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TEXAS
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL I960—PAGE II
Court Orders Dallas To Produce
Desegregation Plan by May 21
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS STUDENTS DEMONSTRATE AT CAMPUS
Negroes And Whites Carry Signs Protesting School’s Integration Policies
DELAWARE
Negro School Construction
Approved by State Board
AUSTIN, Tex.
he U.S. Fifth Circuit Court
of Appeals ordered Dallas
school officials to come up with a
desegregation plan by May 21.
U. S. District Judge T. Whitfield
Davidson suggested a referendum
on integration under a state law.
(See “Legal Action.”)
Houston, largest segregated
school system in the nation, was
told by its school board attorney
that a federal judge plans to “or
der district-wide desegregation”
by Sept. 1 unless the board itself
takes the step by then. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Andice, a rural school in cen
tral Texas, integrated by election
to become the 126th Texas dis
trict to abolish racial segregation.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
A Negro member of the Hous
ton school board accused it of stall
ing in complying with a federal
court order to desegregate. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Negroes asked Port Arthur’s
school board to carry out an in
tegration proposal made three
years ago. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
A few University of Texas students
picketed for more integration. At
Prairie View A&M, the oldest state
college for Negroes in Texas, a stu
dent strike was threatened over social
restrictions and alleged unsanitary
conditions. (See “In the Colleges.”)
The U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals set a deadline for Dallas School
Board to come up with a desegrega
tion plan. (Boston v. Rippy, Southern
School News, March 1960 and previ
ous.)
By a two-to-one decision, the New
Orleans court gave the Dallas board
until May 21 to file its integration plan.
The district, for more than two years,
has been under a federal court order
to desegregate “with deliberate speed”
(Borders v Rippy).
But the district has been unable to
get any court guidance concerning its
status under a state law that calls for
withdrawal of some $2,600,000 annual
state aid to the district and fines
against its school officials, if integra
tion is ordered without approval of the
district’s voters (Dallas ISD v Edgar).
Both federal and state courts have
declined to give the Dallas board any
interpretation of how to solve its
dilemma.
Judge T. Whitfield Davidson, the
U. S. district judge who ordered de
segregation here originally, said of the
U. S. circuit court’s deadline-setting:
There must be “some forward move
ment in the integration case and one
of the simple things to accomplish this
could be a school integration referen
dum.”
40.000 NAMES NEEDED
A petition for the election must be
signed by 20 per cent of the district’s
voters, requiring about 40,000 names.
The referendum would be helpful,
Judge Davidson told reporters, regard
less of the outcome.
“I think the public and the school
board should be interested in the vote.
If the vote were favorable, the dis
trict could integrate without the loss
of state funds. And the element of
force would not be present. Force
causes dissension,” Davidson said.
“If the vote went against integra
tion, perhaps those pressing for inte
gration would be more patient and
forbearant.”
The Dallas board has indicated it
will have some grade-a-year desegre
gation plan, starting in the first grade,
when Negroes are admitted to classes
with whites.
Spokesmen for the National Assn,
for Advancement of Colored People
said they are “pleased” over the U. S.
circuit court’s order.
Clarence A. Laws, field secretary for
NAACP, said “because of inferior
standards of education now being
given many Negro children, they will
leave school with scars which will
hinder them the rest of their lives.”
The Dallas Morning News com
mented editorially that the school
board will probably have no difficulty
submitting a plan of desegregation, but
that the problem of solving the legal
dilemma will remain.
School board attorney Joe Reynolds
of Houston told its members that U. S.
District Judge Ben C. Connally expects
to “order district-wide desegregation...
in September 1960 unless we come forth
with a plan which would commence in
September 1960.”
Judge Connally in October 1957 or
dered the district to desegregate “with
deliberate speed” (Ross v. Rogers).
Following Reynolds’ statement to the
school board, Mayor Houston Cutrer
announced he will appoint immediately
a bi-racial commission to study “what
ever problems need settling in Houston
(regarding race relations) — except
school integrations which is already be
ing handled in the courts.”
Mrs. Charles E. White, Negro mem
ber of the Houston School Board, said
that the only action taken by her col
leagues under the court desegregation
order has been to spend millions of dol
lars on a building program to soften the
impact when it comes.
Mrs. White added that Judge Connally
“asked only for a progress report” in
1959 when “other (Texas) judges asked
for a (desegregation) plan.”
Of the Houston school board, she
said: “They keep telling the court that
we can’t desegregate until our multi
million dollar building program is
completed. Well, by the time it’s com
pleted, with all-white schools in all-
white areas and all-Negro schools in
all-Negro areas, there won’t be any
integration.”
Mrs. White spoke to 50 members of
the Houston Assn, for Better Schools.
ENDS SEGREGATION
Andice, a rural school in William
son County in central Texas, became
the 126th Texas district to abolish
racial segregation. This came in a ref
erendum under the state law, held on
Feb. 27. The district voted 38 to 2 to
place its five Negro students in the
Andice elementary school rather than
transport them 52 miles daily to Lib
erty Hill.
Integration was instituted by white
patrons in the district, who faced the
alternative of a higher tax rate, ac
cording to County Supt. Gilbert Con-
oley. It marked the first racial integra
tion in the county and the first new
integration in Texas since 1958, when
Bloomington (Victoria County) voted
for the change.
Conoley said that 98 per cent of the
district’s voters signed the referendum
petition, although some failed to vote
later.
The last previous desegregation elec
tion in Texas, at Goliad in south Texas,
resulted in defeat last October of the
proposal to admit Negroes to the white
high school rather than transport them
31 miles to Cuero. (See SSN, Novem
ber 1959.)
At Port Arthur, a group of Negroes
asked the school board for “complete
integration.” The district had an
nounced a desgregation plan to begin
in 1957, but this was halted by the
state law requiring voter approval,
passed at the 1957 session of the Texas
Legislature.
PRINCIPAL RESIGNS
At Thomas Edison High School in
San Antonio, Principal John B. Sulli
van resigned, citing illness, after rec
ommending searches of students for
concealed weapons to curb delin
quency. Two students at Edison High
recently were stabbed in a lunch-hour
disturbance in the cafeteria.
Although San Antonio schools are
integrated, the juvenile outbreak was
not of racial origin.
Dallas voters approved by six-to-
one majority a 70-million-dollar bond
issue for expanding their school sys
tem. Some 13,000 first-graders will en
ter school in Dallas alone next Sep
tember.
Three Dallas board members are
running for re-election in April, sup
ported by a citizens’ committee of 500
members. Mrs. Tracy H. Rutherford
has four opponents; Robert Folsom
one, and Donald Bruton, unopposed.
Dr. George L. Rippy, president of
the Dallas board and key figure in the
desegregation case, announced that he
would not seek another term. Rippy,
board member since 1950, announced
his decision to retire two months ago,
because of his duties as a physician.
Two candidates seek to succeed
Rippy as a board member.
Additional housing will be made
available to Negroes at The University
of Texas, the Board of Regents an
nounced, but there was no indication
that picketing Negro and white stu
dents would obtain the goal of full in
tegration.
As most of the 18,500 students at
Texas showed indifference, 20 Negro
and white students picketed across the
street from the campus. A group
meeting at the University YMCA also
wrote to President Logan Wilson.
The picketers handed out pamphlets
calling for full integration in housing
and athletics.
The regents previously had ordered
a study of the adequacy of housing
available to Negroes. Of the 150 Ne
groes at the University of Texas, men
can live in specified integrated hous
ing. Negro women occupy a house near
the girls’ dormitories.
Another building will be remodeled
and open to Negro girls, still on a seg
regated basis, next September, while
an additional section of the men’s dor
mitories will be open to Negro and
white men.
WILSON’S STATEMENT
President Wilson noted in a public
statement:
“There is complete integration (at
Texas) with refer
ence to all educa
tional opportuni
ties and facilities.
The university
was the first in
stitution in Texas
to inaugurate
such a policy.
“For reasons
which the ad
ministration and
the Board of Re
gents consider to
be sound, forced integration of social
and extracurricular areas has not been
established. In view of our known
achievements in meeting what is ev
erywhere a difficult situation, I am
surprised that our institution should
be made a target for provocative dem
onstrations.”
After a long closed-door conference
with the president and other officials,
the picketers ended their vigil, at least
temporarily.
No Southwest Athletic Conference
school accepts Negroes on its varsity
teams. Texas and Arkansas are the
only ones admitting Negroes as under
graduate students. Because of these
and other factors, including schedul
ing of teams in areas where segrega
tion is traditional, Texas coaches have
refrained from using Negroes. There
is no segregation in intramural ath
letics, however.
A Negro school, Texas Southern
University of Houston, won the team
title in its division at the Border
Olympics at Laredo, competing for the
first time in Texas against white op
ponents. The runner-up was East
Texas State, an all-white team.
The University of Texas won the
university division championship.
STUDENTS DEMONSTRATE
At Prairie View A&M, the oldest
state Negro college in Texas, students
demonstrated against alleged unsani
tary conditions in the kitchens, im
proper maintenance of dormitories, and
certain social restrictions.
Steps were taken to improve the
conditions complained of, but Dean H.
E. Fuller said some grievances could
be corrected only by spending more
money, which would have to come
from the students.
A Church of Christ minister at Abi
lene urged his denomination to open
its doors to Negroes who wish gradu-
DOVER, Del.
EGRO SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
costing $2,513,486 has been
approved by the State Board of
Education and will be submitted
to the General Assembly. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
The U. S. Court of Appeals in
Philadelphia has set April 22 as
the date to hear an appeal of the
grade-a-year desegregation pro
gram that went into effect last
September. (See “Legal Action.”)
A study of “Schools in Changing
Neighborhoods” is in progress in Wil
mington. (See “Under Survey.”)
Both of Delaware’s U. S. senators
were criticized for not voting for clo
ture. (See “What They Say.”)
Delaware’s Board of Education has
approved school construction projects
at 15 Negro schools, with cost esti
mated at $2,513,486.
Twenty-seven other building pro
grams for schools with predominantly
white enrollments also have been ap
proved by the board, at an estimated
cost of $20,655,225.
An omnibus bill covering the appro
priations will be submitted to the Gen
eral Assembly in the near future.
In the past, the General Assembly
has appropriated 60 per cent of the
construction cost of white schools and
100 per cent for construction at Ne
gro schools.
However, in view of the fiscal crisis
in Delaware, nobody will venture a
ate study to become preachers.
Carl Spain, the speaker, also teaches
Bible at Abilene Christian College. He
said faculty members there generally
share his opinion that “Negro preach
ers of the Church of Christ who can
qualify academically should be admit
ted to the graduate school.”
Jack Cox, former state representa
tive and political conservative, said
that if he were elected governor, he
would use the Texas Rangers and
highway police to prevent property
damage and injury in cafe sit-downs
such as occurred in Texas this month.
(See “Miscellaneous.”)
Cox is running against Gov. Price
Daniel and is conceded to have little
chance of victory. However, late in
March Cox picked up an endorsement
by ex-Gov. Allan Shivers.
In stating his intention to use police
in race situations, Cox said “what we
have witnessed is only the beginning.”
Denison, in North Texas, drew its
first Negro school board candidate,
Mrs. William Groce, a former rural
school teacher. Two white men also
seek the place.
“Racial integration of the schools is
(See TEXAS, Page 16)
guess that the former formula will be
followed.
Among the Negro building pro
grams is one that calls for the merger
of four small elementary districts, in
cluding Slaughter Neck No. 193, Mil-
ton No. 196, Ellendale No. 195 and Lin
coln No. 194.
A consolidated school, the board esti
mates, would cost $543,000.
OTHER PROJECTS
Other large projects include $390,-
000 for the Thomas D. Clayton School
in the Smyrna Special School District,
and $500,000 for the P.S. duPont School
in the Harrington Special School Dis
trict.
Others, and the estimated cost: Du
Pont Ave., Lewes, $75,000; Millside No.
132, $38,286; William W. M. Henry,
$156,000; Dunbar School, Laurel, $20,-
000; Bridgeville No. 220, $226,500; Re-
hoboth No. 200, $210,000; Frankford
No. 206, $142,500; Millsboro No. 204,
$73,200, and Middletown No. 120,
$138,000.
In February, the Delaware Congress
of Parent-Teacher Assns., composed
entirely of Negro school PTA’s, ac
cused the state board of perpetuating
segregation by expanding Negro
schools. But the board denied the
charges, noting that all schools will
eventually fit into a desegregated pro
gram.
An appeal of Delaware’s grade-a-
year desegregation program, which was
approved by a federal district court
last July, will be heard on April 22 by
the U. S. Court of Appeals in Philadel
phia.
The case originally was scheduled for
Feb. 15 but was postponed because
of the illness of Louis L. Redding,
counsel for the appellants.
The case goes back to 1956 when
Negro pupils sued for admission to
white schools. Once before the case
was before the appellate court, which
determined in 1958 that the state board,
rather than the local districts, was re
sponsible for a desegregation plan for
the state.
Atty. Gen. Januar D. Bove Jr. rep
resents the state board.
Bove, in his brief, claimed obsta
cles, such as finances, the impact of
integration on a predominantly south
ern society, and different achievement
levels of whites and Negroes.
Redding, whose clients are all past
the first grade, contends they were
by-passed by the decision.
Other attorneys who have filed briefs
with the Court of Appeals endorsing
the state board plan are: James M.
Tunnell Jr., who represents Milford,
Seaford and Laurel; Everett F. War
rington, representing Milton, and James
H. Hughes, who also represents Mil
ford.
UNDER SURVEY
A three-year study of “Schools in
Changing Neighborhoods,” being con
ducted in six elementary schools in
four school systems in Wilmington, is
making “encouraging progress,” ac-
(See DELAWARE, Page 12)
the University of
WILSON