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PAGE 12—APRIL I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MARYLAND
Delaware
Fewer White Pupils Attend Bi-Racial Schools
BALTIMORE, Md.
TVTewly compiled enrollment
-L ’ data for Baltimore public
schools show that the number
and proportion of white pupils in
bi-racial schools have declined in
a year’s time. This is the case to a
lesser extent in the school system
as a whole.
Two schools have reverted to
an all-white status and four to an
all-Negro status. The number and
percentage of Negroes in formerly
all-white schools have increased
at a slower rate than previously.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
The Maryland General Assem
bly concluded a 30-day session in
early March without enacting any
legislation affecting segregation-
integration. (See “Legislative Ac
tion.”)
Harford County school officials have
answered a suit by the National Assn,
for the Advancement of Colored People
challenging their pupil placement plan.
(See “Legal Action.”)
Their fall enrollment data processed
at last, Baltimore school officials re
leased bi-racial statistics to Southern
School News. The figures show a drop
in the percentage of racially desegre
gated schools in the city system and
also a numerical and proportional de
cline in the number of white pupils in
these schools. At the same time, the
number and percentage of Negroes in
integrated schools increased.
A tapering off in the sixth year of
desegregation in Baltimore was indicat
ed by the first recorded decrease in the
number of bi-racial schools—89 in con
trast to 90 a year ago—-whereas the fig
ure had risen steadily in previous years.
The number of all-white schools
gained two and all-Negro schools
gained four. Five new schools have
been added to the system since the fall
of 1958.
FEWER WHITE PUPILS
A large factor in the decreased per
centage of white pupils in bi-racial
classes is the continuing decline of the
white student population. The number
of white elementary pupils in Baltimore
dropped in a year’s time from 50,057 to
47,613. It now represents 45 per cent of
the elementary school population.
Negro elementary pupils rose from
54,864 to 57,840, increasing their percent
age from 52 to 55. White secondary en
rollment continues to gain, but not
enough to offset the elementary losses.
Total white enrollment is down to 84,194,
in contrast to 85,931 last year, and is
barely more than half the total school
population of 166,719.
The current enrollment is as follows
(Oct. 31 data):
White
Negro
Total
Elementary 47,613
57,840
105,453
Secondary 36,581
24,685
61,266
TOTAL 84,194
82,525
166,719
A factor in the numerical decline of
white pupils in integrated classes is the
reversion of two schools to an all-white
status. Last year one of the schools had
four Negroes and 1,180 white pupils,
and the other had a single Negro and
605 whites. This year no Negroes are en
rolled at the two which has the effect of
removing 1,785 white children from the
integrated status.
CHANGE STATUS
Four predominantly Negro schools
that formerly had a scattering of white
pupils have reverted this year to an all-
Negro status. Although only seven
white children were involved, the
changes have the effect of placing more
than 3,800 Negro children in a non-in-
tegrated classification.
Meanwhile, a few white children have
entered other Negro schools, so that
what might be termed reverse integra
tion has shown a small gain: This year
there are 72 white pupils in 11 Negro
schools having 15,072 Negro pupils,
whereas last year there were 58 whites
in 11 schools having 13,686 Negroes.
It should be explained that Baltimore
school data makes no reference to
“white” or “Negro” schools. But for sta
tistical purposes in Southern School
News, and in order to present a mean
ingful description of the desegregation
process, schools are classified as Negro
if they had an all-Negro enrollment
prior to desegregation or if they have
been built since that time in predom
inantly Negro areas and have predom
inantly Negro staffs.
Sixty-five out of 144 elementary
schools in the city are now bi-racial,
while 34 are all-white and 45 are all-
Negro. The integrated schools are just
under half the total and one less than
last year. The all-white elementary
schools have increased by two and the
all-Negro by three.
On the secondary level, 24 out of 37
schools, or 65 per cent, are bi-racial—
the same as last year. The two all-white
secondary schools remain the same,
while the all-Negro secondary schools
have increased from ten to eleven.
Desegregation is more widespread on
the secondary level than in the elemen
tary grades. Of the 20 all-white junior,
senior and vocational schools prior to
desegregation, Negroes now are enrolled
in all but two. On a pupil basis, 32,541
white secondary students out of 36,581
are in integrated schools, or 88 per cent.
Last year it was 90 per cent.
Of 24,685 Negro secondary pupils,
12,156 are in integrated schools, or just
under a half (in contrast to 38 per cent
last year). Two secondary schools con
tinue to have an all-white enrollment,
11 are all-Negro. Two others are nearly
all-Negro: One has two white students
in an enrollment of 3,148 and the other,
two white pupils in an enrollment of
1,965.
REVERSE INTEGRATION
On the elementary level, 23,567 white
children out of 47,613 are in bi-racial
schools, or just under half of them. Last
year it was just over half. Of 57,840
Negroes, 25,897, or 45 per cent, are in
integrated classes. Last year it was 38
per cent.
Here it must be remembered that
some 15,000 of these are “integrated” by
virtue of having a scattering of white
children in otherwise all-colored
schools. The reverse integration is as
follows:
Elementary
A
White
2
Negro
806
"
B
2
1,089
C
2
1,282
"
D
1
1,504
"
E
2
1,456
F
1
1,005
"
G
19
588
H
30
1,301
"
I
9
932
Junior High
2
1,963
Senior High
2
3,146
TOTAL
72
15,072
All told, out of 82,525 Negroes in all
grades, 38,053 are in bi-racial classes, or
46 per cent—a gain of two per cent over
last year. Of 84,194 white pupils in all
grades, 56,110 are in bi-racial classes, or
exactly two-thirds. Last year it was 70
per cent.
Taken together, 94,163 out of 166,719
Baltimore school children are in bi-
racial schools, or 56 per cent—a slight
drop from last year’s 57 per cent.
Of the 38,053 Negroes in integrated
classes, 22,981 of them are in 78 schools
classified as formerly all-white. (Last
month in Southern School News the
figure was given as 79, but the State De
partment of Education refined its figures
to eliminate one duplication. The official
figure is now 78, or exactly the same
as last year). Most of these schools were
all-white prior to 1954; 11 have been
built since 1954 but are grouped for sta
tistical purposes with the formerly
white schools because of their location
and/or staff.
The movement of Negroes into for
merly white schools has increased stea
dily, although the numerical gain this
year is the smallest in several years, as
is the percentage increase. The number
of Negroes in once-white schools and
their percentage of the total Negro en
rollment are:
issues, concluded its 30-day short ses
sion without action on half-a-dozen pro
integration bills. The most significant of
Fall
Number
Per Cent
1954
1,576
3.0
1955
4,601
7.4
1956
9,242
13.8
1957
13,603
18.8
1958
20,235
26.1
1959
22,981
27.8
When desegregation began in 1954,
only 38 white schools (in contrast to 78
today) reported the entrance of Negro
pupils. None had as high as 50 per cent.
Nearly half had less than 10 Negroes
enrolled, and five of these had only one.
Since then changes in racial occu
pancy of residential areas have been so
widespread that 22 schools classified as
formerly white now have Negro enroll
ments of more than 50 per cent. Last
year there were 17 such schools. The
schools in which Negroes have attained
the majority include two secondary
schools.
Sixteen formerly white schools have
from 20 to 50 per cent Negro enroll
ment, which is the same number as last
year. These include two senior high
schools. Thirteen (again the same as last
year) have from 10 to 20 per cent Negro
enrollment, which includes one junior
high and three senior highs. White
schools with less than 10 per cent Negro
enrollment number 27 (five less than
last year), and of these 19 have under
five per cent.
RESEGREGATION TREND
To anyone who has watched these
percentage figures in recent years, the
trend toward resegregation is quite ap
parent. Formerly white schools have
gradually moved upward from the one-
to-10 percent Negro enrollment group
to the 10-to-20 per cent grouping and
from there to 30, 50 and 90 per cent.
Some of the formerly white schools
are now above 90 per cent Negro. One
in north-central Baltimore has 36 white
and 1,309 Negro pupils; another in east
Baltimore has 44 white and 1,7% Ne
groes; a third in west Baltimore has
nine white and 354 Negroes; and sev
eral others have equally high percent
ages.
The racial shift in the schools directly
reflects the racial change in the neigh
borhood surrounding the schools and is
indicative of the white flight to the sub
urbs in the face of an expanding Negro
population. The change of racial occu
pancy in a neighborhood has an initial
effect on the nearest elementary schools
and gradually, as the change widens,
secondary schools also are affected.
Thus, one junior high in east Baltimore
has shifted from an all-white status in
1953 to having 2,114 Negroes in an en
rollment of 2,369. And a new junior high
in what was once a white section of
west Baltimore opened last fall with
two white and 1,963 Negro pupils.
The change is not always inexorable.
One may note that a junior high in west
Baltimore that last year had 1,743 white
pupils and 820 Negroes now has 1,957
whites and 820 Negroes, showing a con
tinued white gain after substantial in
tegration had taken place. Another ex
ample is a high school that was the
scene of white disturbances when de
segregation began in 1954. The white
population at the school (junior and
senior high combined) rose in the past
year from 1,258 to 1,355, a gain that ex
ceeded numerically the Negro increase
from 265 pupils to 294. The figures sug
gest that where neighborhoods are rela
tively stable, the schools also are stable.
The Maryland General Assembly,
which devotes sessions in even-num
bered years to the budget and statewide
the proposals would have prohibited
segregation in restaurants and overnight
accommodations.
The salaries of teachers of more than
10 years experience were increased
through a budgetary appropriation of
more than four million dollars and addi
tional construction funds were voted for
teachers colleges. Otherwise, public
schooling was not a legislative issue.
The only bill to pass that touched on
race relations was one introduced by
the only Negro in the Maryland Senate,
J. Alvin Jones of Baltimore. Jones was
successful in having the subtitle of a
state commision changed from "Com
mission to Study Problems Affecting
Colored Population” to “Commission on
Interracial Problems and Relations.” His
bill also changed the wording of inter
racial relations and omitted the refer
ence to the “welfare of the colored
race.”
The commission, which has advised
county school systems from time to time
on aspects of desegregation, is already
known by the new subtitle, which the
Jones bill sets forth.
Harford County school authorities
have responded in U.S. district court to
the suit filed by NAACP attorneys in
the case of Pettit v. Harford County
Board of Education.
Young Pettit is a Negro boy who
sought to enter the ninth grade of a
white high school in advance of the
county’s stair-step desegregation pro
gram, which had only reached the first
eight grades. Pettit was subjected to a
special screening process, which dis
trict court previously approved for Ne
groes who seek to become an exception
to the timetable. It consisted of a review
of his scholastic potential and readiness
to adjust to a white high school. His
transfer request was one of two disal
lowed, while four others were approved.
SAYS RIGHTS DENIED
Pettit, through his attorneys, contends
that his constitutional rights are denied
by a test applicable to Negroes only and
that conditions in Harford County,
where desegregation is far advanced,
have “so changed as to no longer justify
the application of special tests to Ne
groes.” The reply filed by county school
officials contends that they acted in ac
cordance with the 1957 order of the dis
trict court and that no racial discrim
ination was involved in the denial of
the Pettit transfer request.
In another case related to school seg
regation, NAACP attorneys have sought
an injunction by a state court against
continued segregation in Maryland’s
juvenile training schools. The state now
operates four separate institutions for
delinquent white boys, white girls, Ne
gro boys and Negro girls.
The suit was filed on behalf of a Ne
gro boy who, his attorneys say, cannot
receive rehabilitation benefits in the
Negro training school equal to those in
the white institution.
Desegregation in Baltimore Schools*
Number of Schools by Year
1953
1951
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
Elementary
White
74
42
37
31
31
32
34
Negro
50
51
46
44
43
42
45
Both
0
38
48
59
59
66
65
TOTAL
124
131
131
134
133
140
144
Secondary-Vocational
White
20
11
4
3
2
2
2
Negro
9
10
11
9
12
10
11
Both
1
11
17
21
22
24
24
TOTAL
30
32
32
33
36
36
37
Total
White
94
53
41
34
33
34
36
Negro
59
61
57
53
55
52
56
Both
1
49
65
80
81
90
89
TOTAL
154
163
163
167
169
176
181
Students from Johns Hopkins Univer
sity picketed a white-only restaurant
near their campus in March, while stu
dents from Morgan State College picket
ed a restaurant and movie theater in a
shopping center near their campus.
Neither issue was resolved as the month
drew to a close, although a severe fire
in the restaurant near the Hopkins cam
pus rendered the issue there a moot one.
The picketing was not new to Balti
more, although the incidents in March
followed and appeared to be stimulated
by similar incidents elsewhere in the
South. Negro pickets from Morgan Col
lege demonstrated at the same shopping
center last year, and there had been
earlier protests at other locations.
* Data compiled by Bureau of Research, Baltimore Department of Education.
Elementary includes elementary-junior high when two are in a single building.
Secondary includes grades seven through twelve, special curricula, vocational-
technical and general vocational. The 1953 figures indicate that Negroes had been
admitted to a special course at one white high school prior to city-wide desegre
gation in the fall of 1954.
The lunch counters of downtown five-
and-ten-cent stores and similar variety
stores, along with the counters of a
large drug store chain, were opened to
seated Negro customers in 1953, follow
ing a lengthy campaign by the Congress
of Racial Equality. # # #
(Continued From Page 11)
cording to Dr. William E. Vickery.
Dr. Vickery, director of the commis
sion on educational organization of the
National Conference of Christians and
Jews in New York City, meets with
faculty members two days each month
to evaluate their accomplishments.
According to Vickery, “the program
seeks to view through the children’s
eyes the problems resulting from shift
ing populations.”
The project includes a school that
has radically changed in its enroll
ment, two that are in the process of
change and one that is expected to
change within the next two years.
60 TEACHERS
Sixty teachers are involved, with
participants this year seeking to deter
mine the nature of the problem, the
program assumptions, and the neces
sary skills. Experimental implementa
tion will be added next year, with the
third year used to determine the va
lidity of the program assumption.
The pupils are urged to speak and
write about their feelings toward
their neighborhood and the people who
live there.
Many of the pupils, the teachers have
discovered, know more about the
seamy side of life than they had imag
ined. Fighting, gambling and drink
ing in their own family situations are
common occurrences and the children
talk about them freely.
Papers turned in by the students are
being analyzed by Bruce R. Joyce,
an assistant professor of education at
the University of Delaware.
Both of Delaware’s U. S. senators
were criticized by a spokesman from
the National Assn, for the Advance
ment of Colored People for failing to
vote for cloture during the civil rights
debate.
“Sen. J. Allen Frear’s jocular ‘No’
rang out and Sen. John J. Williams’
mumbled ‘No’ could hardly be heard
as unconcern for southern Negro suf
frage was registered in the Senate’s
defeat of the proposed limitation of de
bate bill,” the spokesman said.
That was the reaction of Miss Pau
line A. Young, director of the Wilming
ton membership campaign of the
NAACP, who was part of a 15-member
state delegation in Washington during
the debate.
“It is a disturbing picture of irre
sponsibility and blindness,” added
George A. Johnson, recently retired
principal of the Howard High School
in Wilmington, another member of the
delegation.
“A false picture of democracy is be
ing shown to the world,” he concluded.
Miss Young noted that U. S. Rep.
Harris B. McDowell Jr., contrary to
Sen. Frear and Sen. Williams, already
has endorsed strong civil rights legis
lation by signing the discharge petition
for House discussion and debate.
Alumni of Delaware State College,
for the first time in history, have
launched a fund-raising drive, with a
goal of $40,000 to aid the physical plant.
Harley F. Taylor, president of the
alumni association, is chairman of the
fund drive for the Negro college.
“The drive is an historic effort on
the part of the alumni association, re
quiring cooperative effort and many
sacrifices by graduates and friends,”
said Dr. Jerome H. Holland, president
of the college.
NAACP DRIVE
The Wilmington branch of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, with a membership
of 1,990 last year, has set a goal of
5,000 during the current drive.
A house-to-house canvas will be
used for the first time, according to
the Rev. J. Leonard Morgan, branch
president. Until now, membership so
licitation has been on a personal basis,
but the branch has the members now
to make a stronger drive for growth,
he said.
Among other speakers at the mem
bership rally was Miss Mabel G. Tur
ner, assistant U. S. district attorney
in Philadelphia, who reviewed the his
tory and accomplishments of the
NAACP.
She challenged those who oppose its
goal as written in its constitution “to
promote the economic, civic, political
and social betterment of colored peo-
P le ” # # #