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SOUTH CAROLINA
Civil Rights Commission Forms
Final State Advisory Committee
COLUMBIA, S. C.
T he Civil Rights Commission
announced the formation of a
state advisory committee for
South Carolina, thereby complet
ing the task of naming such a com
mittee in every state.
The chairman pro tern, E. R. Mc-
Iver, is a segregationist who main
tains his service on the committee
will contribute to the goal of bet
ter race relations and an improved
understanding of South Carolina’s
attitude favoring segregation.
Gov. Ernest F. Hollings, mean
while, continues his disapproval of
both the Civil Rights Commission
and of its biracial advisory com
mittee in South Carolina, saying
he will not cooperate with them.
(See “Community Action.”)
A law attacking racial segregation
at Greenville Municipal Airport was
heard in mid-January before the U.S.
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. (See
“Legal Action.”)
A protest against another incident in
volving racial separation of passengers
at Greenville airport took the form of
a “pilgrimage” to the airport on Jan. 1
by several hundred Negroes. (See
“Community Action.”)
The South Carolina Legislature con
vened for the 1960 session and promptly
endorsed a book aimed at presenting
the southern position in current con
troversies over states rights and school
segregation. (See ‘“Legislative Ac
tion.”)
COMMUNITY ACTION
The new year found South Carolina
with the nucleus of a state advisory
committee to the Civil Rights Com
mission, the group having been named
in the closing days of 1959.
Admittedly still incomplete, the bi
racial advisory committee has seven
members whose views range from seg
regation to integration.
An avowed segregationist, E. R. Mc-
Iver, 47-year-old Conway building
supply dealer, is chairman pro tempore
of the group. He is the only member
who designates himself as a segrega
tionist, although staff members of the
Civil Rights Commission told the press
that efforts would be continued to per
suade other segregationists to serve
on the group.
The secretary is a 48-year-old Ro
man Catholic priest, the Rev. Allan
Raymond Jeffords of Camden, A. Mc-
Dow Secrest, 36, editor of the Cheraw
Chronicle, is press secretary.
The vice chairman is Dr. Thomas
Carr McFall, 51, a Charleston physician
and one of three Negroes on the ad
visory committee. The other Negroes
are Dr. Dewey Maceo Duckett, 59, a
Rock Hill physician, and the Rev.
James Herbert Nelson, 40, a Presby
terian minister of Sumter.
The seventh member is Courtney
Parker Siceloff, 38, director of Penn
Community Services in Beaufort
County. He (a native of Texas) and
Secrest (a North Carolinian by birth)
are the only two of the group not bom
in South Carolina.
At the Dec. 29 press conference at
which formation of the group was an
nounced, Mclver and other committee
members said they were chiefly con
cerned with presenting “the South Car
olina story” to the rest of the nation
and in helping reestablish lines of com
munication between the two races.
They emphasized that they had no in
tention and no authority to function
as an enforcement agency.
WON'T COOPERATE
Gov. Ernest F. Hollings greeted the
announcement of the new committee,
last to be formed among all the states,
with a reaffirmation of his earlier state
ments that he did not plan to coop
erate with the Civil Rights Commission
or its agencies. A formal statement
from the governor’s office included
these observations:
“We need no such advisory forum,
and by participating in this political
scheme, we extend the idea that there
is a need and at the same time give
substance and support to a commission
in violation of fundamental constitu
tional principles. I believe the commis
sion with its powers is unconstitu
tional.
“We have good race relations in
South Carolina. We have law and or
der in South Carolina. We have ade
quate civil rights laws in South Caro
lina and the people know that these
laws will be enforced. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation is the proper
federal authority for the enforcement
of federal statutes, ‘civil rights’ or oth
erwise, and if there were a sincere
desire to get an impartial report of
any infringement or violation, I would
suggest that the government use the
FBI as South Carolina’s advisory com
mittee.”
The majority of South Carolina
newspapers commenting editorially on
the formation of the advisory commit
tee took the position that the com
mittee was not representative of the
state’s views, since only one segrega
tionist was included in the member
ship. The Greenville News, a strong
segregationist paper, suggested how
ever that the people of the state give
the committee a chance to see what
it could do.
“We are in favor,” the paper said
editorially, “of giving them (the mem
bers of the advisory committee) a
chance to persuade the commission to
see the viewpoint of the people of the
state, even though we have certain
misgivings as to their chances for suc
cess.”
MARCH ON AIRPORT
An orderly protest march on Green
ville Municipal Airport was conducted
on New Year’s Day by a group of
between 250 and 300 Negroes.
The protest, originally predicted to
involve some 5,000 Negroes, was the
outgrowth of a 1959 incident in which
Jackie Robinson, former major league
baseball player and now a Negro busi
nessman, was asked to leave the white
waiting room at the Greenville airport.
He was in town to address a rally of
the National Assn, for the Advance
ment of Colored People.
The protest march, termed an Eman
cipation Day Prayer Pilgrimage by the
sponsoring Negro individuals and or
ganizations, was preceded by a meet
ing at Springfield Baptist Church of
Greenville. There several speakers, in
cluding Mrs. Ruby Hurley, south
eastern regional NAACP director, casti
gated South Carolina’s segregation
policies and the white leadership sup
porting those practices.
The group moved by motorcade to
about one-quarter mile from the air
port terminal, parked cars there and
walked the remaining distance. About
150 white persons, many of them police
officers of various agencies, were in
side the airport waiting room and only
15 Negroes were admitted inside.
A spokesman for the Negro group,
Orangeburg minister C. D. McCullough,
read aloud a resolution stating:
“We will no longer make a pretense
of being satisfied with the crumbs of
citizenship while others enjoy the whole
loaf only by the right of a white
skinned birth.”
The Negroes held a brief prayer
thereafter and then left the building.
There were no disturbances.
£*E=. J|
LEGAL ACTION
In mid-January, a suit that origi
nated in Greenville in November of
1958 was heard at Richmond by the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The suit was brought by a Negro
civilian employe of the Air Force,
Richard B. Henry of Selfridge Air
Force Base, Mich. When visiting
Greenville in 1958, he was requested
to wait in a Negro rather than a white
waiting room at the municipal airport
terminal. He brought suit seeking to
enjoin the Greenville Airport Commis
sion from enforcing racial separation
at the terminal.
His complaints were rejected last
year by Federal District Judge George
Bell Timmerman of Columbia. The
case was appealed to the Fourth Cir
cuit court.
The Rev. I. DeQuincy Newman has
been appointed a field secretary for
the NAACP.
Newman recently gave up his Spar
tanburg church and resigned as the
NAACP state president to undertake
full-time work with the organization.
The Assn, of Citizens Councils of
South Carolina wrote Georgia’s Gov.
Ernest Vandiver in January to com
mend his determination “to protect
the rights of the people of your state.”
Referring to the Georgia governor’s
recent address to the Georgia Legisla
ture in support of continued school
segregation, the South Carolina Citi
zens’ Council spokesman said:
“It is our sincere conviction that
your sentiments are shared by an over
whelming majority of the people of all
the southern states .... Our constant
refusal to accept the federal govern
ment’s efforts to usurp the powers
guaranteed to the individual states by
the Constitution is winning more and
more converts throughout the coun
try.”
The state’s Special Segregation Com
mittee reported in early January that
it plans no further recommendations
for legislation at this time.
The 15-member continuing commit
tee, headed by State Sen. L. Marion
Gressette, is charged with maintaining
surveillance of all aspects of race rela
tions as they affect the state and its
political subdivisions. In the past, its
recommendations have been speedily
enacted into law in an effort to main
tain continued separation of the races
in schools, parks and elsewhere.
Another interim report soon may be
handed to the General Assembly, even
though no proposed legislation is ex
pected to be embodied in such a re
port.
The South Carolina General Assem
bly adopted in its opening week a
resolution by Rep. John A. May of
Aiken commending a newspaperman
for his book entitled “The Case For
the South.”
The resolution commended W. D.
Workman Jr. “for his great contribu
tion to the South in its present strug
gle for a better understanding by the
writing and publishing of his book.”
Subsequently, Rep. May was joined
by Rep. Joseph O. Rogers Jr. of Clar
endon County in sponsoring a bill
authorizing a three-member commit
tee to purchase 1,000 copies of the book
to be distributed to members of Con
gress and elsewhere where “the great
est good will be accomplished in fos
tering a better understanding for the
cause of the South.”
The bill passed without opposition in
the House of Representatives and was
sent to the Senate.
The book had been praised by Gov.
Hollings, who had sent copies to all
members of the Southern Governors’
Conference with a letter describing it
as “the first thorough and authentic
analysis of the South’s stand in the
maintenance of constitutional govern
ment.”
SPONSOR MARRIAGE BILL
Three members of a special House
committee studying state responsibili
ties for the Catawba Indian tribe of
South Carolina sponsored legislation
early in the current session to legalize
marriages between Indians and whites.
Such action is desired, explained Rep.
J. Bate Harvey of York County, to
safeguard the rights of Indian and
Indian-white families in the light of
a possible distribution of reservation
lands.
An old state law forbids such mar
riages.
The Charleston News and Courier
took editorial exception to a report
from the American Civil Liberties
Union alleging that the newspaper “is
editorially forsaking total segregation.”
Terming the report factually untrue,
the News and Courier said it never
talks of “total segregation,” since in
many areas of activity in the South
there are unsegregated patterns of race
relations. Then, charging the ACLU
with misrepresentation, the newspaper
added:
“The News and Courier has objected
in the past, continues to object in the
present, and plans to object in the fu
ture to forced mixture of races in the
public schools. Our viewpoint has not
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY—PAGE 11
SOUTH CAROLINA’S CIVIL RIGHTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Seated, McFall, Jeffords and Secrest; Standing, Siceloff and Mclver
changed—indeed, it has been strength
ened by events in the integrated
North—with respect to this subject.”
A Charleston County Negro organi
zation has called upon South Carolina
courts to be more stringent in dealing
with Negroes guilty of offenses against
others of their race. The Citizens’ Com
mittee of Charleston County said in
a press release:
“Courts have been too lenient on
Negroes when they have committed
crimes of killing, cutting and shooting
other Negroes.”
A Negro minister of Columbia, the
Rev. William McKinley Bowman, pro
posed at a meeting of the Columbia
(Negro) Ministerial Alliance that Ne
groes be advised to trade elsewhere if
stores with large Negro patronage de
cline to employ Negro “white collar”
workers.
U. S. Sen. Karl Mundt (R-S.D.)
commended the South’s views on the
10th Amendment to the Constitution
in a speech delivered Jan. 12 at Rock
Hill Executives’ Club. With respect to
race relations, he said: “We’ve been
working on the Indian problem in
South Dakota longer than you have
on your problem of integration and
until we get it solved, we won’t come
down here and tell you how to solve
yours.” # # #
DELAWARE
School Lawyer Mentioned
As Candidate for Governor
DOVER, Del.
A mong those prominently men
tioned as possible candidates
for governor by Delaware Demo
crats is James M. Tunnell Jr., the
lawyer who has represented most
of the local school districts in the
segregation cases. (See “Political
Activity.”)
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of
Appeals on Feb. 15 will hear an
appeal on a motion to reverse a
U.S. district court order approv
ing grade-a-year desegregation.
(See “Legal Action.”)
A decision on bias charges made
by a Negro principal will be ren
dered Feb. 12 by the Laurel Board
of Education. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
The State Board of Education in
January approved construction at ex
isting Negro schools in the amount of
$376,000. A building program covering
the state will be submitted later. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
The lawyer who has represented
most of the downstate Delaware dis
tricts in their legal battle to preserve
segregated schools has been urged by
the Young Democrats of Appoquini-
mink and Blackbird Hundreds to be
come a candidate for governor.
A resolution to that effect was passed
by the New Castle County club after
the name of James M. Tunnell Jr. was
suddenly injected in the gubernatorial
picture as he discussed with the Gen
eral Assembly a pattern to hold public
hearings on reform legislation urged
by Gov. J. Caleb Boggs.
Boggs, a Republican, is prohibited by
the state constitution from seeking a
third term.
Tunnell, a Democrat who resigned
as a Delaware Supreme Court justice
to seek the nomination for U.S. sena
tor in 1952, is a partner in the firm of
Morris, Nichols, Arsht and Tunnell in
Wilmington. He recently moved to Wil
mington from Georgetown.
Tunnell indicated he will not actively
campaign for the nomination, as he did
against U.S. Sen. J. Allen Frear six
years ago.
He said, in answer to a direct ques
tion as to whether he is available for
the nomination, that he “should hate
either to become a candidate for politi
cal office or to say flatly that I would
not serve in a public capacity in any
circumstances.”
The sudden mention of Tunnell as a
possible candidate is expected to cause
other Democrats to make known their
intentions. Most prominently mentioned
have been former Gov. Elbert N. Car
vel and J. H. Tyler McConnell, the
1956 candidate.
Two Republicans, Lt. Gov. David P.
Buckson and John R. Rollins, a for
mer lieutenant governor, have for
mally announced they are candidates.
Sen. Frear is expected to seek re-
election, and Gov. Boggs, a former
congressman, is expected to oppose
him.
Tunnell, or law firms with which he
has been associated, have received $19,-
964 in legal fees since 1956 for repre
senting local white districts to which
Negro pupils have sued for admission.
The money was paid from a special
fund created by the General Assembly
for “extraordinary legal expenses” of
local districts.
LEGAL ACTION
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Ap
peals in Philadelphia will be asked on
Feb. 15 to reverse a U.S. district court
order approving grade-a-year desegre
gation in Delaware.
Oral arguments are scheduled to be
heard on that date on an appeal of a
decision by Judge Caleb R. Layton HI,
who approved the stairstep plan on
July 6.
The names of the judges who will
hear the appeal have not been an
nounced.
Atty. Gen. Januar D. Bove Jr., who
represented the State Board of Educa
tion when the plan was presented to
the district court, has submitted a
brief for the state.
Bove argues that the order of the
district court properly considered the
obstacles of a more immediate plan,
and that the order is consistent with
the Brown decisions.
Also filing briefs endorsing the state
board plan were James M. Tunnell Jr.,
James H. Hughes in, and Everett F.
Warrington. Tunnell represents Mil
ford, Seaford, and Laurel. Hughes also
represents Milford, and Warrington is
the Milton attorney.
SAYS RULINGS CONFLICT
Louis L. Redding, attorney for seven
Negro pupils who sued for admission
to all-white schools in 1956, holds in
his brief that the district court judg
ment conflicts with the Brown decision
in that it “deprives plaintiffs forever of
rights guaranteed thereunder.”
Because the plaintiffs have all gone
past the first grade, he says, their
“right to racially non-discriminatory
public education ... is totally ob
literated.”
The problems cited by the state
(See DELAWARE, Page 14)