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Objective
VOL. 6, NO. I
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
JUL9 ’59
$2 PER YEAR
JULY, 1959
LIBRARIES
Decisions Handed Down hfo Court Cases
Federal Control To End At Oak Ridge
By TOM FLAKE
OAK RIDGE, Term.
ULLY INTEGRATED PUBLIC Schools
in the world’s first atomic city
will pass from federal to local-
state jurisdiction this year, with
no change expected in policies as
to races.
The ultra-modern Oak Ridge
school system, with more than
7,000 enrolled in a dozen schools
last term, is part of the $35 mil
lion “package” of public facilities
being relinquished by the Atomic
Energy Commission to local self-
government.
All grades in all Oak Ridge
schools are open since 1955 to any
race living in that school zone. In
fact, federal policy forbids keep
ing any records of pupils as to
race.
TWO SCHOOLS BI-RACIAL
Actually, however, only two schools—
Robertsville Junior High School and
Oak Ridge High, the one senior high
school in the system—were unoffi
cially reported attended by both whites
and Negroes during the 1958-59 school
term. Authorities said this was a matter
of residence—not of racial distinction.
Oak Ridge has a Negro community,
Gamble Valley (also called Gamble
Village) and all Negro elementary pupils
so far have attended all-Negro Scar-
boro school. They have moved into
mixed classes only on reaching higher
grade levels which have larger zones.
“The Army built it that way” when
Oak Ridge was established, said L. B.
Shallcross, administrative consultant to
the former town council and now
acting city manager under the new
regime. “The Negroes moved over there
and the white people moved over here.
That’s the way it’s been.”
A few Negro families live in other
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
ost of the Negro school chil
dren in Missouri are enrolled
in districts where some type of
desegregation has taken place, but
the vast majority are still attend
ing segregated schools, the Mis
souri Advisory Committee of the
Federal Commission on Civil
Rights reported June 6.
The report made reference to
an estimate of Missouri public
school officials, published in the
June 1958 issue of Southern
School News, that 95 per cent of
Negro school children were in de
segregated situations. It said this
picture was “bright” when con
trasted with the record of Vir
ginia, Kentucky and Tennessee
but the integration figures were
misleading.
“The correspondents of Southern
School News, the leading fact-finding
vehicle on desegregation, have been
extremely careful in stressing this
point,” said Lorenzo J. Greene, profes
sor of history at Lincoln University in
Jefferson City, who prepared the 119-
page report. He is a member of the
Missouri committee.
REASONS GIVEN
Greene cited four reasons why the
statistics on school integration in Mis
elementary school zones but to date
have enrolled no children in those
zones.
When the formal switch of school
ownership occurs, probably sometime
between Sept. 1 and Jan. 1, the Oak
Ridge school district will become the
153rd to be administered wholly under
Tennessee laws through a local school
board and the state Department of Edu
cation.
SAME BOARD
All five members of the former advi
sory school board, which has functioned
in the shadow of the AEC over the
years, have been elected for five-year
terms on the new city Board of Educa
tion. They will have virtually full con
trol of the school system except for
final action on the annual budget,
which must go before the City Council
under Tennessee law.
Neither the board nor School Supt.
L. P. Cushman has indicated any inten
tion of making any fundamental
changes in school administrative poli
cies. They have avoided public state
ments on the subject in their new
capacities but all have been in evident
accord with the non-racial setup.
Even should there be a disposition
to restore segregation, it was pointed
out that Oak Ridge is negotiating a 10-
year agreement with AEC for continued
financial aid until the city becomes
self-sufficient, and the federal govern
ment presumably would refuse support
to a segregated situation.
Tennessee enrollment records provide
for designation of each pupil’s race, and
the state keeps statistics accordingly.
Whether question will be raised on this
policy in Oak Ridge remained to be
determined, but it was considered like
ly that state forms would be followed
without incident.
TWO OTHER DISTRICTS
Nashville and Anderson County are
the ony other school districts in Ten
nessee which yet have any degree of
desegregation, and it is not complete in
souri did not, in his opinion, mean ex
actly what they said.
In the first place, Greene reported, the
percentage of Negroes in desegregated
situations has no direct correlation with
the numbers of Negroes actually attend
ing schools with white children. He said
quite often it embraces Negro children
whose school districts have made only
a start toward desegregation, accepting
perhaps only a few Negro children in
the senior or junior high school.
“Secondly, the state Board of Educa
tion gives out no figures on the racial
breakdown of school enrollment. Ac
cording to board officials, no statistics
are kept by race. In short, it keeps no
records by race and has published none
since 1954. The reasoning is that deseg
regation has proceeded to such an ex
tent that it is no longer a problem.
Further, the impression is given that
the less said about desegregation, the
less opposition evoked.”
OFFICIALS HESITANT
Greene s third reason was that school
officials in the various districts were
generally hesitant about giving out fig
ures on school enrollment by race. He
said: While there may be considerable
j ustification for such on the part of local
administrators, the fact is that both
school principals and superintendents,
like department of education officials,
are generally evasive, noncommittal or
pleasantly adamant against giving a ra
cial breakdown of their school enroll
ment.”
(In making the survey, purpose of
(Continued on Page 3)
either. Both continue to show race on
enrollment cards.
Michigan-born Cushman, who came
here three years ago and now calls
himself “a quasi-government employe
whose present status is a bit vague,”
is due to be retained by the newly
constituted board.
He has carefully refrained through
out his tenure from commenting on
the subject of race in the schools. He
told Southern School News he had “no
idea” how statistics on Oak Ridge en
rollment by races could have been com
piled.
But reliable reports indicated that 214
children, constituting about three per
SUPT. L. P. CUSHMAN
No Change in Policy
cent of Oak Ridge’s pupil population,
are Negroes and 45 of this number are
in schools with whites. Thus, unofficial
though it may be, the Oak Ridge sys
tem is predominantly all-white.
Oak Ridge (population 28,500) is in
Anderson County, six miles from Clin
ton, the county seat, where court-
ordered desegregation of the high
school brought violence climaxed last
fall by the still-unsolved dynamiting of
the school building. Clinton students,
including nine Negroes riding in a
separate bus, since have been trans
ported daily to Oak Ridge’s Linden
School, which had been vacated and its
pupils divided between two other
schools with falling enrollments. This
“good neighbor” arrangement will con
tinue through the 1959-60 term while
the destroyed section of Clinton High is
rebuilt at a cost of $600,000.
Technically, Oak Ridge schools have
been administered by the Anderson
County Board of Education under a
contract arrangement—but only techni
cally. County Supt. J. A. Newman has
signed Oak Ridge teacher contracts and
P a y checks. “But Cushman does the
hiring, Newman explained, while both
(Continued on Page 12)
Index
State Page
Alabama 7
Arkansas g
Delaware 43
District of Columbia 4
Florida g
Georgia 4
Kentucky 2
Louisiana j 2
Maryland 5
Mississippi 44
Missouri 4
North Carolina 3
Oklahoma 9
South Carolina 49
Tennessee
Texas 9
Virginia g
West Virginia 40
MISSOURI
Advisory Body Finds Most
Students Still Separated
cpHREE major decisions by federal courts highlighted school segre-
gation-desegregation developments in June.
Arkansas’ school closing laws were held unconstitutional; Nash
ville’s stairstep plan won approval; and Atlanta was directed to deseg
regate its public schools with a reasonable time granted for submis
sion of a plan.
Other developments by states:
Alabama
Gov. John Patterson called the Legis
lature into special session to solve what
he called the greatest financial crisis in
the history of the state’s schools.
Arkansas
Little Rock was ordered to proceed
with gradual integration, originally
approved in 1956.
Delaware
A federal court rejected a state re
quest for inclusion of an attendance
area paragraph in its 12-year desegre
gation program.
District of Columbia
A House subcommittee approved a
civil rights bill which would recognize
the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation
decision as the law of the land.
Florida
The General Assembly adjourned
after passing seven segregation bills de
scribed as “mild.”
Georgia
Gov. Ernest Vandiver, commenting on
the federal court order for Atlanta
schools to desegregate, said he would
have no choice but to shut down any
public school which did so.
Kentucky
The fourth year of the state’s integra
tion program ended quietly with 123 of
175 bi-racial districts desegregated.
Louisiana
Sen. William M. Rainach, segrega
tionist leader, was expected to open his
gubernatorial campaign early in July.
Gov. Earl K. Long won freedom from
a mental institution and resumed talk
of running again.
Maryland
Dr. John H. Fischer, Baltimore su
perintendent of public instruction, re
viewed the city’s desegregation course
in an exclusive interview on the eve of
his taking over the post as dean of
Teachers’ College at Columbia Univer
sity.
Mississippi
Gov. J. P. Coleman replied to critics
who call him a “moderate” by pointing
out Mississippi still is 100 per cent seg
regated.
Missouri
The state Advisory Committee on
Civil Rights reported the vast majority
of Negro children are in desegregated
districts but still attend schools with
all- or predominantly-Negro enroll
ments.
North Carolina
Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Char
lotte and Wayne County moved to
maintain their policy of limited deseg
regation.
Oklahoma
Arcadia, in northeast Oklahoma
County, feared possible loss of its inte
grated high school as a result of transfer
efforts by white pupils.
South Carolina
The head of the state’s Special Segre
gation Committee reaffirmed the deter
mination of officialdom to maintain
segregation.
Tennessee
Knoxville’s desegregation suit in ef
fect was dismissed by a federal judge.
Texas
A federal judge set July 30 for hear
ing a plea for immediate compliance
with an order for desegregation of Dal
las schools.
Virginia
Gov. J. Lindsay Almond told Vir
ginians the state could not afford to
permit destruction of its public school
system.
West Virginia
A second group of Negro teachers was
placed in formerly all-white schools in
Cabell County in furtherance of its in
tegration program.
# # #
GEORGIA
Atlanta Told Desegregate,
Reasonable Time Granted
MACON, Ga.
TLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS Were
ordered desegregated by a
federal court but a reasonable
time was granted for submission
of a desegregation plan.
Public officials reacted with
avowals of resistance and Gov.
Ernest Vandiver said he would
have no recourse under state law
but to shut down any public
school which is integrated.
In another court action, the U. S.
Supreme Court on June 29 agreed to
review a decision by federal District
Judge T. Hoyt Davis of Macon, in which
he declared the main enforcement sec
tion of the 1957 Civil Rights Act uncon
stitutional.
In the Atlanta case, the city Board of
Education was told by Federal Judge
Frank Hooper to submit to the court a
plan for ending racial discrimination in
the school system, and added that some
time would be given for action on the
plan by the Legislature if necessary.
Under present Georgia law, any
school desegregated would be closed by
the state.
Judge Hooper’s ruling came after a
hearing in the case of Calhoun v.
Latimer et al, in which a group of Ne
gro parents, acting as plaintiffs for their
minor children, seek opening to Negro
children of Atlanta schools which are
now all white.
A. C. Latimer, Atlanta board presi
dent, said he did not plan to defy the
federal court order nor did he think
other board members had any such
intention. Attorneys for the board said
there was a possibility an appeal
would be made.
STAIRSTEP PLAN STUDIED
Latimer said the grade-a-year dese
gregation plan adopted in Nashville,
Term., might be studied.
Gov. Ernest Vandiver warned that if
the federal court orders integration, the
law closing affected schools would be
invoked. The governor said he is hope
ful “that the federal courts will not
force the closing of a single school in
Georgia”, but said it was his responsi
bility to uphold the constitution and
the laws of the state.
Vows of resistance against desegrega
tion were also made by other political
leaders.
Sen. Herman Talmadge said he favor
ed a firm segregation stand until every
remedy is exhausted.
Lt. Gov. Garland Byrd urged “re
sponsible Negro leaders” not to push
the issue as it would cause great harm
to white and Negro children.
LOCAL OPTION ASKED
Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield
asked that the Legislature grant Atlanta
citizens “local option” in a decision in
which the schools face desegregation
(Continued on Page 2)