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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH I960—PAGE 13 AAARYLAND Desegregation Figures Listed for Baltimore BALTIMORE, Md. ith Baltimore city’s figures now compiled, Maryland de segregation data for the current school year shows 28,072 Negroes in 325 formerly all-white schools, an increase of 29 schools and more than 5,000 Negroes in a year’s time. The increase in Bal timore city is the smallest in four years. (See “Under Survey.”) Pupil placement in Harford County is being challenged anew by the National Assn, for the Ad vancement of Colored People in a suit filed in U.S. District Court. (See “Legal Action.”) School desegregation is back before the Maryland General As sembly. A Negro delegate intro duced a group of bills that failed to move in the last session. (See “Legislative Action.”) Enrollment figures compiled by the State Department of Education for the current school year show Baltimore as having (Oct. 31 data) 22,981 Negroes in 79 formerly all-white schools, an increase of only one school and 3,837 Negro pupils over the previous year. The increase is the smallest in sev eral years and indicates that the de segregation movement may be taper ing off. About a third of the city’s Negro pupils are now in schools that former ly were classified as white or that have been built since 1954 in predom inantly white or formerly white resi dential areas. ALL-NEGRO SCHOOLS Two-thirds of the city’s Negro pupils are in all-Negro schools or in new schools serving predominantly Negro residential areas. A few of the latter schools have a scattering of white children, but state statisticians do not include such schools in their five-year record of desegregation, which is based on number of Negroes admitted to white schools. (One of the statistical difficulties in keeping desegregation records is that school systems undergo a physical change from year to year. State sta tisticians include 11 of the schools built in Baltimore since desegregation began as “formerly white,” even though they may never have had all- white status. These are schools that, because of their location, would have fallen into the white category had they been built prior to 1954. Exceptions to this rule of thumb are new schools built in formerly white neighborhoods that opened with almost entirely Ne gro student bodies and staffs.) The increase in Negroes entering formerly white schools in Baltimore runs as follows (Oct. 31 figures): 1954 1,576 1955 4,601 1956 9,242 1957 14,826 1958 19,144 1959 22,981 With the completion of the Baltimore figures, the first statewide summary of desegregation in Maryland for the cur rent school year has become available. The data shows Maryland as having 28,072 Negroes in 325 formerly all- white schools, an increase of 29 schools and 5,074 Negroes over the previous school year. The 325 biracial schools represent nearly a third of the 1,001 schools in the state. Since desegregation became a state wide policy in 1955, the change has been as follows (Oct. 31 data): Desegregated Negroes White Schools Admitted 1955 .128 5,592 1956 .205 10,968 1957 .257 17,597 1958 .296 22,998 1959 .325 28,072 Still missing are current figures on the number of white and Negro pupils in the state. By rough estimate, the 28,972 Negroes admitted to white schools represents between 20 and 25 per cent of Maryland’s total Negro school population. LEGAL ACTION^ NAACP attorneys in February filed their long-expected suit in U.S. District Court against the Board of Education of Harford County in the Pettit case. Administrative remedies previously had been exhausted in an unsuccessful appeal to the State Board of Education last October. Alvin Dwight Pettit is a 14-year-old Negro boy who sought to enter the ninth grade of a predominantly white high school in Harford County last fall, at which time only grades one through eight were fully desegregated. Under the county’s court-approved de segregation plan, Negroes seeking ad mission to secondary schools in ad vance of the desegregation timetable must have the approval of a special screening committee composed of pro fessional educators. The NAACP challenged the screen ing process as unconstitutional from its inception. The screening was approved as a transition measure in 1957 by Chief District Judge Roszel C. Thom sen, who was subsequently upheld in Slade v. Harford County Board of Education by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that the Supreme Court refused to review. FIRST OPPORTUNITY Rejection of the Pettit boy’s applica tion provided the NAACP with its first opportunity to renew its legal fight against the screening process on the basis of its actual application in a spe cific instance. It had been expected from testimony before the State Board of Education that the NAACP would make a front al attack on screening, since it was freely acknowledged by the county school superintendent that the Pettit boy would have been admitted to the school in question had he been white. But, instead, the new NAACP suit contends that conditions in the coun ty have changed so that screening should no longer be part of the deseg regation procedure. Of particular interest in the case is the position of the State Board of Edu cation in regard to the Harford Coun ty desegregation program. In its deci sion in the Pettit case the state board said that Judge Thomsen in his 1957 decree had undertaken “to set up a plan for the desegregation of schools under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education of Harford County” and that the state board itself had, in effect, no further jurisdiction. BOARD STATEMENT In a pertinent passage on the special screening committee the state board said: “Upon close examination, we con clude that as the decree is now framed, it has constituted the foregoing [screening] committee as an arm of the court. No power over the assignment of pupils applying under the decree is vested in the county superintendent. Were he to countermand the commit tee’s decision, his action would be in valid and would have to be set aside as violative of the decree, without any examination of the merits of the con troversy.” As the jurisdiction of the state board is limited to appeals from decisions of county superintendents, the state board said, “it follows that it [the board] lacked the power to review the deci sion of the professional committee cre ated by the court.” The Maryland Commission on Inter racial Problems and Relations, a nine- member state agency appointed by the governor, made its annual report to the governor and General Assembly in February, recording that “1959, like former years, showed a gradual im provement in the overall situation in Maryland.” On the subject of public schools the commission said: “Desegregation pro grams in Maryland are varied, accord ing to local conditions. More progress has been made in counties with small percentages of Negroes. However, all counties have instituted some action toward compliance.” The tabular summary of Maryland’s 23 biracial school districts (22 coun ties and Baltimore city) was as fol lows: Status Districts Transition to non-segregated schools complete or nearly so 6 Some Negroes attending formerly all-white schools 8 Desegregation policies determined.. 9 23 The commission concluded: “It ap pears that the programs of desegrega tion of public schools in Maryland may be described as two general types— (1) Closing Negro schools, and (2) Keeping other Negro schools intact.” “Racial practices in Maryland,” the commission reported, “substantiate the contention that the most demoralizing of all denials of human rights in this country is found in the area of so- called ‘public accommodations.’ It is clear that Negroes and other minority group members still are denied equali ty of opportunity and treatment throughout the state in places which cater to the public. “This denial violates democratic practice, gives rise to incidents of an international character and harmfully affects foreign relations, causes grave embarrassment and inconvenience to minority group members, and demands serious consideration by all those citi zens of this state who believe in hu man dignity.” The commission recommended state civil rights legislation. Verda Welcome, one of two Balti more Negroes elected in 1958 to the House of Delegates, introduced eight bills bearing on segregation. Most of her bills would eliminate ob solete references to race in sections of Maryland school laws relating to mini mum number of school days, age limits on admissibility, the use of funds by certain educational institutions, em ployment of supervisors and the ap pointment of normal-school principals. But one of her bills could be inter preted as having a sweeping effect on gradual desegregation in Maryland. This last bill has two sections. The first section would provide that the general system of free public schools in the state be “open equally to all persons without discrimination as to religion, race, sex, class or national origin.” The second would make it un lawful for any school superintendent or commissioner of public education “to make any distinction or discrimination in favor or against any teacher ... on account of sex, religion, race, class or national origin.” Present law only forbids making dis tinctions on the basis of sex in hiring, assigning or promoting teachers. ACCOMMODATIONS BILL Mrs. Welcome also introduced a bill to prohibit racial and religious dis crimination in public accomodations, defined as meaning any “hotel, restau rant, inn, motel or similar establish ment regularly engaged in the business of providing sleeping accomodations, or serving meals, or both, for a consider ation and which is open to the general public.” A fine of $25 to $500 for viola tions is set forth. Dr. Brennie E. Hackley Jr., a Negro chemist at the Army Chemical Center, Edgewood, Md., is taking his housing case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals after his suit was dismissed by Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen in U.S. District Court in Baltimore (See Southern School News, February 1960). Turned down as a home buyer in a large housing development being built privately near the Army base, Hackley contends that use by the development of Army sewer and water services brings the housing within the constitu tional ban on racial discrimination by public agencies. Thomsen rejected the contention, finding that the housing development remained a private enterprise. CEASES OPERATIONS The motion picture theater in Fred erick that was ordered by Thomsen to cease segregating Negro patrons (See SSN, February 1960) has, instead, ceased operations. The theater was operated in a city- owned building, hence Thomsen’s order WEST VIRGINIA Underwood Considering Special Legislative Session CHARLESTON, W. Va. ( "'I considering calling a special Jov. Cecil H. Underwood is change. ravel a problem over a state men- session of the Legislature to un- tal health chief. He has a psychiatrist who re portedly can qualify for the $20,- 000-a-year post left vacant when the Senate refused to confirm Dr. Richard Lilly, director since last April. But he hasn’t made the The psychiatrist is Dr. Mildred M. Bateman, a Negro, who is sup erintendent at Lakin State Hos pital. (See “Legislative Action.”) The Kanawha Medical Society has sidestepped a proposal that it help sponsor a dinner for the Mayor’s Commission on Human Relations. The commission was appointed less than a year ago to bring about better race relations in Charleston. (See “Community Action.”) When the Senate refused to confirm Dr. Lilly the last night of the session (Feb. 11), Gov. Underwood was sharply critical. He called that and the refusal to confirm Motor Vehicles Commis sioner Hubert Kelly a “cowardly stab in the back.” Following the confirmation session, where 70 gubernatorial appointees were confirmed, Underwood said the Lilly action has caused serious trouble in the Department of Mental Health, a fully integrated agency. There is no body else who can approve payroll or purchasing vouchers. He said following the confirmation session—and has since repeated—that it may be necessary to recall the Leg islature to change the law so he can hire a qualified psychiatrist as mental health chief. Under the mental health law no psychiatrist can serve until he has lived one year in West Virginia. In the past all private psychiatrists now prac ticing in the state have refused to take the job. Dr. Bateman is said to have all the professional qualifications needed to qualify as mental health chief. Underwood’s attitude in the past has always been pro-integration. Both as governor and as chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board, he has expressed himself as wholeheart edly in favor of desegregation at all levels of government. If he calls the special session he undoubtedly will make his position clear then about Dr. Bateman. ANOTHER SUBJECT In event the Legislature is brought back here, Underwood also is thinking of including another subject in the call. It deals with state school aid and property assessments, which were con tained in a bill passed at the recent session and which he let become law without his signature. He had listed that the public must be admitted on a non-segregated basis. REFUSED SERVICE In yet another segregation case, Thomsen in February found no public law or policy involved in a restaurant’s refusal to serve a Negro (Slack v. At lantic White Tower System, Inc.) Dismissing the Negro’s suit, Thomsen found: “Such segregation of the races as persists in restaurants in Baltimore is not required by any statute or de cisional law of Maryland nor by any general custom or practice of segrega tion in Baltimore city, but is the result of the business choice of the individ ual proprietors, catering to the desires or prejudices of their customers.” In the last week of February, 35 stu dents at Johns Hopkins University—in cluding five Negroes—staged a brief sitdown demonstration at a small restaurant near the campus in Balti more. Later the same week, Negro band leader Duke Ellington was refused service in a Baltimore restaurant. # # # five objections to the bill. Many counties now have property reappraisal programs under a law passed in 1958. One of Underwood’s main fears about the new act is that the language may prevent a county from using any reappraisal program re sults in assessing property for tax pur poses until the county has completed appraisal of all real estate. During the recent session the Legis lature enacted 39 bills of a total of 109 introduced. Underwood signed 33, let three become law without his signa ture, and vetoed two. The budget for 1960-61, approved the last day, calls for expenditures total ling $118,533,000, the highest in state history. The increase resulted mainly from the Legislature’s effort to help the unemployed. Approximately $4,- 350,000 was budgeted for emergency economic relief, and will be spent on state park improvements, vocational education, agriculture and soil conser vation, and farm marketing. COLLEGES FARED WELL No state school aid increases were approved this year, but West Virginia University and the state colleges fared well. Altogether, the colleges controlled by the State Board of Education got ap proximately one million dollars addi tional for personal services and cur rent expenses. The university and its two-year branch, Potomac State School, got approximately 1.2 million dollars. The bulk of the new money will go for across-the-board salary raises ap proximating 10 per cent. Along with the raises, institutions with above av erage enrollment increases got addi tional funds for new staff members ranging from one to three per cent. Failing to pass the Legislature was a new capital improvements program for the 10 state colleges and university. Under terms of the expansion program the institutions would have been em powered to sell 15 million dollars worth of revenue bonds. Under the 1959 procedure the state colleges will have around $900,000 an nually for capital improvements—the university and Potomac State, $700,- 000. Construction will be financed from increased tuition totalling $100 a year per student. Spring semester enrollment at Mor ris Harvey College, a segregated pri vate institution here, is running about 12 per cent ahead of enrollment at this time last year. Also in the greater Charleston area is West Virginia State College, a desegregated school. Morris Harvey Dean Harry Straley said the college has enrolled 825 full time students for the current semester, and full- and part-time enrollment will reach 1,400. COMMUNITY ACTION j When the Kanawha Medical Society deferred action on the request that it help sponsor a dinner for the Mayor’s Commission of Human Relations, it was done, according to the society’s presi dent, Dr. Milton J. Lilly, to give the organization “an opportunity to deter mine the purposes and actions of the group.” Lilly told the doctors, however, that they might leave themselves open to criticism if they decline to sponsor the dinner. His remark came in response to a comment that perhaps the medical society shouldn’t get involved in “political questions.” MISCELLANEOUS Special ceremonies were held in Southern District Federal Court here Feb. 17 in honor of Martin Moore, Ne gro court bailiff and a student at West Virginia State College who will get his bachelor’s degree this spring. Moore has been bailiff for both Judge John A. Field and his predeces sor, Ben Moore, who died two years ago. Judge Moore presided at the only school desegregation case held in West Virginia. It was at Lewisburg and led to desegregation in several large south ern hold-out counties. # # #