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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY 1959—PAGE 3
NORTH CAROLINA
Boards Aim For Continued
Limited Admission Policy
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
CHOOL BOARDS IN THREE cities
and one county in North
Carolina have taken action to con
tinue their policy of limited dese
gregation in public schools during
the 1959-60 school year.
These are the cities of Greens
boro, Winston-Salem and Char
lotte and Wayne County.
Charlotte and Winston-Salem
both had a Negro student to grad
uate for the first time from a pre
viously all-white high school in
June. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
At Burnsville, 21 Negro students
have petitioned the Yancey County
Board of Education for admission to
East Burnsville High and Burnsville
Elementary schools. Burnsville closed
its only Negro school, an elementary
school, last fall. Negro students have
been making daily trips to Asheville to
school. Asheville is 40 miles from
Burnsville. There are about 30 Negro
students in the Burnsville area.
The number of requests from Negro
students seeking transfers to white or
desegregated schools is lower in North
Carolina localities with desegregation
this year than during either of the two
previous years in which the pupil
placement law has operated.
Transfer requests came in unusual
numbers in Greensboro, but from
white pupils as a result of the school
board’s decision to combine a white
and a Negro school.
The Greensboro school board an
nounced in May plans to combine Cald
well Street and Pearson Street School.
Caldwell this year had a segregated
white enrollment of about 300 students;
Pearson Street’s enrollment, all Negro,
was about 220.
Although the buildings are separate
and the students segregated, the
schools are on the same tract of land.
NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGING
A school board official said plans to
combine the buildings into a single
school were made, in part, because of
the changing characteristic of the sur
rounding neighborhood.
The area is shifting rapidly to a
Negro residential section.
At the close of school, the Greens
boro board reassigned students as us
ual to the two schools.
The board also reassigned five Ne
gro students to Gillespie Elementary
and Junior High School, the city’s only
desegregated school, in a reaffirmation
of the board’s two-year-old policy of
limited desegregation.
But within the 10-day period that
North Carolina law allows dissatisfied
students to make requests for changes
in assignments, nearly 90 per cent of
the white students assigned to the
Caldwell School asked to be sent to
other schools.
The board also received a request
that twin Negro girls be assigned to
Greensboro Senior High rather than
to the all Negro Dudley High.
A few requests were received from
Negroes for transfers from Pearson
Street School, but these were largely
for personal reasons.
MAY ASK LATER
Students who did not ask for a
transfer within the 10-day period may
do so later, under the law. It permits
a person who objects to attending a
desegregated school to receive a trans
fer for that reason.
Greensboro Supt. Philip J. Weaver
told the school board he would pre
pare a full report on the transfer re
quests for a meeting in July.
In Winston-Salem, Gwendolyn Bailey,
18, was the first Negro to graduate
from previously all-white Reynolds
High School. She had attended the
school two years as its first and only
Negro student.
The Winston-Salem school board
continued its limited desegregation
policy, begun two years ago, by reas
signing three Negro students who had
this year been attending Easton Ele
mentary School, the city’s only other
desegrated school.
When Negro students were first as
signed to Easton last fall about one-
third of the 600 white students asked
for and received transfers to all-white
schools. School officials said the year
ended with an average attendance of
400 students at Easton, a situation
which permitted discontinuance of
double-session schedules which had
been necessary with 600 students.
During the ten-day appeal period on
assignments, the Winston-Salem board
received four transfer requests from
Negro students. The requests will be
considered later this summer.
YOUTH GRADUATES
In Charlotte, Gustevas Allen Roberts,
17, became the first Negro to graduate
from Central High School. He was the
first Negro to enter the city’s largest
(1,600 students) high school in 1957, at
tended the school alone the first year.
This year a second Negro student, a
lOth-grade girl, also attended Central.
The Charlotte school board, which
with boards in Greensboro and
Winston-Salem first desegrated pub
lic schools in North Carolina in 1957,
continued its policy by reassigning two
Negro students to formerly all-white
schools.
Delores Watermann, the lOth-grade
student at Central High, was assigned,
along with most other Central students,
to the new Garinger High School which
will replace Central in the fall.
Nathaniel Abraham, first Negro to
Kentucky
Continued From Page 2
for the dissatisfied,” it was used in pre
ceding years on about the same scale
as in 1958-59, Carmichael said.
“The free transfer plan is time-con
suming and sometimes results in dis
appointment for parents for specifically
requested transfers,” Carmichael said.
“But, in my judgment, it has been
greatly appreciated by many others and
has been a big factor in the success of
our desegregation program.”
Current figures: 55 elementary schools
in the city, 43 integrated, three with all-
Negro enrollment, nine all-white, eight
schools with four or fewer pupils of one
race. Of the 27,861 elementary pupils
(the high schools are all open to city
wide enrollment), 2,033 attended schools
outside their own district—1,005 white
and 1,028 Negro. Of the total enroll
ment, 18,750 were white, 9,111 Negro.
ENROLLMENT UP
Another board of education study
showed that enrollment in Louisville’s
public schools increased by 19.6 per cent
in the last 10 years to the 1958-59 total
of 44,159 (while private and parochial
school enrollment increased by 12.5 per
cent to 17,700).
The study showed that the total num
ber of white school-age children in the
city increased by 4,428 in the decade
(from 48,847 in 1949 to 53,275 in 1959),
while the number of Negro children of
school age rose 6,295 (from 9,439 in
1949 to 15,734 in 1959).
The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled
on June 19 that school superintendents
cannot draw salaries of more than $7,200
a year. Some 60 to 70 superintendents
throughout the state currently draw
more.
The 4-3 ruling in a case stemming
from a Graves County dispute over the
salary of a superintendent since re
signed affects all public officers and
employes who do not perform statewide
functions or whose salaries are not set
by the state Constitution, which sets a
$12,000 ceiling for positions statewide
in nature and one of $7,200 for all other
public officers and employes.
CALLS IT SETBACK
State Supt. of Public Instruction Rob
ert R. Martin promptly termed the rul
ing “perhaps the most serious blow to
public education in its history.”
“If not modified by further considera-
Missouri
(Continued From Page 1)
which was to ascertain extent of school
desegregation in Missouri through April
1959, Greene sent questionnaires to su
perintendents of 160 districts where the
state Department of Education said the
overwhelming number of Negro chil
dren were enrolled. One hundred of
the superintendents responded, and in
two instances follow-up was made by
telephone with some success.
(The 100 districts from which data
were received represented 59 counties
with more than 310,764 school children
including the vast majority of Negro
school children. The returns represent
ed 67,437 Negro school enrollees, or
some 91 per cent of the 77,000 Negro
enrollees thought to be attending Mis
souri schools in 1958-59.)
STILL SEGREGATED
“Fourthly and most important,”
Greene reported in evaluating the sit
uation, “even where desegregation has
been sincerely attempted on all grade
levels, the vast majority of Negro pu
pils are still attending segregated
schools. This anomolous situation is the
direct result of residential segrega
tion. It is a general phenomenon, as
true in New York, Chicago, Philadel
phia, New Orleans, Washington, Hous
ton and Los Angeles as it is in St.
Louis, Kansas City and smaller Mis
souri communities.
“So long as the denial of free choice
in home buying and renting obtains, so
long as the Negro ghetto exists, just as
long will integration in the schools
remain a mockery. Thus, despite the
much vaunted claims of complete in
tegration in Kansas City and St. Louis
—admirable as are their achievements
thus far—high schools like Vashon and
Sumner and Banneker elementary in
St. Louis remain as segregated as be
fore integration started.”
BREAKDOWN BY YEARS
Only 55 of the 100 school districts
reporting to Greene’s inquiry made re
ply as to the year in which desegrega
tion was initiated or completed. Of
the 55, 21 desegregated in 1954-55,
13 in 1955-56, 10 in 1956-57, eight in
1957-58 and three in 1958-59. The three
iu 1958-59 were reported as Brook-
tion by the court or by constitutional
amendment,” he said, “it will set educa
tion back 50 years in this state. It will
rapidly and ultimately destroy the edu
cational leadership in Kentucky and
everyone will suffer.
“However, the ones who will suffer
most as a result of the situation are the
boys and girls who will receive grossly
inferior educational oportunities.”
RECONSIDERATION ASKED
The state Board of Education on June
23 expressed similar concern and voted
unanimously to give its support to any
efforts to get a reconsideration by the
court.
The decision overruled part of a 1942
Court of Appeals ruling which had held
that a section of the constitution did not
apply to “employes” but only to “of
ficers.”
Under the 1942 ruling, not only 60
to 70 school superintendents but hun
dreds of other city and county em
ployes have been drawing salaries in
excess of $7,200. None will have to re
pay “excess” salaries, the court ruled;
its decision affects only future salaries.
Surprise, shock and dismay were ex
pressed generally over the state not on
ly by school but other officials. The
University of Louisville, while holding
that it does not come under the state
salary limit, instructed its attorneys to
“co-operate fully with representatives
of the governing bodies of other logical
governmental units in an effort to get a
rehearing and in other legal procedures
which may seem appropriate.” Univer
sity of Kentucky President Frank Dick
ey, noting that the ruling might affect
23 administrative and faculty members
at U.K., termed it “a staggering blow
at educational progress at every level.”
Judge Bert Combs, who won the
Democratic gubernatorial nomination
in May with state school head Robert
R. Martin as his campaign co-chairman,
named Rep. John C. Watts of Nicholas-
ville as Democratic campaign chairman
for the November election. Martin had
been criticized for taking part in a
political campaign while remaining
school superintendent. But political re
porters termed the change chiefly a
move to heal inter-party friction with
the Chandler-Waterfield faction, and
held that Dr. Martin would “play a
leading role as an adviser.”
# # *
field in Linn County, Eldon in Miller
County and Neelyville in Butler Coun
ty.
“If these figures actually reflect the
progress of desegregation in Missouri,”
said Greene’s report, “it might be as
sumed that desegregation attained its
peak of momentum in 1954. Thereafter,
the process seems to have slowed up.
Perhaps there has crept in a certain
amount of complacency, as a result of
the favorable comments which Mis
souri’s attitude toward desegregation
has elicited outside the state.”
ECONOMY REASONS
Greene said that his data indicated
the most important single cause for de
segregation was economy of operation.
Forty-nine of the 100 reporting dis
tricts said their action stemmed pri
marily from a desire to cut school costs.
This was interpreted to mean that the
expense of maintaining a dual school
system, particularly where only a few
Negro children were involved, was an
important factor in effecting desegrega
tion once the Supreme Court had ruled.
Among districts affected by economy
were Columbia, Troy Consolidated
(R-3), Pacific, Poplar Bluff and Inde
pendence.
The report showed that desire to
eliminate substandard schools followed
closely the desire to reduce costs, as a
factor in desegregation. Forty-two su
perintendents mentioned substandard
schools as a partial motivation. Among
them were officials from Neosho, Lex
ington, Rolla, Herculaneum, Macon,
Sikeston, Moberly and Jefferson City,
the state capital.
“In communities where segregated
schools exist,” the report said, “many
Negro schools were, and are, unsightly,
outdated, ill-equipped, badly placed and
often ill-supervised. Moreover, stand
ards for Negro teachers have not been
as rigid as for white teachers.”
EMPHASIZES PREPARATION
Greene emphasized a conviction that
the success or failure of desegregation
depends, to great extent, on the “ready
ing of the community for the change.”
He had high praise for the elaborate
and thoroughgoing preparation that was
accomplished before and during the
integration of the St. Louis public
school system.
Answers to the questionnaire showed
that in 60 districts public officials lent
full or partial support to the desegre
gation program. In the case of another
20, public officials took no position. In
only three districts, Farmington, War-
dell and Monroe City, were public offi
cials reported to have opposed deseg
regation.
Greene said he found that the press,
for the most part, “failed in its tradi
tional and important role of opinion
making.” Thirty-seven districts said
the press had lent wholehearted sup
port. However, as the report points out,
the metropolitan press in St. Louis and
Kansas City threw their weight behind
the court decisions. Fifty-seven dis
tricts either said their newspapers took
no position or left the question un
answered. In most instances community
groups did not actively support deseg
regation.
Of 97 districts that answered a ques
tion as to whether there had been or
ganized opposition in their communi
ties, 70 reported there had been none
and only nine reported opposition. Only
in Webster Groves, in suburban St.
Louis County, was there organized op
position, the data indicated. In that case
the organization was the Citizens Pro
tective Association.
“That integration in the schools could
be achieved with so little opposition in
Missouri,” the report said, “seems elo
quent testimony of the willingness of
most Missourians to obey the Supreme
Court ruling as the law of the land.”
All 85 officials who responded to a
question whether desegregation had
proceeded smoothly replied in the af
firmative. There was no negative an
swer. However, Greene noted, in a
word of caution, that he had been told
informally that certain unfavorable
reactions had not been published.
About 60 per cent of the school offi
cials reporting to Greene said that
school expenses had dropped since de
segregation. Reported reductions varied
from a quarter of one per cent to 50
per cent. Some 24 officials reported no
decrease in costs. Another 24 did not
answer the questions.
Pointing out that one of the contro
versial issues concerning desegregation
had been the employment of Negro
teachers, Greene said 46 Missouri offi
cials indicated their districts had
dropped Negro teachers on desegrega
tion. More than four-fifths of the re
porting districts said they did not have
Negro teachers in mixed schools. There
was little or no loss of Negro teachers
in large urban communities.
Circuit Judge Franklin Ferriss at
Clayton, in the St. Louis suburban area,
took action May 29 to dismiss all
charges against four Washington Uni
versity students who were denied serv
ice at a University City restaurant Feb.
14.
Judge Ferriss overruled Police Judge
Victor A. Wallace of University City,
who had found four of the defenda-
fendants guilty of trespassing and three
guilty also of unlawful assembly.
# # #
enter a white elementary school in
Charlotte, was assigned from the sixth
grade at Shamrock Gardens Elemen
tary to Eastway Junior High’s seventh
grade. Eastway has had no Negro stu
dents in the past.
Another Negro student in a predomi
nately white school, Girvaud Roberts,
completed the ninth grade at Piedmont
Junior High and was assigned to the
tenth grade at Second Ward High
School, a Negro school.
She is one of eight Negro students
who hai’e asked for transfers from se
gregated schools.
Two other requests came from the
sons of Kelly M. Alexander, state secre
tary of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. All
other requests also involve students
who have previously been denied trans
fers.
WAYNE DESIGNATES SCHOOL
In Goldsboro, the Wayne Countv
school board reassigned two Negro stu
dents to a specially designated school.
The board began desegregation for the
first time in Eastern North Carolina
(where the state’s Negro population is
heaviest) in March when it set aside
the Meadow Lane Elementary school
exclusively for children of persons sta
tioned at Seymour Johnson Air Force
base near Goldsboro. The board ruled
that all new students from the Air
Force base would go to Meadow Lane.
An eight-year-old boy was the first
Negro to enter the school in earlv
March. A girl entered the school in
April.
Some 25 to 30 other Negro children
of Air Force base personnel are still
enrolled in a Negro school.
The U. S. Supreme Court was asked
to order an immediate trial in the case
of a Negro student denied admission
to all-white Needham Broughton High
School in Raleigh in 1957. Rulings from
federal district court and the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals have held that
Joseph Hiram Holt Jr. did not exhaust
all possible state administrative reme
dies with the Raleigh school board
before appealing to federal court. Ral
eigh has no desegregation in public
schools.
Attorneys, in their brief to the Su
preme Court, contended Holt had ex
hausted his remedies when he asked
for a transfer and it was denied. Let
ting the lower court rulings stand, they
contended, would be “lending their ju
dicial facilities and weight in aid of re
tardation of desegregation of public
schools . . .”
Dr. Ernest Trice Thompson of Rich
mond, Va., moderator of the General
Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian
Church, speaking to the 146th session of
the Presbyterian Synod of North Caro
lina in Charlotte: “If a single presby
tery dismisses a minister from his pul
pit on any such grounds, or if it ap
pears to have done so . . . and if this
action is not challenged and is not cor
rected by synod or general assembly,
then God help us.”
He was speaking of the Rev. Robert
McNeill of Columbus, Ga., in the
Southwest Presbytery, who was re
lieved of his duties as pastor by a com
mission of the presbytery. Dr. Thomp
son said McNeill had spoken “fear
lessly, yet in love.”
UN OFFICIAL SPEAKS
Dr. Frank P. Graham, former presi
dent of the University of North Caro
lina and now United Nations mediator
for India and Pakistan, speaking to
the graduating class at Livingston Col
lege in Salisbury: “I say for our peo
ple that in the choice between the end
ing of public education and beginning
of integration, the people of North
Carolina, in my opinion, will vote to
keep the public schools open in obedi
ence to the laws of the land.”
The board of directors of the Nation
al Association for the Advancement of
Colored People has suspended Robert
F. Williams of Monroe for six months
from his position as president of the
Union County branch of the NAACP.
The suspension, ordered by Executive
Secretary Roy Wilkins on May 6, was
extended to six months by the board.
Williams publicly advocated that Ne
groes should meet “violence with vio
lence” and “lynching with lynching.”
The national group ordered the Un
ion County branch to hold a special
meeting to elect a successor to Wil
iams.
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