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PAGE 14—NOVEMBER 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS TENNESSEE Rebuilding Of Bombed Clinton High Stirs Argument The Clinton High School was rocked by three dynamite blasts the night of Oct. 5. The result is shown above. Damages to the school were estimated at between $250,000 and $300,000. Insurance covers $73,000 of the loss. The Anderson County Board of Education, which operates the school, has asked for federal aid to repair the damages on grounds the damage occurred as a result of the board’s compliance with the federal orders to desegregate. NASHVILLE, Tenn. lmost a year of calm at inte grated Clinton High School ended when three blasts reduced much of the building to rubble and set off a new sort of controversy. The question: Who should pay for rebuilding when a school is wrecked as an outgrowth of the segregation-desegregation issue? Many Clintonians and other Tennesseans, including Gov. Frank G. Clement, thought the federal government had an obliga tion, having required integration through its courts. President Eis enhower in a press conference de plored the incident but expressed reservations about U.S. responsi bility to provide money. The issue was unresolved as private contributions poured in from through out the country, and school officials ac cepted them provided no “strings” are attached. MOVED TO OAK RIDGE Meanwhile, the school’s student body was moved to a former elementary school that had been vacated at nearby Oak Ridge. Ten Negro students made the trip in a bus not shared by white children. School Supt. J. A. Newman said “it just happened that way.” (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) John Kasper retained Raulston Schoolfield, who was impeached last summer as a circuit judge, as his chief attorney in a trial to start at Nashville Nov. 3. Kasper called for more than 200 defense witnesses as he faced a charge of inciting to riot. (See “Legal Action.”) Former Gov. Jim Nance McCord was campaigning for the office as an inde pendent against Democratic nominee Buford Ellington, calling for “open pub lic schools” with “calm confidence.” (See “Political Activity.”) Three heavy blasts early on the morn ing of Oct. 5 left much of the Clinton High School building a shambles. It put the East Tennessee town again in the center of national attention, and the problem of providing funds for repair ing the damage took on national aspects. Estimated loss was $250,000, of which $73,000 was covered by insurance. The Anderson County school board expect ed to get some federal funds to help rebuild. Voluntary contributions were rolling in from throughout the country, and the board agreed to accept them as long as there were “no strings attached.” At the end of October, there were no indications that a solution of the crime was in sight. It was believed definitely linked to other blasts of schools and religious institutions in the South. Au thorities considered it a “professional job.” CALLED BY GOVERNOR Gov. Frank G. Clement quickly sum moned Anderson County officials to Nashville for a conference. All vowed that education of the school’s 870 stu dents would not be interrupted. Church es in Clinton offered their buildings. Of ficials at nearby Oak Ridge promptly offered use of an empty elementary school building there—vacated because of housing changes at the atomic energy installation. The Oak Ridge offer was accepted. After three days of meeting at the damaged school while the new quarters were being made ready, the students were driven in 15 school buses and in automobiles to their improvised place of education on Oct. 9. Ten of the 11 Negro students (one was suspended in September for carry ing a knife) rode in a single bus with no white students aboard it. School Supt. J. A. Newman said no system of bus loading was followed and “it just hap pened that way.” WHITE STUDENTS SEPARATE When no white students entered the bus with the Negroes, Newman told Southern School News, “we didn’t force any of them.” He added that some additional seats on the bus were taken, however, by adult educational person nel. Reporters at the scene said “some ten sion” was apparent among the boys and girls although the whites and Negroes ostensibly ignored one another. One white boy told a newsman the Negroes would have been “beaten up” had they been on a bus with the whites. But most of the youngsters said nothing about it. School Principal W. D. Human told a reporter: “I never saw a community come together and work as hard as this one after their school was destroyed. There were over 200 working at one time, cleaning, moving furniture, get ting the unused building ready to open. They did in three days what normally would have taken weeks to accomplish.” The students once more adequately housed, education officials turned to the problem of repairing the vast damage to the sprawling brick structure erect ed in 1927 and twice enlarged. The night before the explosions, the county school board had met to discuss the serious need of new buildings for other schools. Suddenly, the problem had mounted. SEEK FEDERAL AID County officials and school board members decided rapidly that they should look to the federal government for financial aid. They prepared a state ment for President Eisenhower, and a delegation went to Washington. Basing their request on two federal laws providing aid for public schools in so-called federally impacted areas, the Clinton group met on Oct. 8 with two White House staff members, Rocco C. Siciliano and Edward A. McCabe. They were unable to see the President but the letter they left for him stated: “There can be no doubt that these criminal acts of dynamite terrorism are directed toward the conscientious ef forts of the Anderson County school board to comply with the decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the orders of the United States District Court with regard to the integration of races . . . ‘CONTRARY TO CONVICTIONS’ “It is our determination, and we con sider it imperative, to keep the public schools . . . open and operating in ac cordance with the law. Although the integration of Clinton High School was contrary to our personal convictions, we have sought to carry out our duties in accordance with the law and to abide in good faith by the orders of our fed eral courts. “However, at this time Anderson County is not in a financial position to restore or to replace this building . . . The financial means are not available on a local level...” The county officials urged the White House to consider a program which would provide (1) federal financial aid to communities financially burdened because of federal court integration orders and (2) legislation to set up some form of insurance program for schools as protection against loss from dyna miting and other violence. TWO POSSIBLE SOURCES U.S. Commissioner of Education Law rence Derthick, former superintendent of Chattanooga schools, ordered an im mediate study to determine what sort of emergency federal aid might be forth coming. As a result, two U.S. programs were cited: one which might provide construction funds for a school in which federally-connected students have in creased by five per cent or more in a two-year period, the other involving maintenance and operating money in volving federally-connected enrollments in locally-owned schools. Parents of some Clinton students work for the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge. But immediate prospects for a large grant from Washington seemed dim. The maximum appeared to be between $20,000 and $30,000. President Eisen hower said at a press conference Oct. 15 that some federal aid might be avail able but operation of schools is primarily a state and local responsibility. He add ed that the U.S. can’t step in with money every time something goes wrong with a school from a water faucet on up. OFFICIALS PIQUED School officials at Clinton were piqued, and so was Gov. Clement. School board member R. G. Crossno, one of the delegation, said the group got an official “run-around, heave-ho and pass- the-buck.” Another member, O. C. Mayes, said “integration ... by court order caused the building to be blown up, and it is the responsibility of the federal government.” Board member Ralph Shanlever com mented: “The President said operation of the schools is a local matter. I wish they had held that view two years ago when we were forced to integrate.” Gov. Clement said Eisenhower’s state ment “shocked, amazed and dismayed” him. If the federal government “provides fixed bayonets” to enforce a law, the governor contended, it should “certainly look with favor upon public officials who have done their best” to abide by that law. He added: “The people of a community should not be held respon sible for the acts of terrorists who often are from out of the state.” CONTINGENCY FUND Clement reminded the delegation that he will not be governor after Jan. 15 but he said he would suggest that the 1959 legislature “take under advise ment” the possibility of a state con tingency fund to meet needs caused by such occurrences in the future. Legal difficulties stand in the way of provid ing state aid at present, state education officials reported. School Supt. Newman, back at his office in Clinton, told Southern School News that private contributions were mounting. Crossno, speaking for the school board, said such gifts will be welcome—but the school will not be rebuilt “as a memorial to integration or segregation.” Newman reported that about $6,000 had arrived three weeks after the blasts as a result of a drive led by newspaper columnist Drew Pearson, who visited Clinton Oct. 15 and started a nation wide campaign. SOME FEDERAL PROTECTION Meantime, it seemed clear that the Clinton students and faculty had a measure of federal protection now they were without previously. Their leased school building at Oak Ridge is the property of the U. S. government and under its protection, although the county has agreed to see that is it maintained without damage or loss. The handful of Negro pupils attended mixed classes in about the same at mosphere they did at Clinton. They tended to stay together, left pretty much alone, and white students con tinued to feel they were under no com pulsion to integrate so far as transpor tation facilities were concerned. Supt. Newman said he considered it noteworthy that “before 1956, when this situation started in the high school, all the county school buses were inte grated—and nobody thought anything about it.” He explained that Negro elementary school pupils rode the same buses as white high school pupils. However, Negro high school students were trans ported in a separate bus to a segregated school in an adjoining county, there being no high school for Negroes in Anderson County. The trial of John Kasper, New Jer sey-born racial agitator who recently sought unsuccessfully to register as a Tennessee voter, was scheduled to start Nov. 3 at Nashville, where he was indicted last year on a charge of incit ing to riot. As Criminal Court Judge Homer B. Weimar overruled a motion to quash the indictment, Kasper said he wanted more than 200 witnesses to testify in his behalf. The state submitted a list of 34 prospective witnesses, including several newsmen who covered the dis orders accompanying first-grade de segregation of Nashville schools in September, 1957. Kasper retained as his attorneys Raulston Schoolfield of Chattanooga, who was impeached as a Circuit Court judge and removed from office by the state legislature last summer, and his law partner, Excell Eaves. A third at torney, J. Alfred Smith of Nashville, withdrew shortly after Kasper named him because “our principles are not the same.” CONTEMPT APPEAL HEARD Two weeks previously, attorneys for Kasper and six residents of Clinton argued before the U. S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati that their trial at Knoxville on contempt of court charges was unfairly conducted. The court took the case under advise ment. Kasper was sentenced to six months in jail on a charge of violating a Fed eral Court injunction against interfer ing with integration of Clinton High School. The other six defendants, charged with being in a Kasper-led group which precipitated rioting in August 1956, got probated sentences ranging from 15 months to two years. Nine additional defendants were freed; one died in a mental hospital soon after the charges were filed. Attorneys for the Clinton residents, keeping their case separate from that of Kasper, declared their appeal was “based on principle” despite the fact U. S. District Judge Robert L. Taylor suspended all fines and sentences other than that against Kasper. They said they plan to go to the U. S. Supreme Blasts, Damages Listed Chronology of major bombings and bombing attempts involving southern schools and religious institutions in 1957 and 1958: Sept. 10, 1957—Hattie Cotton School, Nashville, damage, $71,000. Nov. 12,1957—Six sticks of dyn amite and partly burned fuse found alongside Temple Beth-El, Charlotte, N.C. Feb. 9, 1958—Thirty dynamite sticks and partly burned fuse found at side door of Temple Emanuel, Gastonia, N.C. March 16, 1958—Temple Beth- El, Miami, damage $30,000; Jew ish Community Center, Nashville, damage $6,000. April 28, 1958—Jewish Com munity Center and James Weldon Johnson Junior High School for Negroes, both at Jacksonville, Fla., damage minor; 54 dynamite sticks and partly burned fuse found at Temple Beth-El, Birm ingham. June 29, 1958—Bethel Baptist Church (Negro), Birmingham, damage minor (previously blasted in December 1954). Oct. 5, 1958—Clinton, Tenn., High School, damage estimated at $250,000. Oct. 12, 1958—Temple of He brew Benevolent Congregation, Atlanta, damage estimated at $200,000. Court if they are denied rehearings by the court of appeals. MSU CASE At Memphis, the state of Tennessee asked a federal district court to throw out a lawsuit filed by four Negroes seeking admittance to Memphis State University. State Atty. Gen. George S. McCanless said the plaintiffs should take the case through the state courts. The suit grew out of a state Board of Education order in September delaying integration at MSU a year after Presi dent J. M. Smith said he feared vio lence. Eight Negroes had passed en trance examinations. Four of the eight asked Federal Judge Marion S. Boyd for a prelimi nary injunction to halt the delay, basing their action partly on the recent Su preme Court decision against suspen sion of integration at Little Rock. The state’s motion to dismiss the in junction proceeding said: “There are available to plaintiffs adequate and complete remedies for the wrongs of which they complain in the courts of Tennessee which the plaintiffs should be required to resort to and exhaust before invoking the jurisdiction of this [federal] court.” Judge Boyd took the matter under advisement. A former governor of Tennessee, Jim Nance McCord, created a ripple in an otherwise placid general election cam paign by running as an independent candidate against the Democratic nom inee for governor, Buford Ellington. The 79-year-old McCord declared in his opening campaign address that “re sponsibility to the youth of Tennessee demands open public schools. There is much turmoil and uncertainty in the future of public education throughout the South. This future we must face with a calm confidence on the part of all our citizens that our schools shall continue to operate.” This statement was in reference to Ellington’s position as “an old-fashioned segregationist” who would “close a school to prevent violence or blood shed.” ‘SCHOOLS MUST CONTINUE’ McCord said: “While my whole back ground reflects a philosophy of segre gation of the races, the public school system . . . must continue to grow, uninterrupted by lawlessness and vio lence . . . “My idea is the local school boards will operate their schools, and the state . . . will only come in when the peace and quiet of community life is dis turbed, for the purpose of preserving law and order. I propose to be a con stitutional governor and to enforce all laws of the state under that constitu tion.” Ellington’s supporters countered that Judge Andrew Taylor, running in the primary with McCord’s support, cam paigned on a somewhat stronger pro- segregation stand than did Ellington. KASPER BACKS REPUBLICANS Republicans have token candidates for both governor and U. S. senator, and several other independents will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Among them are Knoxvillians Lee Foster and Tom Gouge, running for governor and sena tor respectively with the endorsement of racist John Kasper. Foster has been an associate of Kasper and posted his $2,500 bond in the pending ineiting-to- riot case against him at Nashville. Kasper said if Foster and Gouge are elected “Tennessee will be able to de fend its public schools by the armed might of a volunteer militia, which will meet force with force, violence with violence and bayonets with bayonets wherever and whenever the federal government assaults Tennessee as it has in Arkansas and elsewhere.” Officers in East Tennessee’s McMinn County escorted Kasper and Foster to the county line when they sought to hold a rally in Athens Oct. 28 after be ing asked to “move on.” Police Chief Ray Johnson said “we’ve got a nice, quiet town here, and we don’t want any trouble. It would have been per fectly all right for Foster to speak here if he just hadn’t brought that fellow (Kasper) with him.” NEGRO CANDIDATE For the first time since the Recon struction, a Negro is a candidate in a countywide election in Madison County, in strongly pro-segregationist West Tennessee. The Rev. U. Z. McKinnon, an NAACP leader, is running against three white men for one of the coun ty’s two seats in a state constitutional convention. McKinnon disclaimed racial aspects in his candidacy, declaring he was seeking support from “people of good will of both races.” Seventy-two per (Continued On Next Page)