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MISSOURI
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY—PAGE 15
Kansas City Issues Breakdown On Teachers
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
T ie proportion of Negro to
white teachers showed little
change in the Kansas City (Mo.)
public schools in the last two
years, Supt. James A. Hazlett re
ported last month.
The proportion of Negro pupils
in Kansas City public schools has
shown a steady increase since
1955.
The new Kansas City data on teach
ers compares the school year 1957-58
with the school year 1959-60. In terms
of total staff, the breakdown for 1957-
58 was 2,194 white and 409 Negro, for a
total of 2,603. For 1959-60 the break
down was 2,331 white and 449 Negro,
for a total of 2,780.
Thus in the two-year period the num
ber of teachers, principals and admin
istrative and supervisory personnel in
creased by 177 persons, including 137
white and 40 Negro. The proportion of
white persons decreased slightly from
84-3 per cent in 1957-58 to 83.1 per cent
in 1959-60. The Negro proportion was
up from 15.7 to 16.9 per cent.
20 PER CENT NEGRO
In Kansas City public schools, the
proportion of Negro children was esti
mated at about 20 per cent in January
1959. At the present time it is estimated
to have increased to about 26 per cent.
In St. Louis public schools, at the
eastern end of the state, the proportion
both of Negro teachers and of Negro
children is much higher than in Kansas
City. About 40 per cent of St. Louis’s
teaching, administrative and supervisory
personnel are estimated to be Negro.
The St. Louis student population is es
timated at 50 per cent Negro in the
elementary schools and approximately
40 per cent in the rest of the system.
The new statistics released by Hazlett
for Kansas City are broken down into
five categories: elementary teachers;
secondary teachers; elementary princi
pals; secondary principals and vice prin
cipals, and administrative and super
visory. In each case the comparison is
between 1957-58 and 1959-60.
For elementary teachers, the white
total increased from 1,291 to 1,362 and
the Negro from 274 to 285. The white
proportion was up from 82.5 per cent
to 83.4 while the Negro was down from
17.5 to 16.6 per cent. Of the present
total of Negro elementary teachers, 254
are women and 31 are men.
For secondary teachers, the white to
tal increased from 773 to 825 and the
Negro from 119 to 146. Thus the white
proportion was down slightly in the
two years, from 86.7 to 85 per cent, and
the Negro up from 13.3 to 15 per cent.
ONE PER CENT GAIN
For elementary principals, the white
total increased from 62 to 65, and the
Negro from 11 to 12. The Negro propor
tion showed a gain of less than one per
cent, moving from 15.1 in 1957-58 to
15.6 per cent in 1959-60.
For secondary principals and vice
principals, the white total moved from
26 to 29 and the Negro from 5 to 6.
This meant an increase in the white
proportion from 83.9 to 84.4 per cent,
and a corresponding Negro decrease,
from 16.1 to 15.6 per cent.
For administrative and supervisory,
the white total moved from 42 to 50 in
the two years, while the Negro total re
mained at zero. The white proportion
therefore remains at 100 per cent
“Our board of education,” Hazlett
told Southern School News, “has not
felt that the Supreme Court decision re
quired staff integration, but the board
has tended to move in that direction
when it seemed in the best interest of
the children. Things are working very
well.”
POINTS TO INCREASE
Hazlett pointed to an increase in the
number of integrated faculties in Kan
sas City public schools since 1955.
Whereas in 1955-56 there were integrat
ed faculties in three Kansas City
schools, the present situation is that
three of the system’s high schools and
eight of its grade schools have both
white and Negro teachers. The system
has some 85 elementary and 25 secon
dary schools.
The three high schools with integrat
ed faculties are Central Senior High,
Central Junior High and the Manual
High and Vocational School. In none of
the three is the faculty more than 50
per cent Negro, Hazlett said. One of the
grade schools with integrated faculty
has a proportion of Negro teachers of
more than 50 per cent, however.
One grade school with an integrated
faculty—one white teacher—has a Ne
gro principal. Both Central Senior and
Manual High have Negro vice princi
pals. However, the assignment of teach
ers depends to some extent on race,
and Negro teachers are not assigned to
communities where it is felt they might
not be welcomed.
Parent-teacher groups and teacher
associations are integrated in Kansas
City. Some have Negro officers.
GO SLOW’ POLICY
William H. Gremley, now executive
director of the City of Cleveland (O.)
Community Relations Board, was until
Jan. 1 the executive secretary of the
Kansas City Commission on Human
Relations. He was asked to comment on
the teacher integration picture in Kan
sas City. His comment was, in part, as
follows:
“My own impression is this—since the
1954 Supreme Court decision, the Kan
sas City school board has been very
slow on teacher integration. It is pos
sible that the board itself has, while
not on paper, set a ‘go slow’ policy.
Consequently the appointed officials
are more or less obligated to abide by
that policy. In previous conversations
with school officials I got the impres
sion that while they were personally
sympathetic to more teacher integra
tion in Kansas City, their hands were
tied because of this board reaction.
“The result has been that a Negro
teacher will not be placed in a school
other than one predominantly Negro-
attended until that school has from 20-
50 per cent Negro attendance. For the
most part this means the schools in the
transition area.”
RACE CONSIDERED
In St. Louis public schools, the pro
portion of Negro teachers is about 40
per cent rather than 17 per cent—the
Kansas City proportion. However, St.
Louis administrators do not assign Ne
gro teachers to all-white schools. Thus
there are situations, as in Kansas City,
where race is taken into account in as
signments.
OKLAHOMA
Two Communities Review
Desegregation Programs
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
A SUPERINTENDENT opposed to
integration; an unofficial “ad
visory” board; a non-segregated
residential pattern—these are the
ingredients of school desegrega
tion in Purcell, Okla.
Purcell has been desegregated
at the high school level since 1955.
It is one of 187 Oklahoma districts
now having some form of integra
tion.
Desegregation did not come to Pur
cell without incident and even yet is
nursed along with careful restrictions.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Another superintendent across the
state looked back on a desegregation
program which started only a few
months ago. Alluwe has seven Negro
students in its previously segregated
high school. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
Purcell, seat of McClain County, is
perched on the bluffs above the
broadly meandering South Canadian
River.
It has a characteristic uncommon for
Oklahoma communities: Negro families
are not segregated in any part of town.
Old-time residents say this has always
been true and even now whites and
Negroes live side-by-side.
The number of Negro inhabitants is
an estimated 200 or 250 out of a popu
lation of 5,000. The community atti
tude has been more frontier than
southern.
Located 35 miles south of the state
capital, Purcell sits on land that was
Part of the Chickasaw Indian nation.
The river was the dividing line be
tween the old Oklahoma Territory and
Indian Territory. The town, incorpor
ated in 1898, was the southern jump-
‘ng-off point for settlers making the
famed Run of 1889.
The 40 or 50 Negro families in Pur
cell follow various occupations, al
though they tend strongly to domestic
and janitorial work.
Outside of Purcell the chief Negro
settlements in McClain County are at
Rosedale and in a farming community
between Washington and Blanchard.
Before 1955 Negro children in Pur
cell attended Booker T. Washington, a
seven-teacher grade and high school
on the west side of town. At the time
it was the only high school for Ne
groes in the county. Enrollment in the
junior and senior high grades ran
about 40, while the elementary grades
had about 50.
In 1955 Herman H. Harris became
superintendent of schools. He had just
completed 15 years as superintendent
in Seiling, in Dewey County in the
northwest part of the state. When he
signed his contract with the Purcell
school board, the U. S. Supreme Court
had not yet handed down its imple
mentation ruling of May 1955.
“If I had known integration was
coming, I would never have taken the
job here,” he declared in a recent in
terview with a Southern School News
correspondent. “And six weeks after I
came here I was ashamed of myself for
feeling that way.”
TOOK JOB ANYWAY
Harris explained that, while the Su
preme Court had put the handwriting
on the wall a year earlier, he, like
many other schoolmen, believed de
segregation would not be pressed. So
he took the Purcell job anyway, even
though he knew there were Negroes in
the community.
“I was prejudiced,” he said frankly,
“not because I had ever had any trou
ble with Negroes but because I was
raised that way. I had never had any
contact with them and didn’t know
how to talk with them.”
Custer County, in northwest Okla
homa, where Harris was bom and
reared, had no Negro residents. Most
of his dealing in school work had been
with plains Indians, and their atti
tudes were not like those of the Ne
groes in Purcell.
Harris arrived on his new job just
in time to supervise the task of inte
grating Purcell’s high school.
Booker T. Washington was kept as
an elementary school for Negroes. It’s
the only one in McClain County now.
The old Blue Branch School in the
Rosedale community was closed and
Negro elementary pupils integrated
with the white children there while
the older students were sent to Wayne
High School.
In the first year of integration Pur
cell High School got only 18 of the 40
Negroes of senior high age who had
attended Washington. These were the
only ones who actually lived in Pur
cell. Those outside went to integrated
schools in their own districts. About
four or five Negro youngsters went to
live with relatives in Oklahoma City
and enrolled in Douglass High School
there. Purcell High still has only about
20 Negro pupils in a student body of
515.
Harris said the grade schools in Pur
cell (there are two for white children)
were not desegregated principally be
cause Negro patrons preferred them
separate.
“There has been a little agitation
among the Negroes for integrating the
grade schools now, but they can’t agree
among themselves,” Harris said. “If
they did, we would integrate.”
Four of the seven Negro teachers at
Washington lost their jobs when the
high schools were Integrated in 1955-56.
Three were kept for the grade school
the first year, but now there are only
two, with a pupil load of 46. No effort
has been made to integrate the faculty,
Harris said, because the school board
feels the community would not ap
prove. However, the Negro principal,
Bruce James, serves as an assistant to
the Purcell High basketball coach, Le-
Roy (Boney) Matthews.
This is due partly to the presence of
four Negroes on a varsity traveling
squad of 12 players. Purcell has a
proud basketball tradition. Buddy
Hudson, acquired by Purcell as a
senior from Booker T. Washington
when integration began, became the
first Negro selected on the all-state
basketball team. He is now a regular
on the University of Oklahoma team.
The following year, when Purcell
won the state Class B championship,
Joe Lee Thompson also made all-state
and is now playing at OU. Two of the
four Negroes on the current Purcell
team are starters.
NOT OUTSTANDING
Scholastically, Negroes have not
been outstanding, although there have
been some good students as well as
poor ones, just as among white pupils,
Harris reported. None of the Negro
girls has gone on to college. The four
Negro boys who did (including Hud
son and Thompson) are making their
grades, he said.
Generally, the Negroes have been
accepted by white students at Purcell
High School although, among the lat
ter, the girls are less enthusiastic than
the boys about integration.
For extra-curricular social activities
the school administration has laid
down two definite rules, which have
been approved by the board. One is
that no Negro may attend a school
dance without a date. The second for
bids dancing by racially mixed cou
ples.
Harris also said school authorities
are careful in arranging programs and
drills not to pair white and Negro
children. Negroes are cast in the school
plays but usually in some type of do
mestic role.
MINOR SPATS
There have been a few minor spats
between Negroes and whites—more
among the girls than the boys—but
not all have been of a racial nature,
the superintendent said. And no prob
lem has been so serious that it could
not be settled at the administrative
level, he insisted, “although I’ve had
to talk pretty straight to a few stu
dents.”
Integration stops when school is out.
Negro residents keep pretty much to
themselves, both in social and church
life. The only Negroes who attend
services at white churches are students
invited in from the high school to sing.
Purcell still has the traditional but
completely unofficial “colored school
board,” also known as an “advisory
board.” Harris said it existed when
he came to Purcell and he still con
sults with the four surviving Negro
members when it comes to hiring Ne
gro teachers. The advisory group has
served as a spokesman for Negro pa
trons in matters concerning their
school. The board of education has rec
ognized the group as reflecting the
opinions of a majority of the Negroes.
Harris feels he has rid himself of
his prejudice toward integration.
“I don’t know as it bothered me be
fore,” he said. “I was just opposed to
it. I had my conviction that schools
shouldn’t be integrated, that they were
best the way they were.
“But I just didn’t know colored peo
ple. You know, you can’t work with
people who are fair and not change
your mind about them. The Negro
patrons have been very fair with me
and very reasonable about the whole
thing.”
NO TROUBLE AT ALLUWE
At Alluwe, in Nowata County, near
the state’s northern border, the school
was in its fifth month of integration
and experiencing no difficulty, accord
ing to the superintendent, Bill Ship-
ley.
Seven Negroes from Madden, eight
miles to the northeast, enrolled at Al
luwe last September, bringing integra
tion to the school for the first time.
Five are in the ninth grade and an
other in the 10th. The seventh child
is an eighth-grader who has always
lived in the Alluwe district but, be
fore it was integrated, attended the
Negro school at Madden.
Until this year the high school stu
dents in Madden attended Nowata
High School, which has been integrated
several years. With desegregation of
the Alluwe school, however, it became
cheaper for the Negroes to attend
classes there.
Shipley explained that Madden is in
the Alluwe transportation area. Thus,
the Negroes could ride school buses
to Alluwe but would have had to pro
vide their own transportation to No
wata, which is 15 miles from Madden.
Madden retained its one-room grade
school but may not be able to keep
it open next year because of dwindling
enrollment. In that case, Alluwe’s
grade school would probably become
desegregated also. # # #
Six of the St. Louis public high
schools and 23 of the approximately 140
elementary schools have integrated fac
ulties. At present none of the elemen
tary schools with integrated faculties
has a Negro principal, but one of the
high schools does.
LEGAL ACTION
The St. Louis Court of Appeals late
in 1959 made permanent a preliminary
writ of prohibition barring a St. Louis
County Circuit Court from hearing a
cross-claim filed by a Negro physician
seeking to fight condemnation of prop
erty on which he was trying to con
struct a residence.
Dr. Howard P. Venable of St. Louis
acquired property on suburban Spoede
Road and in 1956 started to build a
$55,000 residence to be occupied by him
self and his family. He encountered
trouble obtaining plumbing permits
from the city of Creve Coeur, and final
ly efforts to proceed with building the
house came to a halt.
Creve Coeur, the municipality in
which U.S. Sen. Stuart Symington until
recently made his home, filed an action
in the county circuit court to condemn
Venable’s property, along with two oth
er lots, for park and playground pur
poses. Venable filed a cross-claim, al
leging that there was a conspiracy to
deprive him of his personal and prop
erty rights because he and his family
are Negroes.
The St. Louis Court of Appeals, in a
20-page opinion written by Judge Ed
ward M. Ruddy and concurred in by
Judges John J. Wolfe and Lyon Ander
son, upheld the contention of Creve
Coeur officials that the court could not
inquire into the motives that actuated
the municipality’s board of aldermen in
seeking to establish a public playground.
In decisions by the U.S. Supreme
Court, the appellate court said, it has
been held that the necessity and expe
diency of taking private property for
public use is a legislative, not a judi
cial, question. The appellate court not
ed that because of the gravity of Ven
able’s allegations it had conducted an
exhaustive study of the matter.
When the condemnation hearing is
actually held, Judge Ruddy said, there
will be nothing to prevent Venable
from submitting such arguments as he
wishes. The physician’s cross-bill was
filed in an action preliminary to the ac
tual condemnation of his land.
An anti-discrimination bill was de
feated by the St. Louis Board of Aider-
men Jan. 22 by a vote of 17 against and
11 for. The bill would have prohibited
discrimination against any person in
places of public accommodation, such
as hotels and restaurants, because of
race, color, creed or national ancestry.
It was the fifth defeat for such a bill in
St. Louis since 1954.
One of the speakers urging passage
of the bill pointed out that similar leg
islation had recently been adopted in
Kansas City.
Meanwhile, three public hearings
were held during January in University
City, suburban municipality just out
side St. Louis, on a proposed bill to
prohibit discrimination in places of pub
lic accommodation. Opponents of the
measure were making a determined
stand. A business spokesman argued
that passage of the law as proposed
would put University City businesses
at a serious disadvantage in competing
with establishments in neighboring mu
nicipalities. Several speakers expressed
fear that property values might deteri
orate.
Endorsing the proposal, however,
were the University City League of
Women Voters, the Archdiocean Coun
cil of Catholic Men, a ninth grade pupil
at Hanley Junior High School, and fac
ulty members from Washington Univer
sity. Church spokesmen and private
citizens also supported it.
The anti-discrimination bill for Uni
versity City was introduced by Council
man Irl Baris as a direct result of an
incident last February when four
Washington University students, three
of them Negroes, were arrested while
trying to obtain service at a restaurant
near the campus.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
St. Louis public schools reopened
Jan. 20 after being shut down for two
days because of a strike of custodians
and matrons. The strikers went back to
work after a circuit court issued a tem
porary restraining order barring fur
ther picketing.
The strike affected about 80,000 ele
mentary school children and also
caused shutdown of high schools, with
another 20,000 students.
The striking employes, members of
Local 118 of the Public School Employes
Union, were seeking an increase in pay.
# # #