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PAGE 12—JANUARY 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Faubus Offers Assistance to Davis;
Court Kills Teachers Affidavit Law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
G ov. Orval E. Faubus of Ar
kansas offered his assistance
to Gov. Jimmie Davis of Louisi
ana in the New Orleans school
situation, but apparently nothing
came of the offer. (See “Political
Activity.”)
Act 10 of 1958, requiring all Arkansas
teachers to file an affidavit listing all
their memerships and contributions to
organizations, as a condition of em
ployment, was ruled unconstitutional by
the U. S. Supreme Court. (See “Legal
Action.”)
In a hearing on the validity of four
other Arkansas statutes, the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People gave testimony that
its membership in Arkansas had fallen
from 2,020 in 1956 to 884 in October
1960. (See “Legal Action.”)
Five members of the Little Rock
School Board, accused by a minister
of using “cold war tactics” toward the
Negro students in former all-white
high schools, disputed that criticism
and called it a “harsh disservice” to
the board that reopened the chools.
(See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Gov. Orval E. Faubus disclosed Dec.
9 that he had offered help in any way
to Gov. Jimmie Davis of Louisiana in
the New Orleans school situation. The
offer was made some time before that
date but there was no indication tKat
Gov. Davis ever made use of it. The
disclosure was made in the question-
and-answer column of the weekly
Little Rock paper Faubus bought re
cently, as follows:
“Q. We all remember very well how
much the people of Louisiana helped
us when we were having our difficult
ies with the federal government. I have
not noted in the news whether or not
you have offered any assistance to Gov.
Davis.
“A. Some time ago I sent a wire to
Gov. Davis, as follows: ‘I have noted
with concern the difficulties in your
state in the schools of New Orleans.
This message is to express my moral
support in your efforts to retain for
the people of your state the freedoms
guaranteed to them under the Consti
tution. I also wish to offer my assist
ance in any way that it might be used
in this struggle to retain the freedoms
for the people of Louisiana and Arkan
sas and all other states to which the
people are entitled.’ ”
Scores Judiciary
Faubus also referred to the “dicta
torship” of the federal judiciary in a
written statement issued Dec. 1. The
text follows:
“The ruling of the Circuit Court of
Appeals in the Dallas, Tex., school
controversy, and the ruling of the
three-judge court in the New Orleans
school controversy make it clear that
a judicial dictatorship has been set up
and is being imposed upon the people
who are affected in the various areas.
“There may be those who think this
is a solution to the problem, but ty
ranny imposed by any government or
by whatever branch of the federal
government will be no solution to these
problems in America.
“Naturally, the struggle will con
tinue, because freedom-loving people
will not submit to such tyrannical
methods as a solution to any problem
without a struggle.”
★ ★ ★
Gov. Faubus and the eight Demo
cratic electors elected in Arkansas
stayed clear of the Southern independ
ent elector movement, despite its ad
vocacy by State Supreme Court Justice
Jim Johnson.
Faubus had confirmed to reporters
that William M. Rainach, a top Louisi
ana segregationist leader, had called
on him to talk in general terms about
the New Orleans situation and the
independent elector plan.
Johnson said Georgia, Alabama and
Louisiana were ready to join with Mis
sissippi to determine who would be
the next president, and that this left
Faubus holding the balance of power.
But Faubus ignored a meeting of the
independent electors in Jackson, Miss.
The Arkansas electors, not legally
bound but publicly pledged to the
Democratic nominees, voted Demo
cratic on schedule Dec. 19.
★ ★ ★
Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark)
was seriously considered by President
elect John F. Kennedy for secretary of
State, according to political reporters,
but didn’t get it chiefly because he
signed the Southern Manifesto of 1956
and because he stood silent during the
Little Rock school crisis in his home
state.
★ ★ ★
In the final official returns from
the Nov. 8 general election, the Na
tional States Rights Party got 28,952
votes in Arkansas to 215,049 for the
Democrats and 184,508 for the Repub
licans. The final count on proposed
Amendment 52 (school closing) was
307,251 against, 100,145 for. Through
Nov. 30, the National States Rights
Party’s national total was 214,159. Gov.
Faubus was the party’s nominee for
president.
The United States Supreme Court
in a 5-4 decision Dec. 12 struck down
Act 10 of 1958, which required all
Arkansas teachers to list annually all
the organizations to which they had
belonged or contributed in the previous
five years.
For refusing to sign an Act 10 affi
davit, two of the three plaintiffs had
lost their Arkansas jobs.
The act had been upheld earlier by
the State Supreme Court and by a
three-judge federal court, but the Su
preme Court said, “The statute’s com
prehensive interference with associa-
tional freedom goes far beyond what
might, be justified in the exercise of
the state’s legitimate inquiry into the
fitness and competence of its teachers.”
Special Session
Act 10 came out of the special legis
lative session in August, 1958, which
dealt solely with the school desegrega
tion situation. Its purpose was to find
out which school employes were mem
bers of the NAACP or any other organ
ization that was promoting compliance
with the 1954 desegregation decision,
though that purpose was not stated in
the law. All the law said was that a
school employe had to sign such an
affidavit before he could get a job.
The Capital Citizens Council had an
nounced its intention of using the affi
davits to find out which teachers had
“liberal” associations and to try to get
rid of them. So far as is known, how
ever, no school district ever made
public its affidavits.
In the majority opinion written by
Justice Potter Stewart, the Supreme
Court said there was no doubt that a
state had the right to investigate the
fitness of its teachers, but that “to
compel a teacher to disclose his every
associational tie is to impair that teach
er’s right of free association, a right
closely allied to freedom of speech and
a right which, like free speech, lies at
the foundation of a free society.”
Teacher ‘Pressure’ Cited
Noting that the law did not require
that the information be kept confi
dential, the court said, “Even if there
were no disclosure to the general pub
lic, the pressure upon a teacher to
avoid any ties which might displease
those who control his professional des
tiny would be constant and heavy.”
The court also criticized the unlimited
scope of the law.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John
M. Harlan said there was no issue of
racial dicrimination since the law ap
plied to all teachers alike and there
had been no showing that it had been
applied discriminatorily.
In another dissent, Justice Felix
Frankfurter said he did not think Act
10 went beyond the range of state ac
tion limited by the 14th Amendment,
though he could see how the law
could beused in such a way as to make
it unconstitutional.
Ruling in Two Cases
The ruling was made in two cases
that had been combined on appeal.
In one, the plaintiff was B. T. Shelton,
Little Rock Negro teacher, who refused
to sign an affidavit when they were
first used in September 1959 and has
been unemployed since then.
In the other the plaintiffs were Max
Carr, former associate professor of
music at the University of Arkansas,
and Emet T. Gephardt, teacher of
printing at Little Rock Central High.
Carr refused to sign, left Arkansas and
took a job at Wilmington (Ohio) Col
lege. Gephardt signed under protest
and kept his job.
★ ★ ★
Arkansas members in the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People have been declining
since 1956 and the NAACP lays most
of the blame on the Bennett ordinances
and four state laws sponsored by At
torney General Bruce Bennett through
the 1958 special session, Acts 12, 13,
14 and 16.
The membership figures were given
during a hearing Nov. 29 before Judge
Murray O. Reed in Chancery Court at
Little Rock. The NAACP is suing to
have the four laws declared invalid;
the Bennett ordinances already have
been thrown out.
Clarence Laws of Dallas, regional
field secretary for the NAACP, gave
the following statewide membership
figures: 2,020 in 1956, 1,355 in 1957,
1,444 in 1958, 1,179 in 1959 and 884 on
Oct. 31, 1960.
Mrs. L. C. Bates of Little Rock, state
president; Mrs. Birdie Williams, presi
dent of the North Little Rock Branch,
and Rev. J. C. Crenchaw, president of
the Little Rock Branch, all testified
about their problems in soliciting both
members and money since the four
laws were enacted.
Not Enforced
No attempt has been made to enforce
the laws, but the NAACP argued their
mere existence was a threat to that
organization. Both sides have several
weeks in which to submit legal briefs
before there will be a decision by
Judge Reed.
The laws under attack are: Act 12,
allowing a county judge to require
certain organizations to furnish lists
of members and contributors; Act 13,
allowing the attorney general, with a
court order, to search the premises of
certain organizations; Act 14, prohibit
ing certain acts, including “unnecessary
litigation,” affecting the administration
of the schools; and Act 16, making
a crime of certain acts considered as
inducements to another person to file
a lawsuit.
★ ★ ★
Negro plaintiffs in the Dollarway
School District desegregation suit
(Dave v. Parham) filed an objection
Nov. 29 to the board’s revised plan of
desegregation. District Judge J. Smith
Henley called a hearing on the new
plan for late December.
The revised plan, virtually identical
to the original plan under which one
Negro girl was admittd to the first
grade of the white school, “does not
contain any objective and affirmative
steps” toward ending unconstitutional
segregation, the plaintiffs said.
They said the plan places the burden
of getting rid of segregation on the
Negro families but that it was the
board’s duty, not the Negro’s, to get
rid of it.
At the conclusion of a hearing on
Dec. 20, Judge Henley said the new
proposal wasn’t sufficiently different
from the old one to comply with the
“degree of objectivity” required by the
Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He told the Dollarway attorneys to
“beef up” their revised desegregation
plan.
“I want the board to have a plan that
will last through a few rounds of liti
gation,” the judge said. “I don’t want to
have a new plan every week or month.”
★ ★ ★
The Pulaski County Grand Jury spent
the day Dec. 13 hearing witnesses
about the attempt to dynamite a build
ing at Philander Smith College for
Negroes at Little Rock, then adjourned
subject to call without issuing any
indictments.
The suspects are three white men,
Emmet E. Miller, 44, and Robert L.
Parks, 38, of West Memphis, and Hugh
Lynn Adams, 33, of Bassett. Miller and
Parks were arrested by the FBI in the
street beside the building early in the
morning July 12 and the agents seized
the bomb device, made up of dynamite
sticks, a fuse and a candle, designed to
explode several hours later.
Later the government dismissed its
charges, apparently for lack of evi
dence on the point of interstate trans
portation of the dynamite, and turned
BOMBING SUSPECTS AWAITING GRAND JURY CALL 1
Robert Lloyd Parks, Emmett E. Miller, Hugh Lynn Adams ]
the cases over to Prosecuting Attorney
J. Frank Holt at Little Rock.
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
Everett Tucker Jr., president of the
Little Rock school board, accused the
Rev. Colbert S. Cartwright of doing a
“harsh disservice” to the five members
of the board. The minister had charged
them with using “cold war tactics” to
ward the Negro students in two form
erly all-white schools.
Tucker denied the charge. The other
four board members agreed with his
statement, and two of them suggested
that Cartwright should run for a place
on the board if he didn’t like the way
they were operating the schools.
Cartwright had delivered his crit
icism (SSN, Dec. 1960) in a speech to
an interracial meeting sponsored by
the Quakers. He criticized Little Rock
leadership in general and five mem
bers of the school board in particular
for what he called blindness to the
moral issues in the racial situation and
for “flagrant violations of ordinary de
mands of simple justice and human
decency.” He excluded Ted Lamb,
sixth board member, as not following
that “path of deceit.”
Cites Board’s Aim
Tucker said that the aim of the board
had been to resolve the legal and prac
tical problems that had resulted in the
closing of the Little Rock high schools
during the 1958-59 school year.
“It might be remembered by the
board’s present critics,” he said, “that
closed schools were a fairly effective
bar to racial discrimination per se. To
now accuse five of the board’s six
members of moral weakness is in my
opinion a harsh disservice to these
men who have given so unstintingly of
their time and talents in bringing the
opening of the schools back to norm
alcy from chaos which existed at the
time this board assumed control.
“I am reluctant to contradict a mem
ber of the clergy, but I feel com
pelled to refute statements attributed
to Mr. Cartwright. . . . The board has
never fostered a policy of isolating
colored children nor has it failed to
take whatever steps it deemed neces
sary in discouraging any overt acts of
hostility directed at them.
“On the contrary, the board had
several times taken affirmative action
in disciplining violators of this kind
and it will continue to do so in the
future. “Without shirking its responsi
bility in this field, I think it well un
derstood that a school board cannot
control people’s or children’s minds. It
is my feeling that it is in this area of
moral suasion that the parents and the
pulpit have a greater burden than the
school board.”
Instructed Staffs
J. H. Cottrell Jr., a board member,
said the board had instructed the staffs
of the two high schools to treat the
white and Negro children exactly the
same and that it had never given any
instructions barring Negro students
from any school activity.
He said he had heard of no overt
acts against the Negro students this
year. Leonard S. Spitzer, principal of
Hall High, said he had had no inci
dents, and J. W. Matthews, Central
High principal, said he had had “very
few and all were minor.”
As to whether the Negro students
were isolated in the two high schools
and not allowed to join extra-curricu
lar activities, the fathers of two Negro
students in Central High gave exactly
opposite answers.
One said that all of Cartwright’s crit
icism was exactly right, the other said
his son had no complaint whatsoever.
Tacit Understanding
The first father said it was just
“generally understood” that Negro stu
dents were not to take part in clubs,
band, athletics, choruses, etc.; not that
any board member had ever said they
couldn’t. He said there “minor inci
dents” such as throwing things, spit
ting, name-calling and kicking.
The second father said his son had
not been excluded from anything, that
he likes his teachers and that he act.
ually had received some friendly tele. '
phone calls from white students. J <
said he would have to disagree wit
some of the criticisms made by Cat). '
wright. 1
* ★ ★ C
The State Board of Education decide '
Dec. 12 to allow the Dollarway an: ’
Little Rock School Districts $7,500 eac: .
toward the legal expense of carrying
on their desegregation lawsuits.
Dollarway had received $5,0693! ;
previously so it will get $2,430.08, mat
ing $7,500. Little Rock had asked fo 1
$25,469. |
The money comes from $100,000 ap
propriated by the 1959 legislature (4c ‘
383) to help school districts defeat
themselves in desegregation suits.
Recommended by Committee t
The decision to give the two district J
$7,500 each was recommended by ; -
committee of the board, which hac s
studied the matter since the board’; f
meeting a month earlier.
One board member, W. D. McKay ,
of Magnolia, objected to giving any
money to the two districts on the
ground that it was setting a precedent ‘
and that there was the possibility that j
many school districts might become (
involved in desegregation suits and ■
would rely on the state to pay then (
legal bills. j
★ ★ ★
As far as desegregation was con
cerned, the Dec. 6 school elections h
Arkansas were the quietest since 195"
Not even Little Rock raised a fus
this time though one of the old never- <
give-up segregationists, Mrs. Margaret i
Morrison, was running again. This
time, her third school board race, she j
opposed Russell H. Matson Jr. end ^
lost 3,838 to 908. Neither of them made
a public campaign.
★ ★ ★ |
One of the issues in a complex schoo.
boundary dispute at Little Rock is the .
federal court desegregation order ap- -
plying to the Little Rock School Di 5 ’
trict. I
The dispute comes from the fact tM
several hundred school children on the
west side of town live in an area tM !
has been annexed to the City of Lift
Rock but not to the Little Rock Schoo-
District. They still live in the Pulas®
County (Rural) School District, wb*»
financially is much poorer than
Little Rock District.
After months of haggling, the P al
ents in that area brought the matter
a head this fall with a petition ask 1 ™
for a special election on whether
entire county district should be an
nexed to and become a part of
Little Rock District. The County ,
of Education (an administrative bod.
not the board that operates the nm'-
school district) has not acted on
petition.
Incumbents Opposed
Then two of the leaders of the
nexation plan, Meyer F. Marks and
Charles W. Fowler, ran against
incumbents on the rural board, ”
ton G. Chandler and Paul H. Dixon
Although there were many 0 ^
issues in the campaign, one that Ch^Vj
ler and Dixon used was to say M ^
and Fowler favored annexation an
raise the question of whether ann
tion would make the Little Roc* ^
segregation order apply to the co
district too.
Chandler and Dixon won the elec* 1
by margins of 3 to 1.
Ralph Creger, a Little Rocker!
dispatcher, and his son, Carl
a senior this year at Central High, h^
written a book, “This Is What
Found,” to be published in J*®. -
(Lyle Stuart, $1) on the Negro
It is a brief history of the
race up through the Little Rock ®cb
(Continued on Next Page)