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PAGE 10—APRIL I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
OKLAHOMA
Another Negro High
School To
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
T^he dwindling ranks of Negro
high schools in Oklahoma will
lose at least one more member
with the closing of Booker T.
Washington of Enid this fall.
As in so many other instances in
this state, financial necessity was
the cause. The Enid Board of Edu
cation voted the step in a general
economy move lopping 17 teach
ers, including eight Negroes, off its
roster for next year.
The Enid schools are already
desegregated but this will throw
more Negro students into classes
with white pupils. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Negro youths, continuing a cam
paign begun more than 18 months
ago, made weekly visits to the
lunch counter of a major Okla
homa City department store and
requested service. During the
month white college students
joined them, but the store main
tained its policy of refusing serv
ice to Negroes. (See “Community
Action.”)
A local committee of the National
Conference of Christians and Jews
mapped plans for a meeting with Ne
gro leaders and residents of newly inte
grated residential areas of northeast
Oklahoma City. Following a similar
session with the white leaders and resi
dents, the meeting would be a prelude
to a possible bi-racial parley aimed at
setting up a “changing neighborhood”
project. (See “Community Action”)
Enid, seat of Garfield County in
northwestern Oklahoma and home of
Phillips University, has had Negro pu
pils attending classes with white chil
dren since the start of desegregation in
the state. But the board of education
kept Booker T. Washington and Carver
schools open for Negro high school and
elementary students, respectively, who
preferred to be with their own race.
By last fall the financial burden of
maintaining the Negro high school be
gan to tell. Only 120 Negro pupils were
enrolled in both junior and senior high
grades at Booker T. Washington at the
beginning of the school year. Enid High
School, at the same time, was bulging
with nearly 3,000 students.
The board called in a study group of
Oklahoma State University professors,
who reported the Enid school system
was over-staffed. Although no present
crisis threatened, a general economy
drive was necessary to avoid possible
financial trouble in the future, the in
vestigators said.
ELIMINATE 17
On the group’s recommendation, the
Enid board has decided to eliminate 17
teaching positions “so far,” Dr. Carl E.
Wagner, superintendent, said. Included
are eight positions at Booker T. Wash
ington High School. That will mean
closing grades seven through 12 in that
building and re-assigning the 120 pupils
to Enid High School and three other
junior highs with predominantly white
enrollments.
The eight Negro teachers have already
been notified their contracts will not be
renewed for the 1960-61 school year.
Some 360 Negro teachers have lost their
jobs previously in Oklahoma because of
desegregation. About 10 Negro teachers
will remain on the Enid faculty to staff
the Carver Elementary School, which
will continue serving the Negro popula
tion.
NEGROES SCATTERED
Negro students are scattered through
out the Enid school system. Dr. Wagner,
who has been at his post only a little
more than a year, was unable to give
specific figures or even to say how many
schools are actually integrated. He
pointed out statistics are not kept by
race. But he expressed belief the num
ber of Negroes now attending classes
with whites is small.
Enid High School had an initial en
rollment for the current year of more
than 1,300 students. The three “white”
junior highs enrolled, respectively, 493,
455 and 737 pupils.
By contrast, Booker T. Washington
now has but 10 students in the 12th
grade, 11 in the 11th grade and 20 in the
10th grade. There are 12 ninth-graders,
28 eighth-graders and 40 seventh-
graders. The small enrollment made it
impossible to carry on a full academic
program there, Wagner said.
“The study group found that it cost
one and a half to one and three
fourths times per child as much to oper
ate Washington as the other high
school,” the superintendent said. “And
still it didn’t have the same facilities.”
FACILITIES LACKING
Primarily the facilities lacking were
those of a physical nature—gymnasium,
stadium, etc.—but the superintendent
pointed out, too, that with only 10 sen
iors for example, just a minimum num
ber of academic courses could be of
fered.
The cost of operating Booker T.
Washington was not broken down.
However, in addition to the salaries for
the eight teachers—at least $25,000 a
year—administrators had to figure the
expense of a secretary, two maintenance
men and half the pay of the principal,
who split his time between Washington
and Carver.
Closing of Booker T. Washington will
leave Oklahoma with 32 high schools
having only Negroes in attendance. Be
fore the desegregation process began
five years ago there were 96.
While lunch-counter “sitdown” strikes
and picketing of segregated eating
places by Negroes in other southern
states drew newspaper headlines, young
Negro students in Oklahoma City quiet
ly continued a campaign, begun in Au
gust 1958, to obtain service at a lunch
eonette in the John A. Brown Co. de
partment store.
The students represent the Oklahoma
City Youth Council of the National
Assn, for the Advancement of Colored
People. Each Saturday they appear at
the lunchroom in the basement of
Brown’s downtown store about 11 or
11:30 a.m. and ask to be served. Each
time they are turned down. The young
sters then march in a circle outside the
lunchroom enclosure until about 1:30
pm.
WHITES JOIN
The demonstrators were joined for the
first time March 19 by several white
students from the University of Okla
homa. A reliable source identified them
as members of the Westminster Founda
tion in Norman.
Similar “sit-downs” were staged in
stores in Enid and Stillwater but with
less success.
Later the store demonstrations were
suspended as the NAACP Youth Coun
cil swung its strategy toward gaining
support of the Oklahoma City Council
of Churches. That organization led a
move to mobilize public support for
restaurants that admitted Negro cus
tomers.
By February of this year the group
had a list of 33 Oklahoma City eating
places that had agreed to welcome all
races as customers.
Last month another new tack in
strategy was taken, this time by the
adult Negro community. More than 25
NAACP representatives, backed by
WEST VIRGINIA
Students
Stage Protests;
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
r^EMONSTRATIONS AGAINST racial
discrimination at public
places touched West Virginia’s
southernmost city early in March.
Students from Bluefield State
College picketed Bluefield thear
ters and the next week moved to
lunch counters. (See “Communi
ty Action.”)
Sales Management magazine
reported in March that West Vir
ginia stands at the top of the fist
in loss of Negroes from its popu
lation. (See “Miscellaneous.”)
West Virginia’s first demonstration
against desegregated seating practices
came March 7 in Bluefield when long,
silent lines of Negro college students
picketed two theaters.
There were no incidents and the
demonstration barely attracted a crowd.
The Negroes, who identified them
selves as students from Bluefield State
College, formed a line outside the Col
onial Theater about 4 p.m. For an hour
they paraded back and forth from the
front entrance used by whites to a rear
entrance off a parking lot where Ne
groes are admitted to the segregated
rear balcony.
Afterwards they picketed the Granada
Theater about a block away, where seg
regated seating also is enforced.
Bluefield State was an all-Negro col
lege until the 1954 Supreme Court de
segregation decision. All state colleges
were officially desegregated shortly
thereafter by action of the State Board
of Education and University Board of
Governors.
Now, said Bluefield’s Negro president,
Dr. LeRoy B. Allen, there are about 20
per cent whites among Bluefield’s 620
students.
Allen said he assumed the demonstra
tions were spontanous among the stu
dents. He said he knew of no outside
groups working on the campus.
Keesling said he had been contacted
by students and professors at Bluefield
State some two years ago about the pos
sibility of lowering color barriers. The
subject reportedly has been frequently
discussed during recent months among
campus groups.
The demonstration on the snow-
banked streets of Bluefield continued
for several days. It finally spread to all
three theaters in Bluefield, a coal-min
ing center of 20,000 people.
Finally, on March 19 the demonstra
tion penetrated Bluefield lunch count
ers, where Negro students sat quietly
waiting for service while police looked
on just as quietly.
Seventeen male students sat at lunch
counters in the Kresge and Woolworth
stores. They identified themselves as
Bluefield State students.
The national field secretary for CORE
was in Charleston March 24 to discuss
the student movement in the South. He
is Gordon R. Carey, a Californian, who
spoke at Simpson Methodist Church.
MAKES AWARD
In New York the National Conference
of Christians and Jews presented one of
its 14 brotherhood awards for the year
to Rev. Kyle Haselden, until recently
pastor of First Baptist Church here.
Haselden preached his last sermon at
the church late in February before
leaving for Chicago to assume the edi
torship of two religious publications—
Christian Century and The Pulpit.
Haselden has been an outspoken foe
of racial discrimination and was one of
the first Charlestonians named last year
to the Mayor’s Committee on Human
Relations.
RICKEY ACCEPTS
Branch Rickey, veteran big league
baseball figure and the first man to in
tegrate major league baseball teams,
will speak in Charleston April 26 at a
dinner of the Mayor’s Commission on
Human Relations.
The commission announced March 7
that Rickey had accepted the invitation
after first turning it down. Other
speakers at the dinner will be U.S. Sen.
Jennings Randolph, Rep. John M. Slack
Jr., Gov. Cecil Underwood and Federal
Judge John Field.
The Kanawha County Medical So
ciety agreed March 8 to become a co
sponsor of the dinner.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
The State Board of Education spent
most of March 14 listening to charges of
favoritism and discrimination in the
Cabell County teacher pension program,
then upheld the county’s pension poli
cies.
In a formal vote the board approved
the Cabell pension plan for the current
fiscal year, as submitted by the Cabell
Board of Education.
Mrs. Hazel Bragg Davenport of Beck-
ley was announced on March 13 as Mc
Call’s Teacher of the Year. Her selec
tion culminates a nationwide search for
a teacher typifying the ideals of the
profession, the magazine said.
Be Closed
white and Negro churchmen, petitioned
the City Council March 1 for adoption
of a city ordinance that would make ra
cial discrimination in restaurants and
other public places illegal and punish
able by fine. Some 2,000 persons signed
the petition. It was endorsed by the city
and county Baptist ministers’ associa
tions as well as the Greater Oklahoma
City Council of Churches.
The proposed ordinance would have
applied to hotels, theaters, swimming
pools, retail stores and virtually all
other public places, with specific at
tention to eating, sleeping and seating
arrangements.
The matter was referred to the city’s
legal department, which reported that
the council “does not have the power to
enact a ‘civil rights’ ordinance prohibit
ing discrimination in restaurants and
other places of public accommodation by
reason of race, color or creed.”
The opinion, written by Ed Moler,
chief city attorney, went on:
“Regulation of matters of this type is
not within the scope of municipal gov
ernment. Such power rests in the state
and can be exercised by a municipal
corporation (the city) only if properly
delegated by the Legislature. The state
of Oklahoma has not granted this power
to municipalities.”
The council adopted the opinion
without comment.
Segregation in city-owned public
places was ended, at least theoretically,
four years ago by administrative action.
Over a period of several months follow
ing a meeting of city and NAACP of
ficials, racial barriers were lowered on
city-owned parks, golf courses, restau
rant and restroom facilities in public
buildings, and swimming pools.
Problems of residential desegrega
tion also came up before an unofficial
community group during March. It was
the steering committee of the changing
neighborhood committee of the National
Conference of Christians and Jews. The
object of its attention: Tension created
by the move of Negro families across
the traditional “boundary” of Northeast
23rd Street into white residential sec
tions during the past year. The migra
tion brought integration last fall to a
grade school in that area for the first
time.
HELD SESSION
Under auspices of the NCCJ changing
neighborhood committee white residents
had held an exploratory, fact-finding
session in late February. While some of
the persons appeared bitter, a number
of others expressed willingness to accept
the situation. They agreed to meet later
with Negro leaders and Negro residents
of the area. The steering committee met
in March and tentatively scheduled a
session with the Negroes for April 11
preparatory to setting up the joint par
ley.
“We hope to get a few of the people
from each of the two meetings together
and see what they can do about being
good neighbors,” said Donald F. Sulli
van, regional NCCJ director. “We’ll just
introduce the people to each other.”
The NCCJ steering committee hopes
to have someone in each block prepared
to introduce any incoming Negro fam
ily to its new neighbors.
Eventually, the NCCJ officials hope,
the northeast Oklahoma City residents
will be encouraged to form a changing
neighborhood study group like Tulsa’s
Reservoir Hill — Burroughs School
Neighborhood Organization. It has been
credited with stemming the tide of
white families moving out of the atten
dance area of an integrated school.
# # #
Negro Population Drops
Mrs. Davenport, teacher at Beckley’s
Central Elementary School, was selected
after winning the Beckley, southern
district and state titles in the Federa
tion of Woman’s Club contest in 1958.
NEW SCHOOL
Sacred Heart Catholic Church here
has announced plans to build a new
$400,000 elementary school. It will be a
two-story building with 16 classrooms.
An old convent will be demolished to
make room for the building.
Sacred Heart was desegregated ra
cially even before the Supreme Court
ruled in 1954.
College presidents were directed by
the State Board of Education March 15
to use individual merit as a guide in
distributing salary increases voted by
the 1960 Legislature.
The board, which administers nine
colleges, adopted the policy with respect
to the 10 per cent increase in faculty
and administrative salaries provided by
the budget bill passed by the Legisla
ture.
The policy means the money will be
passed around on a merit basis—some
getting more than 10 per cent and some
less—rather than as an increase of 10
per cent across the board. This same
policy was used after the 1959 Legisla
ture voted raises for college personnel.
AWARD CONTRACTS
Contracts were awarded by the State
Board of Education March 15 for con
struction of a new administration and
classroom building at West Liberty
State College.
The building, to be known as Main
Hall, will be the first financed from a
capital improvement fund set up by the
1959 Legislature. The fund is supported
by a $100-a-year student registration
fee voted for that purpose.
The 1960 made the first appropriation
from the fund, $1,200,000 for the West
Liberty project. Cost of the new build
ing, according to the four low bids on
various phases of construction, will be
$1,067,018.
At West Virginia University a low bid
of $4,384,000 was received and accepted
March 22 for four new apartment build
ings and additions to two residence
halls.
After approving the bid the Board of
Governors authorized the sale of
$4,800,000 in self-liquidating bonds to
finance the project. The work to be done
constitutes the largest university hous
ing project ever undertaken.
The Wyoming County Board of Edu
cation has given authority for the pos
sible use of an abandoned school build
ing at Pineville as a non-profit junior
college.
The board also indicated willingness
to permit the use of Pineville High
School for such a program on a night
time basis.
The junior college idea originated at a
meeting in Pineville last January and
had been suggested originally as a pub
lic-support project.
Legislation approving the opening of
such a college passed the State Senate
in February but was killed through
committee reference in the House of
Delegates.
NEW PRESIDENT
Fairmont State College’s new presi
dent will be Dr. Eston K. Feaster, who
has been dean of the West Virginia
University College of Education since
1953.
Dr. Feaster was chosen for the post
by the State Board of Education follow
ing the death of Dr. George W. Pence.
His appointment is effective July 1. He
joined the university faculty in 1949 as
director of field services for the College
of Education.
An NAACP official said March 14 that
Negro miners are suffering acute hard
ships in West Virginia because they are
not being included in the coal indus
try’s switch to automation.
“I found so much destitution and
poverty among Negroes in Mercer, Mc
Dowell, Harrison and Raleigh counties
that I was moved to tears,” said Miss
Gertrude Gorman, field secretary for the
NAACP in West Virginia.
Company and United Mine Workers
representatives denied there was any
such discrimination.
Negroes now comprise only 4.3 per
cent of West Virginia’s population,
Sales Management magazine said in its
March issue.
The magazine, which provides statis
tics for market researchers and sales or
ganizations, puts West Virginia at the
top of a list of seven states that have
lost Negro population.
The West Virginia loss was 26.5 per
cent, almost as much as the other six
states combined. They were Mississippi,
Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas,
North Carolina and Georgia.
While West Virginia lost Negro
population heavy gains in Negro pop
ulation were registered in Michigan,
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Mississippi
was second to West Virginia in percent
age loss, with 14. # # #