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PAGE 6—SOUTHERN SCHOOL—NEWS—MAY I960
Tennessee
(Continued From Page 5)
side a picture window at the front of
his home, said he would not be in
timidated or hindered in his work as
a result West, who hurried to the
scene of the blast, was joined by nu
merous other community leaders in
deploring the act of violence.
Considerable damage was done
neighboring homes and buildings. At
nearby Meharry Medical College, at
tended almost entirely by Negroes, 147
windows were reported broken by the
blast.
City Council offered a $10,000 re
ward for information leading to arrest
and conviction of the person or per
sons responsible. Looby was present
when the council acted on a resolu
tion offering the reward but did not
vote. Otherwise, the action was unani
mous.
Two other bombings have occurred
in Nashville in the past two and a
half years—the first at Hattie Cotton
School during the brief period of dis
orders when the first grade was de
segregated in 1957 and the second at
the Jewish Community Center.
Bomb “scares” have come several
times, usually because of anonymous
telephone calls. More “scares” followed
the Looby home blast. One of them
was at Meharry the next morning;
another was at Fisk University gym
nasium that night, when the Rev.
Martin Luther King addressed a gath
ering estimated at 3,000 to 4,000.
CLEAR BUILDING
Although police and firemen had
maintained a vigil at the gymnasium
prior to the meeting, a call was re
ceived in the Nashville bureau of
United Press International that the
King speaking was to be bombed. Po
lice Inspector W. J. Donoho ordered
the building evacuated. Negro leaders
protested but Donoho said he was ob
ligated to give the order.
Singing “Onward Christian Sol
diers,” the crowd filed outside. A
search of the premises brought noth
ing and the audience returned.
King, chairman of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, told
the crowd that “segregation is on its
death bed now and the only uncertain
thing ... is the day it will be buried.”
He said the sit-in movement has
“made it absolutely clear that the Ne
gro is not satisfied with segregation.”
ASKS PRESIDENTIAL VISIT
As an aftermath of the bombing, the
Nashville branch of the NAACP asked
President Eisenhower to visit Nash
ville May 1 “or at a time convenient
to you” and use his influence to pro
mote “tolerance and the implementa
tion of democratic principles.” The
message said the blast was “testimony
to the unwholesome state of affairs”
pertaining to the racial situation.
Meantime, many Negroes were boy
cotting downtown Nashville stores,
and anti-segregation leaders called for
such a boycott in Memphis. Several
Nashville merchants conceded that the
cut-down of Negro patronage was
affecting sales volumes considerably.
The boycott, and renewed sit-ins at
lunch counters, followed failure of
recommendations by Mayor West’s
seven-member bi-racial committee to
get full approval of both Negro lead
ership and the city’s major merchants.
Here is what the committee recom
mended for “serious consideration,”
noting it was unable to find a plan
“wholly acceptable to both the students
and the merchants”:
• That downtown stores which offer
goods, services and food to white cus
tomers but no food to Negroes “make
available to all customers a portion of
a restaurant facility . . and provide
unsegregated seating and service there.
This would have meant partial segre
gation.
• That this plan be subject to a 90-
day trial period, and that “proper au
thorities” name a “permanent, repre
sentative countywide advisory com
mittee on racial matters” to study ra
cial problems on “a thorough, long-
range basis.” The new group would
consider any problems arising during
the proposed 90-day trial period and
make recommendations.
• That “in the event this plan is ac
cepted by both merchants and Negro
citizens and there have been no sit-ins
or other demonstrations during this
trial period, it is recommended . . . that
the prosecution of those arrests made
up to this date be abated and the cases
dismissed.”
REJECT PLAN
Several days later, a committee of
Negro leaders met with a committee
representing merchants. The plan was
rejected. In a statement, the student
protest group and the Nashville Chris
MISSOURI
Jefferson City Public Schools Report
No Difficulty in Classroom Integregation
tian Leadership Council said the pro
posal appeared “to place the principle
of desegregation on trial and we sub
mit that it is not”
Sit-in demonstrations were resumed
two days later. There had been none
since March 25, when a three-weeks
period of apparent “truce” was ended
with a demonstration which brought a
sharp exchange between Gov. Buford
Ellington and the president of the Co
lumbia Broadcasting System after CBS
camera crews had photographed the
sit-in activities for television.
The April 11 demonstration resulted
in two minor disorders and two ar
rests. Next day, another demonstra
tion brought six arrests, two of them
of white people, a bomb scare at a va
riety store, and disorder including the
alleged hurling of a soft drink bottle.
The activities ended abruptly in mid
afternoon, and in subsequent days no
more sit-ins occurred.
Chattanooga’s first protest demonstra
tion by Negroes since February occur
red April 16, when about 20 sign
carrying youths paraded downtown
shopping areas, advocating a boycott
of merchants. None entered stores.
They were led by local NAACP Presi
dent James R. Mapp.
IN THE COLLEGES'
State Education Commissioner Joe
Morgan, backed by Gov. Ellington, in
structed presidents of six colleges and
universities under jurisdiction of the
State Board of Education to dismiss
any pupils who in the future are ar
rested and convicted “on charges in
volving personal misconduct.”
No reference was made to arrests
specifically in connection with demon
strations or other activities in connec
tion with segregation. Morgan, chair
man of the education board, wrote that
“the necessity for maintaining the in
tegrity and honor of the student body
. . . has long been recognized.” He
said he was acting “on behalf of the
board.”
“Misconduct of any student . . . re
flects dishonor and discredit upon the
institution . . . and upon higher educa
tion in general,” the chairman declared.
Students of all-Negro A&I State Uni
versity at Nashville have been among
Nashville sit-in demonstrators arrest
ed. Several were placed under arrest
after the Board of Education order was
handed down and may be subject to it
if convicted.
Morgan and other state officials de
clared that the dismissal rule will ap
ply to either whites or Negroes, re
gardless of the offense involved. The
University of Tennessee does not fall
under the ruling; it is operated by a
separate board of trustees.
SPEAKS AT SOUTHWESTERN
A Negro attorney who was a candi
date last year for a major Memphis of
fice was guest speaker before the
student body of Southwestern, a
Presbyterian college, as the Southwest
ern chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa,
national leadership fraternity, tapped
eight students for membership.
Russell Sugarmon Jr., a Harvard law
school graduate, spoke “in generalities
about leadership” and told his part in
defending arrested Negro sit-in dem
onstrators in Memphis, one of the stu
dents said. School officials said they
decided not to interfere with plans
made by 10 members of ODK to invite
Sugarmon.
Leo L. Lillard, a Nashville Negro
and past candidate for several state
and local offices, said he would rim for
a seat in the State House of Repre
sentatives in the August Democratic
primary.
Paul H. Sanders, a law professor at
Vanderbilt University and a consultant
to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission,
was appointed to the 24-member ad
visory committee which will propose a
civil rights plank in the Democratic
Party’s 1960 platform.
The Tennessee Federation for Con
stitutional Government, a pro-segrega
tion organization, issued a statement
calling segregation “the only feasible
way of life here (in the South) at this
time.”
The statement said “we deplore the
so-called sit-in as a disruptive move-
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
NTEGRATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
was reported this month to be
working out smoothly and with
out difficulty at Jefferson City.
Jefferson City’s schools were
desegregated first at the high
school level in 1954 and at the
elementary level in 1956. At pres
ent the total school population is
about 4,050 in kindergarten
through 12th grade. The system
includes a high school, a junior
high school and six elementary
schools.
About 60 of the 1,750 Jefferson
City children in secondary schools
are Negro, including about 20 in
the high school and 40 in the jun
ior high, it is estimated unofficial
ly. The six elementary schools
have 125 Negro children in a total
elementary population of 2,300.
In addition to the high school and
junior high school, at least four of the
Jefferson City system’s six elementary
schools have some Negro children.
Before integration, the system had
nine Negro teachers on the faculty of
an all-Negro school. It now has three
Negro teachers in predominantly white
schools and all teach some white pu
pils.
The three Negro teachers include
one who teaches English and reading in
the junior high school, one who is a
special education teacher at Thoipe
Gordon Elementary, and one who for
merly was principal of the all-Negro
school. He is an administrative assistant
on the headquarters staff and visiting
physical education instructor for boys
in the elementary schools.
NEGRO TEACHERS
Joe Nichols Jr., superintendent of
schools in Jefferson City, told Southern
School News that no difficulties had
been encountered with school integra
tion. He said the system’s experience
had been excellent and that Negro
teachers had been well accepted.
Nichols pointed out that some of the
community’s Negro children attend the
test schools operated at Lincoln Univer-
ment which has served only to create
tension, provoke violence and breed
racial ill-will.
“. . . We believe that the only rights
involved here are the rights of private
business to operate as it sees fit, under
the law, and to choose its own patrons.
No one has a right—moral, constitution
al or otherwise—to force himself into
a privately owned and operated busi
ness and to remain there when denied
service and asked to leave.”
HIGHLANDER MEETING
About 50 students representing col
leges and universities in seven states
gathered at Highlander Folk School at
Monteagle and recommended that more
picketing and boycotts accompany
“further and better-planned sit-in
demonstrations.”
The students came from Tennessee
A&I, Fisk and Vanderbilt universities,
Scarritt College and American Baptist
Theological Seminary, all of Nashville;
Morris Brown and Morehouse colleges,
Atlanta; Lane College, Jackson, Tenn.;
Hebrew Union Seminary, Cincinnati;
Yale, Kansas State and Emory univer
sities and the University of the South,
the last located at nearby Sewanee.
Myles Horton, director of Highlander
Folk School, told a Unitarian group in
Knoxville that Negro college students
are excluding white youth from inner
circles of their demonstration move
ment. One reason, he said, is that “they
fear the whites may take over the lead
ership, and in some instances (the Ne
groes) don’t trust them.”
Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel of
the NAACP, told an audience of more
than 4,000 at Fisk University that “the
whole vicious system of segregation in
the South ... is aided and abetted by
the North and condoned by the federal
government.”
He advised college anti-segregation
demonstrators if arrested not to refuse
bail and stay in jail. “You’ve got to
finish out your years at college. That
is very important,” he declared.
# # #
sity for the instruction of student
teachers. The university has both an
elementary and a secondary school and
both are racially integrated.
Lincoln University, at Jefferson City,
is a state institution established in 1866
as a school for Negroes. It remained
all-Negro until 1954; since then the uni
versity has accepted an increasing
number of white students. The total
student population is about 1,450, with
Negroes probably still in the majority
during regular sessions.
The “experiment in racial tolerance”
that was undertaken in Jefferson City
late in March, involving the opening up
of restaurants to Negro patrons, was in
part the consequence of pressure from
faculty and students of Lincoln Univer
sity. There are few eating places for
Negroes in the university environs.
Although Missouri is a border state,
the situation regarding public accom
modations still is generally unsatisfac
tory from the Negro viewpoint al
though acceptance of Negroes as guests
has increased notably in the last de
cade, particularly in St. Louis and Kan
sas City. At Jefferson City, it was only
in February 1955 that one of the city’s
two major hotels began accepting Ne
gro guests.
RESTRICTIONS IRKSOME
The restrictions concerning eating
places at Jefferson City have been irk
some to the Negro university commun
ity.
Not long ago the Jefferson City
Chamber of Commerce, along with
some restaurant operators, received
petitions asking that Negroes be allow
ed to eat in downtown restaurants. The
petitions bore 707 names. There began a
series of meetings between civic lead
ers, businessmen, clergymen, and rep
resentatives of the Negro community.
It was agreed that an arrangement
would be worked out, and in return
the students were said to have promised
to refrain from anti-segregation dem
onstrations of the type that have oc
curred in southern cities where Ne
groes are barred from eating places.
Late in March downtown eating
places quietly opened their doors to
Negro customers. A few Negroes
showed up for service, and there were
no reported difficulties. The opening of
restaurants was accompanied by similar
liberalization of hotel policies toward
Negroes.
In mid-April the St. Louis Public
School System made public a report
showing progress in the system’s three-
track program, instituted in St. Louis
public high schools in 1957 as a means
of providing curricula designed to meet
the needs of a widely diversified ele
mentary school population. (Southern
School News, January 1958).
Beginning with children who entered
high school in January 1958, high
school freshmen have been divided
generally into three groups—Track I
(superior); Track n (average), and
Track III (low achieving). One effect
of the system was to enable schools to
cope more efficiently with disparities
caused by differences in background
and other factors related to the influx
of southern Negro children into St.
Louis.
The St. Louis system also maintains
a classification called Track la for men
tally gifted pupils entering high school
and at the other end of the spectrum
it has a terminal education program
for the retarded. Both of these pro
grams were started in September 1955.
TRACK I DOUBLED
William C. Kottmeyer, assistant su
perintendent for elementary and special
education, said in the current report
that the proportion of freshmen high
school students entering Track I had
nearly doubled in the last three years,
while the proportion of Track HI pupils
had declined to less than half the figure
three years ago.
For the first term of 1957-58, the
groupings of elementary pupils enter
ing high school the next term were as
follows for the system as a whole:
Track I, 13.5 per cent; Track H, 53.5 per
cent; and Track m, 2.9 per cent.
For the first term of 1959-60, the
grouping was as follows: Track I, 24.3
per cent; Track II, 54.6; and Track III,
15.1.
It was brought out in the report that
admission to the program for gifted pu
pils, which starts in grade five, re
quires a Binet IQ of 130. The percent
age of such children going into Track
la in high school is 3.5 to 4 per cent of
the total population. This has remained
constant.
In contrast, Kottmeyer brought out,
the proportion of pupils entering term
inal education in high school has in
creased from 1.2 per cent to 8.2 per
cent in the three year period. Terminal
education is two years of schooling be
yond the elementary grades for children
who score Binet IQ’s from 48 to 78.
EXPLAINS INCREASE
Kottmeyer explained that the reason
for the increased proportion going into
terminal education was that initially
some children of 48-78 IQ went into
Track HI. These were children who
could not be enrolled in special ele
mentary classes for the mentally re
tarded because of lack of facilities and
therefore did not automatically go into
the two-year terminal program in high
school. Now they are being identified
by tests and diverted to terminal edu
cation.
“This should make teaching of Track
IH students in the high schools easier
than it has been in the past,” said Kott
meyer. He pointed out that median IQs
of Track I pupils is about 116, of Track
H pupils about 98, and of Track IH pu
pils about 83.
Although the St. Louis system does
not keep statistics concerning race of
school children, comparison can be
made of the city’s five geographical
groupings of elementary schools. One of
these, the Long group, has practically
no Negroes. Two, the Turner and
Benneker groups, are predominantly
Negro.
LONG GROUP
For the Long group, the proportion
of pupils entering high school in Track
I for the first term 1957-58 was 25.8
and for the first term of 1959-60 it had
increased to 38.7. Median IQ of Long
pupils for Track I was 118.3 for the first
period and 118.7 for the more recent.
For the Benneker (heavily Negro)
group, the proportion of pupils for
Track I for the first term 1957-58 was
seven per cent and for the first term of
1959-60 it had increased to 16. Median
IQ of Benneker pupils for Track I was
109.1 for the first term and 105.8 for the
more recent.
At the program’s outset, the Long
group had 62.3 per cent in Track II and
11.9 in Track IH. By the first term of
1959-60 Long had 55.1 per cent in Track
II and 4.7 per cent in Track IH.
The Benneker group had 45.9 per
cent in Track II and 47.1 in Track HI in
1957-58, comparing with 50.5 and 24.3,
respectively, in the first term 1959-60.
The data showed that whereas the
Benneker group had 6.6 per cent of its
eight-high pupils “retained” in elemen
tary school at the end of the last se
mester—chiefly for additional instruc
tion—the Long group had only 2 per
cent retained.
Warrants were issued by the St. Louis
circuit attorney’s office April 8 against
George H. Outlaw, a suspended mathe
matics teacher at Soldan High School
of the city’s public school system. Out
law, a Negro 39 years old, was charged
with child molestation.
Outlaw was accused of photographing
two girl Soldan students in the nude,
and of showing them obscene pictures
at the high school.
School authorities suspended Outlaw,
adviser to the student camera club,
following an investigation of reports
made by two 16-year-old girls and a
15-year-old girl. The warrants were
issued in cases involving the 16-year-
old girls, one of them white.
Outlaw was freed on bond. Police
also arrested a Negro professional
photographer who was said to be an
associate of Outlaw. A warrant charged
the professional photographer with
child molestation.
Soldan High School (Southern School
News, February 1959) is one of 11 high
schools in the St. Louis public school
system and is regarded as the most
substantially integrated, in terms of
having both white and Negro students.
The Negro proportion of the student
population is more than 75 per cent
# # #