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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)