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ALABAMA
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—DECEMBER 1958—PAGE 3
Supreme Court Decision On Pupil Placement Law Hailed By Officials
MONTGOMERY, Ala.
he U. S. Supreme Court Nov.
24 held the Alabama School
Placement Law is constitutional
on its face. (See “Legal Action.”)
Alabama officials were jubilant.
Gov.-elect John Patterson, ex
pressing satisfaction with the rul
ing, said he hoped “this is an in
dication that the Supreme Court
is going to let us handle our own
affairs . . . without interference
from Washington.”
However, he qualified this with
the warning that future trouble
might be expected from “race
agitators.”
Lt. Gov.-elect Albert Boutwell of Bir
mingham, who as a state senator was
one of the principal proponents of the
1955 act as well as the strengthening
amendments last year, called the de
cision a “tribute to the cooperation and
teamwork of the Alabama Legislature
and the members of a special state Bar
Association committee who worked to
gether in preparation and passage of
the law.” (See “What They Say.”)
PROTEST LITTLE ROCK
Alabama Democrats and Republicans
agreed the Nov. 4 vote in the state re
flected a strong protest by white voters
against the Eisenhower Administration’s
intervention in Little Rock and racial
developments in general.
Although the Democratic gubernato
rial nominee, Atty. Gen. John Patterson,
was expected to win easily—as Demo
crats usually do in this state—the vote
was surprisingly lopsided. See “Politi
cal Activity.”)
While the recession and the national
Democratic sweep were probably fac
tors, GOP Candidate William Longshore
said the sending of troops to Little
Rock had much to do with the one
sided outcome. Democrats agreed. In
fact, Patterson predicted on the eve of
the election he would be the beneficiary
of a strong protest vote.
NEGROES PROTEST, TOO
But Negro voters mounted a protest
vote of their own. Predominantly Ne
gro precincts in Birmingham, Mont
gomery, Mobile and Macon County
showed a heavy Republican vote—ob
viously a protest against the segrega
tionist record of Patterson and Ala
bama Democrats generally.
As the election approached, segrega
tionists called for a large turnout of
white voters—many of whom stay away
from the polls in general elections ex
cept during presidential years — to
counter the expected “bloc vote” of Ne
groes for Longshore.
The investigation by the federal Civil
Rights Commission, which will be held
in Montgomery Dec. 8, has aroused
strong protests and threats of defiance
from Alabama officials. Atty. Gen. Pat
terson said voting records, which the
commission has indicated it will sub
poena, are not public documents and
hence not open for inspection. (See “Le
gal Action.”)
Maryland
(Continued From Page 2)
In Prince George’s County, Negro
Pupils, under a voluntary transfer pro-
gram, have entered an additional four
white schools. In this, the fourth year
°f desegregation in Prince George’s,
there are 240 Negroes in 21 mixed
schools. The county has some 7,000
Negro pupils in all, and more than
50,000 white children.
Prior to this fall Washington County
had only one remaining Negro school
located in a Negro residential area of
uagerstown and containing, because of
Jack of facilities elsewhere, grades one
hrough eight. With the opening of a
Pew high school in the city, it became
Possible this September to shift the
seventh and eighth grade pupils to de
segregated junior highs. The move has
Raised the number of mixed schools to
’ and the number of integrated Ne-
§ r °es to 189. Two other Negro pupils
attend kindergarten in a school not
deluded in the total.
In Charles County, where desegrega-
* on is limited to the lowest grades, two
®S ro pupils attend one mixed school,
jjje same as last year. Talbot County on
P e Eastern Shore has registered a drop,
mom 11 Negro children in three white
schools last year to a current eight pu-
PjJs in two schools. Six of the Eastern
hore counties have published desegre
gation programs under which Negro
>--31
LEG,
The U.S. Supreme Court’s brief, one-
paragraph order holdiing Alabama’s
school placement law constitutional on
its face, said simply:
“Per Curiam: The motion to affirm is
granted and the judgment is affirmed
upon the limited ground upon which
the district court rested its decision, 162
F. Supp., 372, 384.”
Thus the high court upheld without
comment the May 9 ruling of a three-
judge U.S. District Court panel in Bir
mingham. (For partial text, see South
ern School News, June 1958.)
UNCONSTITUTIONALITY CLAIMED
The district court had been petitioned
in behalf of four Negro children who
sought admission to Birmingham white
schools. The petitioners contended the
law was unconstitutional “on its face,”
but the district court disagreed.
The court ruled the law “furnishes
the legal machinery for an orderly ad
ministration of the public schools in a
constitutional manner by the admis
sion of qualified pupils upon a basis of
individual merit without regard to their
race or color.”
The court, the ruling continued, “must
presume that it [the placement law] will
be so administered.” But if it isn’t the
court added: “In some future proceed
ing it is possible that it may be declared
unconstitutional in its application. The
responsibility rests primarily upon the
local school board, but ultimately upon
all of the people of the state.”
SAME APPEAL
The Negro petitioners had based their
case on the alleged unconstitutionality
of the act itself, and this was their con
tention on appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
At the time the act was passed, it was
frankly discussed in the Legislature as
a measure to keep Negroes out of white
schools, though race is not one of the
criteria for assignment listed in the act.
Atty. Gen. John Patterson, governor-
elect, in November said he will resist
any efforts by the federal Civil Rights
Commission to obtain registration rec
ords from the Macon County Board of
Registrars or the boards of other coun
ties.
The commission, prompted by com
plaints of Macon County Negroes who
claim many of their number have been
denied registration, will meet in Mont
gomery Dec. 8. The hearings are ex
pected to last two days.
From Washington it was announced
that the commission would use the
power of subpoena to obtain witnesses
and records for the hearings.
RECORDS TO BE DENIED
B. P. Livingstone, chairman of the
Macon board who denied commission
investigators access to board records in
October (Southern School News, No
vember), said of the subpoena an
nouncement: “I am not going to turn
our records over to anybody unless it is
first approved by the state attorney
pupils may apply for transfers, but no
applications have been received.
The Baltimore Baptist Pastors Con
ference, representing some 60 churches,
passed a resolution in November which
described the Supreme Court’s anti-
segregation decisions as “applying a
biblical truth to political life” and said
“it is a grievous abuse of the Bible to
use it to support racial inequality.”
The resolution was described as an
answer to Arkansas pastors who have
quoted the Bible in support of segre
gated schools. “We want to lend sup
port to those Arkansas pastors who have
stood behind the Southern Baptist Con
ference,” a spokesman for the Baltimore
group was quoted as saying.
The Maryland Advisory Committee, a
six-member local adjunct of the na
tional Commission on Civil Rights, held
its organizational meeting in November
and decided to direct its attention in
itially to voting, education and housing.
State Sen. Harry A. Cole was elected
chairman of the committee, which in
cludes Dr. John H. Fischer, Baltimore
school superintendent. Cole was said
to be the first Negro to head one of the
advisory committees, which have been
set up in more than 20 states.
# # #
GOV.-ELECT PATTERSON
Hails Recent Decision
general. I want to make it plain that we
have nothing to hide in our records. We
are proud of them, and we don’t think
they could find anything wrong with
them. [But it has] become a state prop
osition and the attorney general is the
proper one to decide if our records
should be opened.”
Patterson promised he would resist
the commission’s efforts. He has said
that registration files are private rec
ords, not public documents, and hence
closed to inspection. He has advised all
county boards of registrars to withhold
them from federal agents.
The commission revealed that voter
complaints have also come from other
Alabama counties, including Montgom
ery. Commission officials have indicat
ed that these may be investigated along
with the Macon complaints.
In Birmingham, a federal grand jury
will investigate the jailing of three
Montgomery Negro ministers arrested
Oct. 27 at the home of the Rev. F. L.
Shuttlesworth, Birmingham Negro min
ister who has been active in school and
bus integration efforts there.
BUS BOYCOTT LEADERS
U. S. Atty. Gen. William P. Rogers
announced in Washington the grand
jury would be asked to determine
whether the civil rights of the three vis
iting ministers were violated. All three
were leaders in the Montgomery bus
boycott and there had been rumors that
a similar boycott was planned in Birm
ingham, where Negroes are challenging
segregated seating. No boycott has yet
developed, however.
The ministers were the Revs. S. S.
Seay, A. W. Wilson and H. H. Hubbard.
They were taken from Shuttlesworth’s
home under a technical charge of va
grancy, questioned for several hours and
released. The same day Shuttlesworth
was fined $100 and sentenced to 90
days in jail for violating the bus
seating law, which gives the transit
company power to fix seating arrange
ments. The law is under court attack.
CONNOR COMMENTS
No date has been set for the grand
jury hearing. Birmingham Police Com
missioner Eugene (Bull) Connor said
he was not frightened by the Rogers
action. Insisting that he would jail any
one who attempts to aid a bus boycott,
Connor said:
“If Mr. Rogers thinks he can scare
me or the police department into per
mitting this city to become a scene of
rioting which would follow such a boy
cott merely to please the Negro voters
of the North, he is mistaken in his man.
... I intend to enforce the laws of
Birmingham and Alabama against crime
and violence.”
Elsewhere, Tuskegee Negroes have
filed notice of appeal in their legal fight
to have the Tuskegee gerrymander law
invalidated.
Atty. Gen. John Patterson, who re
ceived a record shattering 312,000 votes
in the June Democratic primary, over
whelmed his Republican opposition Nov.
4 by a margin of 7 to 1. At 37, Patter
son will take office in January as the
state’s youngest governor.
Although there was nothing surpris
ing in his winning in this solidly Dem
ocratic state, both parties agreed the
weak showing of the Republican chal
lenger, William L. Longshore Jr. of
Birmingham, was at least partly due to
Eisenhower’s intervention in Little
Rock. Four years ago, the GOP guber
natorial nominee got 26 per cent of the
general election vote. Longshore got
only 12 per cent despite an energetic
speaking campaign and personal popu
larity.
Although the official canvass will not
be made until the new Legislature
meets for its organizational session in
January, Patterson led in unofficial re
turns 194,000 to 27,000. Similar defeats
were administered to other Republican
candidates. None came close to winning.
NEGRO BOXES FOR GOP
It would have been worse but for a
heavy Republican vote by Alabama Ne
groes, as reflected in predominantly
Negro areas in Birmingham, Mobile,
Montgomery and in troubled Macon
County, home of Tuskegee Institute.
One Birmingham precinct, where Ne
gro registration is said to comprise about
65 per cent of the total number assigned
to vote there, reported a 507 to 313
margin for Longshore over Patterson.
In another predominantly Negro area
in Birmingham, Longshore had a 313-
272 edge. Nearby, a predominantly white
beat gave Patterson a lopsided 361-21
vote over Longshore. And Patterson
carried Jefferson County (Birmingham)
38,383 to 7,951 for the Republican candi
date.
(In 1956 Eisenhower carried Birming
ham, Montgomery and Mobile and the
Negro vote for the GOP was a factor.)
MACON VOTE
About one-third of Macon County’s
votes went to the Republicans whereas
normally “you can count the Republi
can votes in this county on your fin
gers,” as Macon Sheriff Preston Hornsby
put it.
Former state Sen. Sam Engelhardt of
Macon, author of the Tuskegee gerry
mander bill and other segregation meas
ures, said he thought Negro voters in
his home county were expressing ap
proval of the President’s use of troops
in Little Rock. They were also protest
ing, Engelhardt said, Patterson’s court
actions against the NAACP and against
the Tuskegee Civic Association, a Negro
political action group.
Longshore, who ran on a state GOP
platform pledging the maintenance of
segregation, commented that he prob
ably got the Negro vote “by default.” He
said he had repeatedly stressed his
stand for segregation during his short
but energetic campaign, adding: “We
certainly didn’t appeal to the Negroes
for their vote. They probably went Re
publican because of my opponent’s suits
against the NAACP.”
However, the predominantly Negro
precincts also went strongly for GOP
candidates for other offices than gov
ernor, observers pointed out.
CALL FOR BIG VOTE
Two days before the election, Mont
gomery Citizens Council Chairman
Bruce Wyatt urged white voters to vote
in strength “to prevent the possibility
of the Negro bloc vote controlling the
outcome of the election.”
Wyatt said in his statement released
to the press:
“Only by turning out in strength can
the white people of Alabama make sure
that the usual nominal character of the
general election does not assume a cru
cial character at this time, with the
Negro voters deciding all issues . . . The
Negro vote might hold the balance of
power [if white voters neglect to vote]
. . . White voters should not overlook
the possibility that this might be at
tempted . . . [Negro voters] have come
under the sway of left wing integra-
tionists who would stop at nothing in
their efforts to upset the traditional po
litical and social system of the South
and the greatest danger of this happen
ing is in a general election when many
white people, believing everything set
tled in the primaries, neglect to vote.”
INDEX VOTE
One of three constitutional amend
ments voted on Nov. 4 was watched
as a possible index of the state’s atti
tude toward additional support for
schools. Amendment No. 3 applied only
to Montgomery County. It would have
cleared the constitutional obstacles so
that the county could, at some future
date, impose an additional ad valorem
tax to provide more revenue for local
schools. Another election would have
been necessary to implement an in
crease; the amendment would only have
made such an election possible.
Statewide, No. 3 was rejected by only
a slight margin—48,865 to 46.232. But
it was the overwhelming rejection by
Montgomery voters that made the dif
ference. The Montgomery vote was
6,579 against and 1,768 for, and it was
generally agreed that the segregation
uncertainty, including fear of school
closings, was a major factor in the
local rejection, along with the usual re
luctance to open the door to new taxes.
Officially, the U. S. Supreme Court’s
action upholding the constitutionality of
the Alabama placement law was hailed
as a “victory.” But Gov.-elect Patterson,
replying to statements by Negro lead
ers in Birmingham, added: “I don’t ex
pect the race agitators to do anything
sensible.”
“I hope the decision . . . reflects a
trend,” Patterson said, “toward letting
us handle our own domestic affairs her£
without outside interference, which is
the only way things can be handled
without chaos and disorder.”
Lt. Gov.-elect Albert Boutwell of Bir
mingham, a segregation leader while
he served in the state Senate, said: “I
believe [the decision] will help arouse
more enthusiasm and hope that we in
the South can get the Supreme Court
and the people generally to apply sound
reasoning in making their decisions. A
number of us are now working on a
southwide organization and as soon as
the new administration takes office I
shall urge the setting up of a proper
legislative committee to bring together
the leaders ... in Alabama . . . and
similar officials throughout the South
and the rest of the U.S..”
‘MUST STOP USURPATION’
“We must stop the federal govern
ment from further usurpation of rights
guaranteed to the state and its people
. . . and regain those that already have
been taken from us.”
The Rev. F. L. Shuttlesworth, Bir
mingham Negro leader, said: “The case
isn’t closed, by any means. But, of
course, we will have to consult our at
torneys ... As long as any parents
want to request admission to white
schools near their homes, we are going
to prepare petitions for them. If the
court can rule that [ the placement law ]
can be applied without discrimination,
then it is up to the Birmngham school
board to apply it without discrimina
tion. We have no intention of backing
away from the struggle.”
Despite the uncertain future of pub
lic education in Alabama, the Alabama
Education Commission, set up by the
1957 Legislature to make a comprehen
sive study of the state’s school needs,
is proceeding on the assumption that
the system will remain intact.
The commission was empowered to
study school needs, according to Chair
man Joe Dawkins of Montgomery, and
that is what it will do. The commission
is due to make its report in January,
when the new legislature is organized.
Public hearings will begin Jan. 5 for
discussion of the final recommenda
tions the commission will make to the
legislature. It may not be possible to
offer the report by the time the legisla
ture completes its organization session
Jan. 23, Dawkins said. Six committees
must submit their recommendations to
the whole commission for acceptance.
The subcommittee on school finances
is considering proposing a boost in the
state income tax rate and an added
one cent to the sales tax to raise another
$30 million for schools. A bond issue also
is being considered.
Meanwhile, educators were encoui -
aged by an upswing in existing taxes
earmarked for school purposes. In the
1957-58 fiscal year a slump in key school
tax collections necessitated a 10 per
cent proration of budgeted school funds.
However, October 1958 collections
from sales, income and tobacco taxes
totaled almost $900,000 more than in
October 1957 and educators were en
couraged to believe the effects of the
recession on revenue may be ending.
The Baptist Laymen of Alabama
wired Rep. Brooks Hays of Arkansas
Nov. 14 to resign as president of the
Southern Baptist Convention because of
his racial stand.
The wire urged Hays to vacate his
church office immediately “to prevent
further damage to the conference.” It
continued:
“We do not question your right as an
individual seeking moderation in the
integration question, but in doing so as
president of the convention, you may
become a controversial figure not rep
resentative of the thinking of the ma
jority of people who support the co
operative program.”
The group claims a membership of
1,500 and says it speaks for many times
that number of church members.
# # #