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School News
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Objective
VOL. 6, NO. 8
5HVILLE, TENNESSEE
$2
GEORGIA
School Debate Warms
As Legislature Meets
MACON, Ga.
A war of words over whether
the state should close public
schools to preserve segregation
continued in Georgia as the Legis
lature opened.
The court-approved pupil place
ment plan prepared by the Atlanta
Board of Education for desegrega
tion of Atlanta schools was read
to the Legislature but it was be-
proved.
Gov. Ernest Vandiver and oth
ers continued to say Georgia
would not yield to integration.
Several strong segregation-minded
leaders in public and business life
began to indicate that some inte
gration is inevitable and the
schools must not be closed. (See
“Legislative Action.”)
Two more Georgia school sys
tems were presented desegregation
petitions. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The Legislature was bathed in the
news spotlight as Georgia’s turmoil in
creased over public school desegrega
tion. But the war of words over wheth
er to close the state’s public schools to
prevent integration was waged on many
fronts: school boards, letters to the edi
tor, editorials, grand jury statements,
views of private and public officials,
churches, business conferences, cham
bers of commerce discussions, rallies
and meetings, television end radio.
There was no lack of proposed plans
in the Legislature, with more than half-
a-dozen proposals available.
But the pupil placement proposal of
fered by the Atlanta Board of Education
and approved by U.S. District Judge
Frank. A. Hooper seemed to be receiv
ing little attention from the legislators.
The board adopted this plan in No-
BRUARY, I960
vember after Hooper had ordered action
on planning for desegregating Atlanta
schools by September of 1960. The plan
was amended twice in January in an
effort to meet some of the objections
of Negro plaintiffs voiced to the court.
Later in the month it was forwarded
to the General Assembly.
Late in January, the school board
requested the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in New Orleans to dismiss
its appeal. The appellate court granted
the request, thus leaving the case in
the hands of Judge Hooper.
In actuality, the plan was not put be
fore the Legislature in the form of pro
posed legislation. It was transmitted in
the form of a resolution of the Atlanta
Board of Education and read in both
houses.
But Fulton County (Atlanta) Rep. M.
M. Smith said he would offer the plan
as a bill. Smith already has a similar
bill in the State of Republic Committee
and the new plan would be substituted
for this measure.
The pupil placement proposal does
not mention race but would establish
numerous other factors as guides in as
signing individual students to new
schools when transfer requests are
made. The student assignment rules
proposed would apply only to 12th
grade students in the 1960-61 term, but
would be expanded to the next lower
grade each successive year until all
grades are included.
The principal changes required of the
original plan by the court give more
time for transfer applicants to appeal
rejections and remove economic retali
ation within the community as one of
the factors that could keep a Negro out
of a white school.
If the plan should be approved by
the Legislature, and this is not regard
ed as likely at the present, some observ
ers believe the legislators also would
have to repeal existing laws requiring
the closing of public schools in event
of integration.
If the Legislature takes no action on
the plan, it is anticipated that in May
some Negro children scheduled to go
(See GEORGIA, Page 2)
Rights Bill Nearer~tMOor;
No Incidents As County
Desegregates in Virginia
T he House Rules Committee’s
decision to hold a hearing on
the civil rights bill raised the pos
sibility that the proposal might be
cleared for House consideration
early in February.
Desegregation extended into
southwest Virginia in January as
a fifth county opened formerly all-
white schools to Negroes.
And Georgians debated throughout
the month whether to close their schools
or begin desegregating them.
The House Rules Committee broke
the deadlock over civil rights legislation
by announcing a hearing on the bill it
has kept bottled up since last summer.
A petition to bring the bill to the floor
without committee clearance has more
than 190 of the required 219 signatures.
Thirteen Negroes entered two former
ly all-white high schools in Floyd
County, Va., under federal court order,
making 98 Negroes in desegregated
schools in the state. A federal judge also
has ordered eight other Negroes admit
ted to all-white or predominantly white
schools in Alexandria.
Georgians began debating whether to
close their public schools to preserve
segregation after a federal judge ap
proved a pupil placement plan to de-
(For a summary of 1959 segregation-
desegregation developments, see Pages
12 and 13.)
segregate Atlanta schools. Existing state
laws require the closing of schools in
the event of integration.
Advisory committees to the Civil
Rights Commission have been formed
in the last two states, Mississippi and
South Carolina. Several seats remain
J vu s,
urveu
open on the committees of both states.
Other developments by state:
Alabama
Gov. John Patterson warned that
Alabama’s school placement law will
not prevent integration. The governor
said he felt sure the U.S. Supreme Court
would declare the law unconstitutional
the first time it is used to preserve seg
regation. (Page 9.)
Arkansas
Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett filed early
as a gubernatorial candidate and
promptly announced that school deseg
regation would be one of two main is
sues in the campaign. Gov. Orval Fau-
bus remained quiet about whether he
plans to try for a fourth term. (Page 5.)
Delaware
James M. Tunnell Jr., the lawyer who
represented most of the local school dis
tricts in their segregation cases, is
among those prominently mentioned by
Delaware Democrats as possible candi
dates for governor. (Page 11.)
District of Columbia
A District school board member has
asked school officials to consider aban
doning the annual racial count of pupils
and teachers. Southern congressmen
want to crack down on non-resident
students attending Washington’s public
schools free. (Page 3.)
Florida
Dade County’s school board ordered
10 classrooms added at integrated Or
chard Villa School after the school’s
teachers rated the five-month trial a
success. Negroes in Tallahassee, in
northern Florida, have taken initial
steps toward a court suit on desegrega
tion. (Page 8.)
Georgia
Louisiana Democratic nomination for
governor. At Washington, D.C., the Jus
tice Department asked the U.S. Su
preme Court to restore 1,377 Negro vot
ers who were purged from registration
rolls in Washington Parish. (Page 14.)
Maryland
A state report shows that an addition
al 1,237 Negro pupils were enrolled in
formerly all-white schools this past fall,
the state’s largest increase so far. The
number of integrated county schools
rose from 218 to 246. (Page 10.)
Mississippi
Ross R. Barnett, an uncompromising
segregationist, took office Jan. 19 as
governor. In his temperate inaugural
address, he promised “maintenance of
segregation at all costs.” (Page 7.)
Missouri
An official of the Kansas City public
schools reported that the proportion of
Negro to white teachers had remained
fairly steady over the past two years,
although the proportion among students
has shown a steady increase since 1955.
(Page 15.)
North Carolina
A motion filed by an attorney for 27
Negro students asks an injunction to
prevent Yancey County from operating
segregated schools. A citizens’ commit
tee at Chapel Hill asked school board
members to explain details of the de
segregation plan proposed for next fall.
(Page 9.)
Oklahoma
Two Oklahoma communities have
taken a look backward at their deseg
regation programs. Purcell first deseg
regated on the high school level in 1955.
Allure started only a few months ago
with seven Negro students in its pre
viously segregated high school. (Page
Slight Rise in Desegregated Districts
D esegregated school districts
increased slightly in the
southern and border states within
the past nine months, despite a
sharp decline in the number of
school districts because of consoli
dations.
Districts with desegregated
schools increased from 734 to 747
during the period, the latest sta
tistical summary of Southern
Education Reporting Service
showed. Ten days after the sum
mary was released, Floyd County
in Virginia desegregated two
schools, making the regional total
748 districts.
Consolidations cut the total of
school districts in the 17 states
and the District of Columbia from
7,874 last May to 6,973 in January
of this year. The number of dis
tricts with residents of both races
dropped from 2,881 to 2,849.
Nineteen districts were desegregated
at the start of the present school year.
This represents the smallest increase
since the U.S. Supreme Court’s deseg
regation decision in 1954.
Of the almost 13 million students en
rolled in public schools in the region,
2% million whites and one-half million
Negroes are in integrated situations.
This does not mean that number of pu
pils are attending integrated schools but
that their school districts have desegre
gation policies in practice or principle.
Since the last statistical summary,
Florida was the only state with com
plete segregation to start initial deseg
regation of its schools—two schools in
Dade County. Public schools remain
segregated in the five Deep South states
of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi,
Louisiana and South Carolina.
As an example of how school changes
affected a state’s statistics, Oklahoma
reduced its school districts from 1,365
to 1,323 by consolidations. However, the
number of districts in which both
whites and Negroes reside changed from
250 to 251 and the desegregated districts
climbed from 170 to 187.
School officials in some border states
have discontinued reporting racial
breakdowns on enrollments. Missouri,
for example, reduced its total of dis
tricts from 2,890 to 2,143 and stopped
giving racial statistics. The number of
students in integrated situations there
can only be estimated by use of old
percentages.
Desegregation increased in the public
colleges and universities of the South.
Of the 195 formerly all-white institu
tions, 124 in 14 states are desegregated
in practice or principle, compared to
117 in 13 states reported last May.
Eighteen of the 30 formerly all-Negro
institutions are desegregated. This
makes 142 of 225 institutions of higher
learning that will accept students of an
other race.
The number of students, white and
Negro, involved in the desegregation at
this level is not known since most bor
der states no longer report enrollment
by race. # # #
Two more Georgia school systems
have been presented petitions to deseg
regate. Chapters of the National Assn,
for the Advancement of Colored People
presented the petitions in Cobb County
and the city of Marietta, both in the At
lanta metropolitan area. (Page 1.)
Kentucky
The new governor, Bert Combs, won
two preliminary rounds in his program
to finance improvements in the state’s
school system. Both a special session of
the General Assembly in December and
the new Assembly in January approved
his call for a limited constitutional re
vision convention, at which school seg
regation would be one of the subjects
specifically excluded. (Page 8.)
Louisiana
The votes of strongly vocal segrega
tionists helped Jimmie H. Davis win the
Segregation-Desegregation Status
School Districts Enrollment Situations
Total
Biracial
Deseg.
White
Negro
% Negro
White
Negro
Alabama
113
113
0
497,700
292,300
37.0
0
0
Arkansas
422
228
9
315,806
104,205
24.8
50,172
9,750
Delaware
94
51
19
63,484 '
14,277
18.4
39,076
7,576
Dist. of Columbia
1
1
1
27,481
90,403
76.7
27,481
90,403
Florida
67
67
1
727,398
192,093
20.9
125,295
25,881
Georgia
198
196
0
667,781
310,753
31.6
0
0
Kentucky
215
172
123
568,360
42,778
7.0
388,000
32,000
Louisiana
67
67
0
412,563
261,491
38.8
0
0
Maryland
24
23
23
454,414
126,678
21.8
396,000
118,500
Mississippi
151
151
' 0
283,502
271,671
48.9
0
0
Missouri
2,143
214
200
738,000
82,000
10.0
74,480
North Carolina
174
174
7
816,682
302,060
27.0
73,200
4L800
Oklahoma
1,323
251
187
485,996
39,405
7.5
261,840
30,000
South Carolina
108
108
0
344,893
255,616
43.0
0
0
Tennessee
153
142
4
668,300
146,700
18.0
38,494
13,576
Texas
1,581
720
125
1,783,737
279,374
13.5
632,000
33,000
Virginia
129
128
6
617,349
203,229
24.7
74,825
21,743
West Virginia
55
43
43
427,864
24,010
5.3
414,968
24J)10
Region
6.973
2,849
748
9,901,310
3,039,133
23.5
2,521,351
522,719
South Carolina
Racial segregation at Greenville Mu
nicipal Airport came under attack
from two quarters. U.S. Fourth District
Court of Appeals heard a suit on the
matter in mid-January. And several
hundred Negroes protested the racial
separation in a “pilgrimage” to the air
port New Year’s Day. (Page 11.)
Tennessee
The Knoxville Board of Education,
faced with its second desegregation suit,
re-hired S. Frank Fowler, the attorney
who helped beat down the first suit.
This was believed to indicate the board
will fight the suit instead of submitting
a desegregation plan of its own, as sug
gested by the city law director. (Page 6.)
Texas
The Texas Supreme Court refused to
rule on the state referendum law, leav
ing the Dallas School Board in a dilem
ma over desegregation. A federal court
has ordered desegregation but state law
provides penalties for such action with
out a referendum. (Page 4.)
Virginia
An effort by white segregationists to
provide private schools for Negroes in
Prince Edward County collapsed when
only one child applied. Negro leaders
announced plans for 10 “training cen
ters” to offer basic education and rec
reation for school-less Negroes. (Page
16.)
West Virginia
The state’s two U.S. senators, Jen
nings Randolph and Robert C. Byrd,
have declined to commit themselves on
their final stand on civil rights legisla
tion now before Congress. They are co
sponsors of an anti-bombing measure.
(Page 6.)
# # #
