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e Factual Souther nc >'S'aio s ;; News Objective wcyoL. 7, NO. 6 for NAbl-lviLi-c, it. r- r —j- $2 PER hEAR 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