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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY I960—PAGE 5
ARKANSAS
74 Negro Students Request Assignments in Little Rock
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
i t Little Rock, 39 junior high
A and 35 high school Negro stu
dents asked for assignment to
white or integrated schools next
fall. These were the first requests
for junior high. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Two Negro students were grad
uated from Little Rock’s Central
and Hall high schools without in
cident. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
A State Supreme Court justice
announced his intention of stump
ing the state if necessary in
favor of proposed Constitutional
Amendment 52, which would al
low the closing of schools. The
Arkansas Bar Assn, adopted a
resolution asking the Supreme
Court to approve canons of ethics
that would keep the justices from
making political speeches. (See
‘‘Community Action.”)
Gov. Orval Faubus told an audience
of high school boys he was running
for an unprecedented fourth consecu
tive two-year term because “I believe
I’m right in trying to assure that we
control our schools and run our own
affairs.” But to his four opponents, the
main issues of the campaign were that
fourth term try and his previous stand
on schools. (See “Political Activity.”)
A second Negro was convicted in the
dynamiting of the home of a Negro
student attending Little Rock’s Central
High. (See “Legal Action.”)
Gov. Orval Faubus made his annual
visit to the American Legion-sponsored
Arkansas Boys State. In a question-
answer session with the 840 high school
boys, he explained why he is running
for an unprecedented fourth consecu
tive term:
“The issues at stake in this campaign
are not trivial, nor in anywise unim-
-portant. I became a central figure in a
great controversy ... I believe I’m
right in trying to assure that we con
trol our schools and run our own af-
01 fairs. I also believe that more people
V wanted me to run this time than at any
other time I have been a candidate,
and I felt I could win. Now it has been
said that a fourth term is the main
? issue. I’d like to point out that there’s
® already been one governor (Elias N.
*" Conway, 1852-60) who served eight
years, back in the time when they had
it four-year terms and he served two
“ ter ms. There already is a precedent...
There is no more danger of a dictator-
“ in a fourth term than there is in
t- a first term. The governor is circum-
i( scribed by the laws of the state. You
can t exercise any more power in a
it fourth term than in a first.”
E The Boys State audience was highly
1 Partisan in favor of Faubus and cheered
5 him repeatedly.
J PLUGGING AWAY
Up to that time, Faubus hadn’t done
an y real campaigning while his four
I opponents—Joe C. Hardin, east Arkan-
I rj S i‘ Ianter; Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett;
' ‘, Williams, president of a Baptist
co ege; and Hal Millsap Jr., Siloam
it ^P r ings businessman—had been plug-
j aw ay for weeks, all concentrating
t eir hre on Faubus. The issues they
e W ®^ e developing were:
i ) Four terms is too many for any
one governor because it would lead to
• P °'heal tyranny and dictatorship.
• , . faubus, in defying the courts and
i *he Little Rock high schools,
i a , earned the state before the world
.d created “hate, dissension and
1 state 101 * amon £> fhe people of his own
^ Proposed Constitutional Amend-
e n 52, sponsored by Faubus, to allow
dosing of public schools to avoid
desegregation.
^ 4 ) Faubus raised the taxes too much
22 million dollar a year tax in-
w ^ Program of 1957 or the increase
5) being spent properly.
Getting new industry to provide
ri : re Jobs and to stop the state’s loss
°f population.
attihfri ® overnor revealed a surprising
52 ", e toward proposed Amendment
, • Was the main point in the
"ation program he sponsored
through the 1959 General Assembly.
The amendment, now awaiting voter
action in the November general elec
tion, contains several provisions on
school taxation and financing and
would allow the voters of a district, if
ordered by a court to desegregate, to
decide whether to close their schools.
FOUR AGAINST
All four of the governor’s opponents
are against the proposal. On a televi
sion program Faubus and Bennett were
asked how they were going to vote on
the amendment and the surprise came
when Faubus declined to say. Instead
he described it as “permissive” legisla
tion and said that permissive legislation
generally was good.
His startled opponents leaped in
quickly to remind the voters that Fau
bus was the father of the amendment
and that it wasn’t entirely permissive
—that while the school-closing part of
it is optional, the amendment begins
by wiping out the existing constitu
tional guarantee of a system of free
public schools.
After a few days Faubus told report
ers that he had never advocated abol
ishing the public schools and never
would. He said the proposed amend
ment was the best that could be done
at the time (in the 1959 Legislature)
when “we were faced with the threat
of abolishing the entire school system.”
He said he would tell his stand on the
amendment and the reasons for it in
detail later during the campaign.
When Faubus got around to announc
ing his campaign manager, he pulled
another surprise by passing over the
experienced politicians who have con
ducted his previous campaigns. This
time he picked a school superintendent
from east Arkansas, Clarence E. Bell
of Parkin. Bell also is a state senator
and was one of the senatorial sponsors
of proposed Amendment 52. James L.
Bland, administrator of the State Em
ployment Security Division, and Ar
nold Sikes, member of the State Com
merce Commission, who have headed
previous Faubus campaigns, were ap
pointed assistants to Bell.
NEGRO VOTES
Faubus also is making what the Ne
gro press calls a strong bid for Negro
votes. That’s what the Southern Medi
ator Journal called the governor’s
speech at the state Negro Boys Indus
trial School at Wrightsville at the
dedication of a new building, replacing
the one that burned and killed 21 boys
a year ago. Faubus told the crowd of
Negroes that “our state institutions are
on equal basis, including teacher sal
aries, and all people regardless of race
are served alike” and went into some
detail telling how the welfare program
had improved under his administra
tion.
Faubus and his four opponents are
running for the Democratic nomina
tion, which assures election. There are
517,897 white and 72,604 Negro voters;
a total vote of 350,000 would be a good
turnout. The preferential primary is
July 27. If one candidate gets a ma
jority, he wins the nomination; other
wise, the top two men go into the
runoff on Aug. 9.
PARENTS INDIGNANT
Rep. Dale Alford of Little Rock (D-
Ark) is sending diploma-like congratu
latory messages to all the high school
graduates this year in his congression
al district, mailing them under his
congressional franking privilege. Since
Alford, then a member of the Little
Rock School Board, advocated closing
the Little Rock high schools in Sep
tember 1958, many Little Rock parents
were indignant at receiving his con
gratulations. Alford is seeking renomi
nation in the Democratic primaries
with opposition from state Sen. Robert
Hays Williams of Russellville.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
On the final day (June 13) for filing
requests for changes in school assign
ments, 73 Negro students asked for
reassignment to all-white or desegre
gated schools at Little Rock. Thirty-
nine were junior high students, the
first on that level (grades seven, eight
and nine); the other 34, with one who
had filed a request earlier, make 35
wanting to attend the previously all-
white high schools.
The school board had announced in
March, over protests by the Negroes,
that it had decided not to extend its
gradual desegregation plan to the jun
ior high schools in September, as the
original plan had called for.
By schools, the Negro reassignment
requests are: from Horace Mann (Ne
gro) High School to Central High 30,
to Hall High three, to Tech High two;
from Dunbar (Negro) Junior High to
Forest Heights Junior High seven, to
West Side Junior High 23, to East Side
Junior High nine. Central High had
five Negro students in the school year
just ended and two were graduated;
five more have already been assigned
for 1960-61. Hall High had three Negro
students this year, one was graduated,
and three more have already been as
signed for next fall.
All school assignment requests (there
are also 102 by white students) are
now handled by the school board under
the state pupil placement law, Act 461
of 1959. It requires the board to notify
each student within 30 days of the
filing of the request of the date for a
hearing before the board; the letter
must be mailed at least seven days in
advance of the hearing. If the board
refuses the request after the hearing,
the student may file a written excep
tion with the board; if the board still
refuses, the student may take his re
quest into circuit court.
16 FACTORS
The pupil placement law sets out 16
factors on which a school board may
make pupil assignments and it specifi
cally excludes the consideration of race.
This year, at the end of school, each
student received notice of the school
to which he had been assigned for next
fall. The requests filed by June 13 are
for changes in those assignments.
Next day Everett Tucker Jr., school
board president, said he could see
nothing so far to cause the board to
change its announced stand against ad
mitting Negro students to the white
j unior high schools next fall. A few
days later the board met and scheduled
the reassignment hearing for June 30
and July 1, 7, 12 and 13.
At the same meeting the board as
signed back to Horace Mann High one
on the five Negro students it earlier
had assigned to Central High. She was
Irma Jean Routen, whose mother had
written the board about the possibility
of Irma Jean’s being in the Central
High band. The board said the Central
band already was full and without
consulting the parents assigned Irma
Jean to the Negro high school. The
abrupt action caused some muttering
in the Negro community, which de
scribed the Routens as a high class
family and not troublemakers. The
parents said they probably would ask
the board to reconsider.
Reassignment requests must be no
tarized. Many of the 73 Negro requests
filed June 13 were notarized by L. C.
Bates, field secretary for Arkansas for
the National Assn, for the Advancement
of Colored People, at a meeting of Ne
gro parents and children on June 8 at
the Phyllis Wheatley (Negro) Branch
of the YWCA. Bates said the meeting
was arranged by John Walker of the
Arkansas Council on Human Relations.
He said the NAACP had not encour
aged any of the Negro students to ask
for reassignment but that it stood
ready to help any of those who asked
for help.
TWO NEGRO GRADUATES
Among Little Rock Central High’s
415 graduating seniors this year were
two Negro students, Jefferson Thomas
and Carlotta Walls, the second and
third of their race to be graduated
from the school. Among the 215 grad
uated by Hall High School was Eifie
Jones, the first Negro student to be
The Last Hurdle
Arkansas Democrat
graduated there. The graduation exer
cises took place on successive nights at
the two schools with Little Rock police
on hand but there was no incident at
either one. Several Negro adults were
in the audience each night.
The main speaker, Everett Tucker
Jr., school board president and presi
dent of the Little Rock Industrial De
velopment Corp., called on the grad
uating students to make up for the
“deficits of the adults.” He called for
improvement of the business climate in
the state and the creation of opportu
nities that would keep young people
in the state.
Tucker and other speakers, both
adult and student, made several refer
ences to the importance of continued
free public education. The two gradu
ating classes lost their j unior years at
their home schools because the Little
Rock high schools were closed during
1958-59 to avoid a second year of de
segregation at Central High.
^ > S3
COMMUNITY ACTION
Associate Justice Jim Johnson of the
Arkansas Supreme Court announced
that he was for proposed constitutional
Amendment 52 because he favors seg
regation. Johnson said he would stump
the state for the amendment if he
thought there was any danger that it
would be voted down in the November
general election.
The proposed amendment would
eliminate the state constitutional re
quirement that a public school system
must be maintained and would allow a
school district by vote of its residents
to abandon its public schools when
faced with a court order to admit Ne
groes to white schools. It also has sev
eral other provisions on school taxes
and financing.
Two weeks after Justice Johnson had
spoken out, the Arkansas Bar Assn,
annual convention at Hot Springs ap
proved a resolution asking the State
Supreme Court to adopt for its own
the Canons of Judicial Ethics of the
American Bar Assn. Canon 28 says that
judges should not make political
speeches.
Johnson was not bothered. First he
said the Canons of Ethics do not pro
hibit the kind of speeches he wants to
make, and, anyway, he would speak
out for the proposed amendment no
matter whether the state Supreme
Court adopted the code or not. The
court is in recess for the summer and
isn’t likely to take any action before
next fall.
Organizations that went on record
against proposed Amendment 52 during
June included: The Presbyterian Syn
od of Arkansas and the Arkansas
Presbytery; the North Arkansas and
Little Rock Conferences of the Meth
odist Church; and the state convention
of the Committee on Political Educa
tion of the Arkansas AFL-CIO.
BI-RACIAL CONFERENCE
One hundred fifteen whites and Ne
groes attended a Conference on Com
munity Unity at a church camp near
Little Rock on June 18 and heard
strong criticism not only of segrega
tionist leaders and government figures
but also of the moderates for their
conduct in the racial situation. The
meeting was the third this year organ
ized by the American Friends Service
Committee, a Quaker organization, and
other religious groups. The tenor of
the meeting was that southern leaders
and particularly those at Little Rock
had encouraged immorality and under
mined the principles of constitutional
democracy by the kind of leadership
they had given.
The speakers were Dr. Ben I. Heller,
professor of medicine at the University
of Arkansas Medical Center at Little
Rock; Miss Jean Fairfax of Philadel
phia, a Negro representative of the
American Friends Service Committee;
and Dr. William T. Greenwood, a pro
fessor at the University of Arkansas
Industrial Research and Extension Cen
ter at Little Rock.
BURN TWO CROSSES
About 75 men in hoods and robes,
some of them armed, burned two
crosses in a field 11 miles south of
Pine Bluff on U.S. Highway 81 on Sat
urday night June 5. No one interfered.
The location was on the opposite side
of Pine Bluff from the Dollarway
School District, which is under court
order to desegregate and where three
Negro children have applied to enter
first grade in the white school next
fall.
The Little Rock Scholarship Fund,
Inc., formed in December 1957 to aid
outstanding students attending Little
Rock high schools “under conditions of
unusual stress,” awarded eight $100
scholarships this year, making 22
awarded since it was founded. The
fund is the idea of a Unitarian minis
ter from Maryland and is supported by
public donations. The names of the
scholarship winners are not made pub
lic for fear of “possible unfortunate
pressures.”
An all-white jury in Pulaski County
Circuit Court convicted Maceo Antonio
Binns Jr., 30, Little Rock Negro, of
dynamiting the home of Carlotta Walls,
one of five Negro students attending
Central High School, last Feb. 9. Binns
protested that he was innocent. The jury
imposed the maximum penalty of five
years in prison and a $500 fine. Binns
appealed and is free on bond.
In May another all-white jury had
convicted Herbert Odell Monts, 47, Ne
gro, a neighbor of the Walls family, of
the dynamiting and sentenced him to
five years. He is free while appealing
the verdict.
Detectives who obtained two confes
sions from Binns the night of his arrest
said Binns told them that Walls himself
furnished the dynamite and wanted the
explosions “for insurance reasons.” The
explosion did only minor damage and
injured no one.
Binns repudiated the confessions on
the witness stand and denied having
any knowledge of the dynamiting or
any connection with it. Binns said he
made up the confessions only because
he had thought that that was the only
way he was going to be released from
custody and get to see his family and
lawyer.
Prosecuting Attorney J. Frank Holt
put Cartelyou Walls, father of Carlotta,
on the witness stand but Walls denied
knowing anything about the dynamit
ing.
TWO LAWSUITS
There were legal arguments June 15
in two of Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett’s
lawsuits against the NAACP.
Before Circuit Judge J. Mitchell
Cockrill, Bennett argued for a sum
mary judgment of $5,000 against the
NAACP for refusing to register in Ar
kansas as a foreign corporation. He has
already won a default judgment of
$350 in this case—$50 each for seven
years—because the NAACP would not
produce its records in court.
That judgment was upheld by the
State Supreme Court. The U.S. Su
preme Court refused to review the
case.
In the other suit Bennett is accusing
the NAACP of practicing law illegally
and is asking the Circuit Court for an
injunction to stop it. In the latest hear
ing, before Circuit Judge Guy Amsler,
the question came up as to whether an
injunction would apply to the practice
of law in the federal as well as the
state courts. Judge Amsler postponed
the hearing on the injunction itself and
asked the two sides for briefs on what
an injunction, if granted, would cover.
DOLLARWAY APPEALS
A hearing before the Eighth U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis
was held June 27 on three appeals in
the Dollarway School District desegre
gation case (Dove v. Parham). In a
brief filed just before the hearing, the
Dollarway board contended that it had
created a pattern of constitutional use
of the state pupil placement law by
making its remedies available to all
parents and pupils.
“Of course the board has not set out
affirmatively to integrate the schools
for the sake of integration alone,” it
said.
It also argued that the consideration
of race, along with other factors, in the
assignment of pupils was not unconsti
tutional. It would, in fact, be impossible
for a board that had practiced segrega
tion historically to exclude race from
their minds during deliberations on
pupil assignments, the brief said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed
to hear a second appeal on the validity
of Act 10 of 1958, a state law requiring
public school employes to list under
oath all their memberships and contri
butions of the previous five years. The
new appeal is by Max Carr, former
professor at the University of Arkan-
(See ARKANSAS, Page 6)