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PAGE 10—MARCH I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TEXAS
Court Calls for Action in Dallas Desegregation Case
DALLAS, Texas ate Justice John Minor Wisdom asked marilv hv the National A sen for Arl_ Roman „ i..„i i 1 ,• • .
DALLAS, Texas
A United States circuit court
called upon the Dallas school
board for action in its five-year-
old dispute over commencing de
segregation. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
Negro fathers involved in a law
suit to integrate Fort Worth
schools admitted they are being
financed by the National Assn, for
Advancement of Colored People.
(See “Legal Action.”)
West Texas State College was
ordered by a federal judge to ad
mit a Negro student. It was the
first such order entered against
any of six colleges administered
by a state teachers’ college board.
(See “In the Colleges.”)
Three white women lost another
court attempt to enter Texas A&M Col
lege, which still bars both females and
Negroes. (See “In the Colleges.”)
Syracuse’s football coach said a na
tional television program had “twisted”
a Syracuse Negro player into saying
“things he doesn’t want to say” in criti
cizing the University of Texas’ team
over this year’s Cotton Bowl game.
(See “In the Colleges.”)
The Episcopal Diocese of Texas, after
an argument, backed the decision by
trustees of St. Stephens Episcopal
School at Austin to admit Negroes with
white students starting in September
1961. The headmaster said no applica
tions are pending from Negroes. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Texas Education Agency revealed
that hundreds of school boards are ap
plying for federal funds under existing
aid programs, although some districts
reject the money. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
A Negro assistant to President Eisen
hower told Dallas Negroes to work for
better communication with white citi
zens rather than simply for racial rights.
(See “What They Say.”)
Two incidents of friction over Dallas
Negroes moving into white neighbor
hoods, or formerly white areas, were
noted. (See “Miscellaneous.”)
“Words without deeds are not
enough,” Chief Justice Richard T. Rives
of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals told an attorney for the Dallas
school board opposing an effort to ob
tain immediate desegregation (Boson v.
RiVW).
“We’ve been engaging in legal litera
ture for five years without action,” the
judge said.
Attorneys for the NAACP, for a
fourth time, asked the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals to order Dallas to
produce a desegregation plan by Sep
tember.
C. B. Bunkley Jr., NAACP lawyer,
said that a “gradual, stairstep integra
tion plan would be workable and ac
ceptable to us. We are not asking that
the whole system be desegregated, but
we want a start by September.”
At Dallas, Dr. Edwin L. Rippy com
mented that the school board, which he
heads, has a desegregation plan, which
it could produce “with ease” after its
legal problems are cleared up.
“I don’t recall that the board has
ever been asked legally to present a
plan,” said Rippy. “The board . . . has
felt it inappropriate (to announce a
plan) in view of litigation concerning
federal and state rulings.”
SCHOOL CENSUS
Supt. W. T. White announced late in
February that Dallas is making a new
study of geographical distribution of
white and Negro students in the city,
the first in five years.
The Dallas News reported a school
spokesman described the survey as
“routine” but “necessary in event such
data are asked for the Dallas integration
case.”
The school census shows that the
Dallas district currently has 11,029
white and 2,841 Negro children six years
old, eligible to start school next Sep
tember. Dallas officials have stated that
they prefer to integrate one grade a
year, when segregation is abolished. In
tegration would begin in the first grade,
if this plan is invoked.
On April 4, U.S. District Judge T. W.
Davidson of Dallas will review prog
ress by the board under his ruling
(Borders v. Rippy) to desegregate “with
deliberate speed.”
At the New Orleans hearing, Associ
ate Justice John Minor Wisdom asked
R. H. Brin Jr., the school board attor
ney: “Don’t you think the school board
should come up with a plan without a
court order?”
Brin contended that until the dis
trict’s status under state laws is clari
fied, integration might throw the whole
Dallas system “out of kilter.”
One state law calls for withdrawal of
funds from any district that desegre
gates without approval of its voters. No
election has been held on the subject in
Dallas, and most observers believe that
a referendum, if called now, would fail.
This would mean a loss of two million
dollars a year in state funds to Dallas,
and fines up to $1,000 against its school
officials, if integration should be ordered
contrary to state law.
SOUGHT DIRECTION
The Texas Supreme Court in Febru
ary made final its decision against giv
ing any “declaratory judgment” inter
pretation of the Dallas district’s status
under the state referendum act (Dallas
ISD v. Edgar). The Dallas board has at
tempted unsuccessfully in two federal
courts and three state courts to get
court direction in its dilemma over the
conflict between state law and a U.S.
court order.
In urging the Texas Supreme Court
to advise the school board, Attorney
Brin asserted that Dallas has “a pres
ent and urgent problem” and not mere
ly a hypothetical case.
“Certainly it is the function of the
courts and not of school boards to de
termine legal interpretation and consti
tutionality of state statutes,” he said.
NAACP AID
Two Negro fathers of children in
volved in the lawsuit to desegregate
Fort Worth public schools (Flax v.
Potts) told attorneys at deposition hear
ings the litigation is being financed pri
marily by the National Assn, for Ad
vancement of Colored People. Both said
they approached Dr. G. D. Flemmings,
a dentist who heads the Fort Worth
NAACP branch, and requested aid.
Tech. Sgt. Weirleis Max Sr., a Cars
well Air Force Base finance office work
er, said he did not know how much
money the NAACP had spent or planned
to spend on his lawsuit. Herbert C. Teal
Jr., a $75-a-week aircraft company jan
itor, said he paid NAACP Attorney L.
Clifford Davis of Fort Worth a sum
which he could not recall; signed a note
for about $700; and was told the NAACP
would pay the other cost of the litiga
tion involving his child.
Flax complained that the segregated
school his daughter attends at Fort
Worth is inferior to the integrated
school his children attended at Wichita
Falls when he was stationed at Shep
pard Air Force Base.
“The associations my children are
used to are not there,” Flax said of the
Lake Como school for Negroes at Fort
Worth. The father said his daughter
should be allowed to go to school with
her white playmates from Carswell
AFB.
PLEA REFUSED
At Houston, a U.S. district court re
fused a plea by four Negro dentists to
order immediate desegregation at Syl
van Beach Park, operated by Harris
County. County officials promised there
would “be no delay” in acting upon the
application for desegregation.
Present policy is to admit whites to
the beach park on certain days and Ne
groes at other times.
OPPOSE LEASE
The Tenth State Court of Civil Ap
peals at Waco heard arguments in a
lawsuit brought by Protestants of
Bremond, a central Texas town, to stop
the school board from leasing a former
Roman Catholic parochial school and
employing nuns to teach in public
schools (McIntyre v. Hoblinski).
An attorney for Bremond’s board
cited an opinion by the U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in New Orleans on
the Dallas integration case. He cited the
case to support his argument that the
Protestants must first exhaust admin
istrative remedies—through an applica
tion for the Bremond board to change
its leasing and employment policy—be
fore getting any relief in court.
The first court order to admit a Ne
gro to a college administered by the
Texas State Board for Teachers Col
leges came at Amarillo. U.S. District
Judge Joe B. Dooley told West Texas
State College it could not bar John
Matthew Shipp because of race (Shipp
v. Frank White et al).
Five other colleges are governed by
the same board. Only white students
have been admitted to these so far, al
though most tax-supported colleges in
Texas are integrated.
Henry Braswell, assistant attorney
general, argued that the state could
establish a “salt-and-pepper” system of
colleges of three dimensions: all-white,
all-Negro, and integrated. A similar ar-
cited an opinion by the U.S. Circuit
gument was overruled several years
ago when Atty. Gen. John Ben Shep-
tion at Lamar State College in Beau
mont.
West Texas State College is located
at Canyon, 20 miles from Amarillo. Pub
lic schools at Amarillo are integrated, as
is a public junior college there, where
Sharp graduated. However, only one
Negro is actually attending public
school with whites at present. Others
are segregated by attendance zones.
Judge Dooley said he does not think
the three-dimension system advanced
by the attorney general “will pass mus
ter under our present understanding of
law.”
Litigation since the U.S. Supreme
Court first held that Negro children
cannot be excluded from going to pub
lic school with whites, Dooley said, “has
settled for me the matter of barring ad
mittance of students solely on grounds
of color.”
“The law of the country has now been
decided by the Supreme Court.”
A&M SEGREGATED
Principal remaining segregated state
colleges in Texas are Texas A&M and
its branches: Prairie View A&M (all-
Negro), Arlington State, and Tarleton
State. Also segregated is Texas Techno
logical College in Lubbock.
Most of Texas A&M’s litigation has
concerned efforts of women to enroll at
the all-male school. District Judge W.
T. McDonald in February rejected a
petition by three Bryan women for per
mission to enroll (Allred v. Heaton).
In a previous case, McDonald had
ruled against exclusion of women from
the military school. This was overruled
by appellate courts of Texas and by the
U. S. Supreme Court, which ignored the
ladies’ plea that segregation by sexes is
as unconstitutional as segregation by
race.
GAME OVER, NOT FORGOTTEN
Repercussions continued over charges
of dirty playing” and epithets between
white and Negro football players at the
Syracuse-University of Texas Cotton
(See TEXAS, Page 11)
KENTUCKY
Steps Toward Higher Expenditures Are Approved
T nTTTQTnr t tp t ««
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
r I' 1 HE NEW ADMINISTRATION of
Democratic Gov. Bert Combs
won legislative approval of a con
stitutional convention designed to
raise school and other salary limits
and to exclude such matters as
school integration from its agenda.
The governor also received
court approval of his “limited”
constitutional-revision proposal,
insuring its submission to a refer
endum of the state’s voters next
November.
Gov. Combs won legislative approval
of a three-per-cent sales tax, much of
which would go to improving the state’s
public schools, and of a “tight” veterans
bonus bill, approved by voters last No
vember along with a sales tax to finance
it. (See “Legislative Action.”)
better day.”
The bonus bill, though passed by an
overwhelming majority of the most
overwhelming Democratic Legislature
in this century, brought criticism from
Kentuckians now living in other states
who were excluded from its benefits of
$300 to $500 (maximum). Litigation im
pended not only on this angle but on
the federal constitutional question of
whether any state (and not the federal
government) could legally pay a bonus
to its veterans.
The sales tax tie-in with the bonus,
although submitted to popular vote by
action of a Chandler Legislature, also
brought a blast from former Gov. A. B.
Chandler. He called a sales tax “the
worst form of taxation yet devised,” ac
cused the Combs administration of using
the bonus “as a device to fool people
and get the three per cent tax,” and
said it might lead him to seek a third
term as governor in 1963 with a sales
tax repeal program.
The tax, which goes into effect July
1, is accompanied by an income tax
reduction, overall, of about 40 percent.
The series of legislative triumphs for
the new administration led political ob
servers to believe that the governor
would have no trouble in winning ap
proval of a record biennial budget. It
includes 271 million dollars for public
education in 1960-62, a 62 per cent in
crease of 102.7 million dollars over the
1958-60 budget. Almost half the in
crease—about 51 million dollars—will
go directly for salaries of classroom
teachers, principals, and supervisors,
with individual increases ranging from
$300 to $900 a year.
Another 25 million dollars will go to
school districts for current expenses,
transporting pupils, and construction of
new school buildings. Some 16 million
dollars will go to the University of Ken
tucky and other state institutions of col
legiate level, 5.6 million dollars to raise
benefits for retired teachers, 3.1 million
for an expanded program of free text
books, and 2 million to expanded voca
tional-education programs.
A NEW DAY
Combs called the state’s first billion-
dollar budget (to be exact, $1,024,025,-
723) “a means of lifting Kentucky from
her old depressing place at the bottom
of the ladder . . . the program of im
provement and progress that it makes
possible makes a drastic break with the
depressing patterns of the past and, I
think, embarks Kentucky on a new and
schools; only 16 states in the nation
contributed a larger proportionate share
of school costs. Kentucky has 546
school-age children per 1,000 adults aged
21 to 64, compared with the national
average of 455 children per 1,000 adults.
Since 1953-54, when the minimum
foundation law was enacted, school at
tendance in Kentucky has climbed seven
per cent, the number of teacher 14.4 per
cent. The number of qualified teachers
increased from 57.4 per cent in 1954-55
to 66.2 per cent in 1958-59.
Legislators indicated they would
probe further into a question suggested
by the survey—that under the present
minimum foundation formula there is
an “inequitable” distribution of state
funds to some school districts.
Earlier, Supt. Butler countered some
legislative criticism of “the education
lobby” by saying his use of the catch-
phrase “one per cent for soldier boy and
two per cent for sonny boy” (in refer
ence to the sales tax) did not mean that
he believed in earmarking all the extra
revenue for education but that he did
believe “people want a large share of
the two per cent to go for the dire
needs of education.”
Although the legislators seemed cer
tain to approve a budget that devotes
nearly a third of its billion dollars to
public education—as against 25 per
cent in the last two years—they decided
they wanted to know more about how
the 271 million dollars would be spent.
A special House committee to investi
gate the Department of Education was
established, and held two hearings in
February.
Questions at these hearings, address
ed to State Supt. of Public Instruction
Wendell P. Butler and his top aides,
were highly general in nature: “How
do you propose to improve the quality
of instruction? If teachers’ salaries are
to improve, don’t you think there ought
to be an improvement in teachers? Are
not your teachers overtrained in how to
teach, and under-trained in what to
teach? How, in view of the tenure law,
can you ever get rid of bad teachers?”
Such questions received generalized
answers, though the last one brought
agreement that “possibly the law now
needs some loosening to make it easier
to drop poor teachers.” Much more
specific were these figures submitted to
the committee from a 1959 survey
ordered by the 1958 General Assembly:
In 1958-59, Kentucky was paying for
48.6 per cent of the costs of its public
On Feb. 10 William W. Beckett, only
Negro member of Louisville’s Board of
Aldermen, introduced an ordinance
that would make it illegal for Louisville
hotels, theaters, and restaurants, but not
bars or taverns, to refuse to serve Ne
groes.
On Feb. 23, by voice vote, the Board
of Aldermen rejected the ordinance.
They did so after hearing this opinion
from the City Law Department:
Under its Charter, the legislative au
thority of the City of Louisville is limit
ed to matters that pertain to public
health, public welfare, public morals,
and general police powers. It has no
control over private property rights, nor
can it pass any laws in conflict with
constitutional guarantees of private
property rights.”
PRAISES BECKETT
Alderman Clifford J. Haury, who
read the opinion, praised Beckett, ex
pressed sympathy for the problems
posed for Negroes by the segregation
policies of most of the city’s theaters,
restaurants, and hotels. But he added:
“I sincerely believe and hope that the
good people of Louisville will iron out
this problem voluntarily.”
Beckett told his fellow aldermen that
removal of racial bars would not come
voluntarily, but that “this (the ordin
ance) will work—it has worked in other
cities.”
Beckett later disclosed that he had
asked State Atty. Gen. John B. Breckin
ridge for a ruling on the matter, and
had been promised one. He said he did
not know what he would do should
Breckinridge disagree with the Louis
ville Law Department opinion.
COMMITTEE REVIVED
A week before Beckett introduced his
ordinance, Mayor Bruce Hoblitzell,
after several weeks of renewed de
mands for opening theaters, restaurants
and hotels to Negroes, re-assembled his
long-dormant Mayor’s Committee on
Human Relations. The committee heard
appeals for action from representatives
of the National Assn, for the Advance
ment of Colored People and from Uni
tarians for Social Action. It decided to
start meeting again on a monthly basis,
but took no other action except to ask
representatives of the businesses affect
ed to be ready to answer whether they
would be willing to voluntarily remove
racial barriers when the committee
meets late in April.
After the defeat of Beckett’s bill the
Courier-Journal commented:
“The issue was not squarely met . . .
the issue of further integration in
Louisville is for the moment at a stand
still. It could now move forward again,
by voluntary choice of the community,
or it could slip tragically backward. All
will depend on the responsible attitude
of both white and Negro citizens, and
especially of their respected leaders. . .
“The legal issue on further integra
tion is for the moment set aside, but the
moral question is just as strong as ever.
It is a constant challenge to white
church leaders and to all who like to
think of themselves as bound by moral
laws.
“An enlightened public opinion could
resolve the problem of the downtown
businessmen, many of whom say they
have no strong feelings of their own
about integration, but are afraid of
hurting business. Louisville will not
stand still on this issue. White citizens
who want to see it move forward along
mature, peaceful lines can greatly
strengthen the hands of Negroes who
want to lead their people in the same
direction.
“But people have to stand up and be
counted. This is not a situation in which
mere good will, passive and unexpress
ed, can be of any help.”
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