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. _ SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY—PAGE 5
ARKANSAS
Bennett Enters Race; Handshake Stirs Debate
MRS. BATES AND GOV. FAUBUS SHAKE HANDS
At Center, W. A. Richardson, West Indies Official
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
A tty. Gen. Bruce Bennett filed
early as a candidate for gov
ernor, saying that school desegre
gation would be one of two main
issues in the campaign. Gov. Or-
val E. Faubus still wasn’t saying
whether he would try for a
fourth term. (See “Political Ac
tivity.”)
Faubus charged that his “ene
mies” at Washington had set up
his meeting in December with
Mrs. L. C. Bates, state president
of the National Assn, for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, in
an attempt to damage him politic
ally. (See “Political Activity.”)
In the Dollarway desegregation case,
the school board and the Negro plain
tiffs filed long briefs debating whether
the board was using the placement
laws constitutionally. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
A Negro organization investigated
conditions at Little Rock Central and
Hall high schools and disputed charges
by a Negro congressman from Michi
gan that the eight Negro students were
receiving gross mistreatment. (See
“Community Activity.”)
Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett announced
as a candidate for governor and paid
his $1,500 filing fee on Jan. 13, three
and half months before the deadline
for the Democratic primaries. It was
one of the earliest filings in modem
times.
Bennett, who debated for months two
years ago whether to run and then
didn’t, said he just wanted to be sure
that all of his supporters knew that
he was in the race this time. He is the
first and, so far, the only one to an
nounce.
The only comment from Gov. Faubus,
who is expected to try for a fourth
term, was that he wouldn’t criticize
anybody for having the ambition to
ran for governor.
Bennett was asked for but wouldn’t
give his opinion of the Faubus admin
istration.
“That has no bearing on my candi
dacy,” he said.
He said the principal issues in the
campaign would be the school deseg
regation problem and how to get
enough new industry to stop the loss
of population in the state.
Bennett, 42, is an avowed segrega
tionist. As attorney general, he has
worked to put the NAACP out of busi
ness in Arkansas.
Bennett has been critical of the
governor for using the National Guard.
Resisting school desegregation must be
handled in the courts and through law
suits, he says.
Besides Faubus, six or eight others
have been mentioned as possible gu
bernatorial candidates. Some are in
the Faubus administration and can’t
be expected to run if the governor
does. Faubus has said that he will an
nounce his political intentions at least
a month before the filing deadline of
April 27.
One prospective candidate, former
Congressman Brooks Hays of Little
Rock, is no longer a prospect. On Jan.
26 he took a new nine-year appoint
ment as a director of the Tennessee
Valley Authority.
The first Democratic primary this
year is July 26. The runoff primary,
if needed, will be two weeks later.
FAUBUS-BATES MEETING
There was a mild repercussion in
January from the surprise meeting
Dec. 16 of Faubus and Mrs. L. C.
Bates, state NAACP president. They
met in his office and shook hands
while she was there as host to Wil
liam A. Richardson, federal informa
tion officer of the government of the
West Indies.
Richardson was in this country on a
tour sponsored by the State Depart
ment and wanted to meet the gover
nor. He is a Negro.
A month later the national news
services quoted Mrs. Bates as saying at
a Moral Re-armament (MRA) meet
ing at Washington, D. C.:
“When I met the governor, I said,
‘I am not interested in fighting the
Civil War. I am interested in where
we are going from this hour. I am in
terested in tomorrow and the future
of America.’ Without Moral Re-arma
ment I don’t think I could have done
that.”
At the governor’s press conference
the next morning, Faubus said: “That’s
a complete fabrication, but it’s a very
nice one. She made no comment like
that to me. If she had, I would have
had no objection to it. But truth is
truth—and she did not say it to me.”
Reporters said she did make a re
mark about the Civil War to them
while waiting outside the governor’s
office to see him.
Then the governor went on to say
that he thought the arrangements for
Mrs. Bates to meet him had been made
in advance by his “enemies” at Wash
ington. By enemies he said he meant
the Justice Department, the NAACP
and “other pseudo and extreme liber
als who are trying to dictate policies.”
He said he thought they set it up be
cause they figured it would hurt him
politically, whether he received Mrs.
Bates and Richardson, or whether he
refused to meet them.
Faubus said he had not hesitated to
receive Mrs. Bates. “I could not have
embarrassed all concerned by refus
ing to see the two,” he said.
He added that he did not believe
the incident had damaged him.
In the Dollarway School District case
(Dove v. Parham), the two sides filed
lengthy briefs in January before Fed
eral District Judge J. Smith Henley.
The main issue now is whether the
Dollarway board is using the state pu
pil placement laws, already held valid
on their face, to discriminate against
the three Negro plaintiffs.
Another point is the contention of
the Dollarway board that the plaintiffs
should have gone to the Circuit Court
in Jefferson County before filing in
federal court. Judge Henley has this
motion and the plaintiffs’ petition un
der advisement.
The plaintiffs, Earnestive Dove,
James Warfield and Corliss Smith,
tried to show that the board’s use of
the placement laws was unconstitu
tional because Negro students applying
for reassignment were required to
meet special conditions not imposed
on other students.
The brief said “no children other
than the plaintiffs have been required
to give reasons why they should be
admitted to a particular school; none
other have been subjected to public
hearings, with the attendant exposure
to threats, abuse and violence; no other
students have been subjected to physi
cal examinations, tests and interviews,
in the consideration and determination
of their school assignments; and, ap
parently, no applicants other than the
plaintiffs have been denied admission
and enrollment in the school for which
they expressed preference.”
At the start of the school year, the
brief said, the board sent all students
to the schools they had attended the
year before, thus tunneling all Negro
students into the Negro school and re
quiring them to stay there pending
individual reassignment to another
school.
“This does not constitute an ar
rangement for desegregating the schools
or even a step in that direction,” the
brief said.
The brief also attacked some of the
16 criteria, established by the board
under placement laws. It said that one
of them, “the possibility of breeches of
the peace or ill will or economic re
taliation within the community,” al
ready had been ruled out by the Su
preme Court when it denied Little
Rock’s plea in 1958 for a 2%-year de
lay.
Five others, it said, are so vague or
irrelevant or dependent on subjective
judgment that they cannot be applied
constitutionally. These were psycho
logical qualifications of the pupil for
the teaching and associations involved;
psychological effect on the pupil of at
tendance at a particular school; home
environment; maintenance or sever
ance of established and psychological
relations with other pupils and teach
ers; and the morals, conduct, health
and personal standards of the pupil
asking reassignment.
If a Negro child’s morals, conduct,
health and personal standards are such
that he can attend a Negro school,
asked the brief, how does that dis
qualify him from attending a white
school?
In an answering brief the Dollarway
board contended that its position is
constitutional.
THREE OBJECTED
At the beginning of the school year,
the brief said, the Dollarway board
assigned each pupil. Only the three
plaintiffs in the lawsuit have objected
to those assignments, the brief said,
and when they objected that put into
motion placement procedures. The
same procedures apply to all students,
white or Negro, the brief said, and all
who object to their assignments will
be treated the same. Only those who
ask reassignment receive the special
tests, the brief said, and there is noth
ing in the record to support an in
ference that any student of any race
would be treated differently.
The brief also said it is legal to con
sider race in making an assignment as
long as race is not the only considera
tion.
It also served notice that the Dollar
way board “can and should” take a
different view of pupil transfers at the
first grade level from transfers at a
higher grade level, and that it was go
ing to take particular care with as
signing first grade students in the
1960-61 school year.
This plan is based on the testimony
given for the board in a December
hearing by Dr. John E. Peters, associ
ate professor of psychiatry at the Uni
versity of Arkansas School of Medi
cine, and Robert Moore, psychologist
and dean of students at Arkansas State
College.
Quoting at length from their testi
mony, the brief said Peters and Moore
gave two basic reasons why the plain
tiffs should not be transferred to the
all-white school—one that they would
be removed from their friends and a
known environment, and the other that
they would have to face extreme emo
tional pressure because of the rigid
attitudes that children develop on such
matters as race by the time they are
14 or 15 years old.
TWO OTHER LAWSUITS
The State Supreme Court heard oral
arguments Jan. 11 in two lawsuits at
tacking Act 10 of 1958. The act re
quires public school and college em
ployees to list under oath their organi
zational memberships.
The cases of Gephardt v. Tucker and
Carr v. Young are being appealed from
the Chancery Court of Pulaski County,
which upheld the law. The plaintiffs
are Ernest T. Gephardt, former teacher
of printing in the Little Rock public
schools, and Max F. Carr, former
teacher of music at the University of
Arkansas.
In an earlier suit (Shelton v. Mc
Kinley) a three-judge district court
upheld Act 10 but the U.S. Supreme
Court agreed Jan. 25 to hear an ap
peal in the case. The Gephardt and
Carr suits are based on a contention
differing from Shelton’s. They say their
employer is entitled to all of the in
formation required under Act 10 ex
cept that of a private nature, such as
church membership.
Both are represented by Edwin E.
Dunaway of Little Rock, who told the
Supreme Court that teachers could lose
their jobs through pressure if they be
longed to some private organization
that certain groups do not like. As an
example of an organization whose
members are subject to such pressure
he mentioned the Urban League, of
which he is president at Little Rock.
For the state, Asst. Atty. Gen. Bill J.
Davis argued that private employers
could get such information from their
employes without any constitutional
fuss and that public employers should
have the same privilege.
SENTENCING DELAYED
The sentencing of Jesse Raymond
Perry and John Taylor Coggins for
their part in the Labor Day dynamit-
ings at Little Rock was postponed from
Jan. 11 to Feb. 5. Each is scheduled to
get three years in prison.
E. A. Lauderdale Sr., also convicted,
was scheduled to be sentenced on Feb.
1. His penalty is three years and a $500
fine.
A Negro organization made its own
investigation of charges by Rep. Charles
C. Diggs Jr. (D-Mich), a Negro, that
the Negro students in Central and Hall
high schools at Little Rock were grossly
mistreated. In a report released Jan.
8, the Arkansas Christian Move
ment refused to uphold the charges
made by Diggs (Southern School
News, January 1960). It said condi
tions were “almost normal” at Hall,
attended by three Negro students, and
were “bad but much better than in
1957” at Central, attended by five Ne
gro students.
Diggs spoke out in December after
spending about a week in Little Rock
as part of a tour through the South to
gather material for anticipated civil
rights debates.
School authorities denied his accusa
tions at the time.
The Arkansas Christian Movement is
an organization of Negro church leaders
formed in 1957 to challenge the legality
of the four segregation laws adopted by
the General Assembly that year (the
Sovereignty Commission and registra
tion laws). A committee of three Ne
groes investigated Diggs’ charges. They
were Thad Williams, attorney; the Rev.
C. C. Walker, and I. S. McClinton, presi
dent of the Arkansas Democratic Voters
Assn. Excerpts from the report follow:
ALMOST NORMAL
“We are happy to report that the con
ditions at Hall High School are almost
normal...
“While conditions at Central High
have greatly improved from the 1957
status, there still remains misconduct
which needs much correction. It was
found that there is name calling and
periodic physical manifestations of mis
conduct such as pushing and kicking.
Some of the physical intimidation is be
ing carried on by children not in
school.
“It was also found that the parents
still feel that carrying the children to
and from school is necessary for the
protection of the children. The parents
seem somewhat reluctant to make con
tinuous complaints as their child might
become a central target. However most
of the physical misconduct was reported
to the principal or to the faculty ...
“The Negro children at Central High
feel that the faculty is not sufficiently
sympathetic toward their plight and
tends to minimize the reported inci
dents. Thus the students are also reluc
tant to report incidents of misconduct.
“The committee found that organized
open defiance to complying with the
famous Brown decision has been great
ly retarded in Little Rock. For the most
part this retardation resulted from the
work of Chief of Police Eugene Smith
and his staff, Prosecuting Atty. Frank
Holt and his staff and the political ef
forts of the responsible citizens (white
and Negro) of this community.”
The committee joined with Diggs in
asking that President Eisenhower make
a goodwill tour of the South. It sup
ported the President in his request for
civil rights legislation.
L. C. Bates of Little Rock has been
hired as a regional secretary of the
NAACP, the New York headquarters
announced. His wife is the state presi
dent of the NAACP. They published a
weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State
Press, until last Oct. 30, when they sus
pended publication because, they said,
so many of their advertisers had been
pressured into dropping out.
Roy Wilkins, executive director of the
NAACP, said Bates would work in Ar
kansas and, possibly, neighboring states.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
So far this fiscal year, 271 Arkansas
school teachers have retired. Last year
the total was 214 and the year before
185, for years ending on June 30.
The director of the State Teachers
Retirement System, Hoyt Pyle, said he
expected the trend to change downward
this year because there is less unrest
in the public school system over deseg
regation. He said about 150 teachers a
year retire usually.
Last July 1, the beginning of the fiscal
year, 219 teachers retired and 52 more
have retired since then. The Little Rock
public high schools were still closed
last July 1 and whether they would re
open was unknown at the time.
“The figures certainly show that it
was an abnormal and unusual year,”
Pyle said. “The situation caused some
teachers to retire and to go to other
states to teach.”
SCHOOLS RECEIVE FUNDS
The Little Rock School Board asked
for and received from the State Depart
ment of Education $129,752 as the re
mainder of the money withheld from
Little Rock schools during 1958-59 when
they were closed. The schools were
closed by Faubus under Act 4 of 1958
and the money withheld under Act 5
of 1958, to be paid to the schools to
which the displaced Little Rock stu
dents transferred.
Other schools received $187,768 of Lit
tle Rock’s withheld money before the
two laws were held unconstitutional
by federal courts.
Marion A. Wright of Linville Falls,
N.C., retired lawyer and former presi
dent of the Southern Regional Council,
spoke at the annual meeting of the Ar
kansas Council on Human Relations.
The meeting was attended by about 150
whites and Negroes at Philander Smith
College in Little Rock.
Wright said there is a “bankruptcy
of leadership” in the South regarding
the racial situation. The leaders aren’t
leading, he said, and in some cases have
actually prevented progress in the racial
situation.
VETERAN VISITS FAUBUS
John M. Hobble of Liberal, Kans., na
tional commander of the 40 et 8, visited
Faubus in the governor’s office and
commented later that they had a mu
tual problem in segregation.
“The only difference is that he hasn’t
been thrown out and we have,” Hobble
said.
The 40 et 8 was ordered expelled re
cently from the American Legion by the
national Legion commander for refus
ing to admit Negro veterans. Hobble
said he considered that order illegal and
said that the 40 et 8 would ignore it.
Faubus, a member of the 40 et 8, agreed
with him.
SAYS ISSUE DISTORTED
As a political issue, civil rights is dis
torted far out of its importance, accord
ing to Gov. Faubus. He said polls show
civil rights far down the list of needed
legislation and he wondered why some
national political leaders continue to
harp on it. Talk by Democratic leaders
of quick action in Congress on civil
rights brought this comment.
“We have some of the most stupid
leadership that the Democratic Party
has ever been burdened with,” Faubus
said.
Back from Jacksonville, Fla., where
he attended the Gator Bowl football
game, Faubus reported that he was sur
rounded there by people urging him to
run for president. He said he neither
encouraged nor discouraged them.
The election of Jimmie Davis as gov
ernor of Louisiana certainly was not a
setback for states rights, according to
Faubus, who said he thought the issue
of segregation was the deciding one in
that campaign.
Georgia will shut its schools rather
than allow federal courts to force de
segregation, Faubus said. And if they
are closed don’t blame the segregation
ists, he added—blame the federal gov
ernment and the NAACP. # # #