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NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL I960—PAGE 13
Governor
CHARLOTTE, N. C.
i^ov. Luther H. Hodges called
^ on officials of state-supported
colleges to help stop the Negro
protests against segregated eating
facilities.
The protests, which began in
Greensboro Feb. 1 and spread to
other North Carolina cities and
through many southern states,
continued through much of
March, though with less violence
and less frequency than during
February. (See “Community Ac
tion.”)
The Yancey County school board,
which is being sued for its failure to
admit the county’s 27 Negro students
to white schools, borrowed $30,000 from
the state and now proposes to build a
school for the Negro students. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Segregation is rapidly becoming an
issue in North Carolina’s gubernatorial
campaign as four major candidates
seek the Democratic Party’s nomina
tion. The first primary will be held
May 28. (See “Political Activity.”)
C. B. Deane, president of the North
Carolina Baptist Convention and for
mer Eighth Congressional District
representative, told a group of Baptist
ministers that Baptists cannot “tiptoe
around the racial issue.” He called on
trustees of Baptist colleges to consider
admitting Negro students. (See “What
They Say.”)
North Carolina’s Gov. Luther H.
Hodges says he has no sympathy for
lunch counter demonstrators “who de
liberately engage in activities which
any reasonable person can see will re
sult in a breakdown of law and or-
order.”
Reading a prepared statement at a
press conference, the governor said:
“As I have previously stated, I do
not think these demonstrations do any
good, or in the final analysis will even
serve to accomplish the objectives of
the demonstrators.”
In answer to a question from a re
porter, the governor said he was not
referring to Negroes who engage in
peaceful protests or simply enter a
store, but rather to those who “cause
disorder or refuse to obey an order to
leave either by the owner or a police
officer.”
Hodges also told reporters he had
called the attention of heads of all
state-operated colleges and universities
to a statement by Dr. Gordon W.
Blackwell, chancellor of Woman’s
College in Greensboro.
Dr. Blackwell made his comments in
a talk to Woman’s College students
Feb. 9, about a week after demonstra
tions by students from A&T College, a
state-supported Negro school. A few
Woman’s College students had, by that
time, participated in the demonstra
tions along with the Negro students.
DIRECTS ATTENTION
The governor directed special atten
tion to this portion of Dr. Blackwell’s
remarks:
“. . . Your responsibilty as students
of Women’s College goes beyond per
sonal considerations. Your class jacket
is a symbol of the college. On and off
the campus you represent this institu
tion. Your actions bring credit or dis
credit to the college. . . . The results of
your actions may affect many others in
a kind of chain reaction as has been
painfully demonstrated last week.
“There is no blinking the fact that
participation in this demonstration by
several of our students, no matter how
high their motives, definitely resulted
in increasing the inflammatory quality
of the situation . . . More specifically,
I advise each of you to refrain from
any public demonstration in connection
with the issue now before the com
munity or any similar issue which may
arise in the future.”
SERVICE RESUMED
Meanwhile, in Greensboro, lunch
counter service was resumed at F. W.
Woolworth Co. and S. H. Kress & Co.
on Feb. 24. The counters had closed
Feb. 6. Demonstrations in Greensboro
have halted while a special committee
appointed by the mayor seeks to find
a solution.
In Raleigh, on Feb. 25, so many Ne
gro students from Shaw University—
an estimated 700—sought to attend the
trials of 43 Negro students arrested
Tells Colleges To Curb Protests
North Carolina
Segregation-Desegregation Status
Number of districts, 174: 174 biracial; 7 desegregated.
Total state enrollment: 816,682 white; 302,060 Negro.
Enrollment of desegregated districts: 76,608 white, 43,506 Negro.
Enrollment of 12 desegregated schools: 12,054 white; 34 Negro.
Enrollment by desegregated districts and schools:
White
Craven County
4,992 white; 2,466 Negro
Negro
Havelock Elem.
803
5
Graham Barden Elem.
Wayne County
7,200 white; 4,800 Negro
846
4
Meadow Lane Elem.
Charlotte
20,242 white; 12,080 Negro
597
3
Garringer High
High Point
8,132 white; 2,636 Negro
1,549
1
Femdale Jr. High
1,324
1
Femdale Sr. High
Greensboro
15,076 white; 5,886 Negro
1,425
1
Gillespie Elem. (Grades 1-9)
Winston-Salem
12,766 white; 9,016 Negro
525
5
Easton Elem.
418
6
Reynolds High
Durham
8,200 white; 6,622 Negro
1,634
1
Brogdan Jr. High
657
2
Carr Jr. High
912
2
Durham High
1,364
3
TOTALS
12,054
34
earlier on trespass charges that it was
necessary to postpone the trials.
Other actions involved lunch coun
ter protests:
A Negro student from Kittrell Col
lege, near Henderson, was sentenced
to 60 days on the roads in the beating
of a white man who was delivering
groceries to the college.
Robert Roberson, 24, of New York
City, entered a guilty plea to simple
assault on Eddie Thompson. The sen
tence was appealed. Roberson had ac
cused Thompson of kicking him during
a demonstration in which students
marched seven miles from Kittrell to
Henderson to protest. Thompson said
he was in another city, at work, at the
time, and his employers backed his
statement.
About 275 Shaw University students
staged a prayer meeting on the capitol
steps in Raleigh.
Demonstrations continued, though
with less frequency, in Winston-Salem,
and most lunch counters remained
closed.
About 100 students marched quietly
from Barber-Scotia College to down
town Concord to protest segregated
lunch counters.
NEGROES SERVED
On March 8, six Negro college stu
dents were served without incident at
drug store lunch counters in Salisbury,
and another small group was served at
a store in Winston-Salem.
Demonstrations have also taken place
in Chapel Hill.
In Winston-Salem, 22 persons—10
white students from Wake Forest Col
lege, nine Negro students from state-
supported Winston-Salem State Teach
ers College and three other Negroes—
were convicted of trespassing.
But Municipal Court Judge Leroy
Sams withheld sentences because, he
said, the students did not intend to
violate the law.
PROTESTS SPREAD
Protests have also spread during the
month to Wilmington and Shelby.
Three white youths grabbed a pla
card from a Negro picket in Shelby
and broke the sign, then struck the
picket several times with the staff.
Sporadic demonstrations also were
held during the month in Durham and
Charlotte.
In Charlotte, Mayor James S. Smith
announced the formation of a special
citizens committee to deal with racial
and religious differences in the com
munity. He said it would be a per
manent organization, not a temporary
group to deal only with lunch counter
protests.
Johnson C. Smith University stu
dents, who had demonstrated regularly
during February, delayed their protests
for two weeks to await committee de
velopments. Mayor Smith announced
appointment of a four-member inter
racial advisory group, which will help
him pick from 50 to 100 members of
what he calls the Mayor’s Friendly
Relations Committee.
At the end of the month, invitations
had been sent to 20 persons to join the
committee, Smith students were impa
tient and demonstrations were being
held by limited numbers—a dozen to
perhaps 50—one or two days a week.
Three Smith students, all Negro boys,
were arrested in Charlotte. One was
convicted of assault on a female in a
pushing incident. A second was con
victed of a violation of a fire ordi
nance, failing to move when ordered
by firemen to do so. The third was
found not guilty of assault in an al
leged pushing incident with a white
man.
TAKE STANDS
Several groups in North Carolina
have taken public stands on the dem
onstrations by Negro students
In Chapel Hill, an organization of
Negro and white students has been
formed at the University of North
Carolina to back the protest move
ment. But the student newspaper, The
Daily Tar Heel, published an editorial
commending Gov. Hodges for his stand
against the demonstrations.
Harry Golden, editor of the Carolina
Israelite in Charlotte, spoke to a stu
dent assembly in Raleigh. President
Eisenhower’s suggestion for bi-racial
conferences to settle differences came
“just six years late,” he said.
More than 200 delegates, represent
ing about 30,000 members of about 100
local unions, attended the state con
vention of the AFL-CIO. Their reso
lution said:
“That this third annual convention
of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO
express its approval of the efforts of
these Negro student groups and ex
press our disapproval of the unwar
ranted police actions now being car
ried out in many of these demonstra
tions as violations of rights of Ameri
can citizens to free speech and free
assembly.”
Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for
the NAACP, spoke to a mass member
ship rally of the Charlotte NAACP,
Asked why the protest movement had
spread so rapidly through the South,
Marshall said he thought that young
people are impatient with the slowness
of court action in furthering equality.
“And if you mean, are the young
people impatient with me, the answer
is yes,” he said.
He urged Negroes not to slacken
their pace in their drive for equality.
He also specifically called on Negro
parents in North Carolina to apply for
transfers from Negro to white schools
for their children in an effort to speed
desegregation in public schools.
Roy Wilkins, NAACP executive sec
retary, speaking in Durham, said Pres
ident Eisenhower’s suggestion for bi
racial conferences had come too late,
though Wilkins praised the idea.
The North Carolina State Board of
Education voted to finance a three-
room schoolhouse for 27 Negro stu
dents in Yancey County. There has
been no school for Negroes in Yancey
County since the spring of 1958. It was
closed then, after being condemned as
unfit for use. It was a one-room, one-
teacher school.
The State Board of Education loaned
$30,000 for the construction to the
Yancey board, which has been oppos
ing efforts of the Negro students to
gain admission to the county’s all-
white elementary and high schools.
The Yancey County loan application
passed the state board unanimously
when it was presented to the full
board. Earlier, in the board’s nine-
member finance committee, three per
sons had opposed it.
Dr. Charles E. Jordan of Duke Uni
versity said he voted against the loan
in committee when it came up “be
cause I think we have enough small
school houses in North Carolina.”
H. L. Trigg of Raleigh, the State
Board of Education’s only Negro mem
ber, said he also voted against the loan
because he is opposed to more small
schools.
“There was no controversy about
this at all,” he said. “It was discussed
along the line of school standards.”
The third opposing vote was cast by
Charles W. McCrary of Asheboro who
declined comment.
Attempts by Yancey County Negroes
to enter all-white schools resulted in
national attention last year when the
National Assn, for the Advancement
of Colored People purchased full-page
advertisements in some northern news
papers, including The New York
Times, to point out that the county
offered no school for Negroes.
The county’s Negro children applied
for admission to white schools last
summer, were rejected and were as
signed to the Asheville city school sys
tem in adjacent Buncombe County.
They had attended Asheville schools
last year, too. This year, however,
parents of the students declined to
permit them to make the daily bus
trip—eighty miles round trip—to Ashe
ville schools.
Most of the elementary students are
being taught by a single Negro teacher
in a church basement. She is privately
employed by an interracial group. The
four high school students are attend
ing a private school in Asheville. Most
of them are boarding in Asheville also.
A suit to force desegregation of
Yancey County’s schools is now pend
ing in Western Federal District Court
and the students’ NAACP attorney is
pressing for a hearing this spring.
The proposed $30,000 structure,
which would be built in Burnsville,
the county seat, would serve grades
one through 12 and would have two
classrooms, a multi-purpose room and
restrooms.
t
IEGAL ACTION
Judge Edwin M. Stanley of the Mid
dle District Federal Court has dis
missed a lingering suit against the
Greensboro Board of Education.
The suit was brought by Readell
McCoy on behalf of his children, Va-
larie, Eric and Thetus McCoy, and by
James Tonkins Jr. on behalf of his
son, Michael A. Tonkins.
In their original complaint, filed Feb.
10, 1959, the plaintiffs charged that in
1958 the four Negro children had been
denied reassignment to the Caldwell
School, at that time an all-white
school.
They asked the court to enter a per
manent injunction “forever restraining
and enjoining” the board from operat
ing the Greensboro public schools on
a segregated basis.
Judge Stanley, in an opinion on Jan.
14, 1960, had indicated he would dis
miss the suit.
At that time, he said: “Since it is
now uncontroverted that the minor
plaintiffs eligible to attend the Cald
well School have been assigned to and
are now attending that school, the
only legal question presented has be
come moot, and there remains nothing
for the court to adjudicate.”
Attorneys for the Negroes had
sought to charge in a proposed sup
plemental complaint that while three
of the four students had been assigned
to Caldwell School for the 1959-60
term, their reassignment had been
carried out in such a manner as to
perpetuate segregation in the local
schools.
Caldwell School and Pearson Street
School, which had been attended sole
ly by Negroes, were consolidated last
June. The two units are on the same
campus.
Subsequently, the board of educa
tion approved the transfer of all white
students and teachers from Caldwell
School to other, all-white schools for
this year, leaving Caldwell as an all-
Negro school.
The Negroes’ attorneys sought to
charge in the supplemental complaint
that the action taken in consolidating
the Pearson Street and Caldwell
Schools was part of a general pattern
of maintaining segregation, except for
token desegregation, which Greensboro
has had for three years.
Judge Stanley declined to permit the
supplemental complaint, however. He
said: “Plaintiffs are complaining of the
action taken by the board in reassign
ing white pupils, not the action taken
on their own applications for reassign
ment.” Later, Judge Stanley said: “The
court could grant no relief under the
proposed supplementary complaint and
. . . the only legal action presented in
this action has become moot.”
All the children involved are at
tending Caldwell, except Thetus Mc
Coy who is attending Lincoln Junior
High, a Negro school.
Dr. I. Beverly Lake, former assistant
attorney general, former professor of
law at Wake Forest College and now
a lawyer in Raleigh, has entered the
Democratic primary for governor. He
pledged that he will use “every power
and influence of the (governor’s) office
to preserve our public schools against
the destruction of their effectiveness
which will surely result from the com
plete integration contemplated by the
National Assn, for the Advancement of
Colored People.”
In an obvious reference to one of
his opponents—former Atty. Gen. Mal
colm B. Seawell, who resigned last
month to enter the race—Lake said:
“A candidate for governor who says
the decision of the United States Su
preme Court in the school segregation
cases is the ‘law of the land’ is there
by saying he agrees with the NAACP’s
position that the Constitution of the
United States means what the judges
in that decision said it means.”
STATED POSITION
Seawell has stated his position this
way:
“We in North Carolina are confront
ed with facts and not with theories at
this time. We must begin with the
premise that the law enunciated in the
Brown decision is the law of the land.”
Seawell has contended that when the
General Assembly and the state’s vot
ers approved the pupil assignment law
and the local option plan for closing
schools in emergencies, they recog
nized that the Brown decision had in
validated any North Carolina laws re
quiring segregation in schools.
Still another major candidate, Terry
Sanford, Fayetteville attorney, has
taken this stand:
“I stand with 90 per cent of the
people of our state who approve of
the present North Carolina approach
which is being copied by other south
ern states. I haven’t seen any other
workable plan.”
John D. Larkins of Trenton, fourth
major candidates in the primary, has
yet to state his views on the issue.
Lake, when he announced his can
didacy, was asked what he thought of
the pupil assignment and other school
assignment laws.
“It’s a good law,” he said, with a
smile. “That may be due in part to the
fact that I wrote it.” Lake did this as
an assistant attorney general (not un
der Seawall, incidentally, who took
office some time after Lake resigned).
Lake added: “The full powers of
North Carolina must be used to pre
vent a . . . destruction of the effec
tiveness of the public schools in this
state.”
NEW ATTORNEY GENERAL
T. Wade Bruton, 57, replaced Sea
well as North Carolina’s attorney gen
eral. Bruton, an assistant attorney gen
eral for 26 years, was appointed by
Gov. Hodges.
Bruton said North Carolina has
shown that the school segregation
problem “can be met head-on with a
minimum of difficulty.”
Some registrars in Northampton and
Halifax counties have required Negroes
to take spelling tests to qualify as vot
ers, a Negro minister at Weldon
charged. Atty. Gen. Bruton ruled such
(See NORTH CAROLINA, Page 14)