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LOUISIANA
Orleans Board
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL I960—PAGE 15
NEW ORLEANS, La.
T' he Orleans Parish Court of
A Appeals ruled that the state
Legislature, not school boards,
have the right to say whether
schools will be integrated or seg
regated. Orleans Parish school
board members look to the de
cision as a means of getting around
a federal court order that the
board present a plan of integra
tion by May 16. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
The father of two white chil
dren, in a move unprecedented in
Louisiana, filed suit in federal
court to intervene in a Negro at
tempt to desegregate public
schools in East Baton Rouge Par
ish (county). He claimed deseg
regation would have a detrimental
effect on his children.
The parent’s suit is now under
advisement along with the entire
question of whether the East Ba
ton Rouge and St. Helena Parish
schools will be desegregated. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Students of Dillard University, a
Negro institution, demonstrated quietly
under a strict set of self-imposed rules
of conduct as they joined the protest
movements against race discrimina
tion in the South.
Four days after the one-day protest
marches, four white youths burned a
cross in front of the university and
placed two anti-integration signs on
the campus. (See “In the Colleges.”)
Studying School Decision
lacked equal facilities.
The complaint is not now justified,
he said, because of a change in facili
ties in St. Helena.
At New Orleans, the Orleans Parish
Court of Appeals said that the Legis
lature reserves unto itself the right to
classify public schools as all-white or
all-Negro or to say whether a school
should be integrated.
The interpretation of the appellate
court was sought by the state attor
ney general’s office, since the law giv
ing the Legislature the power to des
ignate the race of schools has not been
tested in state courts.
U. S. District Judge J. Skelly
Wright, who has directed the Orleans
Parish school board to present an in
tegration plan by May 16, had ruled
the state law unconstitutional.
SAYS CANNOT COMPLY
Atty. Gen. Jack P. F. Gremillion
said after the appellate court ruling
that the Orleans Parish school board
cannot comply with Judge Wright’s
order. The board does not have the
authority to say which schools are for
white, which for Negro, and which are
integrated, the state official said.
“The New Orleans schools will not
be integrated unless the Legislature
consents to it,” Gremillion added.
Lloyd J. Rittiner, president of the
parish school board, said he would
meet with Judge Wright to find out
where the school board stands.
The school board had not made pub
lic any plan it might be readying for
Judge Wright. Members of the board
had been waiting for the appeals court
decision.
UNDER ADVISEMENT
Judge Wright, sitting at Baton
Rouge, took under advisement the re
quest of Negro attorneys for a sum
mary judgment to integrate the pub
lic schools of East Baton Rouge and
St. Helena parishes, and six trade
schools.
He also took under advisement a
motion for intervention filed by a
white man, R. O. McCraine of Zachary,
who says that integration of the East
Baton Rouge schools would be detri
mental to his two children.
J. Y. Sanders Jr., attorney for Mc
Craine and a former U. S. representa
tive, filed the surprise intervention
move in New Orleans a week before
the summary judgment request was
argued.
The effect would be to name Mc
Craine a defendant in the Negro suit.
Sanders said:
“The Supreme Court stated that
segregation of white and colored chil
dren in public schools had a detri
mental effect on colored children. It
seems to me that the courts of this
country should consider the effect of
integration on white children.
“I cannot conceive of a court feel
ing they should consider the effect on
colored children alone. It is our pur
pose to present to the court the un-
disputable fact that a policy of inte
grated schools will have a detrimental
effect on white children of the com
munity.”
Sanders filed affidavits that said that
Negroes in the five-year period end
ing in 1954 had 10 times more illegiti
mate births than whites, and that Ne
gro girls between the school age years
of 10 and 14 had 22 illegitimate chil
dren to one for white girls of the same
age.
Other affidavits listed 70 cases of
venereal disease among Negro children
under five years old to one for white,
and 955 Negro cases of venereal dis
ease in the 6 to 18 age bracket to 23
white.
Only 33 per cent of Negro children
tested were ready to read at school
entrance time as compared with 80
per cent of the whites, another of the
19 affidavits said.
In arguing for the summary judge
ment, Attorney A. P. Tureaud at
tacked the Louisiana public placement
law as it became the central point of
interest in the hearing.
He said the placement law applied,
apparently, only to Negroes since “not
a single Negro child” is attending a
white school in Louisiana.
LAW UNTESTED
The Louisiana placement law, pat
terned after an Alabama law upheld
by the U. S. Supreme Court, has not
been tested in Louisiana courts, either
state or federal.
Judge Wright, during the Baton
Rouge proceeding, repeatedly ex
pressed interest in the legal implica
tions of the 1958 law.
Dist. Atty. J. St. Clair Favrot of
Baton Rouge said the Supreme Court
has recognized the rights of school
boards to decide where they’re going
to put their pupils. The law, he said,
with regard to pupil placement is con
stitutional and the “plaintiffs must
show where it is unconstitutional.”
St. Helena Parish Dist. Atty. Dun
can Kemp told Judge Wright that the
suit against the public schools of his
parish had been filed originally in
1952 because Negroes and whites
Dillard University students drew up
a 10-point rule of conduct for orderly
anti-segregation demonstrations. About
200 students paraded on the front
lawn of their expansive campus front
ing U. S. Route 90 in the Gentilly area
of New Orleans.
Students at the private school
marched under the direction of Ern
est Kinchen Jr., carrying banners pro
claiming “United We Stand,” “Action
With No Violence,” “Human Rights vs.
Southern Dogma,” “Filibuster—No Ac
tion—Just Words.”
Largest of the signs read “Desegre-
(See LOUISIANA, Page 16)
MISSOURI
Racial, Economic Patterns Figure in Defeat of Bonds
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
r^IVERSE RACIAL AND ECONOMIC
^--'patterns in the city of St. Louis
apparently had some relation to
the defeat of the St. Louis Board
of Education’s school construction
and fire-safety bond issue propos
als at a special election March 22.
Depressed Negro areas went
heavily for the bonds, but not
enough to offset negative votes
from substantial home owners in
white south and southwest St.
Louis.
In the election, a proposal to in
crease the school operating tax by
26 cents—bringing it to $1.77 on
each $100 assessed property valu
ation—was approved by 65,830 for
and 36,832 against. Only a simple
majority vote was required for
passage.
The two bond issue proposals, total
ing $29,525,000, required favorable ma
jorities of two thirds of those voting.
Both got substantial majorities and only
narrowly failed of passage. It is expect
ed the Board of Education will resubmit
both, either in the immediate future or
next summer.
One of the proposals was for issuance
of $24,297,000 in bonds for school con
struction, expansion and modernization.
This received 62,101 favorable votes and
35,784 against. It was 3,155 votes short
of the two-thirds majority required.
The other proposal was for issuance
of $5,238,000 in bonds for fire safety im
provements needed to bring school
buildings into compliance with a new
city ordinance. The vote was 63,295 for
and 32,790 against. The proposition failed
by only 761 votes.
EARMARK FUNDS
Of the 26-cent increase in the school
operating tax that St. Louis voters did
approve, 22 cents, or 85 per cent, was
earmarked for the instruction depart
ment and will go largely for a $600-a-
year salary increase to teachers and for
hiring 105 new teachers to cope with in
creased enrollments expected next year.
It was brought out in Southern School
News (March 1960) that the St. Louis
school construction bond issue proposal
was for 14 new elementary schools, 11
additions to elementary schools and 10
elementary school playground expan
sions, as well as for a new Northwest
High School and other facilities.
A great part of the elementary school
improvements was intended for pre
dominantly Negro central and west cen
tral parts of St. Louis, particularly in
the area of recent Negro residential ex
pansion. In these areas, the character of
neighborhoods had shifted in many in
stances from single family to multiple
dwellings, and the number of children
—chiefly Negro—to be accommodated in
school districts had increased drastically.
By contrast the improvements intend
ed for the predominantly white south
and southwest parts of St. Louis were
relatively minor. These neighborhoods
are quite static and slow to change, and
are regarded as politically conservative.
They have not been subjected to the
population pressures that prevail in the
transition areas, and in some sections
the population is heavily Catholic, so
that children attend parochial rather
than public schools.
GOT SUPPORT
The special school election March 22
was preceded by a very intensive cam
paign on behalf of the bond issues and
the tax increase. Both major newspa
pers gave enthusiastic support. So did
a long list of political and civic organi
zation, Catholic and Protestant and
Jewish leaders, the Chamber of Com
merce of Metropolitan St. Louis, and
school-related groups such as parents
and teachers.
The metropolitan press pointed out in
editorials that unless the tax increase
passed St. Louis would be offering less
to prospective new teachers than 18 of
the 28 St. Louis county school districts.
It was brought out that St. Louis stood
15th among the 18 largest cities in
school spending per pupil and eighth
among the 14 largest cities in the Great
Lakes-Great Plains region. Before
March 22, the St. Louis expenditure
was $353 a pupil.
SCHOOLS CROWDED
With regard to urgent need for new
elementary schools, the newspapers em
phasized the crowded situation in the
west central section, an area of recent
Negro expansion. The Post-Dispatch
published photographs showing crowd
ed conditions in classrooms and lines of
Negro children waiting to board busses
for transportation to other less crowded
districts. Each day some 1,500 children
are taken in chartered busses from their
own districts to less crowded schools.
Against this background, with no offi
cial or public mention of racial or eco
nomic differences, the voting returns in
dicated some relationship between the
racial and economic character of neigh
borhoods and the degree of support giv
en to the proposals for improving the
public schools.
Only three of the city’s 28 wards
showed a majority against the tax in
crease for raising the pay of teachers.
These were the Tenth, Twelfth and
Thirteenth Wards in south St. Louis, an
area of individual white home owners.
In the heavily Negro sections, including
public housing projects, the vote by
wards ran as high as 15 to one in favor
of the increase.
In the case of the defeated $24,297,000
bond issue proposal for new schools and
other purposes, only four of the city’s
wards failed to give the bond issue a
simple majority. These were the Tenth,
Twelfth and Thirteenth again—all in
south St. Louis as aforementioned—and
the Twenty-Seventh Ward in northwest
St. Louis, where there has been contro
versy about placement of the proposed
new Northwest High School.
The construction bond issue proposal
received less than a two-thirds majority
in 12 other wards of the city. These in
cluded eight in south St. Louis and four
in chiefly white areas of home owners
in north St. Louis. The predominantly
Negro wards in the central and north
central part of St. Louis gave the pro
posal heavy majorities.
It was a similar story in the case of
the $5,238,000 bond issue for school fire
safety improvements. Only the Thir
teenth Ward in south St. Louis failed to
give this even a simple majority. Of the
thirteen others that failed to give the
defeated proposal a two-thirds majority,
most were in south St. Louis. The mas
sively favorable vote was in the heavily
Negro wards.
OFFICIALS RALLY
While very disappointed in the out
come of the bond issue election, St.
Louis school officials rallied quickly and
began plans for resubmission of the
proposals. Supt. of Instruction Philip J.
Hickey blamed the failure of the bond
issue propositions on the fact that many
voters were unfamiliar with the city’s
newly introduced voting machines.
Commenting on the outcome, the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch said editorially: “If
the school board is to have better luck
the next time it submits the construction
and fire-safety bond proposals, it will
have to do some intensive missionary
work in south St. Louis. Defeat of the
two proposals . . . can be traced directly
to the refusal of a substantial bloc of
home owners in 10 wards in south and
southwest St. Louis to take on the mod
est financial burden of retiring the
bonds.”
With considerable pride, St. Louis
Supt. Hickey and Asst. Supt. William
Kottmeyer published tables in March
showing achievement of eighth grade-
high pupils in reading, language and
arithmetic for five consecutive terms.
The tests are administered in the eighth
month of the eighth grade in order that
children may be placed in the three-
track educational system in the city’s
high schools.
The three-track program was adopt
ed in 1957 (SSN, Jan. 1958) to provide a
high school curriculum suited to the
wide range of interests, abilities and
achievements of the public school pop
ulation. The proportion of Negroes in
elementary schools in St. Louis now is
estimated at 50 per cent, and the overall
proportion of Negroes in public schools
is moving toward 50 per cent.
Taking the national achievement level
at 8.8, the new St. Louis report showed
that St. Louis pupils as a group are at
national norms in reading and arithme
tic, and a month ahead of the national
norm in language. This is contrasted
with the 1957-58 first term, when the St.
Louis level for all schools was five
months below the national norms in
reading and arithmetic, and six months
below in language.
“In view of the large number of in
migrants from all parts of the country
and an unprecedented movement of pu
pils within the city, these achievement
figures are highly commendable and in
dicative of the vigorous efforts of our
teachers,” Hickey said.
FACE PROBLEMS
While neither Hickey, Kottmeyer nor
the report made any reference to the
race or economic status of school chil
dren, St. Louis has had to face educa
tional, financial and social problems in
recent years arising out of in-migration
of Negroes from southern states. There
also has been a great deal of movement
within the city because of the razing of
Negro slums in land clearance and ur
ban redevelopment projects such as Mill
Creek Valley.
St. Louis elementary schools are di
vided administratively into five groups
according to geographical area. The
Banneker and Turner groups are heavi
ly Negro in school population; the Ash
land and South Grand groups have 25
to 30 per cent Negroes, and the Long
group has practically no Negroes.
A comparison of achievement levels
for the five consecutive terms from the
first half of 1957-58 to the first half of
1959-60 shows the Long group well
ahead of the other four at the outset and
still running well ahead. The two heavi
ly Negro groups were well behind the
other three at the outset and they are
still behind.
But the two heavily Negro elementary
school groups, Banneker and Turner,
have shown impressive improvement.
Banneker, in one of the city’s most de
pressed areas, had median scores of 7.7
in reading, 7.6 in language and 7.8 in
arithmetic for the first term of 1957-58.
For the first term of 1959-60 (this me
dian based only on pupils certified to
high schools in Tracks I, H and IH) the
Banneker median levels were 8.2, 8.3,
and 8.3 respectively.
COMING CLOSER
The heavily Negro Turner group
made similar improvement. Neither
group is up to national norms, but they
are coming closer.
The Long (virtually all-white) group
had median scores of 9.3 in reading, 8.9
in language and 9 in arithmetic for the
first term 1957-58. These scores were
brought up to 9.6, 9.3 and 9.6, respective
ly, in the most recent reading. That, of
couse, is well above national norm.
Hickey said that the percentage of
freshman students enrolled in the high
school Track I program, the most de
manding of the three levels of study,
had risen from 13 per cent in the fall
of 1957 to 23 per cent in the fall of 1959.
He attributed this to better instruction
in elementary schools.
F. W. Woolworth Co. stores in St.
Louis and East St. Louis were picketed
in March by members of the Congress
of Racial Equality. Demonstrators out
side of the company’s stores carried
placards protesting against discrimina
tion.
A joint statement from Miss Wanda
Penny, chairman of the St. Louis group,
and Homer Randolph, chairman of the
CORE chapter in East St. Louis, made it
clear that the demonstrators were ob
jecting to the Woolworth concern’s poli
cies in the South and were demonstrat
ing here in support of lunch counter sit-
down strikes in southern cities.
The demonstrators included students
from private and publicly supported
colleges and universities in the St. Louis
area.
The City Council of University City,
in the St. Louis environs, approved in
mid-march the establishment of a nine-
member Commission on Human Rela
tions. The commission will be an advis
ory group to foster racial and religious
tolerance.
Establishment of the commission was
approved following the defeat by the
City Council Feb. 8 of a controversial
bill aimed at prohibiting racial descrim-
ination in public places. (SSN, Feb. 1960)
The move to get a public accommoda- .
tions bill passed in University City was
the outgrowth of an incident in which
four Washington University students
were denied service at an off-campus
restaurant Feb. 14, 1959. The students
included three Negroes. (SSN, March
1959).
One of the functions of the new Uni
versity City Commission on Human Re
lations will be recommending legisla
tion to “eliminate discriminatory prac
tices arising from prejudice.” University
City has few Negroes at present but is
in the path of the present westward
course of Negro migration in St. Louis
proper.
The United States Civil Rights Com
mission reported in Washington in
March that it had received no com
plaints from Missouri alleging denial of
voting rights because of race. It said it
had received one complaint from Mis
souri in the last two years concerning
education and 26 others in a miscellany
of subjects. # # #