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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH I960—PAGE II OKLAHOMA Two Southeast Oklahoma Districts Announce Plans for Desegregation OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. ESEGREGATION PLANS for the coming year were revealed by two southeastern Oklahoma school districts in February. The Holdenville Board of Edu cation announced it will discon tinue its Negro elementary school after the current term. Its pupils will be distributed among four other grade schools. This will complete a desegrega tion process begun in 1955 at the senior high school level. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) At Wewoka, which has had integra tion in athletics and transportation, the school board voted officially to desegre gate classrooms at the junior and senior high levels. Officials explained the ac tion, expected since last year, was taken for financial reasons. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) Residents of a northeastern Okla homa City section scheduled their initial meeting for setting up a possible “ehanging neighborhood” study. This is an area experiencing school desegrega tion for the first time this year. (See “Community Action.”) A Negro organization’s drive for an Oklahoma City ordinance opening restaurants, theaters and hotels to all races received support—but not spon sorship—from a citywide church group. (See “Community Action.”) School leaders at Holdenville decided to complete desegregation of their sys tem by closing the separate Negro elementary unit. The decision came after three years of study. Chief motivating factors, school lead ers said, were (1) reducing expenses and (2) giving Negro pupils better edu cational opportunities Holdenville, county seat of Hughes County, lies just outside Oklahoma’s Little Dixie area. Negroes are believed to account for about eight percent of its population, estimated by the Chamber of Commerce at 7,000. Generally they live in the northwest part of town, in a quadrant formed by the crossing of two railroads at nearly right angles. There is also a small settlement of Negroes north of the city limits. The junior and senior high school building stands at the east edge of the downtown business district. To the south of the business area is one of the elementary schools, Central. A second, Park View, is in the southwest section and a third, Capitol Heights, is in the north end of town. Diamond Grade School lies in the Diamond Country Club addition on the far east side of Holdenville, a section of the commun ity’s better homes. The traditionally Ne gro school, Lincoln, is north of one set of railroad tracks and west of another. HIGH SCHOOL INTEGRATES In 1955, first year of desegregation in Oklahoma, the Holdenville Board of Education closed the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of the Lincoln school. The 24 Negro students involved began at tending classes with some 300 white pupils in Holdenville High School. The following year the board brought over 21 Negroes from Lincoln to join about 200 white youngsters in the seventh and eighth grades. For the current year, Supt. Francis Tuttle estimated for Southern School News, Negro totals are about the same, but overall enrollments have risen to 410 in the upper four grades and 253 in the junior high. The plan to discontinue the Negro school entirely was unfolded last month by Tuttle and Orion Wilbanks, board of education president, at a meeting of some 70 Lincoln patrons and PTA members. Most of the Lincoln patrons appeared satisfied their children would receive better instruction in the elemen tary schools than they are now getting. Under the present setup at Lincoln two teachers, Mrs. Minnie Hunter, principal, and Jessie Greenlaw, carry the instruc tional load for all six grades. The paramount feature of Holden- ville’s elementary integration plan is spreading the Negro pupils among the four schools now attended by 650 white children. Tuttle and Wilbanks said this will be done to “prevent social cliques and provide the students with more chance for social adjustment? However, the superintendent told SSN another reason for using this method is that both Park View and Capitol Heights, the schools nearest the Negro residential section, are over loaded now. “We’re putting only the closest ones (Negroes) in those schools,” Tuttle ex plained. Capitol Heights will get 14 Lincoln students and nine Negro pupils will go to Diamond. Actually Diamond School already has one Negro pupil. Tuttle said a girl from the rural area who preferred not to at tend Lincoln has been going to Diamond the past two years. He said there was little objection and it was more con venient for the school board, which had to transport her, because her home is closer to Diamond than to Lincoln. Another 14 Negro children living within a few blocks of Lincoln will at tend Central, while the other nine Ne gro pupils will go to Park View. URGES PARTICIPATION Wilbanks urged the Lincoln patrons to participate in the Parent-Teacher Assns. of the schools which their chil dren attend next fall. He added: “That’s the way it should and must be.” Among advantages the Lincoln pupils will receive in the four other schools are special reading, science, mathema tics and other programs, the superinten dent said. In addition, the officials said they feel the Negro children will be better adjusted socially when they enter junior high and high school if they have attended grade schools with white pu pils. As in nearly all instances of desegre gation in Oklahoma, the real casualties will be the two Negro teachers. Their contracts will not be renewed. “We realize they are both fine teach ers,” Wilbanks said. He pointed out not all phases of integration have proceeded with the same speed. Hiring of Negro teachers in integrated systems has not worked out in some cases, he said, add ing that “the weakness of integration is that the teachers have not been inte grated along with the students.” Tuttle said this is not morally right but added that time changes attitudes, “and the change must be gradual.” DIDN’T PUSH INTEGRATION Tuttle said Holdenville had put off completing integration a couple of years longer than he would have desired under ordinary circumstances. But the Board of Education delayed the move, he said, because it didn’t want to push integration faster than people were willing to accept it and because it hated to dismiss the Negro teachers. Finally, however, the financial situa tion left the board no alternative. The superintendent explained it has cost the district $4,500 a year, in addition to teaching salaries, to keep Lincoln in op eration. Tuttle arrived in Holdenville from Gotebo, Kiowa County, in 1955, just in time to administer the first phase of the desegregation plan. He can recall no trouble resulting from it in either the junior or senior high school—“not even anything that might be called an inci dent.” WEWOKA TO DESEGREGATE At Wewoka the Board of Education voted unanimously Feb. 1 to desegre gate grades seven through 12 beginning in September 1960. The action was foreshadowed last year when officials said a dwindling sur plus in funds made integration almost inevitable (SSN, October 1959). How ever, the board gave its superintendent, Ray Claiborne, until March to study the financial picture and see whether it would be possible to continue operat ing the high school grades at the Negro school, Douglass. By the time of the board’s February meeting the answer had become clear. “According to the figures now avail able,” said Claiborne, “Til be $4,000 in the hole at the end of this term. That is, I’ll lack $4,000 of meeting our current budget.” He is hoping to get a supplemental ap propriation out of $7,000 or $8,000 in “surplus” funds from the collection of miscellaneous revenues in excess of budget estimates. But this would not provide enough of a cushion with which to start a new fiscal year, when it costs about $15,000 annually to keep the Douglass junior and senior high grades in operation, the superintendent said. “Hie only reason we made the move (desegregation of the upper six grades) was the financial situation, Claiborne declared. “We kept Douglass as a sep arate school for five years but we just can’t do it any longer.” Douglass will continue to serve Negro children exclusively in grades one through six. Claiborne pointed out the building is located in the concentrated Negro residential area on Wewoka’s west side. The only other grade schools —Central, next door to the high school, and Compton, on the east side of town —are already filled to capacity. Central has an enrollment of 400; Compton, 160, and Douglass, 189. Claiborne estimated 80 Negro students will be integrated with the white stu dents in grades 10, 11 and 12 next fall and another 85 or 90 Negroes will come over to the white junior high. The lat ter building is being expanded for the additional pupils. The superintendent expects the $150,000 addition—contain ing an auditorium, three classrooms, dressing room facilities and a large lobby—to be ready early in March. But it won’t be used until fall because the furniture is not on hand. Wewoka, which will become the 188th known desegregated school district in Oklahoma, has been preparing for the move several years. The board has kept the community informed of its growing financial plight. Athletic programs of Douglass and Wewoka High already have been integrated. Residents of the uneasy northeast Oklahoma City residential section scheduled a late-February meeting to discuss the possibility of initiating a neighborhood stabilization program similar to one in Tulsa (SSN, Decem ber 1959). It was called by Leo S. Cade, vice president of the Committee on the Changing Neighborhood of the Okla homa City chapter of the National Con ference of Christians and Jews. The re quest for the meeting came from Rev. John Mount of Capital Presbyterian Church on behalf of the northeast resi dents. Among the 15 or 20 persons in vited were leading clergymen, a lay member of each church in the area, rep resentatives of several of the neighbor hoods affected, two school principals, two PTA presidents, social workers, and businessmen. Purpose of the meeting was to dis cuss what type of “holding action” to take in view of the migration of Negro families into previously white neigh borhoods during the past year. The trend brought the first school desegre gation north of Northeast 23rd Street last fall. COMMITTEES FORMED At least two neighborhood commit tees were organized in an effort to persuade white home-owners not to sell their property. They began turning to the NCCJ for help and guidance after hearing how the Reservoir Hill-Bur roughs School Neighborhood Organiza tion stabilized the residential area around an integrated school in Tulsa. Four of the leaders of that organization were asked to describe their program at the Oklahoma City meeting. Donald F. Sullivan, regional director for the NCCJ, said no change has oc curred in the Negro-white pupil ratio in the Burroughs Elementary School since October. He termed this significant in view of the fact that Negroes now account for 58 percent of the Burroughs student body and white children are free to get transfers to other schools under the Tulsa Board of Education policy. Sullivan said he understands the real estate situation in the Burroughs area is improved and some property is being sold to white persons. APPROVE PETITIONS The executive board of the Greater Oklahoma City Council of Churches voiced approval of petitions seeking a city ordinance that would ban segrega tion practices in businesses serving the general public. The petitions are being circulated by the National Assn, for the Advancement of Colored People. Efforts were made in a long board session to associate the council as a di rect sponsor of the NAACP plan but no action was taken on the proposals. The NAACP-backed ordinance speci fies hotels, restaurants, theaters, parks, swimming pools, bowling alleys, sport ing rinks and retail stores. # # # Texas (Continued From Page 10) Bowl game in Dallas on Jan. 1. Syracuse Coach Ben Schwartzwalder, whose Negro players made the com plaints against Texas to New York writ ers and television announcers, said in Dallas that no responsible person from Syracuse had ever made such charges. “We are just very sorry the thing has been magnified like it has and wish it would all die down,” Schwartzwalder said in Dallas, where he attended a coaching school. Concerning anti-Texas comments made by Ernie Davis, Syracuse Negro halfback on the Dave Garroway show following the game, the Syracuse coach said: “He’s just a sophomore. They flew him up there on short notice. It’s easy to twist a kid’s words around so he says some things he doesn’t really want to say.” University of Texas officials mean while continued to press for an investi gation of the charges by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. NCAA spokes men indicated that the request will be granted. Texas President Logan Wilson contended that the Syracuse players’ remarks after the game were unfair, uncalled-for and unfounded and had hurt the reputation of the University of Texas. The university was among the first to desegregate in the South. INITIATED EXAMS President Wilson’s administration ini tiated selective admission examinations for all students, when ordering the Uni versity of Texas desegregated at all levels. Graduate courses had been inte grated earlier. Wilson said one result has been steady improvement of student performance. He added that the university does not seek to become an institution just for the “elite scholar.” It has nearly 18,500 students. Of this year’s freshmen, 90 per cent came from the top half of their high school graduating classes and 75 per cent from the top quarter of their class. “The majority of our students will be in the average or better-than-average group,” said Wilson. “But a student with C grades from a good, tough high school has a good chance.” ASK HIGHER TUITION Presidents of 22 church-related or private colleges in Texas presented to the Texas Commission on Higher Edu cation, coordinating agency for state colleges, a plea for higher tuition in state schools, now $50 per semester for Texans. The low tuition is attracting to tax-supported colleges many students who otherwise would attend private col leges, it was said. The latter charge five or six times as much tuition as do state schools. The church college people also viewed with alarm the solicitation of private funds for public colleges, saying this makes more difficult the financing of private education. The University of Texas now is engaged in an effort to raise 10 million dollars a year from out side sources, above its legislative ap propriations, endowment and fees, for raising its academic excellence. The state university was praised for establishing the compulsory admission test, a move said to be strengthening ed ucational standards all along the line, including public and preparatory schools. Other colleges now are considering adopting a standard entrance test for all Texas high school graduates seeking to enter college. Each college could set its own score for admission, but the questions would be standard. There is disagreement over the kind of test to adopt. SEEK NEGRO COLLEGE Efforts continued to establish a four- year Negro college in Dallas, the larg est southern city without a Negro col lege. A 1.5 million dollar fund-raising campaign is under way, headed by Dal las insurance executive Carr P. Collins Sr. and the Baptist Church. The Hoblitzelle Foundation, created by a Dallas theatre magnate, has do nated 103 acres of land for the campus. The proposed college would include a merger of two existing schools—Bishop College of Marshall and Butler College of Tyler—on the new campus at Dallas, which has a Negro population of about 100,000. Negroes also are taking an ac tive role in the fund-raising, and the new college is scheduled to open in September 1961. The Episcopal Diocese of Texas, after an argument in its state council meeting in Houston, voted to approve the plans of St. Stephens Episcopal School trus tees to accept Negro students starting in September 1961. An estimated 50 delegates supported a motion to continue segregation, while approximately 500 stood up for the board’s integration decision. St. Stephens School, located near Austin, has 142 boarding students and 28 day students. Headmaster Allen W. Becker said no applications for admis sion to the preparatory school are pend ing from Negroes, although some in quiries had been received in the past. GET FEDERAL AID Despite vocal opposition to federal school aid in some quarters in Texas, a check revealed that approximately 450 local boards are receiving funds under the Defense Education Act for help in science, mathematics and foreign lan guage departments. Counseling service assistance is being given to 667 Texas districts, compared to 257 in 1958-1959. Applications for federal aid, however, are less than the funds available. In 10 years, federal aid has risen from 2.3 per cent to 3.6 per cent of the total cost of public schools in Texas. At Dallas, Presidential Aide E. Fred eric Morrow urged “better communi cations between Negro and white.” “We (the Negro people) have been so busy obtaining our rights, and the whites have been so busy objecting, that there is hardly any communication left between us,” Morrow told an audience of Negroes. A similar plea for the United States to set an example for the world in good race relations came at Houston, from Dr. Gardner Taylor, New York Negro minister, addressing an integrated audi ence of 900 on Race Relations Sunday. Two housing incidents involving Dal las Negroes occurred during February. The Rev. T. L. Young said he would ask the U.S. attorney general whether any of his civil rights had been violat ed when a group of white citizens called on the Negro preacher to voice objection to moving his family into the all-white neighborhood. Negroes do live in the vi cinity, but not on the block where Young bought a house. The Negro returned his family to its former home two blocks away, saying he wouldn’t “dare live where I wasn’t wanted.” He said all he wanted was his money back on the new house. RECEIVES THREAT In another Dallas neighborhood, pre dominantly white, a Negro athletic coach received a bomb threat in the mail. H. L. Devaughn said other har- rassing acts had occurred since he bought the brick house for $17,000 last November and moved in. Stones have been thrown at several windows, breaking them, and eggs have been hurled at his house. “I’m hoping this is just a crank,” said Devaughn of the bomb threat. At Austin, members of the “40 and 8” organization of World War I veterans voted to drop “white” from the national charter, and to admit Negroes. # # # Court Upholds Marriage Rule AUSTIN, Texas he Garland school board’s ban on extracurricular ac tivity by married students has been upheld by the Texas Su preme Court. Jerry Kissick Jr., the student, claimed that his rights under the federal as well as state constitution were violated. Three Texas courts unanimously held that the Garland board was within its authority in prohibiting non-academic activity by students who are married, or have been married. Young Kissick, then 16, married his 15-year-old sweetheart in March 1959. In August 1959, the school board adopt ed the rule against participation in ath letics, holding class office or any honor except valedictorian or salutatorian. A football letterman in 1958, Kissick then sued through his father to be ac cepted on the team. His petition said the board’s action deprived him of a chance to earn a college athletic scholarship. The Supreme Court rejected an argu ment that Garland attempted to make “married students second class students merely because they are married.” # # #