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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY I960—PAGE 13
KENTUCKY
Candidates Show School Segregation Not An Issue
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
D emocratic and Republican
candidates for the U.S. Sen
ate made it clear at a “summit
conference” of Negro leaders that
school desegregation will not be
an issue in their campaigns.
Incumbent Sen. John Sherman
Cooper (R) said Negroes not only
must have the right to attend the
school of their choice but also
must “have the opportunity to
catch up.”
Former Gov. Keen Johnson,
supported by Gov. Bert Combs
for the Democratic nomination,
praised Negro leaders for having
helped the state enjoy “good race
relationships, especially in inte
gration of schools.” (See “Politi
cal Activity.”)
A special committee of educators
recommended that Lincoln Institute,
the state’s 49-year-old boarding school
for Negroes, become the first state
wide, comprehensive vocational high
school, with the faculty and student
body bi-racial. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
A Negro high school in Louisville
drew a 46-day suspension and a one-
year probation from the Kentucky
High School Athletic Assn, for be
havior of players and fans at a bi-
racial basketball game. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Sit-in demonstrations continued in
two cities and a proposed anti-tres
passing ordinance in Louisville drew
denunciations from both whites and
Negroes. (See “Community Action.”)
Gov. Combs and Lt. Gov. Wilson
Wyatt received the 1960 Lincoln Key
Award for their services in establish
ing a state Commission on Human
Rights. (See “Miscellaneous.”)
vance together in order to ultimately
achieve full acceptance as desirable,
contributing, and first-class citizens.”
School desegregation will be no is
sue in their campaigns, two candidates
for the U. S. Senate made clear in
speeches before a “summit conference”
of Kentucky Negro leaders sponsored
in late March by the Louisville De
fender, a Negro weekly.
Incumbent GOP Sen. John Sherman
Cooper, who is running for re-elec
tion, told some 325 persons at the con
ference in Louisville’s Henry Clay Ho
tel that the United States has both a
legal obligation and a moral responsi
bility “to insure equality of oppor
tunities.”
Cooper referred to the Supreme
Court’s 1954 decision as “the law of
the land,” and added:
“If we are to have any respect for
the law and if we are to have any
foundation for our government, we
know the law must be observed.” He
said Negroes must not only have the
right to attend the school of their
choice but also must “have the oppor
tunity to catch up” by means of
special classes and vocational schools.
SUGGESTS LAW
The senator also said the nation
needs a law giving the U. S. attorney
general power to intervene in behalf
of a citizen who is denied the right to
attend the school of his choice.
Former Gov. Keen Johnson, who
with Gov. Combs’s support is seeking
the Democratic nomination for the seat
now held by Cooper, praised state Ne
gro leaders for “having helped Ken
tucky to enjoy good race relationships,
especially in the integration of
schools.”
“You have recognized the fact,” he
said, “that school integration can best
be advanced by the exercise of pa
tience and a spirit of good will. It re
flects credit on you as leaders that
substantial progress is being made in
the state that we all love.”
The Democratic Party, Johnson said,
“has long been committed to the ad
vancement of civil rights.” He praised
recent enactment of a bill creating a
State Human Rights Commission.
Frank L. Stanley, Sr., editor and
publisher of the Negro newspaper,
hailed the meeting as “the first of its
kind.” Its purpose, he said, was “self-
examination” and to “map plans to ad-
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
A special committee appointed by
Gov. Combs to look into the future of
Lincoln Institute recommended April
20 that the state’s 49-year-old Negro
boarding school become the first state
wide comprehensive vocational high
school, with the faculty and student
body bi-racial.
The school, located in Shelby
County, has an enrollment of 422,
down from 586 when the state’s de
segregation program began in 1955. It
is supported by state and private funds
and by the Lincoln Foundation. Its
new role, President Whitney Young
said, would be designed to offer train
ing and “quality” education to persons
of all races in remote areas of Ken
tucky where facilities and course of
ferings are limited—chiefly students
who would not go on to college.
SCHOOL SUSPENDED
Louisville Central High School, an
all-Negro institution, drew a 46-day
basketball-season suspension and a
one-year probation from the Kentucky
High School Athletic Assn, in late
March.
The suspension, one of the severest
penalties in the history of the
K.H.S.A.A., stemmed from the be
havior of two Central players and
several fans in the Central-Flaget
game (see Southern School News,
April 1960), which almost precipitated
a riot. The penalty will prevent Cen
tral from playing any member teams
in basketball from Dec. 16, 1960, to
Feb. 1, 1961. Central will be ineligible
to defend its Louisville Invitational
Tournament championship late next
January.
Flaget, an integrated school with two
Negro stars on its team, won the Cen
tral game and went on to take the
state basketball championship.
Central Principal Atwood S. Wilson
earlier had suspended the two Central
players accused of violating the asso
ciation’s sportsmanship rules in the
game.
Minor sit-in demonstrations occurred
in Lexington and Frankfort. Sit-in
workshops on and off the campus of
Kentucky State College at Frankfort
got national publicity in April. A Na
tional Broadcasting Co. telecast fea
tured their emphasis on non-violent
demonstrations at segregated lunch
counters. Arthur Norman, an assistant
professor of psychology and one of the
advisers to the Students for Civil
Rights, a campus organization, said
that “it has been a purely local af
fair—no outside organization started
it.”
State College President R. B. At
wood said the workshops were not be
ing conducted by the college, but that
the college had allowed the use of col
lege buildings for the workshops. He
said that as long as the demonstra
tions were conducted in “a dignified,
non-violent manner,” he saw no justi
fication for disciplinary action.
Atwood, Norman, and other Negro
leaders met on April 7 with Frankfort
Mayor Paul Judd and other Frank
fort officials, ministers, and educators.
Judd said he called the meeting in an
effort to solve the problem “before it
gets too big.” He urged a solution of
the problem “without demonstrations,”
and said he himself would approach
restaurant, hotel, and store owners “to
determine their feelings.”
Several Frankfort establishments be
gan serving both races, but Negro
demonstrators indicated they might re
sume the sit-ins in the future.
State Supt. of Public Instruction
Wendell P. Butler, who is ex officio
chairman of the college board of re
gents, said he knew of no board policy
concerning such workshops on the
campus of a state institution, “but it
might be that we should adopt a pol
icy.”
ALDERMEN VOTE
In Louisville, the Board of Aider-
men voted 11 to one last month in op
position “to any ordinance which takes
away the right of an owner of a pri
vate business to select his or its cus
tomers or clientele.” Negro leaders
vowed to begin sit-in demonstrations
should the aldermen pass an anti-tres-
p>assing ordinance.
Such an ordinance was drafted by
the city law department at the re
quest of Police Court Prosecutor John
Dougherty. Top city officials, including
Dougherty, said it was not designed to
enforce segregation in privately owned
establishments but only to cover a
pioint omitted when the city’s loitering
ordinance was amended last April.
White and Negro leaders spoke
against it, the city’s two daily news
papers deplored it as “almost bound
to make mischief,” the Louisville De
fender denounced it as certain to “in
cite vicious hatreds” and as “the worst
blow that can possibly be dealt to
Louisville’s Negro citizens.”
A Negro Baptist group, the Louis
ville and Vicinity Ministers’ and Dea
cons’ Meeting, with a membership of
about 300, on April 19 cited “the fear
of growing influence of the White Citi
zens Councils upon the administration
of public affairs” among its reasons for
opposing the measure.
Earlier in the month the bi-racial
Louisville Ministerial Assn, adopted a
strong stand against racial segregation
in restaurants and theaters. It urged
members first to seek voluntary de
segregation by piersuasion through in
dividual contacts with businessmen
and a public pronouncement, but
pledged support for an ordinance re
quiring desegregation (of motels, ho
tels, theaters, restaurants and cafe
terias) should such tactics fail.
^^CELLANEOUs"
The Kentucky Education Assn,
jointly awarded its 1960 Lincoln Key
to Gov. Combs and Lt. Gov. Wyatt for
“outstanding contributions to the rights
of human beings” in Kentucky.
The citation, given annually for out
standing service to the education of
Negroes, gave special praise to Combs
and Wyatt for their support of a meas
ure creating a state Commission on
Human Rights, still to be appointed.
# # #
Books And
The Issue
The library at Southern Education
Reporting Service recently received
these books:
THE MONTGOMERY STORY
by Uriah J. Fields. Exposition Press, 87
pp., $2.75.
Subtitled “The Unhappy Effects of
the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” this
book presents an inside interpretation
and analysis of the famous bus boycott
by founder and first secretary of the
Montgomery Improvement Assn. Fields
later broke with the group because of
alleged mismanagement.
PROPERTY VALUES AND RACE
by Luigi Laurenti. University of Cali
fornia Press, 256 pp., $6.00.
Prepared under the aupices of the
Commission on Race and Housing, the
report presents the behavior of real es
tate prices following the entry of non
whites into all-white neighborhoods in
San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.; Phil
adelphia; Portland, Ore.; Chicago; Kan
sas City; and Detroit. # # #
WEST VIRGINIA
Complaints Are Reported Under Study
On Greenbrier County Desegregation
CHARLESTON, W.Va.
A n attorney for the National
Assn, for the Advancement of
Colored People asked a federal
court to retain an old school de
segregation suit on its docket
pending investigation of com
plaints of non-compliance. (See
“Legal Action.”)
Trustees of Storer College an
nounced April 12 that they will
sell the closed Negro institution, a
victim of the 1954 U.S. Supreme
Court decision. (See “In the Col
leges.”)
West Virginia University an
nounced tentative plans to recruit
its first Negro football player this
fall. (See “In the Colleges.”)
Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-
Minn), running for the presiden
tial nomination against Sen. John
F. Kennedy (D-Mass) in the
West Virginia popularity primary,
said in Bluefield April 11 that, if
elected, he would consider ap
pointing a Negro cabinet member.
(See “Political Activity.”)
“The judge definitely did not threat
en the Greenbrier County board at the
time the case was brought Tuesday.”
Brown further stated that he is in
vestigating reports of failure to comply
with court orders in Logan, McDowell,
Raleigh and Mercer counties, and that
if the facts warrant he will ask the
court to reopen the cases involving
those counties.
Brown explained that he had simply
been asked by Judge Field whether
there was any reason why the case of
Julian Van Rogers Dunn against the
Greenbrier County Board of Education
could not now be dropped from the
docket.
“In reply,” Brown said, “I told the
court that I would like to have the case
retained on the docket because I had
had a report to the effect that the board
was not carrying out the order of the
late Judge Ben Moore to desegregate
schools in Greenbrier County. I said I
wanted time to investigate the reports.”
It was reported on April 13 that Fed
eral Judge John A. Field had said he
would consider contempt proceedings
against school officials in Greenbrier
County if complaints about lack of de
segregation warrant his attention.
Judge Field reportedly made his
position clear after an inquiry by Wil
lard L. Brown, Charleston lawyer who
represents the NAACP in West Vir
ginia.
Brown was quoted as saying he had
received complaints in recent weeks
that Greenbrier County was not com
plying with a federal court order to
implement the decision on school de
segregation by the U.S. Supreme
Court.
The late Federal Judge Ben Moore,
holding a special session at Lewisburg
in 1955, ruled that all schools in
Greenbrier County should integrate
first on a first-come-first-served basis,
and thereafter voluntarily. Other coun
ties started desegregation after this de
cision. Suits had been brought against
the boards of education in those coun
ties.
A day after the story about Judge
Field’s purported plans appeared,
Brown announced that the newspaper,
radio and TV reports were regrettable.
NOT BEFORE COURT
“Such a matter is not yet before the
court,” Brown commented, “nor do I
even know if there are actual facts
existing to merit requesting the court
to reopen the Greenbrier school inte
gration case.
Storer College at Harpers Ferry,
abandoned since 1955, and the historic
engine house where John Brown took
refuge after his 1859 raid, may soon be
acquired by the National Park Service.
The college board of trustees voted
April 12 to sell the college to the gov
ernment. The park service is interested
in using the property for the training
of rangers.
Storer was closed after nearly a cen
tury of operation as the only institu
tion for the higher education of Ne
groes in the area.
It had been supported by the North
ern Baptist Assn, and the state. But
West Virginia funds were cut off after
the Supreme Court declared college
segregation unconstitutional and the
State Board of Education desegregated
institutions under its jurisdiction.
SCHOLARSHIP OFFERED
Art Lewis, head football coach at
West Virginia University until his re
signation recently, confirmed on April
2 that an athletic scholarship had been
offered to a Negro standout from
Clarksburg.
The youth who might become the
university’s first Negro scholarship
athlete is 220-pound Eugene Donaldson
of Clarksburg’s Washington Irving
High School. He played fullback and
defensive end last season.
Lewis noted in discussing the talented
Negro athlete that Tom Bloom, a Negro
from Weirton, had been offered a schol
arship in 1958 but he chose Purdue in
stead.
If Donaldson accepts the scholarship,
he will be the first Negro athlete ever
to play in the Southern Conference, of
which West Virginia is a member.
Whether his presence on the WVU
squad would affect his school’s rela
tions in the conference is problemati
cal.
Lloyd Jordan, Southern Conference
commissioner, said in Richmond that
any such problem would be settled by
the conference executive committee.
“My duties are to carry out the
wishes of the executive committee, and
my experience has been that they take
up problems when they come to them,”
Jordan said.
In any event, Donaldson cannot play
football at West Virginia until 1961. As
a freshman he does not play in var
sity competition for the university.
PAY HIKES APPROVED
The State Board of Education on
April 18 approved salary increases at
the colleges under its authority, but not
before some of its members showed
themselves far apart on what should
determine the amounts.
The presidents at the nine colleges
will get $1,500 more a year starting
July 1. The salaries of their sub
ordinates, both on administrative staffs
and faculties, will go up less, and not
all alike.
The presidents were instructed to
base the pay raises on merit rather than
make them across-the-board. They will
average out to about 10 per cent more
than is being paid this year. They will
total approximately 10 million dollars.
Sen. Hubert Humphrey confirmed
the fact in a Bluefield appearance that
he would consider appointing a Negro
to his cabinet if elected president.
He and his adversary in the West
Virginia presidential primary, Sen.
John F. Kennedy, have been cam
paigning vigorously throughout the
state since Kennedy won the Wiscon
sin primary.
Humphrey’s statement was the out
growth of a published report in News
week magazine, which referred to a
“little publicized appearance” Humph
rey had made before the Capital Press
Club, a Negro organization in Washing
ton.
“I was asked a question along that
line,” Humphrey said with reference
to a Negro cabinet member. “As I re
member it, the question said would I
consider appointing a Negro to a high
post in my administration.” He con
tinued:
“I would appoint persons to all posts
on the basis of their qualifications and
ability, without regard to race, color or
creed.”
ASKED ABOUT CABINET
Specifically, he was asked if he
would consider naming a Negro to his
cabinet.
“If he were qualified, yes sir,” Hum
phrey said. “There are men like Ralph
Bunche who have proven to be great
leaders. There are many others, some
great Negro educators, for instance.”
Humphrey stated that he would not
go out of his way to pick a man from a
(See WEST VIRGINIA, Page 15)