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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—SEPTEMBER I960—PAGE 9
h
Survey
(Continued From Page 8)
ablan schools with white children but this
y. ( was purely speculative, partly because
Uni of the fluid situation in Knoxville.
Uni Tennessee’s seven state-operated col-
yeajjeges and universities all have or le-
0 gaily may have bi-racial enrollments
although the University of Tennessee
—.so far has admitted Negroes only to
graduate, professional and special lev
els.
• Notable among these is Memphis
; Uo( state University, which admitted eight
‘gr; Negroes to undergraduate work last
Neyear under court order. MSU’s annual
ulp report last month said two of the eight
iite failed their academic probations and
bt cannot return. A substantial increase in
Negro enrollment was foreseen this fall,
tiot "based on results of entrance exami-
; to nations given,” but no estimate was
ik made.
oul A score or more Negroes are expect-
; tli ed at East Tennessee State College in
n t Johnson City and perhaps a half-dozen
•on at Austin Peay State College, Clarks-
Hi ville.
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Texas
T'exas opens the 1960-61 term with
1,548 school districts, 53 fewer than
last year. Of the 720 bi-racial districts,
128 will be desegregated.
Estimated enrollment will total 2,-
123,967, including 1,835,108 whites and
288,859 Negroes. For 1959-60, enroll
ment was estimated at 1,783,737 white
and 279,374 Negro.
State and local spending for public
schools (including debt service but not
counting teachers’ retirement contribu
tions or higher education) will be $656,-
744,000 in 1960-61. The salary of class
room teachers in Texas averaged an
— estimated $4,440 in 1959-60 and prob
ably exceeds $4,500 now.
— APPEAL ORDER
Unofficial estimates indicate about
700,000 students will attend classes in
integrated districts. This does not in
clude 177,300 in Houston, the nation’s
largest segregated district, which is ap
pealing a district court order to de
segregate in September.
Two districts have been integrated by
election during the past school year—
Andice in Williamson County and
Frenship in Lubbock County. Voters in
Houston, Dallas and Goliad rejected
desegregation proposals during the past
year.
The “integrated situations”—exclud
ing Houston—will involve about 35,000
Negroes and 665,000 white students. An
estimated 300,000 whites and 3,500 Ne
groes will attend classes together.
Most of Texas’ 48 tax-supported col-
eges have abolished segregation, but
enrollment has not declined at three
Predominantly Negro institutions. En
rollment this September is expected to
wnal about 133,000 white and 6,325 Ne-
groes in Texas public colleges.
Virginia
S CI ‘° 0L desegregation will extend t
f 1,“'^ additional Virginia localities thi
’ bringing to 11 the number of com
lies with bi-racial classes.
aj? 1 ® cities of Richmond and Roanok.
regai count y of Fairfax will deseg
Stat o. S 3 result °f assignments by th<
Con® Hupil Placement Board. Pulask
Gala y and . the Gra y son County-
lion c ®tntnunity will have desegrega-
as the result of court orders,
will * ttttmber of desegregated school
the r mcr , ease from 10 to about 31 ant
do m j n UlT1 ^ er °f Negro children in pre-
a bout no Wh ‘ te schools from 103 t(
° V ERALL PICTURE
H
Tohfl * S overa11 Pl c t ure :
879 ttttltoipated state enrollme
Totai ^ hite 668 > 500 > Negro 211,000.
128 - tftstricts in stntn 19Q
districts in state 129, bi-racia
^segregated 11.
White 0 -, 7 'I 1 ® nt of desegregated districts
N5,000, Negro 56,700.
white itfS 1 of desegregated schools
Th e 7 400 . Negro 170.
c °Uegea ese ® re S a tl° n in state-supportei
>'ea r •pi - "’, ' De a b >ou t the same as las
will hai, 0 .dleal College of Virgin!
body of ®, 111116 Negroes in a studen
tlic Insti+T? Ut 1,252; Virginia Polytech
nic Pro, e , two among 5,100; Rich-
'b,04Q^ lessional Institute, five amonj
from’ 12 * University of Virginia
Total t0 18 amon S 4 .800.
c °lleg es enroilment of state-supportec
-^_ ls anticipated to be 29,064.
yirgin ia
V ‘rgh!i a al i 55 sch ° o1 districts in Wes
^“re the* ese gregated, there is little
In th e e ? an Pi a6e this year,
'“bnties Xtreme southern counties anc
111 the Eastern Panhandle
ALABAMA
Six Negro Students Fail in Readmission Effort
MONTGOMERY, Ala.
TXistrict Judge Frank M. John-
son Jr. refused on Aug. 26 to
order six Negroes readmitted to
Alabama State College in Mont
gomery. (See “Legal Action.”)
The Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy,
Montgomery Negro leader, said
Aug. 10 that court action
would probably be necessary to
compel the Montgomery City-
County Board of Education to in
augurate a desegregation plan.
The Montgomery Improvement
Assn., which Abernathy heads,
had asked the board more than a
year ago to make some voluntary
move toward complying with the
Supreme Court’s school decisions.
Montgomery school officials met
with city, county and state offi
cials Aug. 18 to discuss the chal
lenge. (See “Under Survey.”)
In August 1959, the Montgomery Im
provement Assn., then led by Dr. Mar
tin Luther King Jr., formally requested
the Montgomery City-County Board of
Education to “announce your plan of
integration to the community.” (South
ern School News, September 1959).
The board made no response. On
Aug. 10, Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, Dr.
King’s successor, renewed the threat,
first made by King last winter (SSN,
January 1960) to ask the federal
courts to order school integration in
Montgomery.
EXPRESSED HOPE
While expressing the hope that the
school board would undertake some
voluntary plan of desegregation, as re
quested list summer, Abernathy' saicl:
“We know that eventually we prob
ably will have to go to court.”
The refusal of the board to come
forward with a plan “will leave the Ne
gro community with no alternative”
but court action, the minister said. He
specified no time limit, nor did he in
dicate what plan of legal attack the
threatened action might take.
“We hoped that the Democratic
Party platform might give impetus for
action,” Abernathy continued, “but it
has been six years since the Supreme
Court decision and we have received
no plan in Montgomery and not a
single community in Alabama is in
tegrated.”
OPPOSITION TO CONTINUE
Whether or not there would be other
racial protests in the city after schools
reopen—such as sit-ins—the minister
declined to speculate. But opposition to
segregation will continue, he said, add
ing:
“I don’t think the Negro people, and
the students particularly, will be satis
fied until they have won their rights.”
Apparently prompted by this re
newed challenge, Montgomery City-
County officials, in an unannounced
meeting, conferred Aug. 18 with city,
county and state officials.
Attending the meeting were Mont
gomery Supt. of Education Walter Mc
Kee; Associate Supt. William S. Gar
rett; Circuit Sol. (prosecutor) William
F. Thetford; State Public Safety Dir.
Floyd Mann; Montgomery County
Sheriff Mac Sim Butler; City Police
Commissioner L. B. Sullivan; Police
Chief G. J. Ruppenthal; and Mont
gomery’s state senator, Vaughan Hill
Robison, who serves as the board’s at
torney.
One board member revealed that the
board had followed a policy for the
where desegregation isn’t yet complete,
more Negro and white students will be
brought into desegregated situations.
But no official action by county boards
of education has been taken along this
line in the past year.
The same situation as regards official
desegregation exists at the college and
university level. All publicly owned in
stitutions of higher learning are deseg
regated, and have white and Negro stu
dents attending classes together.
Several federal court suits to hasten
desegregation have been filed since
1954, but all are currently inactive.
# # #
past three years of refraining from
discussion of school integration at
regular meetings. The Aug. 19 con
ference preceded the regular meeting
of the board but, spokesmen said, the
integration question was not dis
cussed by board members. Supt. Mc
Kee declined to say whether he had
discussed the subject at a meeting of
school principals the same day.
No actual school integration attempt
has occurred in Montgomery since
Sept. 2, 1954, when 23 Negroes tried to
enroll at the newly completed Harrison
Elementary School in the southern sec
tion of the city. Many of the Negroes
lived in the neighborhood. Told they
lived in another school district, they
did not press their request for ad
mission.
There are two school integration
suits now pending. In Birmingham,
Negroes filed a petition in U. S. Dis
trict Court June 17 (SSN, July) ask
ing a federal injunction to end segre
gation in schools, parks and play
grounds.
The other (see “Legal Action”) was
filed in August in Mobile, directed at
a state vocational school there.
U.S. District Judge Frank M. John
son Jr. refused Aug. 26 to order the re
admission of six Negro students who
had been expelled from Alabama State
College in Montgomery.
The students were among nine or
dered dismissed March 2 by the State
Board of Education for their part in a
series of racial demonstrations on cam
pus and downtown. They contended in
their suit that they had a constitution
al right to continue their education at
Alabama State and requesed an appro
priate court order to that effect. (SSN,
August).
Johnson ruled the expulsions were
“justified and in fact necessary in or
der that the college could operate and
be operated in proper manner” dim
ing the series of protest marches last
spring.
The demonstrations, including the
initial one at an all-white snack bar in
the Montgomery County Courthouse,
were “calculated to provoke and did
provoke discord, disorder, disturbance
and disruption on the campus of the
college and in the college classrooms
generally,” Johnson found. In their
“zeal to focus public attention” on what
they considered discrimination, the stu
dents “acted without regard to their
status as students . . . and acted with
out considering the damage they were
doing to the orderly operation” of the
college, the ruling continued.
NOT A RIGHT’
Johnson said that the right to attend
a public college or university is not in
itself a constitutional right, but is “con
ditioned upon an individual student’s
compliance with the rules and regula
tions of the institution.”
Gov. John Patterson testified at the
hearing that the dismissals were or
dered on the basis of the whole series
of demonstrations, not the lunchroom
sit-in alone.
While ruling with the state, Johnson
dismissed Atty. Gen. MacDonald Gal-
lion’s contention that the federal court
had no jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is
clearly determined by federal law,
Johnson said.
The federal judge said his opinion
should not be construed as approval or
disapproval of sit-in demonstrations as
such since their legality was not an is
sue. Nor could it be construed as ap
proval of or disapproval of the county’s
operation of a segregated lunchroom.
TWO APPEAL
Two Negroes appealed to the U.S.
District Court in Mobile Aug. 2 for a
declaratory judgment to force the
state to admit them to the all-white
state vocational school at Mobile.
The suit, a class action, charged that
the petitioners had been denied admis
sion solely because of their race. They
also requested damages, but specified
no amount.
Named as defendants are H. Clay
Knight, school director; State Supt. of
Education Frank Stewart of Montgom
ery; and the State Board of Education.
The two Negroes, Ernest Leon Koen
and Frank E. Lee, were among a group
of Negroes who sought admission at
the school last year and again last
spring. Director Knight said they were
given information forms, which were
forwarded to the State Education De
partment.
The Negroes contend through their
attorneys—Charles F. Wilson of Pensa
cola, Fla., and Clarence E. Moses of
Mobile—that the school practices seg
regation in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Requesting a speedy hear-
ing, they asked that a permanent in
junction be issued applying to them
and all Negroes. No date has been set
for the hearing by District Judge Dan
iel H. Thomas.
State Atty. Gen. MacDonald Gallion
met with state school officials Aug. 9 to
discuss the case at a closed hearing.
Gallion and his staff conferred with
Supt. Stewart and Knight. Gallion
called it a “routine discussion.”
MUST OPEN RECORDS
U.S. District Judge Frank M. John
son Jr. ordered Montgomery County
voter registrars Aug. 11 to turn over
their records to federal agents for in
spection.
However, on Aug. 24, Judge Rich
ard T. Rives of the U.S. Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals granted the state a
10-day delay to file written arguments
supporting the request for a permanent
stay of Johnson’s directive.
Johnson thus struck down a tem
porary injunction issued June 6 by
Montgomery Circuit Judge Walter B.
Jones, who had ordered voter registra
tion records in every county in the
state closed to federal inspection.
In another racial case, Judge John
son ruled Aug. 11 that he would not
order the state of Alabama to register
the NAACP to operate in the state.
The Negro organization has been
banned from operating for four years
—since June 1956—when Judge Jones
issued a temporary injunction pending
a final determination of the question
as to whether it had legally qualifiied
under state law to do business in the
state.
Gov. John Patterson, then attorney
general, had gone into Montgomery
Circuit Court charging that the
NAACP was not only an unregistered
foreign corporation but had been in
strumental in fomenting strife in the
state. He mentioned specifically the
Autherine Lucy riots at the University
of Alabama earlier that year.
FINED $100,000
In the course of the 1956 hearings,
Judge Jones fined the organization
$100,000 for refusing to submit mem
bership records and other documents
as demanded by the court. The U.S.
Supreme Court threw out the con
tempt fine, holding that the demand
was an improper invasion of the
group’s constitutional rights.
The State Supreme Court subse
quently reinstated the fine on the
premise that the high court had ad
dressed its ruling only to membership
records, ignoring the other documents
sought. This view was rejected by the
U.S. Supreme Court, which did not,
however, rule on the temporary in
junction.
That remains in effect. Attorneys for
the organization appealed to Judge
Johnson July 13 (SSN, August) for
relief from the four-year-old ban. But
Johnson declined Aug. 11 to take such
action. He told the plaintiffs they
should seek redress in state courts. For
the federal court to assume jurisdic
tion, he said, would amount to an un
warranted assumption that state offi
cials do not take seriously their oaths
to protect the constitutional rights of
all citizens.
The U.S. Supreme Court had gone
so far as “indicate to the plaintiff-cor
poration the route open to it in secur
ing a prompt trial,” Judge Johnson
said. The high court commented at the
time:
“We assume that the State Supreme
Court, thus advised, will not fail to
proceed promptly with the disposition
of the matters left open under our
mandate for further proceedings.”
If the Supreme Court erred in this
assumption, Johnson said, the proper
course for the NAACP would be to ap
peal to it on its contention that the
state had engaged in “dilatory” tactics,
as alleged.
NEWSPAPER SUIT
Montgomery Circuit Judge Jones has
ruled that the New York Times can be
sued in his court because the news
paper has engaged in “an extensive
course of Alabama business activity—
newsgathering, solicitation of advertis
ing, circulation of newspapers and
other products.”
Montgomery’s three city commission
ers are suing the Times for $500,000
claiming that an ad which appeared in
the Times March 29 libeled them as
individuals.
The ad, a full-page appeal for the
“Committee to Defend Martin Luther
King and the Struggle for Freedom in
the South,” alleged police suppression
of demonstrators in Montgomery. (SSN,
May). The Times retracted part of the
ad May 15 and apologized to Gov.
Patterson but restricted both the re
traction and the apology to the gov
ernor. (SSN, June)
A slate of presidential elector candi
dates pledged to support Gov. Orval
Faubus of Arkansas for president and
retired Adm. John G. Crommelin of
Montgomery for vice president will be
on the general election ballot in No
vember.
The electors, carrying the standard
of the National States Rights Party,
were qualified officially Aug. 18. The
party emblem is a red thunderbolt in
a red circle with the motto, “Honor-
Pride-Fight! Save The White!” The
party platform is strongly pro-segre
gation and anti-Israel.
John Douglas Knowles of Opelika
was listed as chairman; Lee J. Crowder
of Opelika, secretary; and Dr. Edward
R. Fields of Birmingham, information
director.
Gov. Patterson’s office acknowledged
in August receipt of a telegram from
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president
of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, in which the Atlanta Ne
gro protested:
“We have learned with astonishment
that you extracted from President H.
(Council!) Trenholm of Alabama State
College a pledge that the students of
that college would not participate in
any more anti-segregation demonstra
tions and that the faculty of that col
lege would remain loyal to Alabama
segregation laws.
“You must know the president of this
college does not possess the authority
to pledge away the rights of the Amer
ican citizens who happen to be attend
ing or teaching at Alabama State Col
lege.
REPUDIATE PLEDGE
“The American people repudiate this
impossible pledge and denounce those
who are responsible for it. Students
and faculty members not only have
the right of peaceful assembly and
protest but have the obligation to op
pose the evil system of racial dis
crimination and segregation that has
been condemned by both national par
ties.
“We call upon you to release Dr.
Trenholm from this humiliating pledge
that you had him give at your State
Board of Education meeting July 20.”
Patterson had no comment. The tele
gram was forwarded to Trenholm, his
office said.
The pledge referred to (SSN,
August) came after Patterson had sug
gested that the State Board of Educa
tion seriously consider replacing Tren
holm unless he could demonstrate that
steps had been taken to prevent a repe
tition of demonstrations such as those
that spread from the campus to down
town Montgomery earlier this year.
When three young Negroes met with
Mayor James Morgan of Birmingham
Aug. 9 to discuss segregated seating
they got instead an hour-long lecture
from the mayor on the progress of
Birmingham Negroes in the past cen
tury.
At least this was their version. After
the mayor finished, the delegation said,
they were dismissed. They were Jesse
Walker, 23; Clyde Carter, 28; and Al-
phonso Crawford, 21, all of Birming
ham.
Morgan said later: “I have nothing at
all to say about it. I think the least
said about it, the better off Birming
ham will be.” # # #