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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL I960—PAGE 7
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 6)
EUGENE SMITH
Little Rock Police Chief
charge at Central High on Sept. 23,
1957, also, when a segregationist mob
stormed the barricade put up by the
police.
LEGAL ACTION
As ordered by U. S. District Judge J.
Smith Henley, the Dollarway School
Board filed a statement of “affirmative
policies” designed to end compulsory
segregation in the district. But the
school board asked newsmen not to re
fer to it as a “plan” and said it was not
a plan.
The policies contained in the state
ment may, as the nine-page document
mentioned, lead to integration.
The statement said that in making
pupil assignments for 1960-61, the
board would “insofar as possible” as
sign first grade students in accordance
with preference of the parents. It said
it would adhere to its previous policy of
not approving transfers from one school
to another in other grades, except in
unusual cases. Since Dollarway has only
two schools, one for whites and one for
Negroes, each covering grades 1 through
12, the effect of the policy statement
would limit the start of desegregation, if
any, to the first grade.
This policy statement was required in
the suit in which three Negro high
school students asked to be admitted to
the white school. Their request has been
denied and they have appealed.
The three Negro plaintiffs appealed
to the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court
from the ruling made Feb. 19 by Judge
Henley.
The points they appealed were: Judge
Henley’s refusal to order Dollarway to
admit the plaintiffs to the white school;
and his ruling that the two sides in the
case should pay their own court costs.
A hearing on the appeal was sched
uled for May 12.
After the Negro plaintiffs had ap
pealed, the Dollarway board also ap
pealed. The board appealed Judge
Henley’s ruling that the plaintiffs, hav
ing completed all other administrative
procedure as set out in the state pupil
assignment law, could skip the state
courts and carry their complaint direct
ly into federal court. The case is Dove
v. Parham.
hold hearings
Federal Judge John E. Miller of Ft.
Smith held hearings March 22 and 23 at
Little Rock on the Little Rock School
Board’s use of the state pupil place
ment law. The board admitted eight
Negro students to two white high
schools last fall out of 59 who asked ad
mission.
The Negro plaintiffs challenged this
and contended that under the assign
ment law and under the original court-
approved desegregation plan at Little
Rock, any student was entitled to at
tend the school in whose attendance
area he lives.
The hearing was part of the original
Little Rock case (Aaron v. Cooper, now
known as Aaron v. Tucker), filed in
1956 and originally heard by Judge
Miller. He made it clear this time that
he thought this case had stood about all
the litigation that it could hold and that
he hoped this would be the final hearing
in this case. Hereafter, he said, any
complaints will have to filed individual
ly-
The school board took the Negro
plaintiffs by surprise in the opening
minutes of the two-day hearing with
the announcement that it would not
start desegregation on the junior high
school level (grades 7-9) in the fall of
1960. Junior high desegregation was to
follow the “successful completion” of
senior high desegregation and this was
estimated to be in the fall of either 1959
or 1960.
Wiley A. Branton of Pine Bluff, Ne
gro attorney for the plaintiffs, objected
strenuously to the introduction of the
policy resolution. Judge Miller said he
did not intend to approve or disapprove
the policy resolution but took it as a
matter of information.
Board members testified unanimously
that they had tried to apply the assign
ment law in the same way to white and
Negro students, and that it had not oc
curred to them to try to use the assign
ment law to hold down the number of
Negroes admitted to the white schools.
Everett Tucker Jr., board president,
said conditions were much better than
in the 1957-58 school year. He said the
white students still shunned the Ne
groes, that the Negro students were go
ing through school in a kind of isolation,
which he called “a cruel sort of situa
tion.”
Judge Miller called for briefs from
both sides and said he planned to hand
down his ruling in July.
APPEAL TO HIGH COURT
Nineteen persons arrested Aug. 12,
1959, when the police broke up a segre
gationist march on Central High at
Little Rock on the opening day of
school, have appealed to the state Su
preme Court in their effort to have their
trials transferred from Little Rock
Municipal Court to some other court.
Both the Municipal Court and the Cir
cuit Court of Pulaski County have re
fused to grant the change of venue.
The trial of Samuel Graydon Beavers,
the last of the five men charged in con
nection with the 1959 Labor Day dyna-
mitings at Little Rock, has been sched
uled for Sept. 7. That date will be the
first anniversary of the explosions.
Beavers has received several delays
because of his own illness and then the
illness of his attorney, Gordon H. Sul
livan. The other four men all were con
victed. Beavers’ is charged in connec
tion with the explosion at the private
business office of Mayor Werner C.
Knoop.
TRIAL DATES SET
Trial dates have been set for the two
Negro suspects in the dynamiting of
the home of Carlotta Walls, one of the
five Negro students at Central High, on
Feb. 9. Herbert Odell Monts, 17, will be
tried May 16; Maceo Antonio Binns Jr.,
31, will be tried June 7. Both are free
on bonds of $15,000 each.
At a press conference one day Gov.
Faubus said he had been told that a
Negro had paid $50 to have the Walls
home dynamited. He wouldn’t answer
any questions about this remark and re
ferred newsmen to the authorities, who
declined to confirm or deny. There has
been a rumor ever since the Walls ex
plosion that a payoff was involved but
no one in authority has ever confirmed
it nor even mentioned it until Faubus
did.
Mrs. Wera Frieke, a German em
ployed by the United States Informa
tion Service in West Berlin, where she
works with German teenagers, spent
two days at Little Rock on a tour of the
country. She said German teenagers
were very interested in everything
American, especially race relations, and
that they considered Gov. Faubus’ ac
tions in the Little Rock school crisis
“very bad.”
“Now I can tell them something pos
itive. Everything they have heard about
it before has been negative. Now I can
tell my group that there are people here
who are working and trying to solve
the problem,” she said.
BATES SPEAKS
At Dallas, Tex., L. C. Bates of Little
Rock, Arkansas field secretary to the
NAACP and husband of the state
NAACP president, spoke at a regional
NAACP meeting.
“The Supreme Court decisions de
claring unconstitutional the state laws
designed to hamper the operation of the
NAACP will remove some of the fear
and pressure from our organization,
but it cannot remove the hatred gen
erated in many white men’s hearts by
the fight over the integration of the
Little Rock schools,” he said.
# # #
MISSISSIPPI
Teachers
Effective
Rap Textbook Charges;
Communication Urged
JACKSON, Miss.
ISSISSIPPl’s WHITE TEACHERS,
meeting in Jackson, criti
cized the State Daughters of the
American Revolution for its in
vestigation of textbooks and the
claim that 44 had subversive and
unfit material. (See “Community
Action.”)
Negro teachers urged Gov.
Ross Barnett and other top lead
ers to show “statesmanship” in
starting a movement for more ef
fective communication between
the races on problems of common
interest. (See “Community Ac
tion.”)
The Legislature passed a bill to
permit local congregations to
withdraw from their “parent” jur
isdictional denominational bodies
in protest to integration policies
and retain possession of their
church properties. Opponents
threaten to take the issue to
court. (See “Legislative Action.”)
Laws inflicting stiff penalties for
“sit-in” demonstrations were approved
by the Legislature and signed by Gov.
Ross Barnett. (See “Legislative Ac
tion.”)
White and Negro teacher associations
opposed “third factor” measurement
based on national teacher’s examina
tion in determining salary raises now
gauged by training and experience. The
issue is before the Legislature, where
teachers are asking for a $600 across-
the-board salary raise and the governor
is offering $300 now and $300 at the
1962 session. (See "School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The Mississippi Education Assn.,
composed of white teachers, criticized
the DAR for its recent “expose” of
various phases of textbooks used in
Mississippi schools. The DAR reported
that 44 textbooks used in Mississippi
contain “subversive” material and are
“unfit” for use in the public schools.
Many of the textbooks, with the
areas criticized underscored, were put
on display in Jackson for the legisla
tors, now in biennial session, to inspect.
They were displayed in the lobby of
the King Edward Hotel, where most of
the lawmakers stay while in Jackson,
and then moved to the state capitol.
The DAR accused book company rep
resentatives of “picketing” their dis
plays.
The MEA resolution said the associ
ation is “opposed to investigations of
our textbooks made by irresponsible
parties.”
“Our association condemns such
book purgings which are, in effect, ex
pressions of a lack of confidence in
the integrity, loyalty and good judg
ment of the teachers of Mississippi,”
the resolution stated. “We commend
the Mississippi plan of textbook selec
tion as one of the best . . . and the
MEA welcomes investigations by the
Legislature in support of valid pur
poses.”
Committees of teachers are selected
by State Supt. J. M. Tubb to study
the books and are cautioned to watch
closely for objectionable material.
URGE LEADERS
Mississippi’s top leadership was
urged by the Mississippi Negro Teach
ers Assn., also meeting in Jackson, to
lead in seeking the establishment of
more effective communication between
the whites and Negroes on “problems
of common interest.” They suggested
that Gov. Barnett take the initiative
through bi-racial committees on the
community and state levels.
The organization of 7,000 Negro
teachers said such a movement wi
“require the full sanction of Missis
sippi’s top leadership” because “the
fear of reprisals now stifles action in
this direction.”
A resolution at the state convention
said such bi-racial committees would
be more productive of better human
relations “than the professional in
former who is dangerous to both
groups.”
“We feel that positive action in all
areas will prove fruitful,” the resolu
tion asserted. “White Mississippians
cannot afford to be misinformed about
Mississippi Negroes.”
“Such an approach will be evidence
of the statesmanship of Mississippi’s
progressive leadership and would not
in any way be an invasion of the state’s
traditions,” the resolution pointed out.
“This procedure would tend to re
establish the cooperative approach to
the solution of our problems.”
“Since Negroes are best informed
about their own problems and are more
seriously concerned about improving
those areas of state services which ef
fect them directly, we recommend
membership of Negroes, even if token,
associate, advisory or assistants, on all
boards, committees or departments
where Negroes are affected. In this
way, these agencies could more ef
fectively achieve their stated objec
tives.”
Pointing out that Mississippi’s pub
lic school building equalization program
has made “phenomenal progress in the
past few years,” the association said
“we are rapidly approaching the time
when first-class high schools are the
equal of any in the nation and will be
available for every Negro child in
every county of the state.”
“However, the time has come when
we must improve our Negro colleges
in the same proportion,” the resolution
stated. It recommended that work at
the three Negro colleges be coordi
nated into a first-class system of higher
education.
Mississippi’s new and controversial
church law permits 66%rd of the adult
membership of a local congregation to
petition chancery court for removal of
trustees over their church properties.
It applies when “there exists a deep-
seated and irreconcilable hostility or
tension between them and any or all
of the said trustees or others exercising
authority over said properties.” It ap
plies to trusts of any “educational,
charitable or religious organization.”
The new statute affects primarily
the Methodist Church because of its
jurisdictional system of control of
church properties. Senate bill 1619 was
authored by Sens. W. B. Lucas of
Macon and W. B. Alexander of Cleve
land. It was identical to House bill 220
by Reps. Wilburn Hooker of Holmes
County (Lexington) and Thompson
McClellan of Clay County (West
Point).
The new bill was a replacement for
an original measure, which applied
only to Protestant churches and was
sidetracked because of its questioned
constitutionality as applying to one
specific group.
State Sen. Flavous Lambert of Bel
mont in Tishomingo County, who op
posed the bill, said he may go to court
to test the constitutionality of the new
law. It was passed by the Senate, 26
to 19, and by the House, 87 to 43.
‘SIT-IN’ BILLS
Various phases of “sit-in” demon
strations are involved in three new
laws, which provide stiff penalties for
such demonstrations. They were
rushed through the Legislature as
“emergencies” after demonstrations in
the South by Negroes protesting seg
regation.
Representatives McClellan and
Hooker, authors of the House “church
bill,” which was sidetracked for an
identical Senate measure, said the new
laws could be used in event of “sit-
ins” in Mississippi.
A bill introduced by Sen. George
Yarbrough of Red Banks in Marshall
County, the president pro tern of the
Senate and Gov. Barnett’s floor leader,
seeks to give the attorney general
power to examine books and records
of corporations doing business in Mis
sissippi. Senate bill 1679 is aimed at
the National Assn, for the Advance
ments of Colored People.
A similar bill was passed at the 1958
legislative session but vetoed by then
Gov. Coleman, who said it would open
records of corporations, regardless of
their nature, to public inspection.
Information obtained under the Yar
brough proposal would be kept secret
“unless the state welfare deems other
wise.” Corporations concealing their
books or resisting efforts of the at
torney general to secure them would
lose their rights to operate in Missis
sippi.
Purpose of the bill is to secure the
records of the NAACP, along with its
membership.
At the 54th state convention of the
DAR, Mrs. Ashmead White of Bangor,
Maine, the president general of the na
tional organization, said “a stand on the
segregation issue would split the DAR
wide open.”
“We have no national policy about
the racial issue,” Mrs. White said.
“Any stand on the matter would split
our society wide open.”
Relative to the state organization’s
study of textbooks and its charge that
a number of them used in Mississippi
are “subversive, un-American, advo
cating integration of the races through'
communist propaganda,” the president
general said:
“Mississippi has gone deeper into the
textbook matter than any other state.
Certainly, there are books used in
schools throughout the country which
are objectionable. They debunk our
heroes, the men that made this coun
try great.”
DEAN SPEAKS
Addressing the Millsaps (Methodist)
College student body in Jackson, Dr.
Robert J. Nelson, dean of the Divinity
School of Vanderbilt University, used
as his subject, “Christian Reconcilia
tion and World Crisis.”
In an interview, Dr. Nelson was
quoted as saying he was “opposed to
segregation.”
“Let’s say I am an outspoken ad
vocate of Christian living,” he said.
“I believe in speaking out about things
I believe in.”
The two associations of teachers in
Mississippi—white and Negro—are in
accord on several issues now before the
Legislature. They agree that salaries
should be raised $600 across-the-board
on a basis of training and experience.
They are unwilling to accept an as
serted “compromise” suggested by
Gov. Barnett to provide $300 at the
current biennial session and the other
$300 at the 1962 assembly.
The white group contends that Bar
nett “promised” the $600 raise during
his campaign for the governorship last
summer. The governor says he prom
ised “whatever the state’s economy
would justify.”
The plan being insisted on by the
teacher groups will require 132 million
dollars in the new biennium commenc
ing July 1. That compares with the
98 million voted for the current two-
year period.
Barnett’s proposal will require 117
million dollars at this time.
A “third factor” measurement on the
basis of a national teacher’s examina
tion, proposed by some legislators,
would require 121 million dollars.
The House voted the $600 figure and
the bill is now before the Senate Fi
nance Committee, along with an
amendment calling for the “third fac
tor” measurement. The factor proposal
would provide raises up to $500 for
teachers making first category grades,
and $450 for those in the next group
ing. Opponents contend it would down
grade an estimated 50 per cent of the
17,000 teachers, affecting Negroes to a
larger extent. # # #
