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DECEMBER, I960
LOUISIANA
DEC b *80
LIBRARIES
NEGRO GIRL RIDES TO SCHOOL WITH U. S. MARSHAL
First Grader Peers From Behind Deputy Marshall Wallace E. Dows
New Orleans Times-Picayune
NewOrleansDesegregates
Schools; Federal Court
Bans State Interference
NEW ORLEANS, La.
TVTew Orleans public schools
’ were desegregated Nov. 14
through unprecedented fe d e r a 1
court action that restrained 775
state and local officials—including
the Legislature and the governor
—from interfering with admission
of four Negro girls to previously
all-white elementary schools.
Not since Reconstruction have Ne
groes and whites attended schools to
gether in Louisiana.
The break in school segregation
touched off an almost total boycott by
whites of the two desegregated schools,
led to violence in the heart of down
town New Orleans, and resulted in a
massive attack by the Louisiana Legis
lature on the federal courts’ right to
interfere in public education.
A three-judge federal court at New
Orleans denied on Nov. 30 a plea for a
delay in desegregation of New Orleans
public schools and enjoined the gover
nor, the legislature and more than 700
other state and local officials.
The order enjoins them from further
interference with the Orleans Parish
School Board’s grade-a-year desegre
gation program ordered by Federal
Court.
On Nov. 18, the court composed of
Chief Judge Richard T. Rives of the
U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and
District Judges J. Skelly Wright and
Herbert W. Christenberry had taken
under advisement the legal chal
lenges based on the Legislature’s in
voking the doctrine of interposition.
On the same date the New Orleans
schools went on a week-long Thanks
giving holiday as racial tension eased in
the city of 623,000.
CRISIS HIGHLIGHTS
These were the highlights of the New
Orleans school crisis:
1. Four Negro girls, all first graders,
on Nov. 14 entered McDonogh No. 19
and William Frantz elementary schools
under Judge Wright’s May 16, 1960, de
segregation order, based on the Bush
v. Orleans Parish school board suit
filed Sept. 4, 1952. It is the start of a
grade-a-year desegregation program.
2. The desegregation was carried out
under the Orleans Parish board’s pupil
placement plan, provided for in state
law. The four Negro girls were the only
ones of 137 Negroes applying for trans
fer to white schools who met all 17
New Summary
Notes Changes
In Enrollment
P UBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE South
now provide classes with
whites for 195,625 Negroes—an
increase of 14,605 over last year.
The increase was one of several re
ported in the latest edition of Southern
education Reporting Service’s semi
annual summary of statistics relating
0 developments in education arising
the U.S. Supreme Court decision
the public school segregation cases.
Data
,s given on enrollments, teachers,
alleges, litigation and legislation.
P 1 ® Negroes attending desegregated
3M7 S ma ^ e U P 6-3 P er cen t of the
S *>34 Negroes enrolled in the 17
uthern and border states, plus the
^strict of Columbia—the area main-
.; * Um S school segregation by law at the
: n 6 °t the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul-
W 1954.
st Ak° u t the same proportion of Negro
sch e ?^ S a ttended bi-racial classes last
earnu year when the region’s Negro
ti ^? 1Inient was 3,020,727. Negroes con-
totai *° rna he up 23 per cent of the
Wtal enrollment.
10 MILLION MARK
enrollment cleared the 10-mil-
scho? ark ’ reachin g 10,165,246. The last
in at ° yaar ended with 9,984,192 whites
antj »j naanc e- These increases in white
egro students raised the area’s
corned enrollment to 13,262,780, as
Pared to 12,914,919 in 1959-60.
of £ 0 ? n border states and the District
?a*i ori where the first desegre-
cipjj eeeurred, continue as the prin-
Delaw 31635 °f bi-racial classrooms
Maryi ar *7 the District, Kentucky,
anj ur ’ Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
niixed 63t Virginia conduct raciallv
• N Voe s e aSSeS for a total of 194 > 849
^®gro r . 6ft l a * n der of the desegregated
Flo” ^ ents —776—reside in Arkan-
Louisiana, North Carolina
the jy e ee Virginia. In each case.
°r less® 1665 involved are one per cent
ybouisj 0 Negro enrollment.
’•tty Or? 1135 “litial desegregation in
ears m November marked the
^ See SUMMARY, Page 4)
Courts Approach Agreement
On Limits Of Desegregation
By EUGENE WYATT
I N THE FIVE AND A HALF years of
litigation that have followed
the school desegregation decisions
by the U. S. Supreme Court, the
federal courts have gradually ap
proached agreement on the limits
within which school desegrega
tion plans will be considered con
stitutional.
Judging from cases decided within
Eugene Wyatt is an associate di
rector of Race Relations Law Re
porter. A graduate of Vanderbilt
University Law School, he is Sun
day editor of The Nashville Ten
nessean.
the past six months, the best a segrega
tion-minded school board can expect is
the so-called “Nashville plan”: a grade
a year, beginning in the first grade. On
the other extreme, a board not in the
Deep South, or one reluctant to initiate
any form of desegregation, is likely to
have a general immediate desegregation
ordered.
Also it seems unlikely that any sort
of “interposition” approach will find
approval in the federal courts.
But there are several troublesome
problems remaining on which the
courts have yet to reach general agree
ment. Why this should be true when
the Supreme Court has announced the
principles involved in rather unyield
ing terms sometimes perplexes persons
unfamiliar with the judicial processes
of this country. The answer lies in the
complexity of the problem and in the
language of the Supreme Court opinion
itself.
In the 1955 decision, the court avoid
ed setting any specific time for com
pliance. Instead, it said, lower courts
would be guided by equitable principles.
A court of equity, as the opinion says,
is “characterized by a practical flex
ibility in shaping its remedy.” But
never in the history of American juris
prudence has so extensive and varied
a problem been approached from a
purely judicial angle. School boards
vary in authority and organization. The
proportion of Negroes varies from lo
cality to locality. In segregation cases,
the losing side is almost certain to ap-
(See SOME PLANS, Page 2)
Segregat
ion-Desegregation Status
School Districts
Enrollment
In Desegregated
Negroes
Districts
In Schools
State
Total
Bi-racial Deseg.
White
Negro
White
Negro
With Whites
Alabama
. 114
114
0
516,135**
271,134**
.0
0
No.
0
%
0
Arkansas
. 422
228
10
317,053f
105,130f
52,126
12,639
113
.107
Delaware
. 93
51
24
67,145
15,061
48,505
8,665
6,734
44.7
District of Columbia
1
1
1
24,697
96,751
24,697
96,751
81,392
84.1
Florida
. 67
67
1
776,743
202,322
133,336*
27,502*
27
.013
Georgia
. 198
196
0
682,354**
318,405**
0
0
0
0
Kentucky
. 211
171
128
593,494**
41,938**
445,000*
32,000*
16,329
38.9
Louisiana
. 67
67
1
422,181**
271,021**
37,490
51,113
4
.001
Maryland
24
23
23
449,879*
134,379*
406,286**
114,682**
28,072**
20.9
Mississippi
. 151
151
0
287,781**
278,640**
0
0
0
0
Missouri
.1,889
214*
200*
758,000*
84,000*
—
75,000*
35,000*
41.7
North Carolina ....
. 173
173
10
816,682**
302,060**
117,404
54,746
82
.027
Oklahoma
.1,276
241
189
504,125*
40,875*
266,405
30,725
9,822
24.0
South Carolina ....
. 108
108
0
352,164**
257,935**
0
0
0
0
Tennessee
. 154
143
6
670,680*
157,320*
87,393
19,644
342
.217
Texas
.1,531
720
130
1,840,987*
288,553*
800,000*
85,000*
3,500*
1.21
Virginia
. 130
128
11
668,500
211,000
177,731
52,286
208
.099
West Virginia
. 55
43
43
416,646
21,010
416,646
21,010
14,000*
66.6
TOTALS
6,664
2,839
777
10,165,246
3,097,534
3,013,019ft
681,763
195,625
6.3
’Estimated **1959-
-60 fl958-59
ffMissouri not included.
criteria set down by the school board
for transfer from one school to another.
A fifth Negro child who met all re
quirements decided at the last minute
against the transfer.
3. Louisiana’s Legislature went first
into a 12-day special session in an ef
fort to block desegregation and then
launched into a 30-day special session
for a try at reversing it.
4. Judge Wright met every new move
by the Legislature and Gov. Jimmie H.
Davis with restraining orders prevent
ing them from interfering with school
desegregation in New Orleans. One of
his orders restrained the governor, Leg
islature, all district attorneys, sheriffs,
mayors and police chiefs of Louisiana
from carrying out provisions of a new
interposition act, which directed arrest
of federal judges and marshals imple
menting desegregation orders.
FIVE ATTEMPTS
5. Five times the governor or the Leg
islature attempted to seize the New Or
leans schools from the school board or
to strip the board members of their
powers. Judge Wright each time backed
the school board with restraining or
ders as school officials and city admin
istrators charged unwarranted interfer
ence by the state and declared the Leg
islature was attempting to close city
schools.
6. Dr. James F. Redmond, superin
tendent of schools, and Samuel I. Ros
enberg, school legal counsel, were
booted out of their jobs by the Legisla
ture and put back in them by Judge
Wright.
7. State police tried vainly under Leg
islative orders to close the schools Nov.
14 for a “holiday,” but they did not at
tempt to stop federal marshals who es
corted the Negro children to school.
8. Violence erupted in downtown New
Orleans on Nov. 16 after the Citizens
Council called for a mass march on
the Orleans school board administration
building. Whites attacked Negroes dur
ing the day and Negroes retaliated at
night, but harassed New Orleans police
prevented any mass rioting.
9. By contrast, the hundreds of spec
tators who gathered at McDonogh No.
19 and Frantz schools were reasonably
orderly though they jeered and booed
Negroes entering the schools and white
parents who at first kept their children
in classes. The boycott by whites reach
ed a climax Friday, Nov. 18, when only
three of the 1,040 whites enrolled in the
two schools showed up for classes with
the Negroes. Absenteeism in the 90,000-
(See COURT STUDIES, Page 8)
On the Inside
State Reports
Alabama 13
Arkansas 11
Delaware 7
District of Columbia 15
Florida 7
Georgia 5
Kentucky 3
Maryland 16
Mississippi 4
Missouri 12
North Carolina 13
Oklahoma 3
South Carolina 12
Tennessee 14
Texas 15
Virginia 6
West Virginia 2
Texts
Davidson County, Term 14
La. Sovereignty Commission 9
Special Articles
Judge Walter Hoffman 6
Louisiana Pupils 10
New Orleans Catholics 10
Matthew R. Sutherland 9