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-♦Litigation
(Continued From Page 14)
attend the West Richmond School in
the Maplewood-Richmond Heights
School District. The case is expected
to come up for a hearing on its merits
in June in the court of Circuit Judge
John J. Kelly at Clayton, in St. Louis
County.
In December Circuit Judge Douglas
L. C. Jones decided certain questions
of law in favor of the plaintiffs, Dr.
Harold G. Russell, a Negro, who filed
the action last Oct. 7 on behalf of his
children, Harold Jr., eight years old,
and Lillette, age five. That cleared the
way for an equity hearing on the mer
its.
In his petition, the physician alleged
that he had attempted to enroll his
children in the West Richmond School
on Sept. 8. The West Richmond School
is all-white and is close to the Russell
home.
The suit alleged that enrollment of
the children in the West Richmond
School was refused and Dr. Russell
was directed to the all-Negro Lincoln
School, about a mile from the Russell
home. In contrast, the West Richmond
School was said to be only about 100
yards away.
North Carolina
^ctive desegregation suits in North
Carolina are spread from moun
tainous Yancey County in the west to
rural eastern Greene County.
Two of the five suits were filed
within the last month—in Greene
County and the City of Durham.
The Greene County suit, filed by
NAACP attorneys on behalf of five
Negro students, is in Eastern District
Federal Court. It contends that the
students have exhausted all adminis
trative remedies in seeking changes of
assignment from racially segregated
schools. It asks for an order forbidding
the maintenance of a “dual scheme or
pattern of school zones based on race
or color.” It also asks an order pre
venting the school board from deny
ing admission of Negroes to white
schools and preventing the school
board from making student or teacher
assignments on a racial basis.
No hearing in the suit has been set
by Judge Algernon Butler.
RECORD NUMBER
The Durham case is an outgrowth of
a record number of change of assign
ment requests last September by Ne
gro students in the city’s school sys
tem. The 225 Negro students who
sought admission to white schools in
Durham apparently set a record for
the largest number of transfers sought
in any southern city.
From among the 225 seeking trans
fers, the Durham School Board admit
ted eight to formerly all-white schools
in September 1959.
At the end of April, attorneys for
the NAACP, who represent the par
ents of 161 of the Durham students
whose requests for transfers were re
jected, filed suit in Middle District
Federal Court in Greensboro.
The class action, coming from 68
families, makes these allegations:
• That prior to the beginning of the
1959-60 school year the Durham City
School Board assigned all Negro stu
dents to schools attended solely by
Negroes.
• That approximately 225 Negro
children sought reassignment and that
eight were granted reassignment.
• That a hearing on the board’s re
jection of the majority of applications
was requested, but the board set the
hearing on Sept. 21, 1959, after school
had opened.
• That after the hearing the board
announced that applications entered by
those not personally present were re
jected and that the others were re
jected without any cause given.
No hearing on the case has been set
by Judge Edwin M. Stanley.
YANCEY COUNTY
A hearing on the Yancey County de
segregation suit, which was filed last
October, has been set for July 11.
Judge Wilson Warlick of the Western
Federal District Court set the hear
ing at the request of Ruben J. Dailey,
Asheville NAACP attorney who repre
sents the parents of 33 school chil
dren—the entire Negro school age pop
ulation of Yancey County. (White
schools have an enrollment of about
4,000.)
The Yancey suit had its origins in
1958, when the one-room, one-teacher
elementary school for Negroes was
condemned as unfit by a Yancey
County grand jury. During 1958-59,
the Yancey County School Board pro
vided daily bus transportation to Ashe
ville city schools, a round trip of 80
miles.
Efforts during that year to locate
schoo^ for
Yancey
school‘for
for many years. The county in
years had paid tuition to Asheville
high schools for Yancey Negro high
school students. The elementary stu
dents were treated in the same man
ner in 1958-59.
PARENTS UNHAPPY
In its final form, the
old, having been filed
1950 to contest the con-
of school segregation in
Clarendon County’s Summer-ton Dis
trict.
In May 1950, the litigation had in
volved a petition for equal facilities.
And still earlier, the case involved
of-Vwv-il hi is transportation in the dis-
At the end of the 1959 term, par
ents of the Negro students still had not
received a satisfactory promise of a
new school and they were unhappy at
having their children travel 80 miles a
day to school. They asked for assign
ment to white schools in Yancey
County (which include two new high
school buildings in use now for the
second school year), but were assigned
again to Asheville city schools.
The suit, in October, asked that the
board be restrained from operating a
segregated school system. The parents
are trying to get a decision before
next September.
During the 1959-60 school year, par
ents of the elementary children have
refused to permit their children to at
tend Asheville schools, though trans
portation has been offered by the
school board. Instead, the elementary
children have been educated in the
basement of a Negro church by a pri
vately employed teacher whose salary
comes from the Burnsville Educational
Project, an interracial group organized
to provide education for the Yancey
County Negro children until the suit
is settled.
Yancey County Negro high school
students—there are eight—are having
their tuition paid at Allen High School,
a private Methodist school in Ashe
ville, by the same educational project,
which this year has raised about $5,-
000.
FACING SUIT
The Chapel Hill Board of Education
is facing a desegregation suit for its
refusal to grant a transfer to the only
Negro child who asked for a transfer to
a white school last fall.
The suit, in U. S. Middle District
Court in Greensboro, asks that the
board be restrained from making as
signments solely on the basis of race.
The child involved is Stanley Boya
Vickers.
The parents contend the board re
fused to reassign their son to a white
school nearer their home solely be
cause of race.
The school board’s answer contends
that race was not the sole factor in
the assignment. (The Chapel Hill
Board, after its decision last fall, pub
licly announced a plan to assign first
grade students to the schools nearest
their homes each year in the future,
beginning with assignments for Sep
tember 1960.)
trict.
In July of 1955, the case came down
from the U. S. Supreme Court to a
special three-judge federal court in
Columbia. At that time, the late Senior
Circuit Judge John J. Parker inter
preted the Supreme Court’s decisions
as barring exclusion of Negro students
on racial grounds rather than as re
quiring arbitrary integration of the
schools. He paraphrased the Supreme
Court’s declaration that desegregation
should be accomplished “with all de
liberate speed” but the litigation has
remained dormant since then.
Now pending in the same district
court is another case seeking the de
segregation of the Summerton schools
of Clarendon County, but this time it
involves other petitioners. This later
case (Brunson v. Board of Trustees of
School District No. 1 of Clarendon
County, et al) was filed in April 1960.
Respondents have filed two motions,
both aimed generally at having the ac
tion dismissed and or nullifying it as a
class action. No date has yet been set
for further proceedings.
T ennessee
rpHij E E SCHOOL DESEGREGATION suits are
pending now before federal courts
in Tennessee—in Knoxville, Memphis
and Chattanooga.
The Knoxville case (Goss et al v.
City of Knoxville Board of Education)
was filed last December by parents of
17 Negro children, who asked that they
“and other persons similarly situated
be permitted to attend any school in
the city system regardless of race. It
followed an earlier case (Ward et al v.
Knoxville Board of Education), which
was dismissed on technical grounds.
Under instructions from Judge Rob
ert L. Taylor to produce a plan for
ending segregation in the system, the
Knoxville board voted four to one to
adopt the grade-a-year plan now op
erating in Nashville. Negro attorneys
then asked Taylor to reject the plan
as too slow and as a means “of per
petuating racial segregation.” No de
cision has yet been given.
MEMPHIS CASE
The Memphis case (Northcross et al
v. City of Memphis Board of Educa
tion) was filed March 30 this year by
parents of 18 Negro children. It also
asked total, immediate desegregation of
SUIT INACTIVE
The Mecklenburg County suit,
though inactive at the moment, is ex
pected to return to the active stage in
January 1961. It was delayed until then
to permit the working out of assign
ments during the first year of con
solidation of the City of Charlotte (32,-
000 students) and the County of
Mecklenburg (25,000 students) sys
tems.
The suit was filed in February 1959,
as a result of the Mecklenburg Board
of Education’s failure to grant eight
requests for transfers from Negro to
white schools in September 1958.
The suit asks for a restraining order
against racially based assignments.
In a hearing this spring, Judge Wil
son Warlick, with the agreement of at
torneys for the school board and the
NAACP, put the case off until next
January.
Mecklenburg has had no desegrega
tion. Charlotte has had limited de
segregation since 1957.
Consolidation of the two school sys
tems will become official July 1. It was
approved by voters in the city and
county a year ago. The boards have
not announced an assignment policy
that will be followed for September.
Oklahoma
^"^klahoma has had no active court
cases since the predominantly Ne
gro school board of Arcadia, a north
eastern Oklahoma county, lost an ap
peal seeking to set aside transfer of 13
white pupils out of the district in July
1959.
South Carolina
^^n the sixth anniversary of the U.
S. Supreme Court’s initial school
desegregation decision, South Caro
lina’s racially separate schools are be
ing challenged by two separate suits.
One of the cases (Briggs v. Elliott)
was among the five that prompted the
Supreme Court’s 1954 decision but it
still is docketed in the Eastern District
all city schools.
The board filed an answer May 6,
citing its right to operate under the
Tennessee pupil placement law, which
has not yet been tested in the courts.
The board contended the Negro chil
dren had not availed themselves of
their right to appeal their school as
signments through normal board chan
nels and asked that the suit be dis
missed. There has been no decision
yet.
The Chattanooga case (Mapp et al v.
City of Chattanooga Board of Educa
tion) was filed in April of this year by
four Negro children through their par
ents. It introduced a new element by
asking that segregation be abolished
not only for students but teachers and
principals as well.
On May 5, however, Federal Judge
Leslie R. Darr sustained a motion by
the Board of Education to strike all
issues relating to personnel assignment
from the suit. No date has yet been
set for hearing on the rest of the suit.
Texas
JAesegregation suits have been filed
JL * * against four of Texas’s largest
school districts, involving almost 20
per cent of the state’s public school
pupils. These are Houston, Dallas, Fort
Worth and Galveston.
Houston is under a court order to
produce a desegregation plan this
month (Ross v. Rogers), after U. S.
District Judge Ben C. Connally had is
sued a “deliberate speed” order on Oct.
15, 1957, for abolishing segregation.
Houston is the largest segregated
school system in the nation.
The Houston school board has called
a referendum election for June 4 on
the question of whether the district
shall desegregate its schools. While it
is doubtful that the federal court
would heed an adverse vote on the
proposition, it is felt that the election
must be held in an effort to comply
with the state law.
A 1957 act of the Legislature pro
hibits paying state funds to any school
district that desegregates without ap
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE I960—PAGE 15
proval of its voters, and also calls for
fines up to $1,000 against the school
officials permitting integration with
out election. Four small districts have
desegregated by election under the
referendum act and two have rejected
such proposals.
STATE FUNDS
The Houston district obtains $6,500,-
000 in state funds annually.
Mrs. Charles E. White, Negro mem
ber of the Houston board, said its
members should encourage approval of
desegregation at the June 4 election.
Her motion to this effect was defeated,
five to two.
“The main thing I’m worried about
is that the people should know that
the areas which want desegregation are
going to get it,” said a board member,
Stone Wells. “And the ones that vote
for it are going to get it first. That’s
what this election is for,” he added.
At Dallas, U. S. District Judge T.
Whitfield Davidson heard a school
board proposal to start integration Sep
tember 1961 under a grade-a-year sys
tem starting in the first grade. He made
suggestions for a plan not as broad and
gave the board 20 days to submit a
new proposal. Dallas has been under a
court order to integrate since 1956
(Borders v. Rippy), but like other dis
tricts has been caught in the conflict
between a federal court mandate and
the penalties of state law.
BOTH COURTS
Dallas attempted to get both federal
and state courts (Dallas 1SD v. Edgar)
to interpret its status under the con
flicting authorities, but the courts
turned down the idea since no viola
tion of state law has occurred.
The stairstep integration plan was
filed by the Dallas board after the
U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
set a deadline for compliance.
The Dallas and Houston cases have
been the most active involving Texas
cities. However, Negroes at Fort Worth
filed an integration suit (Flax v. Potts)
and another was filed in Galveston
(Robinson v. Evans), both in 1959.
Neither is set for hearing.
In Lubbock County, Negroes sta
tioned at Reese Air Force Base filed
suit (Simmons v. Edwards) to admit
their children with whites at the
nearby Frenship school. A few weeks
later, voters in the district approved
integration, leaving the lawsuit moot.
Virginia
S CHOOL BOARDS in 13 Virginia locali
ties have faced desegregation suits.
Six localities have been forced to
adopt some degree of integration as a
result of these cases.
A seventh community has been or
dered to desegregate a school in Sep
tember.
An eighth—Prince Edward County—
also has been ordered to desegregate,
but the county has closed its public
schools.
All 13 of the Virginia suits are le
gally active and developments could
occur at any tune.
FURTHER ACTION
The Norfolk and Newport News
cases, however, are the ones where
further action may be anticipated.
(Beckett v. Norfolk School Board; Ad-
kinson v. Newport News School Board.)
Norfolk already has seven desegre
gated schools, with 21 Negroes attend
ing. Eighteen Negroes who were not
accepted for formerly white schools
are challenging the city’s school as
signment criteria.
A federal district judge upheld the
Norfolk board and the case was ar
gued on appeal on April 22 before the
U. S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
in Richmond. That tribunal took the
matter under advisement.
Also at issue in the same Norfolk
case is whether District Judge Walter
E. Hoffman erred in overruling the
Virginia Pupil Placement Board’s re
fusal to admit four Negro children to
white schools. The state contends that
the children failed to exhaust adminis
trative remedies before going to court.
HOFFMAN’S ORDER
In the Newport News case, the school
board on April 15 complied with Judge
Hoffman’s order of Dec. 1, 1959, that
it submit a pupil assignment plan not
based on race.
Hoffman had issued his order after
terming the original Newport News
plan “nothing short of contemptuous.”
That plan simply said that assignments
would be made by the State Pupil
Placement Board.
The new assignment criteria submit
ted in April are similar to those in
the Norfolk plan. Tests may be given
applicants, and in making assignments
the board may consider mental and
moral health, intelligence, suitability of
existing curricula to the applicant, and
his adaptability to the emotional and
social adjustment to be made.
Judge Hoffman ruled that the new
plan is constitutional on its face. But
attorneys for the Negro plaintiffs ar
gued that it puts on the individual Ne
gro pupil “the burden of extricating
himself from a segregated situation by
surviving tests and criteria.”
PLACES TO WATCH
Other places to watch in Virginia:
Prince Edward County—Possibility
of some action by Negroes in an effort
to force the county to provide schools
Negroes can attend. If the county ap
propriates money for private education,
as is possible under a new Virginia
law, the action may be challenged in
court.
Pulaski County—A federal district
judge on April 21 ordered 14 Negroes
admitted to the county’s white Pulaski
Hiah School in September.
Richmond—The school board’s an
nounced plan to turn over a white
junior high school at the edge of a
large Negro residential area to Negro
use was rescinded following protests
from whites. With a new white junior-
senior high school scheduled to open
in the same section of the city in Sep
tember, Negroes claim whites have
abundant classroom space while Ne
groes are in crowded situations. Large-
scale Negro efforts to get into the white
junior high school in their neighbor
hood are considered possible.
West Virginia
TTneorcement action within the courts
to hasten racial desegregation in
the West Virginia public schools is cur
rently at a standstill.
The only move in this area came last
month when Willard Brown of
Charleston, counsel for the NAACP in
West Virginia, said he had asked
Judge John A. Field of the southern
West Virginia U. S. District Court to
hold an old desegregation suit open on
his docket.
Brown explained that the NAACP
wanted to investigate complaints of
non-compliance with a previous court
order. The suit is Dunn v. Greenbrier
County Board of Education.
RECEIVED COMPLAINTS
Brown reportedly received com
plaints in recent weeks that Greenbrier
County was not complying with a fed
eral court order. In a special session
in 1955, the late U. S. Judge Ben Moore
ruled that all schools in Greenbrier
County should desegregate on a first-
come-first-served basis, and there
after voluntarily.
Other counties in the southern part
of the state, such as Raleigh, Mercer,
Summers, McDowell and Logan, de
segregated on the basis of the same
ruling. Suits were held on the docket
when they chose to desegregate rather
than go to court.
Brown said after his consultations
with Judge Field last month that he is
investigating reports of failure to com
ply with previously stated plans 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.
He has not said since what his in
vestigations brought out.
NINE ACTIONS
Nine court actions have been brought
in West Virginia since the Supreme
Court ruled in 1954. All but two dealt
with the problem settled by the
Greenbrier County hearing.
The others—Goode v. Summers
County Board and Sterling v. Mingo
County Board of Education—dealt with
alleged discriminatory practices in
teacher hiring.
The latter case went to trial in fed
eral court and was decided in favor of
the board of education. # # #
Books And
The Issue
The library at Southern Education
Reporting Service recently received
these books:
WHITE AND COLOURED
by Michael Banton. Rutgers University
Press, 223 pp., $4.00.
The behavior of the British people to
wards colored immigrants described in
detail, including the London race riots,
intermarriage and relationships among
the various colored communities.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN
CIVILIZATION
by Nathaniel Weyl. Public Affairs,
Press, 360 pp., $6.00.
The author of “Treason” and “The
Battle Against Disloyalty” presents a
comprehensive study of the nation’s
effort to resolve the Negro problem.
# # #