charge of in
citing a riot be filed against the six
Springer men.
only by Negroes, expect higher enroll
ment in September.
The Texas Commission on Higher Ed
ucation said enrollment likely will total
nearly 82,000, up 4,000 from last year.
Texas Southern University at Houston
anticipates 2,800 enrollment, up 100;
Prairie View A&M 2,541, up 50. Both are
for Negroes.
Dallas Police Chief Carl F. Hansson
announced “extra steps” had been taken
to prevent future clashes between Ne
groes and police after two altercations
in three days. He said he regarded both
incidents as minor but said “rebellion
against police authority will not be toler
ated.”
POLICE REINFORCEMENTS
Both cases involved efforts of Negroes
to interfere with police arresting other
Negroes. Both crowds were broken up
by reinforced police squadrons.
Thirty-seven Negroes were arrested
after an unsuccessful effort to prevent
police from removing four allegedly
drunk Negroes from a tavern. A second
police squad car later was surrounded
by an estimated 200 Negroes seeking to
prevent the arrest of three Negroes for
fighting.
At Austin, NAACP Branch President
J. L. Dawson reported activity by the
organization in Texas is low. He was
quoted as urging a campaign here to
“open up more employment to our peo
ple at the federal level, state, county and
city.”
# # #
Jolly told the SSN correspondent the
incident stemmed chiefly from objec
tions to conduct of the school board
election in the spring, but he conceded
“integration had a little to do with it.”
Burch, on the other hand, termed
the six men constant trouble-makers
who quarreled with the board over al
most every issue. “Integration gave
them something else to jump on us
about,” he said.
Both he and Lain claimed the school
board enjoyed the support of a large
majority of the Springer patrons be
cause they realize the financial neces
sity for the decision to desegregate.
LOSS OF ADA
Lain described the predicament in
which the board found itself thus:
Springer’s average daily attendance
(on which state equalization aid is cal
culated) has been beefed up by the
presence of 65 or 70 children of per
sonnel stationed at nearby Ardmore
Air Force Base as members of the 463rd
Troop Carrier wing. They have been
worth $5,000 to $6,000 in federal-impact
aid to the district.
However, the base is being shut
down and all the air force youngsters
will be gone by January. This means
Springer’s ADA will drop so that next
year the district will be entitled to three
fewer teachers.
Meanwhile, Graham, 19 miles to the
west, hoped to continue an arrange
ment whereby it was taking Negroes
from the Springer and Wheeler dis
tricts. This would enable it to keep its
Negro school, Woodford Central, open
as a high school and postpone desegre
gation one more year.
FORESAW DESEGREGATION
But Springer saw that, with loss of
the air force children, it would be
forced to desegregate next year any
way to keep its high school going and
would then have to hire the three ex
tra teachers out of its own pocket.
“Also,” Lain pointed out, “we’re on
the borderline with our ADA. With the
legislature coming back into session
next year—and they’re talking about
cutting comers—the ADA minimums
might be raised, and we’d lose our high
school any way.”
Lain estimated about 35 Negroes
would be admitted to Springer school.
Because of desegregation the district
can eliminate one of its four school
buses, thus saving some $2,000 a year in
driver’s salary and maintenance. The
fourth bus has been used to transport
24 Negroes living in the Springer dis
trict to Woodford Central. Under the
new setup Springer will be receiving
not only transportation reimbursement
but also state equalization aid on, not
24, but 36 Negro pupils. This, Lain said,
should about offset the loss of the air
force ADA.
$7,000 SAVING EXPECTED
Savings to the Springer district un
der desegregation could total as much
as $7,000, Lain said.
After the air force children leave,
Springer is expected to have a white
enrollment of around 156.
The Graham superintendent, Clovos
Hull, said his board decided, after
Springer backed out of the arrangement
to transfer its Negroes to Woodford
Central, it wasn’t worth the money to
keep the Negro high school open. Thus,
it decided to close the high school
grades there and place the Negroes with
the whites in the main Graham build
ing. Twelve were enrolled by the first
day, and Hull predicted 18 or 20 would
eventually sign up.
GRADE SCHOOLS SEPARATE
Graham will keep the grade schools
segregated, with 80 or 90 Negroes stay
ing at Woodford Central. Total white
enrollment in the district is about 227.
Failure of the Springer deal was the
second major blow for Graham in its
efforts to stave off integration one more
year. Last spring the state Board of
Education rejected its request for con
tinued calculation of the races sepa
rately, for state aid purposes, at Gra
ham and Woodford. (See SSN, April
1958.)
A similar set of “chain reaction” cir
cumstances produced Atoka County’s
first public school desegregation.
The county seat district, Atoka, tried
to desegregate three years ago. But the
force of adverse public opinion caused
the board to call off the attempt. Sub
sequently a joint financing arrange
ment was worked out, with approval of
the state Department of Education by
which Atoka took some 25 Negroes
from Stringtown, in the north part oi
the county, into its Dunbar High
School.
DIMINISHING ATTENDANCE
However, a steadily diminishing ADA
finally forced the local board to close
the high school grades at Dunbar.
George Morrison, superintendent, ex
plained that two additional teachers,
drawing salaries totaling $7,000 to $8,-
000, would have been needed to main
tain an accredited high school pro
gram at Dunbar. Yet, because of its
low average daily attendance, it was
entitled to reimbursement for only 1.6
“teachers.”
Morrison reported the white Atoka
High School enrolled 26 Negroes in
grades 7 to 9 and 20 in grades 10 to
12 the first day. White enrollment there
is about 900. About 74 Negro youngsters
remain segregated in grades 1 to 6.
Stringtown, whose Negroes accounted
for half the high school enrollment in
Dunbar at Akota last year, decided to
desegregate all 12 grades. Its Negro
grade school has been closed, and the
60 Negro students in the community
are now attending classes with some
240 white pupils.
ALL GRADES MIXED
Fort Gibson also opened all 12 grades
to racially mixed enrollments, taking
16 Negroes into its white high school
and about 25 into its grade school. The
district has a white enrollment of
around 649.
The superintendent, Leo Donahue,
said the desegregation was undertaken
for financial reasons. The Negro school,
Lincoln, had to be closed because it
needed five teachers to have an accred
ited program, and it could qualify for
only three under state aid.
Integration, previously confined to
the high schools, was extended to all
12 grades at Lenapah in Nowata Coun
ty and in the Waco Turner school in
Love County.
The latter is a new school, taking
pupils from the old Meadowbrook and
Bumeyville districts and part of the
Courtney district. Classes started Aug.
11—the early beginning allows for an
October recess for the cotton harvest—
and enrollment hit 320, including 43 or
44 Negroes, mostly from the Bumey
ville area, Supt. Cecil Alexander re
ported.
ANNEXATION, DESEGREGATION
Bumeyville, which had lost its high
school at the end of the 1956-57 school
year, was annexed by Meadowbrook a
year ago. Meadowbrook became deseg
regated in the process as 18 Negroes
from Bumeyville were admitted to its
upper six grades.
The consolidated district is maintain
ing the school at Bumeyville, where the
first six grades are all white and the
seventh and eighth grades are mixed. A
six-grade all-Negro school, Dunbar, is
also still in operation.
Finally, further checking of annual
statistical reports filed by superintend
ents with the state Department of Ed
ucation revealed two more apparently
integrated districts not previously listed
by the SSN. They are Geronimo, in
Comanche County, with 134 white stu
dents and four Negroes, and Roosevelt,
in Kiowa County, with 290 whites and
10 Negroes. The figures are based on
1956-57 enrollments, the latest avail
able.
Attorneys for the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People went into the U.S. District Court
for Eastern Oklahoma seeking perma
nent injunctions to keep school offi
cials of the Morris and Liberty districts
of Okmulgee County from refusing to
admit Negro students to white schools.
Both petitions allege the Negroes in
volved were discriminated against be
cause of their race and color, in viola
tion of the U.S. Constitution.
One suit, Richard Lee Jefferson et al
v. O. L. McCarty, et al, charged the
district has not made a “prompt and
reasonable” start toward full compliance
with the May 17, 1954, ruling of the
Supreme Court.
NEGRO PRINCIPAL NAMED
Collins, principal of the Anderson
Negro school, is accused of exercising
“persuasive and intriguing interest” on
the Negro parents to get them to keep
their children at the segregated build
ing.
He is charged, too, with arousing and
inciting racial animosity by telling the
Negro parents their children would be
mistreated in the white school. He also
is accused of threatening economic re
prisals through eviction of Negro par
ents from a farm he owns.
The suit asserted the board’s refusal
to transfer the plaintiff, and his broth
ers, LeRoy, George, and Eugene, into
the white elementary school does not
constitute a good-faith effort to comply
wtih the Supreme Court rulings.
Before the suit was filed, Dan R. Doss,
the Liberty superintendent, said he and
the board had discussed desegregation
but hoped to postpone the move for at
least a year. However, he said the board
would comply if integration were or
dered by a court.
HIGH SCHOOLS FIRST
Doss said that if the district does
desegregate it will be at the high school
level first. He pointed out the district
is losing state equalization aid on 16
Negro high school students who have
transferred to Grayson. But he insisted
Liberty has sufficient average daily at
tendance to be in no danger of losing
its high school.
The other court action is actually
a motion for intervention by a Negro
youth, Edward J. Dalcour, in a suit
filed a year ago (Brcnvn v. Long)
against the Morris district. That suit
resulted in a court order admitting Ne
groes to the Morris High School.
Dalcour’s motion alleges he was re
fused permission to enter Morris High
School after graduating from a de
segregated grade school at Eram,
which has no secondary school. At the
same time, he asserted, all white grad
uates who aprlied were transferred and
admitted to the Morris school. Such a
practice, he contended, is unreason
able and discriminatory and tends to
deprive him of the equal protection of
the laws secured by the Constitution.
PRESTON GRADE SCHOOLS
Another Okmulgee County district,
Preston, desegregated its elementary
grades for the first time, a development
that had its root in a federal court
order of last year (Sims v. Hudson).
At that time the court ordered a Negro
boy, Mark Sims, admitted to the Pres
ton High School but gave the board ad
ditional time to arrange for elementary
desegregation.
Frank W. Duke, superintendent, said
the board decided this year to accept
any Negro children who wanted to en
roll in the white grade school and two
were admitted. The Negro Douglass ele
mentary school is just across the road
from the white school. It has 55 Negro
students who did not seek admission
to the white classes.
Late in August youth council mem
bers of the NAACP launched a series
of “sit-down strikes” in an effort to
gain equal service at lunch counters
in downtewn Oklahoma City. By the
end of the first week the Negro young
sters, ranging in age from 6 to 17,
claimed victories at two stores.
Spokesmen for the group said the
action was taken because the refusal of
the stores to serve them food at the
counter, except on a carry-out basis,
constituted the last remaining segrega
tion barrier in Oklahoma City.
A seven-member state advisory com
mittee was formed, under auspices of
the U.S. Commission Civil Rights, to in
vestigate violations in Oklahoma. It will
check particularly, officials said, into
the fields of voting, education, and
housing. They will deal with cases in
which citizens are deprived of their
rights because of color, race, or reli
gion.
The Oklahoma committee chose as its
chairman John Rogers of Tulsa, chair
man of the state Board of Regents for
Higher Education.
A special legislative council commit
tee criticized Langston University, a
Negro school, for its high per capita
cost of operation. But it agreed the
school should be continued as a four-
year college at its present location—
near Guthrie in Logan County.
Langston has been under fire of legis
lators for the past year but the report
of the legislative council committee
which has been investigating it appar
ently assures its future.
The special committee urged greater
economy in administration and recom
mended more emphasis be placed on
vocational education. It reported that
Langston’s per capita operating cost is
$940. But the committee said there is
a definite need for the university to
continue for the benefit of the children.
# # #
