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PAGE 2—APRIL I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Aid to Desegregate Schools Cut From Civil Rights Measure
(Continued From Page 1)
to prevent nunor-mongering, to gath
er scientific data on pupil perform
ance and to guard against discrimina
tion. (See “District Schools.”)
Vice President Richard M. Nixon
cited “a great deal of progress” in
Washington school desegregation, and
said he hoped the day would come
when the Metropolitan Police Boys’
Club is desegregated. (See “District
Schools.”)
After 10 days of debate, the House
passed a five-point civil rights bill
March 24 by vote of 311 to 109. The
Senate, which had been engaged in a
talkathon on civil rights on and off
since Feb. 15, immediately deserted its
own pending six-point civil rights bill
to speed the House-approved measure
to committee and back to the floor by
March 30.
The central feature of the House-
passed measure empowers federal
courts to name special voting referees
once a pattern of racial discrimination
agarnst potential voters has been as
certained. Under court guidance, the
referees would take testimony and
follow through to see to it that quali-
fied individuals could register and vote.
OTHER PROVISIONS
Other provisions of the House bill
would:
• Impose criminal penalties for in
terference with court desegregation
orders.
• Make it a crime to cross state
lines to escape prosecutions for bomb
ings, or threats or false reports of
bombings.
• Require preservation of local
voting records for two years for pos
sible federal inspection.
• Provide schooling for children of
military personnel when schools are
closed because of desegregation dis
putes in an area.
TWO OMITTED
Two administration recommendations
omitted from the House bill would
have provided statutory authority for
a committee on equal job opportuni
ties under government contracts and
federal financial grants and technical
ass stance to help communities deseg
regate their schools. Both provisions
are in the Senate bill, which had been
under debate but which appeared like
ly to be scrapped in favor of Senate
action on the House measure.
Liberals failed to include in either
the House or Senate version the so-
called “Title III” provision, which
would authorize the Justice Depart
ment to initiate injunction procedures
in desegregation disputes. The provi
sion, which had the unsuccessful
backing of the administration in 1957,
is opposed by the administration this
year.
CALLED ‘STEP FORWARD'
Atty. Gen. William P. Rogers said
the bill passed by the House was a
“historic step forward” and would
result in additional and meaningful
progress in the field of civil rights.”
But members of the Senate liberal
bloc criticized the measure as weak
and inadequate. Southern senators in
dicated they might resort to the fili
buster again to block it entirely. Sen.
Richard B. Russell (D-Ga) said those
who believe that the Senate would ac
cept whatever the House passed “are
in for a rude awakening.”
Nonetheless, the leadership felt that
even if cloture procedures had to be
invoked to limit Senate debate, the
measure would be acted on before the
Easter recess, tentatively scheduled to
start April 14.
Strategy was to keep Senate action
as closely in line with the House meas
ure as possible to avoid delays and
possible scuttling in conference com
mittees.
SOUTHERNERS DISSENT
The Democratic Advisory Council,
composed of 31 Democratic leaders
drawn mostly from outside Congress,
called on Congress March 15 to enact
“more far-reaching” civil rights leg
islation than the bills under consid
eration. Southern members dissented.
The council proposed a four-point
program of its own, which, it said,
“would do much to bring peace and
progress to race relations in the
United States.”
It added that it would not be neces
sary for Congress to go as far as the
council suggested “if we had enjoyed
vigorous executive leadership during
the past seven years.”
Dissents from the policy statement
were registered by Hugh N. Clayton of
Mississippi, Mrs. Benjamin Bryan
Everett of North Carolina, and Mrs.
Leonard Thomas of Alabama. Partial
dissents were expressed by Gov. Le-
Roy Collins of Florida, Sen. Estes Ke-
fauver of Tennessee, and Camille F.
Gravel Jr. of Louisiana.
The Advisory Council said Congress
should:
• “Demand conscientious enforce
ment of existing criminal laws and use
of congressionally-granted civil pow
ers.”
0 “Place the national legislative
branch squarely on record as opposed
to racial segregation in public schools
on the firm grounds that such segrega
tion is a clear violation of the Consti
tution and laws of the United States.”
0 “Recognize the right of a person
in federal or state custody to protec
tion by federal authorities from physi
cal injury or death.”
0 “Enact additional laws to protect,
through simple expeditious administra
tive machinery consistent with the re
cent recommendations of the Civil
Rights Commission, rights of Ameri
cans to register and vote free of dis
crimination based on race, color, re
ligion or national origin.”
PARTIAL DISSENTS
Gov. Collins said the Council’s ref
erences to school desegregation were
“entirely too generalized and unreal
istic. It is workable, practical solutions
that are needed. . .
Kefauver said he thought Congress
should limit its civil rights efforts this
year to “trying to assure qualified citi
zens the right to vote . . . ‘anti-bomb’
legislation . . . and legislation pro
viding schools for service personnel on
military reservations in states where
the public schools may be closed.”
Gravel commented, “Wisely, the
United States district courts (under
the Supreme Court decisions) are per
mitted, I believe, to enforce or delay
integration as required by local condi
tions ... I am of the opinion that
any attempt to integrate our public
schools in Louisiana and in most other
parts of the South at this time will
prove disastrous and dangerous.”
PRESS CONFERENCE
At a March 16 press conference,
President Eisenhower urged white and
Negro leaders in southern communi
ties to meet together to work out prob
lems such as those spotlighted by the
spreading lunch counter demonstra
tions.
Asked if he thought that the inci
dents throughout the South showed the
need for a White House conference on
racial problems, the President said:
“I think there ought to be bi-racial
conferences in every city and every
community of the South.” This would
be better, he added, than trying to
“direct every single thing from Wash
ington. I am one of these people that
believes there is too much interfer
ence in our private affairs . . . al
ready.”
OPINION ASKED
Eisenhower was asked what he
thought of the sit-down demonstrations
and student marches by Negroes in the
South.
“I am deeply sympathetic with the
efforts of any group to enjoy the rights,
the . . . equality that they are guaran
teed by the Constitution,” he said. “I
do not believe that violence in any
‘I See The Distinguished
Senator Has Yielded’
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
form furthers that aspiration, and I de
plore any violence that is exercised to
prevent them (from) enjoying those
rights.”
‘DRAMATIC EVIDENCE’
Leaders of the civil rights movement
were told here March 24 that the sit-
down protests are dramatic evidence
that Negro southerners are no longer
willing to accept a second-class role.
Harold C. Fleming, director of the
bi-racial Southern Regional Council,
said that while the college students are
doing most of the demonstrating, they
have widespread support among their
elders.
The demonstrations have fired the
imaginations of the Negro group and
there is “no sign that the movement
will fizzle out, panty-raid style, as so
many complacent people assumed at
the beginning,” he declared.
Fleming, whose office is in Atlanta,
told the Civil Liberties Clearing House
conference that the most important ef
fect of the sit-downs may not be the
number of lunch counters opened to
Negroes but the persuasion of southern
white people that Negroes are deter
mined to achieve equal rights.
Fleming warned that civil rights
proponents should not let themselves
be lulled into a sense of complacency
by token desegregation. He said he
feared that a “bored and disgusted na
tion might leave the South to handle
the race problem in its own way.”
LAWYERS AGREED
A conference of southern civil rights
lawyers here asserted March 19 that
Negroes have a right to eat at store
lunch counters and agreed to defend
all arrested demonstrators who request
help.
Their statements, after a two-day
meeting, indicated that the recent ar
rests of Negro students will set off a
new round of racial litigation, aimed
not only at the right to eat at lunch
counters but also at the entire deseg
regation front.
Thurgood Marshall of the National
Assn, for the Advancement of Colored
People, who called the meeting at
Howard University of 60 lawyers from
all southern states, said:
“This is more a general protest than
a desire to eat at five and dime lunch
counters. This is the young people tell
ing the world that in their opinion no
one is moving fast enough. They have
made us re-examine our sights and our
horizons. The least we can do is sup
port them.”
WILL DEFEND ALL
At a press conference, Marshall sa ; d
the lawyers decided the students were
asserting constitutional rights when
they staged protest parades and tried
to be served at store lunch counters.
Marshall said they agreed to defend
every arrested person who sought help
and to take “affirmative action to get
judicial protection of the right as
serted.”
Marshall anounced that the NAACP
defense fund has earmarked “an
initial” $40,000 to defend the cases, and
each will be taken to the Supreme
Court, if necessary.
Local college students picketed the
White House several times during the
month in support of southern Negro
demonstrations and to demand enact
ment of civil rights legislation. Some
local stores of variety chains also were
picketed to protest segregation prac
tices in the South, though Washington
lunch counters serve all persons re
gardless of race.
SAYS NOT FIRED
A 22-year-old Negro college student
said March 16 that he was not fired
by the Civil Rights Commission be
cause he planned to marry a white
girl, but added that he would have
been asked to resign if he hadn’t quit.
Fred D. Allen, a student at District
Teachers College, told a reporter that
he resigned to enroll at school and
knew he would even before he took a
clerical job with the commission in the
spring of 1959.
Allen became the center of a con
troversy in mid-March between Gor
don M. Tiffany, staff director of the
commission, and John T. R. Godlewski,
a former commission attorney. God
lewski charged at a press conference
that Tiffany fired Allen because the
youth planned to marry a white girl
he had met in Germany while sta
tioned there with the Air Force.
Godlewski also said Tiffany and the
commission were guilty of “numerous
instances” of discrimination in the hir
ing of staff personnel.
Allen said he found no discrimina
tion at the Civil Rights Commission
and disputed Godlewski’s charges. But
Allen added that Tiffany told him
“that in view of the marriage it was
a good thing I was leaving because
repercussions would come from this
(the marriage).”
I ItSISKEj SJi
DISTRICT SCHOOLS
School Supt. Carl F. Hansen made it
clear that he would regard it as a mis
take for District schools to give up at
this time their annual racial census of
pupils and teachers.
Early this year, a Negro member of
the school board, Wesley S. Williams,
asked Hansen whether Washington
schools, desegregated since 1954, were
not “at the point, if not long past it,”
where a racial count served no useful
purpose.
In a letter released March 14 by Wil
liams, Hansen said he hoped “the time
will come in the history of our school
system when the racial characteristics
of pupils and personnel will not be so
much at issue as the nature and char
acteristics of their educational needs
as people.”
GIVES REASONS
But Hansen gave these four reasons
for continuing the racial count at this
time:
0 “The change from segregation is
much too recent for the school system
to escape the national spotlight on this
issue. To seek to eliminate reports of
pupils and personnel by race will be
interpreted by many as a device for
secreting significant facts about the
schools.
0 “Without official recording, esti
mates and guesswork will be substi
tuted. The flood of rumors and
counter-rumors, mostly negative in na
ture, and the persistent probing for
facts on this issue will, I believe, be
harmful to the stability of the school
organization.
0 “In the transitional stages of this
historical development, racial counts
furnish the basis for establishing
scientifically the fact that Negro pu
pils, properly taught and in improving
economic and social situations, can re
spond and will achieve eventually at
the same level and pattern as the white
pupils.
0 “As has been said by a nationally-
known expert in human relations when
we put the question to him in a recent
conference, the failure to report racial
distribution of pupils and personnel
can be and is now far too often used
as a shield for discriminatory prac
tices.”
ANNUAL CENSUS
The annual “peak enrollment” census
of District schools, conducted in Octo
ber, includes a breakdown by race. An
annual count is also made of Negro
and white teachers.
Hansen told Williams he is “not pre
pared to recommend a change” in a
1925 statute, which requires a racial
tally of District pupils. But he noted
that elimination of the requirement
was proposed by the school administra
tion in 1954 and endorsed by the school
board. There was no further action on
the proposal.
In a reply to Hansen, Williams indi
cated that he was still opposed to the
racial count. At a March 16 school
board meeting, Williams asked for an
explanation from the District commis
sioners of their failure to act on the
school board’s six-year-old request for
legislation eliminating the racial census
requirement.
VOICED HOPE
Vice President Richard M. Nixon
cited “a great deal of progress” in
Washington school desegregation and
voiced the hope that the Metropolitan
Police Boys Club would ultimately be
desegregated too.
Nixon was presented a gold mem
bership card by white and Negro club
members March 25 and became the
first adult member in the 1960 club
membership drive.
Asked how he felt about the con
tinued segregation of young white and
Negro children in the club, the vice
president said he “was not aware that
it was” segregated.
Nixon, an honorary member since
1953, added, “Washington has made a
great deal of progress in its public
schools and restaurants and other pub
lic facilities in this regard, and I have
great hopes that the same progress
will be made in this.”
“It is only logical,” Nixon said, “that
progress will be made in this area (the
Boys Club) too.”
In an “action program” prepared for
submission to its annual convention in
May, the Board of Managers of the
District Congress of Parents and
Teachers voted to back “the principle
of free public education for any child
living in the District with persons who
are basically financially responsible for
his or her care and custody.”
This was in support of the present
practice and in opposition to a bill
sponsored by Rep. Joel T. Broyhill (R-
Va), which would require non-resi
dent tuition payments from pupils liv
ing here with persons who are not
their parents or legal guardians.
In sponsoring the measure, Broyhill
charged that many southern Negro
families were sending their children
to Washington to live with friends
or relatives and attend desegregated
schools. The Broyhill bill has passed
the House, but there has been no ac
tion in the Senate.
The P-TA Board reaffirmed a resolu
tion it passed in February voicing
concern that enforcement of non
resident tuition requirements “not re
sult in injustice to children whose
families are already facing difficult
problems of population mobility.”
Some local P-TA units had com
plained that the resolution should not
have been adopted without consulting
the individual P-TAs, but the board
reaffirmed its action by 17 to 10 vote.
JUNIOR COLLEGE
In another action, the board voted
to urge the House District Committee
to act in this session on pending legis
lation authorizing establishment of a
junior college division at District
Teachers College.
The junior college bill passed the
Senate last year, but has been bottled
up in the House since a subcommittee
headed by Rep. D. R. (Billy) Mat
thews (D-Fla) held hearings last sum
mer.
School board action on the junior
college bill followed an appeal from
the District Congress of Parents and
Teachers, the Federation of Citizens
Assn., the Federation of Civic Assns.,
the League of Women Voters and the
Urban League.
RIGOROUS INSTRUCTION
The board approved a plan by Han
sen to establish the new Amidon Ele
mentary School in southwest Washing
ton as an experimental center to de
termine whether modem pupils can
profit from old-fashioned emphasis on
rigorous instruction in the fundamental
subjects.
Hansen predicted the school would
“improve the accomplishments of our
students” and perhaps become a model
for the District school system.
The new school will serve the south
west urban renewal area, which is
largely unpopulated now. Until it can
reach its capacity of 806 pupils with
neighborhood youngsters, it will accept
pupils from all parts of the city whose
parents are willing to transport them
to and from school.
Hansen said Amidon would offer “an
educational program centering on basic
subjects,” including “direct and sys
tematic instruction in reading, writing,
grammar, speech, mathematics, science,
history and geography.”
In a reversal of modem educational
practice, teaching will focus primarily
on direct instruction and will assign a
secondary role to “projects” and “ex
perience units” which are designed to
let youngsters learn without knowing
they are learning.
BALANCED STUDENT BODY
Hansen stressed that the experi
mental school would not be only for
bright youngsters, but would have as
balanced a student body as possible.
Admission of pupils from outside the
Amidon area will be on the basis of
applications from parents, with specific
admission criteria still to be worked
out.
The superintendent said he hoped the
school would be well-balanced acad
emically and racially, and would be
come “attractive for community build
ing in the southwest area.”
In a report to the school board on
the three-track program of ability
grouping set up in elementary schools
this year, Hansen said the program is
working well, though some problems
need further attention.
The superintendent said teachers
have found that they can do a better
job when pupils of similar ability are
grouped together in honors, general or
remedial basic classes. But he said
there must be further efforts to insure
flexibility in the track placement of
pupils, better training of basic track
teachers and promotion of parental
understanding of the track system.
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