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PAGE 12—OCTOBER 1959—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TENNESSEE
School Near Air Base Desegregated,
Sixteen Enter Classes From Sewart
Eight-year-old Patricia Hayes is introduced to her third grade classmates at
John Coleman Elementary School near Smyrna, Tenn., by her teacher, Mrs.
Lucille C. Brandon. The school, which serves Sewart Air Force Base, was de
segregated without incident last month.
Negro pupils registering for the first time at Coleman are given a helping hand
by their fathers, stationed at Sewart. Principal Robert M. Hitt, standing right,
supervises the registration.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
fourth Tennessee school dis
trict was desegregated Sept.
16 as Federal Judge William E.
Miller ordered 16 Negro stu
dents admitted to John Coleman
Elementary School in Rutherford
County. The school, located just
outside Sewart Air Force Base,
near Smyrna, Tenn., is owned and
operated by the county system but
serves mainly children of person
nel at the base. The county school
commission asked Judge Miller to
dismiss the suit to avoid further
desegregation in the county. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Forty-one Negro children enrolled in
the first three grades in nine formerly
all-white schools in Nashville as the city
began its third year under a 12-year
stairstep plan of desegregation. There
were no incidents. Attorneys for Negro
parents asked and received a 30-day ex
tension of time in which to appeal the
plan to the U. S. Supreme Court. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Clinton High School began its third
year of desegregation with 14 Negro stu
dents out of a total enrollment of 871.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
In Knoxville, Negro parents made a
third appeal to the school board to de
segregate city schools voluntarily with
out waiting for a law suit. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”
Eight Negro students began classes at
Memphis State University, making the
college the first desegregated school in
Maryland
(Continued From Page 11)
year for admission to the Aberdeen
school, seeking admission to the ninth
grade. Under the county’s desegrega
tion timetable, which has had court
approval, grades one through eight are
open to Negro transfers this year. Pu
pils seeking admittance to grades above
the eighth must be screened by a
special committee of school officials.
Dearing says that Pettit was told that
the committee had determined the boy
was not ready to make the adjustment.
The transfer request accordingly was
denied.
Dearing says the rejection was “ob
viously racial” and “obviously because
of the plan,” which required Negroes
to submit to screening process that is
not applied to white pupils. He said
he was going before the state school
board to exhaust his administrative
remedies prior to court action but ex
pressed the possibility that the board
might settle the matter. “This will not
be a class suit,” he said, “because I
will press for the immediate and per
sonal right of Pettit to go to the Aber
deen school.”
LEGAL POSITION
The legal line to be taken in the
case follows a decision of U. S. Dis
trict Judge Roszel C. Thomsen last
year in which he said that a Negro
girl had a personal constitutional right
to attend a white school in St. Mary’s
County even though the county’s de
segregation timetable had not reached
the grade which she sought to enter.
That decision was upheld by the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Thomsen previously passed
on Harford County’s desegregation
program, which included the screen
ing of Negroes seeking transfer to
grades beyond those covered by the
stairstep process. His approval was up
held by the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals, and the NAACP tried un
successfully to have the Supreme Court
pass on the case. Since then the county
has permitted a few transfers through
the screening system and denied oth
ers. The Pettit boy is the first to chal
lenge on a personal basis what is the
closest thing in Maryland to a pupil-
placement program.
UNDER SURVEY
The Baltimore Health Department
reported that in June, for the first
time in the city’s history, Negro resi
dent births exceeded white resident
births. The situation did not prove
permanent. In July white births ex
ceeded nonwhite by 1,146 to 1,068 and
in August by 1,189 to 1,060. But the
’’best guess” of the Health Department
statisticians is that this is the last
year in Baltimore in which white
births will predominate.
the city’s history. (See “In The Col
leges.”)
The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights
reported to Congress that Negro citizens
have been systematically denied the
right to vote in Haywood and Fayette
counties in West Tennessee. (See “Mis
cellaneous.”)
LEGAL ACTION
Sixteen Negro children entered for
merly all-white John Coleman Ele
mentary School near Smyrna, Tenn.
Sept. 16, making Rutherford County the
fourth desegregated school district in the
state.
Federal Judge William E. Miller had
issued a temporary injunction the day
before prohibiting school officials from
excluding the children because of race.
The school, located just outside Sewart
Air Force Base, is part of the Ruther
ford County system, although it serves
mainly children of personnel stationed
there. All the Negro students admitted
were children of airmen at Sewart.
UNEVENTFUL
There were no incidents of any kind
as the Negroes registered and were as
signed to classes. They included 10 girls
and six boys, scattered among all grades
except the fifth. A dozen newsmen were
the only outsiders present as the de
segregation took place.
Principal Robert M. Hitt warned the
Negro parents they would find over-
Dr. George B. Brain, of Bellevue,
Wash., who is to become superintend
ent of Baltimore schools on Jan. 1,
gave the annual opening address to
some 6,000 Baltimore teachers without
more than passing reference to de
segregation. His integrated audience,
seated in Baltimore’s municipal sta
dium, treated mainly to a preview
of Dr. Brain’s educational philosophy,
which appeared to assume racial in
tegration as a matter of course.
In his only two references to race,
Dr. Bain said that (1) Among the
meanings that public schools have
come to have in America in the course
of 150 years is, “The public school
is open freely and equally to all per
sons irrespective of social class, reli
gion, race, sex or national origin. The
public school is thus a school common
to all and does not divide, separate
or segregate pupils on these grounds.”
He also said, after discussing a sound
education, that (2) “I would feel that
here in Baltimore we believe none of
these things are possible without a
system of public education which is
free so that no one would be denied
an opportunity because of financial
limitations, universal, available to all
regardless of race, color, creed, or
sex, and compulsory in order to make
every citizen aware of his rights and
responsibilities in a democacy.”
MISCELLANEOUS
The attorney general’s office has re
affirmed its opinion of three years
ago that correctional institutions do
not fall within the purview of public
education in the sense that the Su
preme Court uses the term in the
Brown case. Thus, it finds no legal
basis for integrating the state’s train
ing schools in the face of statutes that
specify the race that each is to serve.
Public welfare officials had sought
to merge the training school for col
ored girls with that for white girls
as an economy measure, but were re
buffed by the General Assembly last
spring. More recently, the NAACP has
pressed for the end of racial segre
gation in training schools and an
nounced its intentions of going to court
if administrative remedies fail.
Baltimore police cleared a newly in
tegrated neighborhood movie theater
in mid-September after a bomb threat
had been made. No bomb was found,
and the audience returned to their
seats. While all downtown and first-
run movie theatres in Balmtirore serve
both white and Negro patrons, neigh
borhood movies generally have pre
served the segregated pattern.
# # #
crowded classes, but said additional
classrooms are being planned. The
school, built for an enrollment of 300
pupils, now has more than 500, he ex
plained.
Judge Miller’s temporary injunction
was the first step in settling a suit
brought by the Negro parents Sept. 4,
after the children had been turned away
at the school. The parents complained
their children had to ride 14 miles by bus
to Murfreesboro, even though they live
side by side with the white children in
the housing project at the base.
At the preliminary hearing, Judge
Miller said in commenting on the school
commission’s plea for more time to pre
pare for desegregation:
“I can’t understand why school boards
do not take some action on their own
initiative instead of waiting for Negroes
to bring law suits against them. The
opinion of the Supreme Court is well
known, and surely the board members
have read about these things happening
at Little Rock and Nashville. Why do
they wait until the last minute and then
come up here and claim they need more
time in which to adopt a policy?”
Judge Miller gave the school commis
sioners a week to show cause why the
injunction for Coleman school should
not be issued, and 20 days to present
their answer to the suit as a whole. The
suit asked desegregation of all Ruther
ford County schools.
GRANTS REQUEST
On Sept. 15, Miller issued the injunc
tion, pointing out the school commission
had asked for a year’s delay, but without
showing any necesity for it.
“I have nothing before me showing
that there is any particular problem that
would justify a year’s delay,” he said.
“If you have such a problem and will
submit it to me, I will sincerely con
sider it.”
On Sept. 22, the school commission
filed a motion asking that the remainder
of the suit be dismissed. It based its
request on these grounds:
• The Negroes had obtained “all the
relief to which they are entitled, except
making the injunction (on Coleman
school) permanent.”
• The only Negro students entitled to
desegregation under the suit were the
children of Negro airmen stationed at
Sewart.
• Nothing in the suit showed that any
other Negroes in Rutherford County
suffered in the same respect from
school segregation.
Judge Miller had not ruled on the
motion to dismiss by the end of the
month.
Coleman school is the first rural school
in Tennesse to desegregate. Three white
children whose parents were not con
nected with Sewart transferred after the
desegregation to Smyrna Elementary
School, four miles away.
Nashville schools began the third year
of stairstep desegregation, with 41 Negro
children enrolled in nine elementary
schools with white children.
The calm atmosphere at school open
ing was much like last year’s but in
sharp contrast to the fall of 1957, when
noisy crowds surrounded some of the
schools and mounting violence culmin
ated in the dynamiting of Hattie Cotton
School on Sept. 12, 1957.
Two new elementary schools, Tarbox
and Warner schools, were added to the
list of desegregated schools this year.
Last year 32 Negro children enrolled in
the first two grades at Caldwell,
Clemons, Fall, Fehr, Buena Vista, Glenn
and Jones schools. Twenty-eight of them
completed the school year. The others
transferred to other schools or out of
the city.
Supt. W. H. Oliver had estimated that
about 325 Negro children in the first
three grades live in zones where they
normally would be assigned to white
schools. However, a check of the trans
fer requests to Negro schools showed
that only 98 had transferred. If this
number is accurate, it means that about
130 children were eligible to attend the
white schools.
TRANSFERS GRANTED
Oliver also granted transfers to 74
white children living in zones where
they would normally have been assigned
to Negro schools. No white children are
at present attending Negro schools.
Under the Nashville plan, which has
been approved by the Sixth U. S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, one grade a year is
desegregated, beginning with the first
grade in 1957 and working up. Children
are assigned to the school nearest them,
but may request a transfer if their race
is in the minority in that school.
Attorneys for the Negro parents who
originally brought the Nashville suit
have announced they will appeal the
plan to the Supreme Court. They re
ceived a 30-day extension of time in
which to file the appeal last month.
Oliver said he visited all the desegre
gated schools during registration Sept.
1 and 2, and “as far as I could learn,
everything was in perfect order.”
“There were no crowds assembled
anywhere,” he said, “no placards, no
jeering—there were just teachers and
parents and little children getting started
in school. I’m most thankful for this and
proud of the people of Nashville for
making it that way.”
Five of the original 10 Negro children
who enrolled in white schools in 1957
enrolled in the third grade at desegre
gated schools this year. The others have
either moved into Negro school zones or
out of town.
CLINTON QUIET
In Anderson County, Clinton High
School began its third year of desegre
gated classes with an enrollment of 871
students, including 14 Negroes. Thirteen
had enrolled last year, of whom nine
went through the school year.
W. D. Human, principal, said there
were no incidents as school opened, and
“everything is just as quiet as it can
be.”
Clinton high students are still attend
ing classes in the building of the vacated
Linden Elementary School at Oak Ridge
this year, while the dynamited high
school is being rebuilt. Human said
school officials hope to have the high
school ready for classes again by the fall
of 1960.
There are 18 Negro high school stu
dents in Anderson County, he said. The
other four are attending classes at
Austin Negro High School in Knoxville.
ACTION DECLINED
The Knoxville school board declined
to take action on a request that it re
consider its decision not to desegregate
the city schools voluntarily.
Negro parents, accompanied by min
isters, including one white minister, at
tended the board meeting Sept. 14, after
12 Negro children were denied admission
to two high schools and one elementary
school, Sept. 1. The schools involved
were Fulton High School (a technical
school), East High School and Moun-
tainview Elementary School.
Principal spokesman for the Negro
parents was the Rev. Frank Gordon,
pastor of Shiloh Presbyterian church
and chairman of the education commit
tee of the Knoxville chapter of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.
Gordon told the board: “Negro chil
dren are walking past half-filled Moun-
tainview school to go to overcrowded
Eastport (a Negro school), and Negroes
living at the back door of East high
school are going all the way across town
to attend Austin.”
The Rev. Glenn 0. Martin, director of
the Wesley Foundation at the University
of Tennessee, also appeared before the
board to ask for voluntary desegrega
tion. It was the first time a white person
has appeared before the Knoxville board
supporting desegregation. Martin is
president of the Knoxville roundtable of
the National Conference of Christians
and Jews which later endorsed his ac
tion.
Robert B. Ray, acting chairman of the
school board, told Gordon: “Your pro
posal sounds like an honest one and I
think it deserves an honest answer. Do
I hear a motion?”
There was no motion.
Ray said he thought the board had
been making progress toward integra
tion plans before Negro parents filed a
suit to force it (the suit was dismissed
on a technicality in August). He said
after the suit was filed he “more or less”
stopped thinking about proceeding with
the plans and started thinking about de
fending the board’s position.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
Eight Negro students enrolled in
Memphis State University Sept. 10 and
began classes Sept. 18 with 4,500 white
students.
The student body appeared to accept
the change matter of factly, but on open
ing day four cars bearing segregationist
slogans wound through the campus.
They were driven by adults not con
nected with the university.
ADVANCE REGISTRATION
The Negroes were registered in ad
vance of the other students and advised
to stay away from the campus until
classes began.
Dean R. M. Robison told them “I want
(See TENNESSEE, Page 16)