Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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. # # #