Newspaper Page Text
page 4—SEPTEMBER 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MISSISSIPPI
Schools Open Completely Segregated;
Efforts Continue To Equalize Facilities
Southern School News
Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate, unbiased
information to school administrators, public officials and interested lay citizens
on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme Court opinion of
May 17, 1954 declaring segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. SERS
is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor anti-segregation, but simply
reports the facts as it finds them, state by state.
Published monthly by Southern Education Reporting Service at 1109 19th Ave.,
S., Nashville, Tenn.
Second class mail privileges authorized at Nashville, Tenn., under the authority
of the act of March 3, 1^79.
OFFICERS
Frank Ahlgren Chairman
Thomas R. Waring Vice Chairman
Edward D. Ball Executive Director
Patrick McCauley, Assistant to the Executive Director
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Frank Ahlgren, Editor, Memphis Com- C. A. McKnight, Editor, Charlotte Ob-
mercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn. server, Charlotte, N.C.
Edward D. Ball, Exec. Dir., Southern Ed- Char . les R Moss ' T Editor ’ Na$h '
,• n c vine Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
u i n epo mg ervice. George N. Redd, Dean, Fisk University,
Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor, Vander- Nashville, Tenn.
bilt University, Nashville, Tenn. Don Shoemaker, Editorial Page Editor,
Luther H. Foster, President, Tuskegee Miami Herald, Miami, Fla.
Institute, Tuskegee, Ala. Bert Struby, General Manager, Macon
_ . . .. .... .. . ... Telegraph and News, Macon, Ga.
Coleman A. Harwell Editor. Nashvdle Thomas R Wari Editor| char , eston
Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn. News & Cour ; er char , eston s c .
Henry H. Hill, President, George Pea- Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of
body College, Nashville, Tenn. Schools, Richmond, Va.
CORRESPONDENTS
ALABAMA MISSOURI
William H. McDonald, Assistant William K. Wyant Jr., Staff Writer,
Editor, Montgomery Advertiser St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ARKANSAS
William T. Shelton, City Editor, Ar- NORTH CAROLINA
kansas Gazette Arthur B. Johnsey, Raleigh Bureau,
DELAWARE Greensboro Daily News
William P. Frank, Staff Writer, Wil- OKLAHOMA
DISTRICT OFCOLUMBIA h^ma"^'oHr!!*''
Eve Edstrom, Staff Writer, Wash
ington Post & Times Herald SOUTH CAROLINA
FLORIDA W. D. Workman Jr., Special Corre-
Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami spondent, Columbia, S.C.
GEORGIA TENNESSEE
Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The Macon I° m Fla,!e ' Staff Writer . Nashville
News Banner
KENTUCKY Wallace Westfeldt, Staff Writer,
Weldon James. Editorial Writer, Nashville Tennessean
Louisville Courier-Journal TEXAS
LOUISIANA Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bureau,
Leo Adde, Staff Writer. New Orleans Dallas News
MARYLAND VIRGINIA
Edgar L. Jones, Editorial Writer, °. v ? rto " . J ° nes ' Associate Editor,
Baltimore Sun Richmond Times-Dispatch
MISSISSIPPI WEST VIRGINIA
Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau, Thomas F. Stafford, Assistant to the
Memphis Commercial Appeal Editor, Charleston Gazette
MAIL ADDRESS
P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tenn.
Return Postage Guaranteed
JACKSON, Miss.
M SSISSIPPl’s SEGREGATED public
schools and colleges, as well
as privately operated educational
institutions, open this month
without any legal actions taken
to bring them in line with the
U. S. Supreme Court’s desegre
gation decision. The 1958-59 scho
lastic year begins with a long
standing and wide gap between
the two systems over half way
closed under an equalization pro
gram designed to discourage inte
gration. (See “Community Ac
tion.”)
Expansion of the Jackson city limits
in order to maintain a “proper” ratio
of white and Negro voters, which is
shifting to the latter as a result of the
white movement to the suburban areas,
has been advocated by officials. (See
“What They Say.”)
State officials and prospective candi
dates for governor in next year’s Dem
ocratic primary pledged to preserve
segregation. (See “Political Activity.”)
As Mississippi’s 276,326 white and
268,905 Negro children registered for
the new school year in segregated fa
cilities, Gov. J. P. Coleman said the
state “has no integration problems, and
we don’t expect any.”
A vastly different system will be in
operation—one which officials say nears
a goal set by the Legislature in 1954 to
equalize Negro facilities and opportun
ities with those long provided for the
whites. It was designed to discourage
efforts to integrate the schools.
Increased salaries for the estimated
17,000 teachers, about 10,000 of them
white, go into effect on a “training and
experience” basis, regardless of race.
Increases range from $100 a year for
the holders of “temporary certificates”
(those without high school diplomas) to
$625 for holders of Master of Arts
degrees.
PUPIL ATTENDANCE UP
Where 57.57 per cent of the white
children were in school for nine
months, that percentage under a 1958
Legislative enactment has increased to
100 per cent. Of the 30.66 per cent
Negroes in nine-month schools, that
goes to 59 per cent. The disparity re
sults from a requirement that schools
must have an average daily attendance
of 80 per cent of its students to qualify
for the nine-month term.
Additionally an estimated 18,330 pupils
will be attending classes in new school
facilities constructed since January
1956 with state funds under Missis
sippi’s equalization building program,
ultimately to cost $120 million.
As of June 30, 1958, the state has
spent $46,125,281 on 234 building proj
ects in 69 of the 82 counties and in 108
of the 151 school districts. Additionally,
local funds approximating $10 million
have gone into the projects. Of the
expenditures, 77.7 per cent have been
allocated for construction of Negro
schools against 22.3 per cent for white
schools.
In order to speed up the program, the
Legislature also authorized the issuance
of full faith and credit bonds in any
amount so long as those outstanding
never exceed $60 million at any one
time. To date, $30 million in bonds
have been issued and sold.
An estimated 536 classrooms are in
volved in the new construction, and
perhaps 75 other classrooms have been
renovated.
Maintenance of a “proper” ratio of
white and Negro voters has been ad
vanced as one reason officials of the
city of Jackson are advocating an ex
pansion of the corporate limits.
The population ratio in the 1950
census was 60 per cent white and 40
per cent Negro. In a 1955 survey, it was
developed that the white population
within the city had not grown, whereas
the Negro population had.
Col. Battle Barksdale, executive di
rector of the City Planning Board, said
by 1960 the ratio without any corpor
ate limit change would be 55 per cent
white and 45 per cent Negro.
REPORTS WHITE EXODUS
“This situation exists because of an
exodus of the white population to the
suburbs while Negroes tend to remain
inside the city,” Barksdale said. “If the
city limits are expanded as planned, an
additional 20,000 whites will be brought
in and only 1,000 Negroes.
In Washington, the Rev. Clennon
King, Negro minister of Gulfport, Miss.,
said he would attempt to enter his six-
year old daughter, Muriel Ann, in an
all-white school at Gulfport as a test
for school desegregation in Mississippi.
King said his effort would be made
Sept. 2, but elementary schools in Mis
sissippi were not to open until Sept. 6.
Mississippi Gov. J. P. Coleman said
of King: “He cannot integrate any
school in this state and if he were not
a lunatic he would have sense enough
to know it.” King made an unsuccess
ful attempt previously to enter as a
student at the University of Mississippi.
(See Southern School News, August
1958).
One announced candidate for gov
ernor and three potentials have as
sured Mississippians segregation will
be maintained. Their positions were
stated in speeches at the Neshoba
County Fair at Philadelphia.
Lt. Gov. Carroll Gartin, an an
nounced candidate, said: “In our fight
for the maintenance of segregation, I
am convinced we have the overwhelm
ing support of a tremendous majority
of both races in Mississippi who know
that it is best for both races to maintain
their racial integrity and purity. We
must fight every effort, everywhere, by
everybody, with every lawful means, at
all times, on every level, in our de
termination to maintain segregation in
every phase of life in Mississippi . . .”
Rep. John Bell Williams (D. Miss.)
who is considering the governor’s race,
said: “The next governor must be a
man willing to rot in a federal prison
for contempt of a court order against
forcing integration. I feel that strongly
about the preservation of segregation.”
Ross R. Barnett, Jackson attorney,
who said he “probably will” make his
third race for the governorship, said:
“The southern states, and all other
states who believe in the perpetuation
of our heritage, local self-government,
the rights of the states, constitutional
government, the purity and the integ
rity of both white and colored races,
must join hands and commit ourselves
unreservedly in the preservation of the
wisdom and the rightness of the basic
principles of our form of government
and particularly of our Constitution.”
Secretary of State Heber Ladner, a
potential gubernatorial aspirant, said:
“The winds of resistance have just be
gun to blow in the South against public
school integration. The will of the
people, and not the decisions of the
United States Supreme Court, is the
law of the land.” # # #
Texts, Documents
(Continued From Page 3)
General Assembly is convened to be the following:
To consider and, if so advised, enact laws for the
following purposes:
1) To regulate the administration and financing
of public schools and education, and to make ap
propriation for such purposes.
2) To make appropriation to pay the expenses
and per diem of this extraordinary session of the
General Assembly.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand
and caused the great seal of the state of Arkansas
to be affixed. Done in office in the City of Little Rock
on this 23rd day of August, 1958.”
(signed)
Orval E. Faubus
Governor
Bills Enacted, Aug. 28
1) Shut down schools faced with integration and
provide an election within 30 days to determine
whether voters want them to stay closed or re
opened on a desegregated basis.
2) Withhold state funds from integrated schools
and turn over the money to either private or pub
lic schools which the students elect to attend.
3) Permit students to transfer to another school
of their own race.
4) Assert that no student shall be denied the
right to enroll or receive instruction because he
refuses to attend integrated classes. This was in
terpreted to mean that classes could be segregated
within an integrated school building.
5) Delay opening of Little Rock schools from
the original date of Sept. 2 to Sept. 15.
6) Appropriate $100,000 for the governor to meet
expenses connected with the bills. This includes
$6,250 for a special assistant to the governor and
$75,000 for the cost of holding school district elec
tions.
7) Require a loyalty oath of school teachers and
officials which would have them spell out the or
ganizations to which they belong.
8) Provide certain changes in the school taxes
which would give some assistance to school dis
tricts.
9) Allow recall of school board members if 15
per cent of a district’s voters petition for a recall
election.
10) Withdraw the power of certain types of
organizations to act as attorneys for individuals
(aimed at the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People).
11) Prevent a so-called public sitdown in public
schools by Negroes to avert the kind of campaign
carried out in Oklahoma City during the past few
days. It would prohibit unauthorized persons from
entering school premises.
12) Require organizations aiming to interfere
with state control of public schools to submit a
list of members and other information to county
clerks (aimed at the NAACP).
13) Make easier the legal processes required for
search of the records of organizations by the at
torney general’s office (aimed at the NAACP).
14) Strengthen the state’s anti-barratry laws—
making it illegal to solicit lawsuits or to cause acts
of violence directed specifically toward causing a
lawsuit (aimed at the NAACP).
15) Appropriate $19,200 for the attorney gen
eral’s office for additional financial aid in integra
tion suits.
16) Prevent any organization other than legal
aid societies from representing a client in a law
suit without cost to the individual (aimed at the
NAACP).
Supreme Court Order
Having considered the oral arguments, the court
is in agreement with the view expressed by coun
sel for the respective parties and by the soliciter
general that petitioners’ present application res
pecting the stay of the mandate of the court of
appeals and of the order of the district court of
June 21, 1958 necessarily involves consideration of
the merits of the court of appeals decision revers
ing the order of Judge Lemley. The court is ad
vised that the opening date of the high school will
be Sept. 15. In light of this, and representations
made by counsel for the school board as to the
board’s plan for filing its petition for certiorari, the
court makes the following order:
1) The school board’s petition for certiorari may
be filed not later than Sept. 8,1958.
2) The briefs of both parties on the merits may
be filed not later than Sept. 10,1958.
3) The solicitor general is invited to file a brief
by Sept. 10, 1958, and to present oral argument if
he is so advised.
4) The rules of the court requiring printing of
the petition, briefs, and record are dispensed with.
5) Oral argument upon the petition for certiorari
is set for Sept. 11, 1958, at 12 o’clock noon.
6) Action on the petitioners’ application ad
dressed to the stay of the mandate of the court of
appeals and to the stay of the order of the district
court of June 21, 1958 is deferred pending the dis
position of the petition for certiorari duly filed in
the courts with the foregoing schedule.
Attorney’s Letter, Sept. 1
In my opinion, the complex problems caused by
the desegregation decisions of the United States
Supreme Court can be solved by the exercise of
the utmost patience and good faith on the part of
all concerned.
Adequate answers cannot be found in unyield
ing integrationists and segregationists trying to
outwit each other for some temporary advantage.
You [the school board] had originally planned
for the Little Rock schools to open on Sept. 2.
Because of special sessions of appellate courts
called hurriedly during summer vacation, you ten
tatively decided to postpone the opening of all
Little Rock schools until Sept. 8. In the mean
time, in response to a call by the governor, a
special sesion of the General Assembly considered
a number of proposed bills. One of these bills
gave authority to the governor to postpone the
opening of Central High School in Little Rock
until Sept. 15. This bill was being processed
through the General Assembly while argument re
garding Judge Lemley’s decision was being made
before the United States Supreme Court. In re
sponse to questions by the court, we informed the
court of the probable passage of this bill.
In determining the schedule for briefs and fur
ther argument, the Supreme Court obviously took
into consideration the probability that the high
schools of Little Rock would not open until Sept.
15. It seemed apparent at that time that this bill
would be enacted into law along with the other
bills dealing with the problems of desegregation.
The General Assembly has passed the bill and all
that remains to be done to enact it into law is for
the governor to sign it. As of this date the gov
ernor declines to say whether he will sign it or not.
One of the strongest bulwarks of the Little
Rock school board during these trying times has
been its utmost good faith in attempting to obey
the law while attempting to perform its primary
function of operating a public school system. You
have not resorted to questionable methods directed
toward expediency of the moment, but you have
tried to steer a steady course while being buffeted
first from one side, and then the other. This ad
herence to your dedicated purpose of keeping the
schools functioning, yet refraining from defiance
of federal law, has appeared at times to be an
unattainable goal, but your steadfastness has won
the admiration and support of the courts and im
partial citizens throughout the land.
I recognize the financial burden upon the Little
Rock School District in delaying the opening of
schools from Sept. 2 to Sept. 8, and the added
economic problem if further delay becomes ad
visable. Many people are not aware of this board’s
contractual obligation to pay hundreds of teachers
and other employes from Sept. 2. Others may not
be aware of your obligation to all the school chil
dren to keep the schools open for a minimum pe
riod during the year in order to retain accredita
tion by the North Central Association of Colleges
and Secondary Schools. . . .
In attempting to extricate itself from this di
lemma, and in trying to arrive at a sound decision,
I suggest the board consider opening all schools
in Little Rock, except the high schools, not later
than Sept. 8, and that the opening of the high
schools be postponed until September 15. It ap
pears to me that to open the high schools, par
ticularly Central High School, would create fur
ther confusion and uncertainty and would be in
terpreted by the court, as well as by impartial
citizens, as an act of bad faith under the cir
cumstances.
In my opinion, the school board’s request for,
and Judge Lemley’s grant of, a two-and-one-half
year delay are legally sound, and our opportunity
for success in the Supreme Court should not be
jeopardized by trying to circumvent the schedule
announced by the court. # # #