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PAGE 14—MAY I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS LOUISIANA Orleans Board Asks Court To Vacate Order for School Desegregation Plan NEW ORLEANS, La. T he Orleans Parish (county) school board asked U.S. Dis trict Judge J. Skelly Wright to set aside his order for a desegre gation plan for New Orleans pub lic schools by May 16. Simultaneously, the board asked parents of public school pupils to vote informally on whether they would rather have integrated public schools or no public schools at all. (See “Le gal Action.”) The board took under study a plan for a special school for gifted Negro students after Negroes pe titioned to get into the similar school established for whites. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) Mass student resignations from all-Negro Southern University near Baton Rouge followed the suspension of 18 students who led equal-rights demonstrations. Stu dent and university figures on resignations varied widely. (See “In the Colleges.”) Former Gov. Jimmie H. Davis won a new four-year term as expected, de feating Republican Francis C. Grevem- berg and States Righter Kent Courtney. (See “Political Activity.”) Orleans Parish property owners voted two-to-one for a 20 million dol- Virginia (Continued From Page 10) county last year in the wake of a court order for desegregation. Fifteen hundred white children are in the Prince Edward School Founda tion’s classes, meeting in churches, club houses and other private build ings. Bulldozers have begun clearing the land for a foundation high school in Farmville, the county seat. The foun dation expects to raise $200,000 to spend on the building but hopes to get a $300,000 structure by capitalizing on volunteer labor and materials at wholesale. Total cost of operating the private Prince Edward system this year will be about $310,000, according to B. Blanton Hanbury, who heads the foun dation. 200 IN SCHOOL A recent survey revealed that about 200 of the Negro high school children of Prince Edward are enrolled in schools outside the county. There were 463 students in the county’s Negro public high school when it shut down last year. About 400 other Negro children, mostly of elementary school age, are attending the dozen or so training cen ters set up by Negro leaders through out the county. The sponsors say these are not schools but simply provide certain basic instruction and recreation for the school-less Negro youths. The 200 or so Negroes actually in high schools outside the county, plus the 400 in the training centers, consti tute a little more than a third of the county’s 1,700 Negro school-age chil dren. It is possible that a good many others in the elementary group are in schools outside the county, but it is difficult to get a picture of this situa tion. Transcripts are not required when elementary children change schools but are required in transfers of high school students. BOARD RESIGNS Five of the six members of the Prince Edward public school board suddenly resigned April 27. In their joint statement, they complained of being unable to get officials to release funds for standby maintenance of the closed buildings, stated their doubts about the legality of a proposal to sell the high school building and expressed their concern about the future of edu cation in the county. The members who resigned were Chairman L. E. Andrews, B. C. Bass, Dr. C. L. Baird, George D. Shorter and T. C. Hix. The only remaining board member is George W. A. Palmer. The school board is appointed by the School Electoral Board, which in turn is named by the circuit court judge. # # # lar bond issue designed to build suffi cient buildings to eliminate all platoon- ing, or double shifts, as well as keep pace with increasing enrollment. Pla- tooning has decreased each year and has been eliminated entirely in white public schools. (See “Community Ac tion.”) Enrollment at Louisiana State Uni versity in New Orleans, a branch of the Baton Rouge school, dropped from 2,130 in September to 1,532 in February due to scholastic failures. The dropoff percentage among Negroes was vastly higher than among whites. (See “In the Colleges.”) Special Counsel Gerard A. Rault, acting for the Orleans Parish school board, filed a motion asking Judge Wright to vacate his order for a plan by May 16 for desegregating New Or leans public schools. Rault based his request on Act 319 of 1956, which created a commit tee to designate which schools shall be white and which shall be Negro. The act also says children must be taught by members of their race. The school board said: 1. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion July 15, 1959, which shows there is no need for the district court to interpret or pass on the constitutionality of Act 319. Judge Wright had declared the action unconstitutional. 2) The Orleans Parish Court of Appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court have both held the act to be constitutional and there has been no official test beyond that point. Judge Wright, who had suggested earlier a grade-a-year plan, set a hearing on the new action May 4. The Orleans school case has been up and down the court ladder since 1954. The fifing of Rault’s motion came within a few hours of the board’s dis closure that it had mailed to some 60,000 parents and guardians of all public school students a post card questionnaire stating: 1) I would like to see the schools kept open even though a small amount of integration is necessary. 2) I would like to see the schools closed rather than be integrated even in small amounts. School Board President Lloyd Ritti- ner said parents receiving the cards were asked to check off one of the answers. But, he said, the poll was strictly for guidance of the board and results may never be made public. A delegation of Negro parents peti tioned the Orleans Parish school board to admit qualified Negro high school children to Benjamin Franklin High, a school established for superior white students. Lloyd J. Rittiner, board president, told the Negroes the school board was complying with state laws in maintain ing segregated facilities. He said the board was considering opening a similar “bright student” high school for Ne groes. The Negro petition said 108 Negro high school children had been tested last spring and 35 were found to have an IQ of 120 or higher, the require ment for admission to Franklin. Mrs. J oseph Buggage, a Parent- Teacher Assn, representative for the Negroes, said Negro students were be ing denied important benefits in devel opment of their potentials since “none of the public high schools designated for Negroes offered adequate prepara tion for college.” IN THE COLLEGES Student demonstrations at Southern University at Scotlandville, largest all- Negro university in the nation, resulted in the dismissal of 18 students and the arrest of 16 of them who participated in downtown Baton Rouge lunch counter protests. Registrar J. J. Hedgemon said in be half of the university that less than 300 students quit the institution in pro test of the dismissals. But Marvin E. Robinson, 25, Gary, Ind., student council president who led the demonstrations, claimed 1,500 of the 4,850 students had left Southern. The incidents began in late March when seven Southern students sat at the lunch counter of an S. H. Kress variety store, were jailed and released later on $10,500 bond. Dr. Felton C. Clark, president of Southern and a Negro, expelled 16 stu dents who participated in the lunch counter sit-ins, the first in Louisiana. Two other students, who also were among the leaders of the anti-segrega tion demonstrations, were suspended for indefinite periods. The institution is state-supported, under the direct control of the State Board of Education. The board h d rec ommended strong disciplinary action for “unruly behavior.” BOYCOTT CLASSES During the height of the demonstra tion, most of the students went along with a boycott of classes but most ap peared unwilling to go as far as to re sign from the university. A massing of students on the state capitol steps was carefully guarded by state police officers, some armed with tear gas bombs. Gov. Earl K. Long, in side the capitol, suggested the Negroes were being used as “guinea pigs.” Southern students who were dis ciplined included 43 high school seniors at the university’s laboratory high school. They were suspended for two days after they left classes early to at tend one of the mass meetings. Dr. Clark said the university had ad vised parents and guardians of all stu dents on the university campus of disciplinary action for students who fail to attend classes or who violate “uni versity regulations, ordinances of the city and parish or the laws of the state of Louisiana.” “As an agent of the Louisiana State Board of Education, whose orders and regulations I am legally bound to carry out, and as representative of an arm of the state government itself, I must take positive action,” Clark said. ENROLLMENT DROPS At New Orleans, where 418 Negro students were among the 2,130 total en rollment at LSU’s branch university, there was a sharp decline in the num ber of students, both white and Ne gro, in the second semester. Dr. Homer Hitt, vice president in charge of the branch, said normal at trition and failure to make the grade led to the decline to 1,532 students. The white students dropped from 1,712 in September to 1,411 in February. Negro enrollment dropped from 418 in September to 118 in February. LSU began as an all-freshmen insti |:;s| . ■§ 1 SOL iHfcikN U.MVEn.SH Y STUDENTS DEMONSTRATE 18 Dismissed for Baton Rouge Segregation Protests tution in September of 1958 and was ordered integrated before the first classes began. Only 37 of 105 Negroes who entered the university during its first year now remain. The National Assn, for the Advance ment of White People was incorporated through Shreveport attorney Harvey Carey with Carl W. Olson of Bossier City, in extreme north Louisiana, as chairman. Olson said the National Assn, for the Advancement of Colored People is playing both sides for political power and the new white group will attempt to make the NAACP choose between the Democrats and Republicans. A state membership drive for the NAAWP is under way and the NAACP also resumed its membership solicita tion. The NAACP had suspended recruit ment activity pending action on the prolonged suit under which Negroes successfully had the NAACP exempted from a state law requiring organiza tions to file membership fists. Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this month denied a petition for a rehearing of the case. The NAACP had contested the law on grounds that its member ship list filed with the state would be public and its members subjected to harassment. DAVIS ELECTED In state politics, Jimmie H. Davis won the governorship as the nominee of the Democratic Party. Davis did not campaign in advance of the general election and his win was a surprise to no one. However, Republicans, with former State Police Supt. Francis C. Grevem- berg as their candidate, made the best GOP showing since Reconstruction. With only 8,300 Republicans registered, Grevemberg received almost one-fifth of the half-million votes cast. Kent Courtney, seeking to establish a States Rights party in the state from the disjointed State Rights organiza tion that now exists, got only 13,000 votes as he campaigned on the segrega tion-state sovereignty issue. Davis championed the segregation cause between the first and second Democratic primaries and won the party nomination on Jan. 9. New Orleans property owners, who in recent years have rejected proposed school bond issues, voted a 20 million dollar issue for both white and Negro schools in April. New taxes will not be required to finance the issue. The school segregation issue was not mentioned during the board’s campaign for the bonds though members private ly feared that it might be. Federal courts await a desegregation plan from the board and are expected to demand the public schools begin integration on a grade-a-year plan in September. # # # New Louisiana Governor Promises Equal But Separate Schools By EMILE COMAR BATON ROUGE, La. J immie H. Davis, a strangely silent man who gathered in the votes of the strongly vocal segre gationists, will become governor of Louisiana again May 10. He won the nomination of the Democratic party on Jan. 9 and then coasted to a general election win April 19 without again taking the stump. After gathering the segregation leaders into his camp in time to win the Democratic nomination (tantamount to election) Davis said: “The only way I can iustify my position (on segregation) is to provide equal but separate facilities. I think that’s the right thing to do.” Through lunch counter protests, student marches, and court actions between January and April, Davis was silent as States Rights candidate Kent Courtney sought in vain to point the finger at Davis as a johnny-come-lately to the segregation camp. Republican candidate Francis C. Grevemberg pitched his campaign on other issues—economy in government, clean-up of Louisiana gambling, the need for a two-party system. But Davis was the Democratic nominee and that was enough. At 58, a wealthy composer and singer of hillbilly and gospel songs, Davis had gained the support of the segregationists in the Democratic runoff in January without being specific as to how he would handle the segregation issue. After Election And after the Democratic primary and general election he was no more specific. “Everybody knows Tm 100 per cent for segregation. I’ve been all over the nation and Tm convinced the Southland is the happiest place in the nation,” he said, adding: “I’ve never appreciated outside interference on this sort of thing. The states should handle their own business.” This much is known of what Davis is committed to do: 1. Name State Sen. William M. Rainach, principal segrega tion leader in the state, to form a sovereignty commission for the preservation of states rights. Rainach said Davis pledged to make him chairman. 2. Let Attorney General Jack P. F. Gremillion, a leader of the state’s court battles on segregation, step into the Orleans Parish school board school segregation case. Emile Wagner, member of the board, said Davis pledged to file an injunction preventing the school board from obeying a federal court or der to file an integration plan by May 16, 1960. Davis has said little of the sovereignty commission, nothing of the Wagner statement. But there is no doubt that the segre gation vote won him the run-off election against Mayor deLesseps Morrison of New Orleans. Rainach had been the principal segre gation candidate for governor in the first Democratic primary, but he ran third and then shifted his support to Davis. Davis was governor before—from 1944 to 1948. He has won both times by sing ing to his campaign audiences. He has made his living principally as a singer of hillbilly songs but he is also a well-educated man who once taught in grade schools and colleges. He was bom on a hill farm in Beech Springs, La., in 1901, the son of sharecroppers and one of 11 sons and daughters. He received a bachelors degree from Louisiana College in 1924 and obtained a masters degree from Louisiana State University three years later. In public office, he has served as criminal court clerk in Shreveport, as the elected public safety commissioner of Shreveport and as a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Since leaving office in 1948, Davis has had no part in poli" tics nor Louisiana public fife. He has plugged his records, appeared on television, and sung around the country at night clubs and singing conventions. Davis is married and has a 15-year-old son. # # # DAVIS