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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—AUGUST I960—PAGE 15
Politics
(Continued From Page 14)
ine segregationist Q f view. He also
ro ~ sought, though with less success, to in-
ov.ject lunch counter anti-segregation
^demonstrations into the campaign as an
aj'issue.
j The state’s fiscal policy was also a
““major issue—Lake supported the con
servative approach with no new taxes
—'and no new expenditures while San
ford supported a more liberal spending
policy, including the possibility of new
taxes. But the race issue was dominant,
are
vi] GRADUAL DESEGREGATION
„n- North Carolina began gradual deseg-
at-regation in the fall of 1957. Three cities
>ne—Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-
10- Salem—admitted a dozen Negro stu
dents voluntarily to previously all-
id- white schools. This was done under the
Id- state’s pupil assignment laws which
the leave the final decisions on where to
le- send students to local school boards,
col The policy continued each year,
spreading gradually, until last year it
included Durham, High Point, Wayne
County and Craven County as well as
the original three cities.
.-I Sanford, a young attorney from Fay-
etteville who has worked his way up
?jl through the Democratic Party, took the
I view that the North Carolina plan was
working, that it offered a workable so
lution to the Supreme Court’s deseg
regation decision and left local school
men running schools. He pointed fre
quently to the fact that no child in
North Carolina had attended a school
under a court order.
~ REGARD AS INVADERS
Lake, on the other hand, said Negro
students seeking admission to white
schools should be regarded as invaders.
/( He said the real goal of the National
[f- Assn, for the Advancement of Colored
* People was integration far beyond the
school level. Many of his pre-primary
, . rallies were marked by strong segrega-
"I tionist speeches by his supporters.
Two other candidates, former Atty.
w> Gen. Malcolm B. Seawall and State
Sen. John D. Larkins, were also in the
' a first primary, May 28. They supported
n ' existing school policy, Seawell with
somewhat more vigor than Sanford and
n- Larkins with somewhat less vigor.
ai Editors and others in North Carolina
>v , viewed the race as a real test of the
™ state’s four-year effort to pursue a
311 course of what is, within the state, gen
erally regarded as a moderate approach
to the school issue.
lis Li the first primary the vote was
ty Sanford, 269,463; Lake, 181,692; Seawell,
g” 101,148, and Larkins, 100,757.
RENEWED ATTACK
rii. Between the first primary and the
of second on June 25, Lake renewed his
ial attac k on the school issue. Seawell
a- Publicly supported Sanford. Larkins
of ma de no public choice. His campaign
ot mana ger did join Sanford’s forces, how
ever.
On what generally was regarded
a straight race-issue vote with ot
lssues having little to do with the fi
result, Sanford defeated Lake. ’
Sanford, 352,133, and Lake, 2’
J5 ; This gave Sanford a 76,288-v
Majority from 628,038 votes, a rec
or a North Carolina gubernatorial t
mary.
Later, Sanford himself attribu
uch of the outcome of the race to
with'!? 1 ° n *L e school question, coup
\ “is proposal to raise teachers’ s
fo 6S an . d ’ g ener ally, to spend m
vot' PU kli c education. Sanford said
centra Was P roof that the state had
P ed the moderate approach to
legation.
' t - the Democratic national conven-
in th c ° rtl provided the first break
for 6 . ou th’s support of Sen. Johnson
ern President. The North Carolina gov-
- or ~elect announced his support for
d the' 1 ^ 7 for President and seconded
>1 The assac husetts senator’s nomination,
y state provided six votes for Ken-
^ ell, Terry, It’s Just Like
I Almost Said . .
Greensboro Daily News
nedy, with the majority of the others go
ing to Johnson.
Oklahoma
Qklahomans went to the polls twice
in July, once for the primary elec
tion and again for the run-off. But in
all the campaign oratory, not a word
was spoken regarding school deseg
regation or civil rights.
All seats in the state House of Rep
resentatives and part of those in the
Senate are up for election.
However, as one veteran newsman
close to the political scene explained:
“The legislators know some people
aren’t satisfied about this integration
thing, but they figure the law’s the law,
and, besides, they have too many other
problems to worry about at the capitol.”
These center upon finding enough
revenue to finance the legislative pro
gram the last two years of the bien
nium. The school bill is the biggest
item, but segregation or desegregation
is not a factor.
South Carolina
'JpHE year 1960 finds politics and seg
regation occupying their traditional
relationship in South Carolina; that is,
with office-seekers standing firm against
any racial integration.
To date, there has been no break in
the solid political front against inte
gration except for the occasional effort
of Negro candidates to gain election to
the General Assembly. None have
come close to success, even though they
have not used desegregation policies as
campaign appeals.
The only statewide office at stake in
1960 is that of U. S. senator, now held
by Sen. Strom Thurmond. In the June
14 primary, he overwhelmed his only
opponent, Columbia attorney R. Bever
ley Herbert, by a margin of eight-to-
one. The school segregation issue fig
ured prominently in the campaign, but
not as a test of differing opinions. Her
bert contended that Thurmond (along
with other southern senators) had not
effectively presented the South’s posi
tion to the rest of the nation and had
failed to make out an effective case
against the civil rights and other anti
segregation legislation proposed in
Congress.
CITED RECORD
Thurmond, while not restricting his
campaign to that issue, responded by
citing his record of opposition to such
legislation, and his numerous speeches
and appearances in behalf of the south
ern position.
South Carolina politicians reacted ad
versely to the civil rights plank in
cluded in the 1960 platform of the
Democratic Party. Gov. Ernest F. Hol-
lings, chairman of the delegation to the
national convention in Los Angeles in
July, took an active role in seeking to
strike out the majority report favoring
strong civil rights’ pronouncements.
The platform was the prime target of
numerous South Carolina Democrats
who have questioned the advisability
of supporting the national party ticket
in the November general election. The
state Democratic party will arrive at its
formal decision on that score at a re
convened state convention to be held
in Columbia during August. Meanwhile,
no prominent South Carolina Demo
crats have thus far defended the plat
form, although many of them have in
dicated an intention of supporting the
national party in the presidential elec
tion.
Tennessee
^EGREGATION-DESEGREGATION and civil
rights have become issues in only
one campaign in Tennessee this sum
mer—that of Estes Kefauver for a third
term in the U. S. Senate.
Both Kefauver and his opponent,
Judge Andrew T. (Tip) Taylor of
Jackson, Tenn., have criticized the civil
rights plank which the Democrats
adopted at Los Angeles. Nevertheless,
Kefauver has been firmly identified
with civil rights and observers here
feel the Aug. 4 primary will provide
the first real test of southern reaction
to the plank.
Backers of both men agree that if
Kefauver fails to win the Democratic
nomination (tantamount to election in
Tennessee), it will be because of the
civil rights issue, but the Kefauver
supporters claim it is a fake issue.
“The real reason Estes has aroused
opposition is because he bucked the
private power lobby and investigated
steel prices and drug prices,” said
Mayor Frank Gray of Franklin, Kefau-
ver’s campaign manager. “These are
the interests which are financing the
campaigning against him, but they are
using the civil rights issue to club him
with.”
Hoyt Bryson, Taylor’s campaign man
ager, disagrees.
“The main issue,” he said, “is that
Kefauver’s ultra-liberal position is
contrary to the views of most Tennes
seans, on race and everything else.”
Taylor’s principal charge against Ke
fauver is that he supported the Civil
Rights Act of 1960, but he also taxes
him with refusing to sign the Southern
Manifesto, voting for the Civil Rights
Act of 1957 and “appealing to minority
groups.
Kefauver, in speech after speech in
courthouse squares across the state,
has replied:
“Yes, I voted for the civil rights bill
this year, because I couldn’t square my
conscience with denying any qualified
citizen the right to vote. Is there any
one here who doesn’t feel every quali
fied citizen should have the right to
vote? If there is, hold up your hand.”
CUTS STRENGTH
To date no one has held up his hand,
but there is no question that the issue
is cutting into Kefauver’s strength.
Normally, for example, he can count
on organized labor, but his own back
ers acknowledge he has lost votes
among segregationist union members in
Memphis and especially in Chattanoo
ga, where the Ku Klux Klan still has
some force.
Superficially, this campaign bears a
striking resemblance to the senatorial
race in 1958, in which Sen. Albert Gore
roundly defeated his segregationist op
ponent, former Gov. Prentice Cooper.
There are, however, two essential dif
ferences.
The first is that Taylor is a much
more attractive candidate than Cooper
was. Just 49, he has had a political
career stretching back to 1937 when he
was first elected to the state Legisla
ture. Two years ago he ran for gover
nor, winning second place in a three-
man race and gamering about 30 per
cent of the votes on a strong segrega
tionist platform.
The second is that civil rights has
become a much more burning issue
now than it was two years ago. The
desegregation of two more school sys
tems, the lunch counter sit-ins this
spring, Negro registration efforts in
Haywood and Fayette counties, and
finally the Civil Rights Act and the
Democratic civil rights plank all have
concentrated attention on the subject.
Texas
means a certain Democratic state,
however.
Speaker Sam Rayburn, who encour
aged Johnson to accept the second-
place role, said in Dallas that the im
portance of the platform will depend
not so much upon what was adopted
at Los Angeles as how it is interpreted
by Congress.
BOTH DISAPPOINTED
Yet it can be said that both Texas
conservatives and liberals were disap
pointed at the Democrats. Liberal Dem
ocrats here mostly favored Adlai Ste
venson. Johnson supporters defeated
them in the local conventions and this
group was unrepresented in the Texas
delegation to Los Angeles.
Conservatives dislike both Kennedy
and the platform. Johnson and Rayburn
can help keep some of these in line
through their power in Congress. Also,
Johnson has a large and well-organ
ized political group in Texas, something
that nobody else, including the Repub
licans, has.
Virginia
Cchool segregation has diminished as
a political issue in Virginia, but it
is still a very real campaign factor.
The issue was at its peak of intensity
in the gubernatorial fight of 1957 when
Democrat J. Lindsay Almond Jr. cam
paigned and won as an all-out “massive
resister.”
The most recent effect of school seg
regation as a political factor was felt in
some local elections held in June.
In Norfolk—according to the Journal
and Guide, a Negro weekly—4,200 Ne
gro voters played the decisive role in
defeating one of two incumbent mem
bers of Norfolk’s “massive resistance”
City Council and in electing a “mod-
erate” to take his place.
In Richmond, seven of nine candi
dates on a ticket backed by Negro
leaders were elected. An analysis of
the returns, precinct by precinct,
shows beyond doubt that three, and
possibly four, of the seven would have
been defeated without Negro support.
There were no Negroes in the race,
and Negro voters supported the white
candidates they considered most friend
ly to the Negro viewpoint.
The 1959 legislative session, which
adopted the new state segregation pol
icy, was marked by a deep split in the
Democratic organization headed by
U. S. Sen. Harry Flood Byrd. A fac
tion headed by Gov. Almond fought for
the new policy, while a group led at
least in part by State Sen. Harry Byrd
Jr. took the opposite position.
Today, the most important question
in Virginia politics is: Has the Byrd
organization been permanently split, or
will the two factions reunite for the
next state political contest?
The answer probably will not be
forthcoming until the gubernatorial
campaign next spring.
West Virginia
Desegregation as a political issue is
dead so far in the election campaign
in West Virginia. Not one candidate for
state or federal office has brought the
subject into the open.
During August both the state Demo
cratic and Republican parties will hold
conventions to approve party platforms
for the next four years, but the plat
form committees have not met.
There is some possibility that there
will be an expression of sentiment for
liberalization of employment practices,
but desegregation in the public schools
has been firmly established and there is
little likelihood that it will be made a
plank in either platform.# # #
Timely...
Southern Schools
PROGRESS
AND
PROBLEMS
gTATE and local political races in
Texas during 1960 have been con
spicuous for the absence of racial is
sues. There has been less mention of the
segregation-integration issue by local
and state candidates than at any time
in memory.
By contrast Democratic primaries in
1954, 1956, and 1958 had included con
troversies on this subject. However,
moderation has proved to be the best
political position statewide in Texas.
Candidates using advocacy of segrega
tion—or of integration—as a political
policy have fared poorly.
IMPORTANT BEARING
In national races, civil rights and
race relations will have an important
bearing in the November election in
Texas.
With Johnson on the ticket, Texas
likely will vote Democratic in Novem
ber despite civil rights and other
planks that citizens here generally
consider obnoxious. This is by no
‘Congratulations on the New
Hand You Hired’
New York Herald Tribune
$4.75 for Clofhback. Also available in
Paperback at $3.50
CHAPTER AUTHORS:
Tom Flake
Weldon James
Edgar L. Jones
Overton Jones
William H. McDonald
Patrick E. McCauley
Reiman Morin
Richard M. Morehead
A volume in two sections. One section is in
eight chapters by the staff and associates
of Southern School News, with an introduc
tory chapter by two-time Pulitzer prize
winner Reiman Morin. The second is a
statistical section of 77 tables with head-
notes prepared and analyzed by a team of
educators for the period 1952-57.
This useful book covers educational develop
ments in the 17 southern and border states
during the period immediately before and
since the U. S. Supreme Court's 1954 de
segregation decision.
Subjects covered narratively and statistically
include Population, Enrollment and Attend
ance, Revenue, Expenditures, Personnel,
Transportation, Buildings and Equipment and
Special Services . . . one of the most com
prehensive studies yet undertaken on south
ern education.
W. D. Workman Jr.
Statistical section prepared and analyzed by
Dr. Bennie E. Carmichael, Peabody College,
and Dr. John A. Griffin, Florida State Uni
versity.
At your bookstore or order direct from:
SOUTHERN EDUCATION REPORTING SERVICE
Box 6156 Aclden Station, Nashville, Tenn.