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TuNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA!
SOUtEi
VOL. 7, NO. 3
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Objective
$2 PER YEAR
SEPTEMBER, I960
REED SARRATT
SERS Names
Reed Sarratt
New Director
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Oeed Sarratt, a Winston-Salem
N. C., newspaper executive,
became executive director of
Southern Education Reporting
Service on Sept. 1.
Sarratt’s appointment was an
nounced by Frank Ahlgren, editor
of the Memphis Commercial Ap
peal and chairman of the SERS
board of directors. Marvin D.
Wall has been acting executive
director since December, when
Edward Ball resigned the post to
cdlioi uf the Nashville
Tennessean. Wall will remain on
the SERS staff.
Ball’s predecessors were C. A. Mc
knight, now editor of the Charlotte
Observer, and Don Shoemaker, now
editorial page editor of the Miami
Herald.
SERS, operating under a Ford Foun
dation grant, collects and publishes in
formation on school segregation-deseg
regation in the South. It publishes
Southern School News, which presents
factual and objective reports from the
R southern and border states, plus the
District of Columbia.
I am very pleased to have this ap
pointment,” Sarratt said. “The subject
°f public school segregation-desegrega-
bon is one in which I have had a long
mterest. I feel that SERS is perform-
m g an important service for the South
®nd for the whole nation, and I am
°°king forward to being a part of it.”
Sarratt has been executive assistant
the publisher of the Winston-Salem
ournal and Twin City Sentinel, with
supervision over news and business de
partments. He was editorial page editor
1^52 until 1955 and from then un-
i May 1959, executive editor in charge
? news and editorial departments. Be-
ore going to Winston-Salem he was
n editorial writer for the Baltimore
vening Sun and filled various news
S1 gnments for the Charlotte News.
. Sai 7 att was bom in Charlotte, N. C.,
tt . 17. In 1937 he graduated from the
'versity of North Carolina. He is
rn ® d to the former Elva Ann Ran-
ehildr ^k ar k>tte, ^ they have three
^JcKnight was the first executive di-
19u°* ®kRS and served from July
MpTc t0 1955. Shoemaker followed
SUst iqs * anc * ^eld post un bl Au
di,.. . Dali was the third executive
tor of the organization. # # #
Houston Appeals
To Supreme Court
_\ s time for school openings
neared, the nation’s largest seg
regated school district continued
“its to avoid desegregation.
a , ® Houston, Tex., school board
st . G H. S. Supreme Court to
„• y a district court order to be-
°n Sept 6 ^ egati ° n “ the first S rade
details, see Page 16.
Fourteen Districts Desegregate;
Court Refuses Delay in Houston
Louisiana Continues Fight
LOUISIANA
State Officials Resist A § ainst Ink - ration llulin "
Desegregation Order
NEW ORLEANS, La.
ov. Jimmie H. Davis seized
control of New Orleans public
schools in an effort to block de
segregation but a rapidly moving
three-judge federal court return
ed the administration to the Or
leans Parish (county) school
board with an order to comply
with desegregation.
With schools scheduled to open
Sept. 7, the five-member school
board and state officials pondered
their next move in an effort to
avoid compliance with the grade-
a-year desegregation plan ordered
by U.S. District Court Judge J.
Skelly Wright on May 16. The
state was without the power of the
major state school desegregation
laws that were ruled unconstitu
tional by the federal panel Aug.
27. (See “Legal Action.”)
On Aug. 30. Judge Wright granted
Orleans Parish a delay until Nov.
14 on his desegregation order.
Dr. James F. Redmond, super
intendent of public schools, was
named by Davis as his agent to
run the public school system of
95,000 pupils. After the federal
court ruling, Redmond continued
to follow a plan for school regis
tration laid down by Davis as the
school board attempted to learn
where it stood legally. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
The number of private school co
operatives, intended for use should
public schools of New Orleans be
closed, mounted in August. And the
(See LOUISIANA, Page 15)
TENNESSEE
First Grade
Desegregated
In Knoxville
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
F ederal District Judge Robert
L. Taylor ordered Knoxville
city schools to begin a grade-a-
year desegregation plan with the
first grade when schools opened
Aug. 31 (See “Legal Action.”)
On Aug. 29, Knox County an
nounced unexpectedly that its
schools would open voluntarily
with a grade-a-year desegregation
plan similar to the city’s on Aug.
30.
At Chattanooga, another feder
al judge was expected to decide
soon whether the city school
(See TENNESSEE, Page 2)
F ourteen southern school districts plan to desegregate for the first
time with the opening of the 1960-61 school session this month.
This does not include two large metropolitan districts under court
orders to desegregate this September—Houston and New Orleans. Offi
cials were trying in both cases to reverse federal court orders for de
segregation this year.
Unless New Orleans desegregates its
schools, the South again this year will
have five states with complete segrega
tion in its elementary and high schools:
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Missis
sippi and South Carolina.
Districts making their initial de
segregation include Richmond, Knox
ville and Knox County.
The other desegregation occurred in
four other Virginia districts, two each
in Delaware and Oklahoma, and one
each in Arkansas, North Carolina and
Texas.
Louisiana Gov. Jimmie H. Davis
seized control of the New Orleans pub
lic schools. But a three-judge federal
court returned the administration to
the school board.
On Aug. 29, just before SOUTH
ERN SCHOOL NEWS went to
press for mailing ahead of Labor
Day holidays, the U. S. Third Cir
cuit Court of Appeals denied a
petition for rehearing its decision
that the Delaware grade-a-year
plan is too slow. For earlier details,
see Page 3.
The Houston school board voted to
appeal a federal court desegregation
order. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals refused to grant Houston a de
lay and the school officials planned to
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State-by-state the picture was:
Alabama
U.S. District Judge Frank M. John
son Jr. refused to order veadmission of
six Negroes expelled from Alabama
State College. (Page 9)
Arkansas
Dollarway school board assigned one
Negro to a white school, becoming Ar-
turveij
765 School Districts Desegregated
r|ESEGREGATiON of 14 more
school districts this month
brings to 765 the number of dis
tricts in the south having bi-racial
schools to some degree.
Two cities, New Orleans and
Houston, were under court orders
to desegregate for the first time
with the opening of the new ses
sion but their status remained
doubtful. Officials in each case
continued legal efforts to block
federal court orders calling for
some degree of integration.
Correspondents for Southern
School News reported one new
district to desegregate in Arkan
sas, two in Delaware, one in
North Carolina, two in Oklahoma,
two in Tennessee, one in Texas
and five in Virginia.
Other states that already have some
degree of integration were expected to
experience the regular annual increase
in enrollment of both races. However,
the number of Negroes attending
classes with whites was expected to
remain at six per cent of the total Ne
groes enrolled in the public schools of
the South.
Only 2,838 school districts are bi-ra
cial out of the total 6,676 districts in the
17 southern and border states, plus the
District of Columbia. Consolidations in
several states have cut the total num
ber from the previously reported 7,016.
Dollarway school district assigned one
Negro to a white school as a result of
a desegregation lawsuit at the high
school level. The action made the dis
trict the tenth in the state to begin bi-
racial classes.
Delaware expects two additional dis
tricts to desegregate, according to state
records. One Negro pupil is expected at
Seaford Special School District in Sus
sex County and at Krebs School in the
Newport, Wilmington, State Board Dis
trict No. 21.
Three Negroes will attend a former
ly all-white elementary school in Chap
el Hill, N.C., making the district the
eighth in the state to desegregate, all
voluntarily. An anticipated court deci
sion could make Yancey County the
ninth such district.
Two additional Oklahoma districts are
desegregating. Wewoka and Sapulpa
took the action voluntarily, chiefly for
financial reasons.
Six Tennessee school districts will be
desegregated this year, two for the first
time. Knox County and Knoxville
(See SURVEY, Page 8)
South’s Desegregated School Districts
State
Total
Number
Desegregating
Total
Districts
Bi-Racial
This Fall
Desegreg;
Alabama
113
113
0
0
Arkansas
419
226
1
10
Delaware
94
51
2
21
District of Columbia
1
1
0
1
Florida
67
67
0
1
Georgia
198
196
0
0
Kentucky
210
173
0
124
Louisiana*
67
67
0
0
Maryland
24
23
0
23
Mississippi
151
151
0
0
Missouri
1,889
214
0
200
North Carolina
173
173
1
8
Oklahoma
1,276
241
2
189
South Carolina
108
108
0
0
Tennessee
154
143
2
6
Texas*
1,548
720
1
128
Virginia
129
128
5
11
West Virginia
55
43
0
43
6,676
2,838
14
765
*Not included are Houston, Tex., and New Orleans, La., where officials con
tinued to fight federal court orders for desegregation this month.
kansas’ tenth desegregated district.
(Page 10)
Delaware
Delaware’s attorney general, acting
under instruction of the State Board
of Education, asked the U.S. Third
Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehear
ing on its recent school desegregation
decision. (Page 3)
District of Columbia
The Senate moved quickly in its spe
cial late-summer session to kill a Re
publican civil rights bill that would
have included federal aid to communi
ties desegregating schools. (Page 12)
Florida
Florida’s first integrated private
school will open this month when three
Negroes attend a Miami Catholic high
school. (Page 4)
Georgia
Georgia, with Negroes making up
one-third of its one million enrollment,
opens the 1960-61 school term with
complete segregation. (Page 11)
Kentucky
Kentucky expected a slight increase
in integrated classes as it began its
sixth year of an integration program.
(Page 5)
Louisiana
The Orleans Parish school board and
state officials pondered their next move
in an effort to avoid compliance with a
desegregation plan. (Page 1)
Maryland
School opening will find an estimated
5,000 additional Negroes in newly or
previously integrated public schools in
Maryland. (Page 7)
Mississippi
Mississippi public schools, still seg
regated, readied for the fall term with
an anticipated increased enrollment,
higher salaries for teachers and added
classrooms. (Page 14)
Missouri
St. Louis Public School System an
nounced plans to eliminate the first
through the third grade and substitute
the ungraded primary plan. (Page 13)
North Carolina
North Carolina, with at least eight
desegregated school districts, expected
1,100,000 school children to enter its
public schools this fall. (Page 6)
Oklahoma
Sapulpa found it simpler and more
economical to desegregate its high
school rather than rebuild a Negro
school nearly demolished by a tornado.
(Page 13)
South Carolina
Creation of bi-racial committees to
discuss race problems in South Caro
lina communities was suggested by
several persons in official position.
(Page 11)
Tennessee
A federal judge at Chattanooga was
expected to decide soon whether the
city school board should submit a de
segregation plan to the court or be re
quired to desegregate completely and
immediately. (Page 1)
Texas
Dallas voters rejected by a four-to-
one vote the proposed integration of the
schools. (Page 16)
Virginia
Prince Edward County will begin its
second year without public schools as
whites continue their program of pri
vate schools and Negroes continue their
system of “training centers.” (Page 5)
West Virginia
The Democratic and Republican state
parties adopted civil rights planks that
held out promise of expanded school
desegregation. (Page 12) # # #