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PAGE 8—FEBRUARY—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS FLORIDA Board Orders Expansion Of Orchard Villa School MIAMI, Fla. D ade County’s experiment in school integration was called successful after a five-month trial. The school board ordered the in tegrated Orchard Villa School en larged by ten classrooms to house additional pupils who wish to at tend. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) Negro ministers of Tallahassee took initial steps toward a court suit by petitioning the Leon County school board to state its policy on integration. The board said it had none. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) A Feb. 29 date was set for a “showdown” hearing on the long- pending suit to open all Dade County schools to Negroes. (See “Legal Action.”) Florida’s “token” integration, which began at two schools last September, was called a success after five months of trial. Teacher evaluations at Orchard Villa Elementary—one of the few integrated schools in the South where white chil dren, greatly outnumbered by their Ne gro classmates, are taught by a Negro faculty—said both groups had been helped by the association and adjust ments had been good. On the basis of this and other reports, which indicated community acceptance, the Dade school board voted to enlarge the school by the addition of ten class rooms. This will meet the pressure of other pupils who wish to attend this school. While Negroes will predominate in this new group, school officials said ad ditional white children will be assigned if they continue to five in the school district. DECISION POSTPONED But the school board again postponed a final decision on integrating other schools. Six Negro pupils seeking ad mission to all-white schools throughout the county were told at the January board meeting that they must wait longer for an answer. Mrs. Anna Brenner Meyers, board member, protested against further de lay. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Mrs. Meyers. “These people came to us in good faith. They are entitled to a decision.” In other action the school board or dered letters sent to parents of all school children explaining how the pupil as signment law operates. This was done in an effort to comply with a recent fed eral court ruling that Negro applicants “must have a reasonable and conscien tious opportunity to apply for admis sion to all schools . . . without regard to race or color,” and that Negro par ents be informed of their rights under the law. The letter reaffirmed the board’s in tention to abide by this statute. The pupil assignment law is being challenged in federal district court. (See “Legal Action.”) ASKS STATEMENT Elsewhere in Florida integration pres sure increased. In Tallahassee, the capital, the Negro Ministerial Alliance petitioned the school board for a statement of policy toward integration. The Leon County school board replied that it had none. Board Chairman W. T. Moore said that no Negro child had sought admis sion to a white school, and no specific problem was before the board for solu tion. “I feel that we have been getting along mighty fine with all our people and I hope it will continue that way,” he said. The Alliance, in asking for a state ment of policy, indicated this was the first step toward court action. If so, it will be the first such suit in the north ern part of the state, where segregation sentiment is strong. WANT SCHOOLS OPEN The Florida Children’s Commission released results of a survey, which indi cated nearly three fourths of Floridians prefer some integration as an alterna tive to closing schools. The commission said 69 per cent of the 1,764 persons questioned in a sam pling of opinion disagreed with the statement that resistance should be car ried to the point of abandoning the public school system. This is the way the matter appeared on the form: “Florida should resist any effort to integrate the races in public schools, even if it is necessary to abolish the public schools in order to do so.” The result showed 54 per cent dis agreed strongly, 15 per cent disagreed mildly, eight per cent agreed mildly and 23 per cent agreed strongly. In other aspects of education covered by the survey, 93 per cent agreed that the state should provide sufficient class rooms and teachers for a good educa tional system. MONEY NEEDED Thomas D. Bailey, state superintend ent of schools, told the Florida School Finance Officers Assn, at Bradenton that the greatest problem of the state school system is to find money to keep pace with needs. The property tax is no longer ade quate as a base for education, he de clared. If schools are to continue to pro vide a high quality of education, all in dividuals must contribute in some de gree to the common effort, he said. “We have today as good a general support on the part of the public for good schools as any place in America,” he said. But he added that the extremely rap id growth of school population was confronting the state with a runaway situation. 70 PER CENT GROWTH In many counties school officials re ported serious need for more facilities. The most extreme case was presented by Brevard County, site of the missile center at Cape Canaveral. Population growth has been so rapid that class rooms were expanded 70 per cent in 1959. The expansion added facilities for 9,420 children to those for 13,500 avail able one year ago. As a result double sessions were eliminated. Enrollment in Brevard has increased five times since 1950. “And the growing isn’t over,” said School Supt. Woodrow Darden. “We’re still the fastest growing system in Flor ida. We’ve climbed from 28th to 11th place among the counties and we’re still going up.” Brevard financed the building of five elementary and three junior high schools and additions to eight existing schools by a combination of federal, state and local financing. About 10% million dollars has been spent in a pro gram that will add 17 schools in three years. The long-pending Dade County school suit (Gibson et al vs. Dade County Board of Public Instruction) was set for a showdown hearing Feb. 29 before Federal District Judge Joseph P. Lieb. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap peals remanded the case to Lieb last month with instructions to require a plan to desegregate Dade County’s schools. While Dade has two integrated schools in operation, none of the plain tiffs in the Gibson case is attending integrated classes. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they will include a total attack on the pupil assignment law as part of the renewed case. REVERSAL SOUGHT In other legal action, the Florida Su preme Court was asked to reverse a Lake County court decision, which de nied the validation of a 5.6 million dol lar bond issue on grounds that it would be used to build segregated schools. Roy Christopher, attorney for the Lake County school board, said that the decision, if allowed to stand, would prevent validation of any school bonds in Florida. On two previous occasions, Christo pher said, the Florida Supreme Court had ruled (in cases from Pinellas and Dade counties) that the 1954 desegre gation rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court did not apply to school bonds. W. S. Hunter, attorney for a Lake County citizen and taxpayer who brought the suit, said supplemental Su preme Court rulings put a different light on the matter. It was this argument that OMER CARMICHAEL Dies of Heart Attack led to the lower court ruling by Circuit Judge T. C. Futch. FIGHTS DISCHARGE David Watson Cramp Jr., an Orange County mathematics teacher, asked the circuit court of that district to prevent his discharge from his teaching post, which he has held for nine years, be cause he declined to sign a loyalty oath. This oath requires any recipient of public funds to swear that he “will sup port the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Florida and that I am not a member of the Com munist party; that I have not and will not lend my aid, support, advice or in fluence to the Communist party.” Cramp said that while he could truth fully subscribe to the oath he believed that “to do so would be a violation of my rights as a free, loyal American citizen.” He said the oath violated his rights under the First and 14th Amend ments to the federal Constitution. Thirty-three southern college presi dents and deans last month signed a statement terming closed schools a menace to democratic society. The statement, published in pamphlet form, listed these probable consequences of doing away with tax-supported pub lic education: • Many children would do without education entirely, and the others, ex cept for the wealthy few, would get an inferior education. • There would be a sharp rise in un employment and a corresponding in crease in crime and juvenile delinquen cy. • Business would decline and new business would stop coming to the re gion. • Teachers would not be attracted by jobs in poorly financed, haphazardly or ganized private schools, and would either leave the profession or migrate north and west. • Idle schools would constitute an in tolerable burden on taxpayers. • The South would lose thousands of future scientists, mathematicians and leaders in all fields. The statement was issued in behalf of the signers by J. B. White, dean of the University of Florida’s College of Education. A United Press International report on the developing race for governor, to be decided in May, said that segregation as yet has played no part. At this same stage of the 1956 cam paign it was the principal issue, involv ing each of the four candidates. So far this year eight candidates have entered but only one—Sen, Harvie Belser of Bonifay—has emphasized the question. In fact only five candidates have stated a position. This is a summary of their stands: Belser—“I believe in and advocate the local option plan. Let the people in each county determine for themselves, by majority vote, whether they shall abolish the public school system in that county.” C. Farris Bryant, Ocala—“Segrega tion is not a major issue.” Mayor Haydon Burns, Jacksonville— No mention of segregation in his an nouncement but he calls himself “an unyielding segregationist.” Sen. Doyle Carlton Jr., Wauchula— Reminds voters that he led the fight against drastic segregation legislation in two past sessions. Favored the pupil as signment law which he still thinks is the best solution. Former House Speaker Ted David, Hollywood—“As governor I shall do all I can, legally and honorably, to main tain our southern customs.” # # # KENTUCKY Governor Wins Test \ ote; New School Chief Installed LOUISVILLE, Ky. K entucky’s new state admin istration, under Gov. Bert Combs, won some important pre liminary rounds in its pledge to finance improvements in the state’s desegregated school sys tem. (See “Political Activity.”) The state’s new school chief, Wendell P. Butler, who in the same position had inaugurated the desegregation in 1955, took office again with reiteration of his belief that “the principle of segregation is morally wrong.” (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) These events were overshadowed by the death of Louisville School Supt. Omer Carmichael, the Alabama native who won national recognition for the smoothness of the integration program he devised for a district in which a third of Kentucky’s Negroes live. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) Louisville Negroes failed in an at tempt to win support of Mayor Bruce Hoblitzell for their campaign against segregation in such public services as hotels, restaurants, and movie houses. (See “Community Action.”) In late December newly inaugurated Gov. Bert Combs won approval from the outgoing General Assembly of his call for a limited constitutional revision convention (in which school desegre gation would be specifically excluded). He repeated this triumph with the new Assembly in January, thus shortening by two years the constitutional time table for a program that among other things would raise salary limits for school administrators and other state employees. Some of the governor’s hopes for a vast increase in public school spending depended on the outcome of a court test of the voter-approved veterans bonus amendment of last November, which specified a one per cent sales tax to finance the bonus. In January the State Court of Appeals upheld the constitu tionality of the amendment, minus a comma or two, and Combs promptly plugged for a three per cent sales tax, with an unspecified but large amount of this to go to the public schools. WINS TEST VOTE No administration measure is yet out of the fiscal—or political—woods. But a test vote in the House of Representatives on the administration’s sales tax bill on Jan. 26 gave the administration a hand some majority of 66 to 19. Most political observers concluded Combs would have little trouble in getting the General As sembly to implement his pledge of a “substantial” teacher pay increase, more state-financed school building, free textbooks and a better teachers’ retire ment system. The limited-revision constitutional convention Combs seeks could not act on Kentucky’s 1891 Constitution before 1963. (It will exclude school integration, a field in which the governor cam paigned “to follow the law as enunci ated by the Supreme Court,” and reli gion, racing, liquor, and county consoli dation.) But the 1960 General Assembly will determine whether the governor’s still-unspecified ideas or the specifically higher demands of the Kentucky Edu cation Assn, shape the state’s school program this year. Wendell P. Butler, who as state su perintendent of public instruction inau gurated Kentucky’s school desegregation program in 1955, was not eligible to run for re-election in 1956. Last fall he was. Winning by a majority of more than 100,000 votes, he was inaugurated again on Jan. 4. In a statement to Southern School News, he recalled that as long ago as 1953 he had publicly described segrega tion as “not only expensive to maintain but morally wrong in principle.” “My position,” he said, “remains un changed, and I want to add that I am well pleased by the progress that Ken tucky has made in this field . . . Now that I am returning to the office of su perintendent of public instruction, I feel that integration can best be accom plished on the local level where the peo ple of all races can come together and work toward the solution of their prob lems. To this end, the State Department of Education will give all the help with in its resources during the next four years of my administration.” ‘PROFESSIONAL’ SOUTHERNER A self-confessed “professional” south erner, Omer Carmichael was Louisville’s superintendent of schools from 1954 to isoo. He died of a heart attack at the age of 66 on Jan. 9, four years short of his goal of “seeing through” the inte gration program he launched in the city schools in 1956. He had been praised by President Eisenhower and others for the smoothness with which he had achieved a major change in a border city. Dr. Carmichael grew up on a cotton farm in Alabama and not only worked his way through the state university but helped put his eight younger sisters through college before he married. Be fore coming to Louisville, he was a schoolman in Selma, Ala.; Tampa, Fla.; and Lynchburg, Va. In the border city of Louisville he said he found his totally southern back ground as a schoolman “helpful” when he argued that “Christian principle, conscience, and the dignity of man, no less than the Constitution and the Su preme Court, makes school desegrega tion inevitable.” President Eisenhower invited him to the White House in 1956 to explain how he had kept Louisville out of the viol ence-ridden headlines of that day. January saw a brief boom and a quick collapse of the idea that the Uni versity of Louisville should become the owner of Churchill Downs, Louisville’s world-famous race track. Some businessmen promoted the idea as a good thing for the university, an integrated institution since 1950. But a journalistic “leak” of the promotion brought fast resolutions of disapproval from Baptist and Methodist ministerial groups in the city. The idea sank with Mayor Hoblitzell’s declaration that “everybody I’ve talked to has been opposed to it.” COMMUNITY ACTION Louisville Negroes failed in January to win support of Mayor Bruce Hoblit zell for their campaign to end segrega tion in some theaters, hotels, restau rants and other business places. They were led by attorney Charles W. An derson Jr., whom President Eisenhower made a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations last year. Anderson praised Louisville’s “excel lent race relations, particularly as com pared to other border and southern cities.” He contended that aside from public facilities, Louisville Negroes “are living in a community half-segregated due to race, and half-integrated due to the Supreme Court.” Anderson spoke for a delegation of 35 Negroes and whites at the mayor’s regularly scheduled “beef session” in City Hall on Jan. 4. “We respectfully urge you,” Ander son said, “to take the lead in seeing that theaters, hotels, restaurants, stores, and other places of public service and ac commodations will cease to discriminate or segregate”—as, he pointed out, a mixed number of Louisville enterprises do. Mayor Hoblitzell countered with the observation that Louisville had reached “a most enviable position” by accom plishing as much as it has in race rela tions without friction. The city govern ment, he said, had done all that could be done to end discrimination in public facilities, “but trying to force integra tion in private business is another mat ter.” In response to a white farmer’s sug gestion, he said he did not think he had any right “to try to tell businessmen how to run their businesses—you must recognize that this is a legislative mat ter that you are asking for.” # # /