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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY 1959—PAGE II
TENNESSEE
Nashville Stairstep Plan Okayed; Other States Study Approach
NASHVILLE, Term.
ashville’s grade-a-year stair
step desegregation plan, al
ready in effect through the first
and second grades, was upheld
June 17 by the U.S. Court of Ap
peals at Cincinnati.
Attorneys for Negro plaintiffs
in the case withheld announce
ment as to whether they planned
to take the case to the Supreme
Court.
Requests for copies of the Nash
ville plan indicated a number of
other southern cities were inter
ested in its gradual approach with
liberal student transfer privileges.
(See “Legal Action.”)
A federal judge dismissed the
Knoxville desegregation suit as to
three of the five defendant school
board members, perhaps in effect
dismissing the entire case.
PONDER NEXT STEP
Counsel for 13 Negro children and
their parents who brought the suit in
1957 said they would decide their next
step soon. (See “Legal Action.”)
The U. S. Court of Appeals, Sixth
Circuit, affirmed Federal District Judge
William E. Miller’s judgment of July
17, 1958 approving the 12-year deseg
regation program submitted by the city
Board of Education to comply with a
court order.
Liberal student transfer provisional
highlight the plan and were the subject
of major attack by attorneys for Negro
plaintiffs. (Kelley et al v. Nashville
Board of Education.)
This was the first time a federal ap
pellate court had upheld a gradual
desegregation plan of this scope, al
JACKSON, Miss,
ov. J. P. Coleman went on a
statewide television program
to deny charges that he is a
“moderate” on the racial issue.
He cited the fact that Mississippi
still is 100 per cent segregated, in
contrast to scattered desegrega
tion in Arkansas whose Gov. Or-
val E. Faubus is looked upon by
the Coleman critics as their “man
of the hour.” (See “What They
Say”)
Medgar Evers, field secretary
for the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple in Mississippi, told a Cali
fornia audience the absence of
desegregation in his state is be
cause “Negroes of means who
could well afford to lead our peo
ple out of our present state are
content with things as they are
because of the personal profit
they receive from segregation and
human misery.” (See “What They
Say”)
ADMONISHES TEACHERS
U. S. Rep. Jamie Whitten of Missis
sippi told the state bar’s annual con
vention the state should resist school
integration to the point of teachers re
fusing to “ask the first question, or
grade the first paper or issue the first
report card to a Negro.” (See “What
They Say.”)
State Rep. Sam Lumpkin of Tupelo,
a former lieutenant governor, onetime
speaker of the House of Representatives
and unsuccessful candidate for gover
nor, bowed out of politics with the
assertion “it is time that some of our
politicians quit trying to humiliate the
Negro race in this state” by making
it an issue in elections to gain votes.
(See “What They Say.”)
Gov. J. P. Coleman struck back at
political leaders who have attempted to
make his administration an issue in the
current campaign for governor in which
he is backing Lt. Gov. Carroll Gar-
tin as his successor.
Considerable criticism of the gov
ernor has stemmed from his endorse
ment of former U. S. Rep. Brooks Hays
though a district court last April 24 ap
proved a statewide 12-year plan for
Delaware.
‘FINDINGS SUSTAINED’
In a 35-page printed opinion, most of
it reciting details of lower court pro
ceedings, the three-judge tribunal at
Cincinnati said “the findings of the
district court were sustained by the
evidence.” It commented:
“We cannot say the district court’s
conclusions . . . were entirely erroneous
. . . nor can we say that the gradual
program of integration beginning in the
first grade, and ultimately encompass
ing all grades, is clearly an unreason
able one.
“Even were we inclined to differ with
the program, and even though we felt
that it was too gradual in its applica
tion, we could not say that the judg
ment approving the plan was clearly
erroneous and that the plan in this
regard was not reasonable.”
PREFERENCE DECISION UPHELD
The Court of Appeals also upheld
Judge Miller’s decision during the
course of the Nashville litigation that
Tennessee’s school preference law was
“patently and manifestly unconstitu
tional on its face” because it provided
for continued school segregation.
The invalidated state law was to au
thorize establishment of three sets of
schools: desegregated and segregated
for white and Negro pupils, with par
ents to elect whether their children at
tend a desegregated school or one with
members of their own race. The Nash
ville school board had asked Judge
Miller shortly after the law was en
acted in 1957 whether it could be in
voked in lieu of court-ordered action.
Under the Nashville plan, the third
grade will be desegregated this Sep
tember in the city school system, which
is attended by considerably less than
half the total pupil population of met
ropolitan Nashville but with 75 per cent
of the metropolitan area’s Negro en
rollment. Another grade is to be deseg
regated annually until all 12 grades are
included, subject to possible court ac
tion speeding up the process later.
of Arkansas, who was defeated by seg
regationist Dale Alford, a write-in can
didate. Because of the governor’s ac
tion, he has been labeled a racial “mod
erate” by opponents.
The governor’s critics also say he
has not cooperated with Gov. Orval E.
Faubus in Arkansas to whom they point
as an outstanding segregationist leader.
Another charge laid at the governor’s
doorstep was that he refused to use
state funds in assisting Arkansas seg
regationists.
GOVERNOR’S REPLY
Gov. Coleman in his statewide tele
vision address answered his critics by
showing that Mississippi, as he prom
ised when he took office in 1956, is still
‘TOO per cent segregated.” He also
pointed to the lack of suits to deseg
regate schools, the millions being spent
to bring Negro schools up to equal
standards with those of the whites, and
integration in some sections of Arkansas
and the “local option” integration pos
ition of Gov. Faubus in contrast to his
(Coleman’s) “absolute segregation”
stand.
“Yet,” the governor asserted, “there
are those who criticize my position but
laud that of a man who admits he fa
vors ‘local option’ integration.”
EVERS SPEAKS
NAACP Secretary Medgar Evers,
addressing a mass meeting of the Los
Angeles, Calif., branch NAACP, May
31, said Mississippi’s $120 million school
equalization program “is too little and
it has come too late.”
“Negroes in Mississippi want for
their children the quality of education
that will help make them top scientists,
top diplomats and top engineers of to
morrow, and it cannot be done under
the so-called ‘separate but equal’ doc
trine,” he said.
“Negro teachers are browbeaten into
acquiescence by being forced to sign an
affidavit stating that they do not be
long, nor contribute, to any organiza
tion whose purpose is to overthrow the
Constitution of the United States or the
Constitution of Mississippi and its cus
toms. This requirement, passed by the
POINT AT ISSUE
A major point of controversy in the
appeal was the provision of the Nash
ville plan allowing voluntary transfer
of any pupil from a school where the
majority of students are of a race dif
ferent from his.
With such transfers provided on par
ents’ applications, 34 of an estimated
230 Negro first- and second-graders
enrolled in previously all-white schools
last September. The number was re
duced by a half-dozen or more later in
the term, largely because of residence
changes to zones including only Ne
groes.
To date, this small-scale desegrega
tion has reached seven of the 11 ele
mentary schools in the Nashville sys
tem whose zones included both whites
and Negroes of the affected ages. So
far, 17 other elementary school zones
have contained only one race eligible
for desegregated grades.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs contend
ed in their appeal that desegregating
one grade a year is not proceeding
“with all deliberate speed” and that
the Nashville pupil transfer plan vio
lates children’s constitutional rights.
The school board filed a cross-appeal
on invalidation of the school preference
law.
The appellate court said “there is no
claim that the board of education did
not act in good faith” and that the
board “had endeavored ... to find a
solution which would accomplish the
transition as soon as reasonably prac
ticable consistent with the public in
terest and the efficient operation of
the schools.”
TRANSFER PLAN
As to the transfer plan, the decision
said: “If the child is free to attend an
integrated school, and his parents vol
untarily choose a school where only
one race attends, he is not being de
prived of his constitutional rights.”
The court commented that all-Negro
schools exist in many cities, North as
well as South, because of residential
segregation which contributes to “what
might be termed economic segregation,
a virtual denial of equal opportunity
Mississippi legislature in 1956, was de
signed to prevent Negro teachers from
working with or contributing to the
NAACP. I hasten to say, it has served
its purpose well, not that the purpose
of the NAACP is to overthrow the con
stitution of the United States or Missis
sippi, except where the laws of Missis
sippi do conflict with the supreme law
of our land, as it relates to the rights
of Negro citizens.”
CITES ELECTIONS BARRIER
Evers said that in most Mississippi
counties Negro citizens are barred from
actively participating in local, state and
federal elections “by gestapo-like ac
tions, in addition to the legal barriers,
such as poll tax and 21 questions,
which are prerequisites to voting.”
“Out of a potential 494,653 Negro vot
ers there are less than 30,000 qualified
Negro electors in the entire state of
Mississippi,” he said. “While the white
man is responsible to a great degree for
this one-sided situation, the Negro
himself has not contributed all that he
or she could to change the picture.”
SOLON ADDRESSES BAR
Rep. Jamie Whitten in his June 12
address to the Mississippi State Bar
said the South’s troubles “come from
the deteriorating power of southerners
in national political parties and of their
representatives in Congress, who for
years were able to use the filibuster
and their chairmanships of various
committees to provide a degree of bal
ance in national affairs.”
“Present conditions will show the fili
buster no longer works,” he said. “No
longer do chairmanships provide pro
tection where the leadership stacks
committees. We must take a new look.”
ENDORSES UNITY
Sen. James O. Eastland, who fol
lowed Whitten in addressing the law
yers, endorsed the latter’s southern un
ity proposal, asserting “no citizen is
obligated to support any party that is
bent on the destruction of the southern
people, their customs and the Amer
ican system of government.”
The senior Mississippi senator said
. . . existing in varying degrees in ev
ery state of the union.”
This was cited as “indicating the
reason why schools in certain areas are
attended wholly by Negro children,
both in states where heretofore segre
gation has been sanctioned by state
law . . . [and] in states where, theoret
ically, segregation has been con
demned.”
FEWER MOVES
The opinion predicted that fewer
Negro pupils will be transferred out of
desegregated schools as the grade-by
grade process continues. “But if it
should appear . . . that there are im
pediments to the exercise of a free 1
choice, . . . the district court . . . shall
make such modification in its decree as
is just and proper.
“In the record before us,” the court
said, “the judgment . . . does not de
prive any of the children of equal
protection under the 14th amendment.”
Recalling the brief period of disor
ders and the dynamiting of a school
when Nashville desegregated the first
grade in the fall of 1957, the Court of
Appeals lauded Nashville police, the
school board and Judge Miller for
quelling “acts of violence and coercion.”
Whether the decision would be ap
pealed further to the U. S. Supreme
Court remained unannounced as June
ended. City Councilman Z. Alexander
Looby, one of two attorneys for the
plaintiffs and for the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People, said he wanted to confer with
his clients further.
OTHERS INTERESTED
Apparently, the decision quickened
the interest of other southern cities in
the Nashville plan. The president of the
Atlanta school board, A. C. Latimer,
was among those requesting a copy of
it. He said, “We have watched the de
velopments in Nashville with great in
terest.”
KNOXVILLE CASE
In Knoxville, Federal District Judge
Robert L. Taylor reduced the number
of principal defendants in a city school
gradualism proposed by some in the
school desegregation issue “is a deadly
doctrine and once the dam is breached,
there’s no turning back.”
LUMPKIN RETIRES
In stepping out of public office after
22 years, state Rep. Sam Lumpkin as
serted that “we have been slaves to
what is commonly called our tradition
al way of life.”
“What we need in the Mississippi
legislature, as never before, is young,
aggressive thinking,” he said. “Our leg
islators during my tenure of office have
been afraid to make changes in gov
ernment. Our governmental structure
is 70 years behind the 20th century.
I have found that most of the leadership
in governmental affairs has tried to
prejudice the people rather than lead
them toward an intelligent and enlight
ening system of government.”
DECRIES HATRED
Decrying the use of race hatred in
political campaigns, the Tupelo attor
ney urged politicians to “quit trying to
humiliate the Negro race in Mississippi
and rather, help its members manifest
a pride in their race, churches, schools
and institutions.”
“Mississippi has fared better than any
other state in race relations,” Lumpkin
said. “Our colored population has been
and is now being subjected to great
pressures from the outside. The white
leadership has done an exceptional job,
but I must add that our colored lead
ership should be congratulated on help
ing to maintain our separate and equal
facilities. We cannot ‘hate ourselves’ into
a better world.
“I urge candidates in the current
campaign not to conduct a campaign
of hate and bitterness. The vast major
ity of both races do not want integra
tion in Mississippi and will use every
means possible to prevent it.”
The four candidates for the Missis
sippi governorship in the Aug. 4 Dem
desegregation suit to a two-member
minority of the board of education.
The decision on June 1 removed three
ex-members as defendants and forbade
substituting names of their successors.
S. Frank Fowler, attorney for the
school board, said he believed the
judge’s order would in effect terminate
the suit. “As I see it,” he commented,
“the Negroes will have to file a new
lawsuit.”
Although the case technically re
mains in court, Carl A. Cowan, attorney
for 13 Negro children and their parents
who brought suit on Jan. 7, 1957, com
mented shortly after Judge Taylor’s ac
tion that “for all intents and purposes,
the court has sustained the [city’s] mo
tion to dismiss” the proceedings.
However, Cowan told Southern
School News three weeks later “we’re
still batting the ball around. We haven’t
reached a definite decision” as to fur
ther action. “There are several possi
bilities.”
Frederick John asper must serve a
six-months federal term on his second
conviction in connection with disorders
accompanying desegregation of Clinton
High School in 1956. The U.S. Supreme
Court declined to review the case.
Meantime, his conviction of inciting to
riot at Nashville was argued before the
Tennessee Supreme Court.
Six Negro candidates were in the field
for city offices in Memphis, with the
municipal election set for Aug. 20, and
more were expected as a campaign
continued to muster more registrations
of Negro voters.
Russell Sugarmon Jr. was opposing
six white candidates for public works
commissioner and O. Z. Evers, plaintiff
in a federal suit seeking bus integra-
(Continued on Page 12)
ocratic primary are agreed on the fol
lowing points:
1. To get the NAACP outlawed in
Mississippi.
2. That the white Citizens Councils
are the “major force” in maintaining
segregation in Mississippi.
3. To remain “absolute” segregation
ists.
4. To make certain that Mississippi’s
delegation to the 1960 Democratic na
tional convention does not sacrifice
principle for harmony.
5. Never to support an integrationist
for President or other national or state
office.
Standing together on those points
are Ross R. Barnett, attorney of Jack-
son; Lt. Gov. Carroll Gartin of Laurel;
Robert Mason, a welder of Magee; and
Dist. Atty. Charles Sullivan of Clarks-
dale.
Asked via questionnaire whether
public schools should remain open in
event of an integration attempt, the an
swers were:
Barnett: Stress equal schools for
separate races.
Lt. Gov. Gartin: Keep in the fore
front in providing good education while
maintaining segregation.
Dist. Atty. Sullivan: Close schools as
a last resort against integration.
The FBI found “no federal law viola
tion” in the Poplarville lynching of
Negro Mack Charles Parker April 23.
The 23-year-old Negro was taken from
the Pearl River County jail by a hooded
mob three days before his scheduled
trial for raping a young white mother
who was pregnant. Parker’s body was
found in Pearl River on the Missis
sippi side of the stream which divides
this state from Louisiana.
The FBI turned over its findings to
Gov. J. P. Coleman, who in turn will
file them with Dist. Atty. Vernon
Broome and County Atty. Bill Stewart
for presentation to the November term
of the Pearl River County grand jury.
The FBI report is said to contain
names of persons suspected of being in
the mob.
# # #
MISSISSIPPI
Coleman Denies He’s ‘Moderate’; Cites
State’s Still Unbreached Segregation