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PAGE 6—JUNE I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Dollarway’s Statement Is Approved by Federal Judge
ODELL MONTS (LEFT) CONVICTED IN BOMBING
Attorney Harold Flowers, Right, and NAACP’s L. C. Bates
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
T\ OLLARWAY SCHOOL BOARD’S
statement of policy on the
admission of Negro pupils to its
white school was approved in fed
eral court. (See “Legal Action.”)
The board registered three Ne
gro first graders in the white
school, although no assignments
have been made yet. A Negro
man who brought two of the
youngsters to register at the white
school was beaten by two white
men. (See “Legal Action.”)
A Little Rock Negro boy of 17
years was convicted of taking part
in the Feb. 9 explosion at the
home of one of the Negro girls
attending Central High. (See “Le
gal Action.”)
Four candidates opposing Gov.
Orval E. Faubus’s try for a fourth
term kept the campaign hot with
charges against him. Three came
out against his proposed amend
ment to let schools be abolished
rather than integrated. (See “Po
litical Activity.”)
State Sen. Robert Hays Williams of
Russellville opposes U.S. Rep. Dale
Alford of Little Rock in the Fifth Con
gressional District. Amis Guthridge,
long-time leader of the Capital Citi
zens Council, is running against J.
Frank Holt for state attorney general.
(See “Political Activity.”)
The Little Rock School Board assign
ed eight new Negro students in May to
attend Central and Hall High Schools
next fall. Three of the eight Negro stu
dents now in Central and Hall are
scheduled to be graduated this year,
making 13 assigned to attend the two
schools in September. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Federal Judge J. Smith Henley of
Harrison approved the Dollarway
School Board’s statement of affirmative
policies, which he referred to as a plan.
He added that the board would have
to use it in good faith and would have
to eliminate racial discrimination with
it.
The judge noted that the board re
peatedly had acknowledged its obliga
tions under the U.S. Supreme Court
decisions and said the board should
have a chance to show whether its
plan would work. The plaintiffs, who
objected to the plan in a hearing April
13, filed appeal to the U.S. Eighth Cir
cuit Court.
Judge Henley had ordered the Dol
larway board to file a statement of the
policies it would use to end racial dis
crimination. The policies would admit
first-grade pupils to the schools select
ed by their parents, when possible, and
oppose transfers from school to school
at grades above the first grade. The
board said it did not know whether
these policies would bring about de
segregation or not.
BOARD’S PLAN
“From a reading of the report,”
Judge Henley said, “it is apparent that
the board’s plan purports to eliminate
compulsory segregation over a period
of time without automatic integration
at any grade level.” This is capable of
being used unconstitutionally, he said,
but he presumed the board would use
it constitutionally.
“The provisions for the initial as
signment of first graders are fair on
their face and are sufficient, if applied
in good faith,” he said.
Judge Henley said the plan did not
rule out lateral transfers (above the
first grade) if the student met certain
conditions. He called the policy against
lateral transfers “tenable” but men
tioned that such transfers at the lower
grades did not present the same prob
lems as at the higher grades.
The board should not apply the po
licy as rigidly in the lower grades as
in the higher grades, Henley said, or
this could be considered evidence that
the policy was adopted “as a device to
perpetuate segregation.”
Henley ruled that it was all right to
give limited consideration to race in
making pupil assignment. But he
coupled this with a warning that if few
or none of the Negroes applying for
adrnission to the white school were ad
mitted, “the court might find it hard to
believe that unlawful and unreasonable
racial discrimination is not being prac
ticed.”
In the last analysis, he said, the
worth of the plan depends on the
board’s good faith in using it.
THREE APPEALS
Three appeals in the Dollarway case
(Dove v. Parham) have been consolid
ated by the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court
of Appeals at St. Louis for a single
hearing June 27. The appeals ask:
1) That the court overrule Judge
Henley’s ruling of Feb. 19 in which he
declined to order the plaintiffs ad
mitted to the white school.
2) That the court overrule the part
of Henley’s ruling of Feb. 19 in which
he said the plaintiffs had a right to take
their case to federal court; the school
board says the complaint should have
been filed first in Circuit Court in Jef
ferson County.
3) That the court overrule Judge
Henley’s approval on April 30 of the
statement of “affirmative policies” filed
by the school board; the plaintiffs say
it offers them no relief and that the
board should be required to produce a
definite desegregation plan.
REGISTERS PUPILS
The Dollarway district, at Pine Bluff,
registered next fall’s first grade pupils
on May 5. In accordance with the po
licy statement filed with federal court,
the board invited parents to bring their
children to register at the school they
wanted them to attend. Three Negro
children registered at the white school.
The board has not made any assign
ments for next September.
Two of the Negro children, Andrew
Algusta Howard and Linda Diane
Houston, both six, arrived with their
mothers in a car driven by Ivey An
derson, 75, a Negro grocer. Anderson
waited across the street during the
hour the children were in the school
and two white men beat him up.
Anderson drove away and went to a
doctor’s office; he did not report the
beating to the sheriff’s office. (The
school is in the Pine Bluff suburbs,
outside the city limits.) He notified
George Howard Jr., Negro attorney and
uncle of Andrew Algusta Howard, who
asked both the sheriff’s office and
school authorities for protection.
Sheriff Norman Young and two
deputies went to the school and the
group of white men scattered. The of
ficers stayed until a taxicab came to get
the Negro children and their mothers.
THIRD CHILD
In the afternoon the third Negro
child, Delores York, 6, daughter of
John D. York, arrived in a taxicab with
her father. When they left the school,
a group of white men, recognized by
witnesses as members of the Dollar
way Citizens Council, encircled the Ne
groes until a taxicab arrived but did
not molest them.
Ninety-three first graders, including
the three Negroes, were registered at
the all-white Dollarway School. Nine
ty-three Negroes were registered at the
all-Negro Townsend Park School. All
received 45-minute written examina
tions.
The fathers of Linda Diane Houston
and Delores York work for the Ar
kansas Pallet Co. at Pine Bluff. Andrew
Algusta Howard’s father, Andrew
Howard, works for a Chicago bakery,
although his mother fives at Pine Bluff.
This circumstance caused Gov. Fau-
bus to comment, “I see where they
imported one from Chicago” and to say
it seemed to bear out his charge that
“outsiders” were taking part in the ra
cial unrest in the state.
MONTS CONVICTED
A 17-year-old Negro boy, Herbert
Odell Monts, was convicted in mid-May
of dynamiting the home of Carlotta
Walls, one of the Negro students in
Little Rock Central High. He was
sentenced to five years in prison. A
jury of seven men and five women, all
white, in Pulaski County Circuit Court
fixed the prison term at the maximum
allowed by law but did not recommend
a fine.
Another suspect in the Feb. 9 dyna
miting, Maceo Antonio Binns Jr., 31, a
Negro, will be tried in June.
In the two-day trial, a motive for the
dynamiting was given for the first time.
Investigating officers said Monts told
them that the explosion was to cause
“commotion and a lot of publicity” so
that the Walls family would get money
donations from people up North. No
one was injured in the explosion.
Monts himself did not testify. His at
torney, Harold Flowers, said he would
appeal. Monts fives only half a block
from the Walls house and has known
Carlotta all his fife.
Monts is the fifth person to be sen
tenced in connection with explosions
linked to the Little Rock school crisis.
Four white men have been sentenced
and a fifth is awaiting trial for ex
plosions on Labor Day night in 1959.
One of the white men pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to five years, the
others three years.
COURT COSTS
The cities of Little Rock and North
Little Rock were ordered by the fed
eral courts to pay a total of $646.31 in
court costs, originally charged to the
National Assn, for the Advancement of
Colored People. The costs were in
curred in complaints against “Bennett”
ordinances of the two cities.
The NAACP won the cases in the
U.S. Supreme Court. District Judge
Gordon E. Young of Pine Bluff said it
was customary to require the losing
side to pay the costs. In the ordinances,
created by Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett,
the cities attempted to make public the
names of NAACP members and con
tributors, but the Supreme Court
voided them.
The Little Rock School Board assign
ed eight more Negro students to its two
desegregated high schools for the term
starting next September—five to Cen
tral and three to Hall high schools.
Eight Negro students are at the two
schools this year with three scheduled
to graduate, leaving 13 assigned to at
tend next fall.
The eight are among 326 Negroes in
the ninth grade this year. All ninth
graders, white and Negro, were given
psychological tests this spring. From
these tests, it was learned, the board
had judged 35 Negro students as ca
pable of adjusting to predominantly
white schools.
All ninth graders were asked which
high school they wanted to attend and
it was learned that about 19 Negro stu
dents had listed one of the white or bi-
racial high schools. Central High has
been integrated since 1957, Hall High
since 1959.
The board announced the assignments
at its meeting May 25. Two NAACP of
ficers—L. C. Bates, state field secretary,
and Rev. J. C. Crenshaw, president of
the Little Rock branch—expressed dis
satisfaction at the number assigned for
next fall.
RECEIVE ASSIGNMENTS
All ninth graders will receive assign
ments for next fall with their final re
port cards. Students not satisfied with
their assignments may request a
change within 10 days and the school
board must give them a hearing within
30 days. If still not satisfied, the student
may appeal to the courts.
As it had announced earlier, the
school board restricted its proposed in
tegration for next year to the high
school grades. According to the de
segregation plan under which the board
is operating, desegregation is to be
extended to the junior high grades
when senior high desegregation is suc
cessfully completed. In the board’s
judgment, the senior high phase is not
yet successful. This decision already is
the subject of dispute as part of the
original Little Rock integration law
suits.
The three Negro students to graduate
from the two integrated high schools
this spring are Jefferson Thomas and
Carlotta Walls, two of the nine who en
tered Central High during the 1957
crisis, and Effie Jones at Hall High
School.
Though the first primary on July 26
was more than two months away, far
too early for campaigning in normal
political times, all five Arkansas candi
dates were at it during May. As antic
ipated, the underlying theme of the
campaign was school desegregation—or,
more specifically, the record of Gov.
Faubus on that issue.
This, with Faubus’ unprecedented
attempt to win a fourth term, seemed
certain to dominate the race. Four of
the candidates are conducting anti-
Faubus campaigns thus far. For the
most part he has just ignored them so
far.
Opposing Faubus for the Democratic
nomination, which is equivalent to
election, are Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett,
42, of El Dorado in south Arkansas;
Joe C. Hardin, 62, of Grady, east Ar
kansas planter and business executive;
Hal Millsap Jr., 38, of Siloam Springs
in northwest Arkansas, supermarket
owner; and H. E. Williams, 50, of Wal
nut Ridge in northeast Arkansas,
founder and president of Southern
Baptist College.
CAMPAIGN ISSUE
One of the campaign issues is pro
posed Constitutional Amendment 52,
the main part of the governor’s segre
gation program approved by the 1959
General Assembly. It is now subject to
voter action in the November general
election. Along with many other pro
visions affecting schools, it would allow
a school district, when ordered by a
court to desegregate, to disband its
public school system and to distribute
its money equally among its pupils for
them to buy an education wherever
they could.
Three of the candidates have come
out against the proposed amendment.
Bennett is against it on technical
grounds, saying that it is so poorly
drawn that if one school district closes
its schools, others would be forced to
also.
Williams is against it. The amend
ment wouldn’t avoid integration; it
would just destroy the schools, says
Williams.
Hardin is the most emphatic in his
opposition. He says that the day the
Little Rock high schools were closed
was the worst day in the history of the
state and that the public schools must
be kept open, come what may.
With census figures in from 72 of the
75 counties, Arkansas has lost a little
over eight per cent of its 1950 popula
tion. All the candidates are blaming
this partly on the Faubus administra
tion.
There are two other races this sum
mer in which the candidates’ records in
the school racial situation will play
prominent if not deciding roles. Amis
Guthridge of Little Rock, counsel to
the Capital Citizens Council, filed for
attorney general against J. Frank Holt
of Little Rock, now prosecuting at
torney.
The Citizens Council never has been
happy with Holt, and it went after him
openly last fall because of his vigorous
prosecution of the white men who
dynamited the school board office and
two other places. Guthridge defended
some of the suspects. He said then that
if Holt ran for attorney general, he
would oppose him.
The other is in the Fifth Congres
sional District (six counties in central
Arkansas, including Little Rock), where
Dr. Dale Alford is seeking renomina
tion. Robert Hays Williams of Russell
ville, now a state senator, opposes him.
Williams said the sole issue was
party loyalty. Alford was elected in
1958 after an eight-day write-in cam
paign against the Democratic nominee,
Brooks Hays. Since then the state
Democratic Party has adopted a reso
lution specifically excusing Alford for
that rupture of the rules.
COMMUNITY ACTION
The Presbyterian Synod of Arkansas,
at Pine Bluff in its 109th annual meet
ing, adopted a recommendation sup
porting the concept of public education.
It adopted the recommendation in view
of the proposed constitutional amend
ment to allow school districts to aban
don their school systems to avoid
court-ordered desegregation.
Carl M. Olson of Bossier City, La., a
barber and an organizer for the Na
tional Assn, for the Advancement of
White People, spent several days at
Little Rock, getting a chapter of
NAAWP organized. The incorporators
of the Little Rock chapter are Mrs.
Margaret E. Morrison, Mrs. Montine C.
Ray, Mrs. Emily McCray and Mrs. W.
Pennington.
Among many other objectives the
NAAWP listed these in its charter: To
oppose further centralization of federal
power; to oppose the NAACP; to work
for the preservation of states rights; to
combat forced integration; to repeal the
Sixteenth (federal income tax) Amend
ment; and to do any and all things
necessary to further the Caucasian peo
ple of the United States.
Olson said he would like for the
NAAWP to absorb the other segrega
tion groups, but that proposition got a
cool reception.
Two changes have been made in the
Arkansas State Advisory Committee to
the United States Civil Rights Commis
sion. J. Gaston Williamson and Rich
ard C. Butler, both Little Rock law
yers, were appointed to replace Joshua
K. Shepherd, Little Rock insurance
executive, and Dr. Marshall T. Steele of
Conway, president of Hendrix College.
Circuit Judge William J. Kirby fined
five Negro students from Philander
Smith College of Little Rock $500 each
and sentenced them to 60 days in jail
for the first sit-in at Little Rock on
Mar. 10. This doubled the penalties
imposed on the students in Municipal
Court, which they had appealed.
Eight more students, arrested April
13 during sit-ins, are scheduled for
trial before Judge Kirby.
At an NAACP meeting at Pine Bluff,
L. C. Bates of Little Rock, field rep
resentative, chided students at Arkansas
AM&N College for Negroes at Pine
Bluff for not holding sit-in demonstra
tions. He did not urge them to.
E. E. Evans, acting president of the
state-supported college, wrote Bates
that he had advised the students not to
undertake sit-ins because it was
“against the best interest of the college
and against the law.” Bates answered
that Evans seemed to be placing the
constitutional rights of his students
second to the monetary prospects of the
college.
At Jacksonville, Fla., Dr. Marion A.
Boggs, pastor of the Little Rock Sec
ond Presbyterian Church, was elected
moderator of the Southern Presby
terians. His supporters called him “a
focal point of reconciliation in a
troubled community.” He backed the
Little Rock School Board in its effort
to obey court desegregation orders and
opposed the closing of the high schools.
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