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AUGUST, I960
Appeals Court Rejects Grade-a-Year Plan
DELAWARE
Statewide Plan
Struck Down
In 2-1 Ruling
DOVER, Del.
D elaware’s grade-a-year de
segregation plan has been
struck down by the U. S. Third
Circuit Court of Appeals, which
ordered integration at all grade
levels in 1961.
The State Board of Education
will ask for a rehearing before the
full seven-member Circuit Court,
and indicated it will carry the
case to the U. S. Supreme Court
if necessary. (See “Legal Ac
tion.”)
Enrollment of Negro pupils in
Delaware is growing at a faster
rate than that of the whites. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Delaware State College will
need two million dollars for new
buildings, the Board of Trustees
has been told by the outgoing col
lege president. (See “In the Col
leges.”)
i pi
h. The U. S. Third Circuit Court of
Appeals, by a two-to-one vote, struck
1 down Delaware’s grade-a-year deseg-
regation plan and ordered full de-
segregation beginning in 1961.
• The State Board of Education will
c request a rehearing before the entire
if seven-member court in Philadelphia.
•i The decision to appeal was made at an
j executive meeting of the board on July
[ 21, with the president of the board
: absent.
„ Should the rehearing prove fruitless,
• the state board is expected to carry
l 'Is appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Both Atty. Gen. Januar P. Bove Jr.,
i who represents the state board, and
Marvel O. Watson, board vice presi
dent, indicated that Delaware will fight
the decision, handed down on July 19.
OPINION DIFFERS’
Bove, while admitting that he did
n °t speak for the state board, said in
a statement issued immediately after
the decision that “the opinion differs
from an opinion of the U. S. Sixth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals in the Nashville
case , where such a grade-a-year plan
Wa s approved. Further, the U. S. Su
preme Court by failing to entertain
appeal of the U. S. Sixth Circuit
Court ruling in the Nashville case in
effect approved it.
, Since the State Board of Education
nas directed the past two previous at
torneys general to carry this matter to
“ le United States Supreme Court, I do
n °t anticipate that the present board
Will give me different instructions.”
S£ ES PROBLEMS
Watson, a Kent County member of
e state board and a Dover banker,
, resees mountainous financial and
ysical problems if total racial inte
ntion is to take place next year,
b * no * P re sunie to speak for the
. . . but I am apprehensive about
y e Physical problems of quick integra-
wih ^ ne ih e hottest points at issue
dit .he the determination as to which
w ., ] r n ts the newly integrated pupils
he entitled to belong. I think we
e a d carry the case to the highest
of the land for a final decision.”
be r f°^ English, state board mem-
Sl _ : rom Sussex County, expressed
had t +^ e 3t tke decision. “I thought we
“I things pretty well set,” he said.
bee^ aSn *■ ex Pecting them to reverse it
Peacefully 1 ” workin g out vei W
ident 1C f I f! Theisen, state board pres-
th e d • • f ° r a vacation the day after
the ec : ls ‘ on > without commenting on
special 6r ’ Dther than noting that a
consid m r tmg would he called to
at er the decision. But the board,
regular meeting the day after
f See DELAWARE. Page 2)
. . And Now To Select a
Civil Rights Plank!’
‘This Can’t Be Happening
To Me’
w
(0k
Delaware’s School Board
Asks Rehearing of Case
r | ’he U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Delaware’s grade-
a-year desegregation ended by 1961, a decision that could have
repercussions in school suits pending in other states.
By a two-to-one decision, the court directed that some 20 Negro
plaintiffs be admitted to various grades in white schools this Septem
ber. The grade-by-grade desegregation plan will be allowed to con
tinue until the full integration plan goes into effect in September 1961.
School officials quickly noted that the
Washington Evening Star
V
Washington Post
Parties Override Protests,
Take Firm ‘Rights’ Stands
By JIM LEESON
T he Democratic and Republi
can parties adopted strong
planks on school desegregation
and civil rights at their national
conventions in July, overriding
southern objections.
The strength of the stands tak
en by both parties caused grum
blings of discontent below the
Mason-Dixon line but this unrest
was not expected to develop into
formation of a major third party
movement. Several states talked
of using independent electors to
withhold their support of the reg
ular party nominees.
The Democrats, convening in
Los Angeles on July 11-15, called
for, among other things, a three-
year deadline on school desegre
gation.
That portion of the plank stated that
“every school district affected by the
Supreme Court’s school desegregation
decision should submit a plan providing
for at least first-step compliance by 1963,
the 100th anniversary of the Emancipa
tion Proclamation.”
OPPOSE TARGET DATE
In Chicago two weeks later, the Re
publican convention matched the Demo
crats in support of school desegregation
but opposed fixing a target date.
“Slow-moving school districts would
construe it as a three-year moratorium
during which progress would cease,
postponing until 1963 the legal process
to enforce compliance,” the plank ex
plained. “We believe that each of the
pending court actions should proceed
as the Supreme Court has directed and
that in no district should there be any
such delay.”
Ten southern states issued a minority
report concerning the civil rights por
tion of the Democratic platform. Written
by two Georgians, James H. Gray, the
state Democratic Party chairman, and
by Charles J. Bloch, the minority report
was signed by Alabama, Arkansas, Flor
ida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia
and, after some delay, Tennessee.
SOUTHERN POSITION
The southerners contended in their
report:
“There is no ‘constitutional require
ment that racial discrimination be ended
in public education.’ All that the courts
have said on this subject is that if a
State chooses to establish and maintain
a public school system, the children in
the schools of that system may not be
segregated by the standard of race or
color.
“If the people of any state choose to
abandon their public schools rather than
to integrate them, no court or Congress
may compel the submission of any plan
of compliance with ‘the Supreme Court’s
school desegregation decision’.”
The platform committees of both par
ties had considerable pressure exerted
upon them from inside and outside the
party. Negroes and white sympathizers
staged “Freedom Now” picket demon
strations outside each convention meet
ing place. They were led by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., president of the South
ern Christian Leadership Conference;
Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the
National Assn, for the Advancement of
Colored People; A. Philip Randolph,
president of the Brotherhood of Sleep
ing Car Porters and an AFL-CIO vice
president; and student leaders.
ISSUE WARNING
King and Randolph told the Demo
cratic platform committee in a joint
statement:
“We warn you that platforms and
promises are no longer sufficient to meet
the just and insistent demands of the
Negro people for immediate free and un
conditional citizenship.”
Southern delegates made strong
counter-demands. U.S. Sen. Spessard L.
Holland of Florida stepped down from
his seat on the platform committee to
speak on behalf of other southern mem
bers. He said:
“We have a strong conviction in the
South that compulsion — whether
through legislation or court decree or a
(See CONVENTIONS, Page 16)
Delaware plan was similar to the
grade-a-year Nashville plan, which the
U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
upheld. The U.S. Supreme Court ap
proved the widely copied Nashville
plan, in effect, when it refused to en
tertain an appeal from the appellate
court.
Lawyers were expected to cite the
Delaware decision in school suits in
Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis,
Tenn. Delaware’s school board will re
quest a rehearing by the Third Circuit
Court.
Louisiana officials, moving in state
courts to block a federal court’s deseg
regation order for New Orleans public
schools, won a preliminary injunction
preventing the Orleans Parish school
board from integrating its schools Sept.
8. The decision by Civil District Court
Judge Oliver P. Carriere was certain to
set up a legal battle between the state
and federal courts.
In Virginia, the new State Pupil
Placement Board broke with the
board’s past practice and voluntarily
assigned 12 Arlington County Negroes
to all-white or predominantly white
schools.
Dade County, Fla., which began
some integration at two schools last
year, assigned two Negro students to
two other all-white schools for next
September.
In Arkansas, Gov. Orval Faubus
crushed four opponents to gain an un
precedented nomination to a fourth
term. The campaign was based prin
cipally on his policy during the Little
Rock school crisis and other school
desegregation matters.
State by state, other developments in
the region during July were:
Alabama
Six Negro students expelled from
Alabama State College because of
Segregation Issues Cast
In Major Election Roles
S chool desegregation and civil
rights issues appear to be
playing increasingly stronger roles
in southern politics, according to
reports from Southern School
News correspondents.
The school issue has ended up
dominating various local and state
elections this year in Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Lou
isiana, Mississippi, North Carolina
and Virginia.
The segregation issue in general
has played the leading role in
Alabama, South Carolina and
Tennessee campaigns.
SSN correspondents reported that in
the Deep South states the candidates
differ on the segregation issue only
in the degree of support for separa
tion of the races.
The segregation-desegregation issue
generally is a dead one in the border
states, where most of the area’s school
integration has occurred.
NATIONAL POLITICS
In national politics, the voters and
political leaders of the region again
give most of their consideration to
stands on the race issue.
Strong civil rights planks adopted at
both the Democratic and Republican
conventions gave segregationists little
to cheer over, but no major third-party
movement appeared to be developing.
The quick collapse of talk of a
southern civil rights revolt after Sen.
Lyndon Johnson’s selection as Sen.
John F. Kennedy’s running mate
seemed to point toward acquiescence.
DEMOCRATIC ADVANTAGE
A mid-July Gallup Poll, which
asked voters whether they would like
to see the Republicans or Democrats
win in their state “if the elections for
Congress were being held today,” pro
duced a 60-to-40 advantage for the
Democrats. The sampling in the south
ern states ran 80-to-20 in favor of the
Democratic party.
Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-SC)
charged that the Democratic platform
“sounds the death-knell of the Demo
cratic party known to our forebears.”
Thurmond, who headed the States
Rights ticket in 1948, said there would
be no third-party movement in the
South this year, but predicted that
some states might bolt the Democratic
party through independent elector
laws.
Complaining that the platform offered
only “derision, contempt and berate-
ment” to the South, Thurmond seemed
to find little comfort in the Johnson
nomination. But he conceded that
Johnson’s candidacy could help the
party in the November elections.
NAMES REEVES
Kennedy announced July 25 that he
had appointed Frank D. Reeves, Dis
trict Democratic national committee
man and prominent civil rights attor
ney, as an assistant to travel with him
in the campaign. Reeves is active in the
National Assn, for the Advancement of
Colored People and has figured in
(See POLITICS, Page 14)
anti-segregation demonstrations have
filed federal court suits for re-admis
sion. (Page 11)
Arkansas
FBI agents reported catching two
men in the act of lighting a bomb at a
Negro Methodist college about two
hours before the fifth explosion in
Little Rock within 10 months damaged
a school warehouse. (Page 5)
Delaware
State officials reported that Negro
enrollment is growing at a faster rate
than that of whites. (Page 1)
District of Columbia
Tests of Washington’s elementary
pupils showed continued gains in av
erage achievement levels in the 1959-
60 school year. (Page 6)
Florida
In Tampa, 107 Negroes were among
476 children requesting transfers, a
move NAACP officials described as a
massive effort to end school segrega
tion. (Page 6)
Georgia
A Fulton County grand jury recom
mended segregation by sex in Atlanta’s
high schools in event of racial deseg
regation. (Page 10)
Kentucky
Samuel V. Noe, assistant to the late
Louisville Supt. Omer Carmichael, was
named to succeed his former chief.
(Page 9)
Louisiana
The Orleans Parish school board took
steps to prepare for integration despite
legal actions by the state against a
desegregation order. (Page 7)
Maryland
The continuing migration of south
ern rural families in Baltimore was re
ported to be causing rapid racial turn
over in schools, overcrowded class
rooms and revised teaching methods.
(Page 12)
Mississippi
Mississippi’s State Sovereignty Com
mission granted $20,000 of public funds
to the private Citizens Council Forum.
(Page 3)
Missouri
Expansion of Negroes into formerly
white residential areas in Kansas City
has caused increasing population pres
sure at some schools. (Page 11)
North Carolina
A court decision was expected soon
on whether Negro students in Yancey
County will be assigned to white
schools. (Page 9)
Oklahoma
A human relations project conducted
an intensive campaign to keep an
integrated school from becoming seg
regated. (Page 13)
South Carolina
The state education agency reported
Negro high school graduates increased
200 per cent in the past 10 years. (Page
2)
Tennessee
U.S. District Judge Leslie Darr took
under advisement motions by both
sides for summary judgments in the
Chattanooga school desegregation case.
(Page 3)
Texas
A legal ruling appeared in the mak
ing on Texas’s law requiring referen
dum approval before a district de
segregates. (Page 8)
Virginia
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled that four Negro appli
cants for white schools did not have
to follow the administrative procedures
of the pupil placement act. (Page 10)
West Virginia
One of the nation’s oldest Negro
schools, Storer College, finally passed
out of existence with its incorporation
into the Harpers Ferry National
Monument. (Page 41 # # #