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PAGE 14—MARCH I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS FLORIDA School Desegregation Suit Filed in Escambia County MIAMI, Fla. new suit filed in federal court challenged school seg regation on principle and asked complete integration of Escambia County schools. (See “Legal Ac tion.”) Both the nature and the loca tion of the suit, in Florida’s north west panhandle where segrega tion is strong, gave this unusual significance. Florida’s first Negro student in a white university was dropped because of academic deficiencies. (See “In the Colleges.”) A white student at Florida State University applied for admission to Florida A&M University for Negroes. (See “In the Colleges.”) School officials forecast a 30 per cent increase in school enrollment in the next five years, and an even greater increase in costs. (See “Under Survey.”) LEGAL ACTION Florida’s most sweeping court chal lenge to school segregation was filed in Pensacola in the tip of the state’s northwest panhandle, where segrega tion sentiment is strongest. This suit (Tolbert et al vs. Escambia County Board of Public Education) was begun in federal district court in behalf of 12 Negro children of various ages. It does not ask court orders for any of the children to enter any spe cific school, but demands an injunction against racial discrimination and com plete and total end to racial segregation at all levels and phases of the school system, including students, teachers and administrative personnel. The suit was filed by Charles Wil son, Pensacola Negro lawyer who has been handling the applications of two Negro pupils seeking admission to spe cific schools. Co-counsel of record are Thurgood Marshall, chief legal counsel of the National Assn, for the Advance ment of Colored People, and Constance Baker Motley of New York, assistant general counsel. School Board Chairman A. S. Ed wards said the suit would “just have to take its normal course.” THREE LAW FIRMS At the next school board meeting, the board retained three Pensacola law firms and ordered an “all-out defense.” Speculation in Pensacola was that the course of litigation could run for four years or more. Copies of the resolution effectuating this decision were sent to the attorney general of Florida, the state and county school superintendents. At the same meeting the school board made 307 assignments of children en tering county schools for the first time, and 176 applications for reassignments to other schools. None of these, how ever, involved Negroes wishing to en ter white schools. The school board said it was operat ing the system under the pupil assign ment law, as it was duty bound to do. APPLICATIONS CITED The suit charges that the school board has consistently ignored the Su preme Court’s segregation rulings by barring Negroes from white schools on racial grounds. It cites the decisions re fusing the applications of two Negro girls last fall as part of the evidence. The court was asked, in event it failed to order immediate and complete desegregation, to require an orderly plan of compliance. The suit, attorneys for the 12 plain tiffs said, does not attack the pupil as signment law but rather demands en forcement by the elimination of racial grounds for assignment. The law makes no mention of race. MAJOR CHALLENGE Attorneys for both sides, as well as school officials generally, saw the new suit as a major challenge to the state’s segregated schools. All three of the other pending suits are based on pleas of specific children to enter specific schools. The Escambia County case is a class suit attacking the principle of segregation. In reporting the new development, the Pensacola Journal recalled that va rious state officials, including Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin and Pensacola’s State Sen. Philip D. Beall, have de clared some integration is inevitable in Florida schools. Beall, addressing the Escambia County Citizens Council a short time ago, said that the only alternative to a limited amount of integration was to abolish the public school system. Upon the filing of the latest suit, Beall commented: “Nothing has hap pened to change my mind.” FIGHT CONTINUES In three other counties the court fight continues. The oldest of the cases is scheduled for hearing in Miami Feb. 29. Involving several Dade County children, the case has been remanded to the federal dis trict court with instructions to decide the issues in accordance with recent rulings of the appellate court, and to approve a plan for integration. A similar order was issued in the Palm Beach County case but the plaintiff, William Holland Jr., still is attending a Negro school. The suit at Tampa was dismissed by District Judge George Whitehurst on grounds that the pupil assignment law was followed in Hillsborough County in placing children. He upheld the legality of this law. The decision was appealed. A student at Florida State University in Tallahassee, attended only by white sudents, has applied for admission to tlie Florida Agricultural and Mechani cal University, with a faculty and stu dent body composed exclusively of Negroes. Alan Breitler, 21, of Miami Beach, ST. LOUIS, Mo. he St. Louis Board of Educa tion voted to submit two bond issues totaling almost 30 million dollars to voters in a special elec tion March 22. The action was taken Feb. 9 to meet increasing school population, a declining tax base and the necessity for elim inating fire hazards. The two bond issue proposals in clude one for $24,297,000 for new schools and for modernization and additions to present schools; and one for $5,238,000 to bring exist ing schools into compliance with a new city fire safety code. Voters will be asked to approve a 26-cent increase in the present tax rate of $1.51 of each $100 of assessed valuation. The new rate would be $1.77. A great deal of strain on the St. Louis school system in recent years has been due to the necessity for taking care of children of Negroes newly emigrated from the rural South. Another factor has been the shifting of Negro population in the city caused by slum clearance projects. The proportion of Negroes in the St. Louis public school population has reached 50 per cent in the elemen tary system. Among the major improvements the Board of Education wishes to make, and the amounts to be allotted to them, are: 1) Fourteen new elementary schools at an estimated cost of $15,376,420. 2) Eleven additions to elementary schools, $1,899,300. 3) Ten elementary school playground expansions, $844,160. William A. Kottmeyer, assistant su perintendent of instruction in charge of elementary schools, said one seriously overcrowded area, in the west central section, needed three large elementary schools, each with 24 classrooms and a kindergarten, and one primary school with seven classrooms and a kinder garten. FRINGE’ NEIGHBORHOOD The section referred to by Kottmeyer was described in Southern School News for January 1960. It is a segment from Union Boulevard west to the city boun dary, and from Lindell Boulevard north to Natural Bridge Avenue. Much of it is a fringe neighborhood in process of transition from white to Negro oc cupancy. There are many fine old residences in this part of St. Louis. An organization of white and Negro citizens known as the West End Community Conference said his action was “a protest against parcelling out education on a basis of racial discrimination.” In a statement to the Florida Flam beau, FSU’s student newspaper, Breit ler declared: “It is my belief that a student has the right to seek knowledge wherever he desires. “I want people to know why I did this. I don’t want them to think I am a crackpot. “Racial discrimination is in opposi tion to the entire body of spiritual and moral values which govern society; and that parcelling out of knowledge on a discriminatory basis is an insult to the world of academics and its members.” ASKED ABOUT COURSES Edwin M. Thorpe, registrar at Florida A&M, said the FSU student in quired some days previously about en rolling for pharmacy courses. Thorpe advised Breitler to fill out the neces sary forms, which would then be pro cessed in the normal manner. Final approval of Breitler’s applica tion would be up to the State Board of Control, which administers the state’s university system. Board Chairman Jack Daniel of Jacksonville said the case would be handled “purely and simply on its merits.” Board member Frank Buchanan of Miami said he would be guided by the wording of the law creating Florida A&M. Dr. J. P. Broward Culpepper, exec utive director of the board, said a de cision on Breitler’s application prob ably would be made at the March meeting. There would be no consider - was organized several years ago to try to keep the area from deteriorating, but it has been only partly successful. The natural westward expansion of the Ne gro community into the section has been aggravated by the need for housing Ne groes evacuated by the massive Mill Creek Valley redevelopment project. Kottmeyer said all nine schools serv ing the area were overcrowded. Some of the schools, he said, have enrollments twice as large as they were built to ac commodate. He said many children had to be transported out of the district by bus because of the shortage of class rooms. Kottmeyer said the ratio of pupils to teachers in the nine overcrowded schools ranged from 39 to one to 44 to one. Parents of both races have com plained that the quality of instruction has gone downhill because of unsettled conditions and overcrowding. In a massive Summary of Elementary School Building Needs, the plight of certain schools was set forth in detail. Five of the nine schools serving the west central section are so crowded that some of their pupils have to be taken care of in out-school facilities—some in other schools, some in churches. CHURCH FACILITIES RENTED The report also called for new school buildings in other areas tenanted prin cipally by Negroes. It revealed that in a number of instances schools are so crowded that children have to be trans ported to other areas by bus, and ancil lary facilities, such as church Sunday school quarters, are rented. Although much of the new construc tion probably would have been neces sary regardless of any change in the white-Negro proportions of the St. Louis population, nevertheless the mov ing in of less-favored economic groups and the exodus of white residents to the suburbs has caused concern about the city’s tax base. The Governmental Research Institute reported early in February that the assessed valuation per pupil declined last year in St. Louis, from $19,772 in 1958 to $19,411 in 1959. In St. Louis County, there was a decline in 11 school districts and an increase in 18. While the valuation per pupil declined in St. Louis, operating costs per pupil increased. Operating costs were $374 in the 1957-58 school year and $378 in 1958-59. For all the county districts, op erating costs per pupil increased from $382 in 1957-58 to $413 in 1958-59. Actually the average city school at tendance last year was less than the average in the county—86,280 compared with 92,420—and the city’s figure was a 3.7 per cent increase over the previous year compared with 7.7 per cent increase ation of the racial angle, he said. He pointed out, however, that Breitler, who will graduate from FSU next June, would be attending Florida A&M as an undergraduate student, a situation that would require a policy decision. Several days after Breitler an nounced his decision a five-foot wood en cross was burned beneath the win dow of the dormitory he shares with 250 other students. Deputy Sheriff Joe Cooke, who re sponded to a midnight telephone call, said he found the cross blazing on the lawn. The sheriff’s office and William Tanner, FSU’s security officer, made a detailed investigation without discov ering those responsible. The officers said they were inclined to view the matter as a prank. ACADEMIC TROUBLE The first Negro student to attend the University of Florida was dropped in February for academic deficiencies. George H. Starke Jr. was accepted as a law student at the beginning of the 1959-60 term as the first integrated student ever to attend a public educa tional institution in the state. After his dismissal it was disclosed he had been on academic probation since the first of the year. Starke said he was certain no preju dice was involved in his failure to make the grade. “The law school and its professors were eminently fair,” he said. “I was treated like any other student.” One of Starke’s professors said there “had never been as much as two min- for the county. The county has rela tively few Negroes. Having voted to submit the tax in crease and the two bond issues at the special March election, the Board of Education, together with school of ficials, began a campaign to obtain fa vorable action. Supt. of Instruction Philip J. Hickey conducted reporters, photographers and civic leaders on a tour of the Dozier, Hempstead and Arlington schools. All three are in the west cen tral area that has been the scene of re cent population shifts. In a statement made later, Hickey said St. Louis school teachers are underpaid by national standards and have to teach 40 or even 45 children in classrooms designed for 35. The mini mum pay for a teacher with a bachelor degree in St. Louis is $4,000 a year. The St. Louis public school system has lost 190 teachers by resignation since last September, Hickey said. COMMUNITY ACTION With the objective of helping press for passage of the tax increase and bond issues in St. Louis, a new organization called the Citizens Assn, for the Public Schools was incorporated in February. The temporary chairman is Andy J. Brown, who was an organizer of the West End Community Conference. Brown said the immediate purpose of the new group was to “prove that the conflicts and the confusion in the city about the public schools and the school board cannot be allowed to crucify the education of the children, and that the school tax and bond issues must be passed.” UNDER SURVEY The Missouri advisory committee to the Civil Rights Commission heard a report at a St. Louis meeting in mid- February that racial discrimination was involved in transporting Negro pupils from overcrowded St. Louis public school districts. Lorenzo J. Greene, professor of his tory at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, said Negro pupils who had to be transported by bus to less crowded schools were not taken to the nearest school, if the nearest school had an all- white enrollment. Greene, a Negro, is chairman of the advisory committee’s subcommittee on education. He said Negro pupils who were transported because of overcrowd- utes trouble in any of my classes be cause of him.” A university official said Starke’s behavior and attitude had been “exemplary.” The Florida Alligator, student publi cation, interviewed Starke and his fellow students and reported: “Reaction to his year and a half on the UF campus has varied from ac ceptance (in some cases with clenched teeth) to complete (but usually silent) rejection.” The publication closed its summary of this first try at integration with this conclusion: “If Starke proved one thing by his three-semester stay here he proved that the faith and confidence placed in the maturity of the UF student body were well deserved.” Starke’s departure left Ester M. Langston of Orlando as the only Ne gro student at UF. Miss Langston, a Phi Beta Kappa at Fisk University, is a first-year student at the school of medicine. Three other Negroes attended summer sessions last year. With Florida’s school population edging toward the one million mark for the first time, the Legislative Council’s education committee heard testimony that the cost of public edu cation will reach one-half billion dol lars in the next five years. Dr. Arthur Cunkle, associate direc- (See FLORIDA, Page 15) ing were taken only to schools already racially integrated or Negro. It has been explained by St. Louis school officials that they feel it is not proper to transport Negroes to a school in a white neighborhood. They said it was not the school system’s respon sibility to change the character of a neighborhood. At present, some 1,000 children are being transported out of the west cen tral district, between Lindell Boulevard and Natural Bridge west of Union. Most of them are taken to Beaumont and Vashon high schools. The Missouri committee decided to make continuing studies in the areas of education, housing, employment and public accommodations. Greene said that in Jefferson City, the state capital, there is only one place of public ac commodation where a Negro can be served a meal. At a public meeting in St. Louis Jan. 31, the Rev. John Hicks, a member of the St. Louis Board of Education, said problems among Negro students were “far out of proportion to the total school population.” The Rev. Mr. Hicks, a Negro, pastor of Union Memorial Methodist Church, addressed a gathering sponsored by the St. Louis Citizens for Public Education. Citing police statistics indicating a heavy crime rate in Negro districts and a disproportionate rate of school dif ficulties related to behavior among Ne gro school children, he urged that Negro parents and citizens give these problems their earnest attention. NO EXCUSE The Rev. Mr. Hicks said sub-standard socio-economic conditions and discrim ination were contributing factors but these should not serve as an excuse for citizens to absolve themselves of respon sibility. He suggested a number of ways in which Negroes might make a better record. Toward the end of his talk, he said: “I am not saying that the Negro is all bad, or that our boys and girls are worse than those of any other group. The Negro is no new element in the citizenship of our city, and needs no special prescription to suit his needs. “His case is one common to a people whose surroundings and environment have placed, or caused them to be placed, in a dependent attitude. And his only hope for rising above the common level of a second-class citizen is to so use his resources of mind and body as to change these environments and become the master, rather than the helpless creature, of circumstance.” # # # MISSOURI Two School Bond Issues Are Proposed in St. Louis