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VIRGINIA
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JANUARY 1961—PAGE 7
Negroes Consider Boycott of Prince Edward Stores
RICHMOND, Va.
4 group of Prince Edward
County Negroes made tent
ative plans for a boycott of white
me rchants after the county board
, 0 f supervisors rejected their pe-
[ tition for reopening of the pub-
, fie schools. (See “Community
Action.”)
County and city school boards in
Virginia have approved more than 6,-
1 oofl tuition grants this year, a survey
revealed, as the controversy continued
0 ver the grants program and its possi
ble effects on public schools. (See
•School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
COMMUNITY ACTION
Prince Edward County Negroes are
making tentative plans to use an eco
nomic boycott in an effort to force
the reopening of the county’s closed
public schools.
Leaders of the movement met at the
county seat of Farmville on the night
of Dec. 14 in a session called by the
i Prince Edward Christian Association.
The meeting came eight days after
[ the county board of supervisors had
: turned down Negroes’ petition to re-
i open schools.
i The petition, signed by 272 persons,
was presented to the board by the Rev.
L. F. Griffin, president of the Christian
Association. Later, he said that another
i appeal was to be made to the board
at its Jan. 3 meeting and that a definite
i decision by the Negroes as to whether
to conduct a boycott would not be
made until that time.
Addresses Supervisors
The first hint of a possible boycott
was made by the Rev. Mr. Griffin when
he addressed the supervisors at their
Dec. 6 session.
i “Our children are being penalized
unnecessarily by the actions of this
board and have been over a period of
the past two years,” the Baptist min
ister said.
“We have exercised great restraint
in the face of the tragic closing of the
public schools. We appeal to your good
faith and sane judgment in taking ac
tion in opening these schools soon-
“We hope that drastic actions on our
part, such as total boycott, will not be
necessary. ... If you refuse our peti
tion, we are prepared to use any non
violent means to achieve our purpose.”
One-Sentence Petition
The petition itself consisted of only
°ne sentence:
The undersigned citizens of Prince
Edward County petition the board of
^Pervisors to make appropriations to
county school board to the end
■hat the public schools be opened and
operated for the benefit of the children
°f the county without further delay.”
The board’s response, read by Chair-
an W. W. Vaughan, had been pre
pared prior to the meeting. The peti-
"? ners had publicly stated in advance
*nat they would request.
"aughan said that the county budget
‘“s drafted prior to the beginning of
| e current fiscal year last July 1, that
' contains no money for public schools,
“ that such an appropriation could
, he made before the new budget is
0 °PWd in the spring. He said full
^Pcrtunity will be given all citizens
express their views as to what the
* budget should contain.
‘Will of The People’
jjjhe board chairman concluded by
' this board will follow such
as is in accord with the will of
Xir peo Ple of the county and as, in
all “P'nion, will serve the welfare of
•j. 0Ur People.”
Plied- "fN c h the Rev. Mr. Griffin re-
there • Majorities can be wrong. But
Way an American way of life and a
e ^ ucat i° n > and the right and
si<j er 5, a situation should be con
voy,,’ not i ust the way the majority
The p
■tw . v - Mr. Griffin, who was ac-
to the meeting by 18 other
Chris^- S ’ the supervisors that the
?otte n 1£ } n ' a '- ssoc iation “could easily have
>f t)w signatures on the petition
■Vied to C ’ rcu l a ting the papers had de-
r ai»ies ou tsjde the organization for
M,
Ost
Effects Discounted
■^ti 0 ° f , the white business leaders
>J Unt by reporters tended to dis-
1 Possible effects of a boycott.
' Wffson, president of the
' Commerce of Farmville,
center of the county, said
"■ould a boycott were attempted,
affect only a “tiny portion of
THE REV. L. F. GRIFFIN
‘Great restraint’
the businessman’s sales volume.” He
said food stores might be an exception,
but added that “it is not going to put
anybody out of business.”
Mayor William F. Watkins Jr., a
lawyer, said Farmville’s economic
health is “as good as it has ever been.”
He added that some merchants may be
feeling the effects of the general busi
ness-recession, but he expressed the
view that the closing of the county
schools was not a factor in this situa
tion.
Another Viewpoint
In direct contrast to that view was
the main headline on the front page of
the Norfolk Journal and Guide
for December 10: “Hurt by Closed
Schools—Merchants Feel Pinch in
Prince Edward.”
The story, datelined Farmville, said
there are indications that the county
is getting “ ‘fed up’ with its defiance
of school desegregation orders.”
“The merchants,” the Journal and
Guide reported, “have felt the pinch
of the county’s defiance where it hurts
most—in the pocketbook.
Jobs Said Lost
“With the shutdown of schools, over
70 colored teachers, janitors, but driv
ers, maintenance personnel, etc., were
deprived of their jobs. These persons
who once worked, lived and spent their
money in Prince Edward County, have
packed up and gone. The same is true
with most of the white teachers and
riher school workers. . • .
“Farmville streets, which once re
sounded with footsteps on weekends
are now bare except for an occasional
shopper. The effect has been that some
stores have been forced to slash their
personnel forces, while others have
been forced out of business. Merchants
don’t smile on the situation.”
Another “fed-up” group, according
to the Negro paper, are the “ ‘lay’ white
citizens—citizens who claim to be in
the middle road on the school desegre
gation matter. . . .
Townspeople Quoted
“Townspeople report that ‘they
(fund-raisers for the Prince Edward
School Foundation which operates
schools for whites) assess you and
you’d better pay.’ Foundation backers
are also said by these ‘lay’ whites to
be behind ‘Gestapo tactics’ which have
seen citizens labelled ‘Communist,’ ‘n-r-
lover’ or ‘integrationist’ because of their
objections to the wisdom of the private
school setup for whites and the lack
of facilities (with exception of make-
ship ‘training centers’) for colored
pupils. . . .
“Observers feel that the merchants
and lay white citizens of Prince Ed
ward County will make their major
move following the Christmas holidays
and prior to the beginning of the sec
ond school semester,” the Journal and
Guide story concluded.
Another Editorial
Another newspaper, the semi-weekly
Farmville Herald, whose editor and
publisher, J. B. Wall, has been a leader
in the county’s fight against integra
tion, commented editorially Dec. 9 on
the Rev. Mr. Griffin’s boycott threat
in part as follows:
“His threat of an organized total
boycott is not only immoral but illegal,
and we would add, un-American. Boy
cott is a two-way sword which cuts
both ways and everybody loses. It is
certainly unbecoming any citizen of
Prince Edward County, or of the sur
rounding counties. It is a tactic as
foreign to American living as it is
unchristian. To us, it appears a move
of desperation, especially in view of
the reported promises by the NAACP
that public schools would be opened in
October, 1959; November, 1959; Decem
ber, 1959, and September, 1960.
“Let no man be misled by resorting
to illegal and unethical practices in this
disagreement among our people. Let it
be settled by the courts, where it origi
nated and is still being adjudicated.”
★ ★ ★
Here were other developments re
lating to the Prince Edward situation:
• Tentative plans were announced for
a “freedom pilgrimage” by Negroes to
Farmville on Jan. 2, the day before
the new appeal was to be made to the
Prince Edward Board of Supervisors to
reopen the county’s schools. People
from throughout the state were said
to be planning to participate.
• Alfred Baker Lewis of Greenwich,
Conn., national treasurer of the NAA
CP, said in Richmond that his organi
zation intends to push for the reopen
ing of Prince Edward schools in Sep
tember, 1961.
• The Rev. Dan Bowers, executive di
rector of the Virginia Council on Hu
man Relations, predicted that Prince
Edward will have to reopen its schools
within the next year. In a report at
the council’s annual meeting, he said
a combination of legal action and com
munity presure will bring about the
reopening. He said that as a result of
the school closure, there has been “al
most a complete breakdown of com
munity in all its senses” in the county.
★ * ★
Other community developments in
the race relations field in Virginia
during December included:
LYNCHBURG—Six college students
—four white and two Negroes—were
arrested on trespassing charges Dec. 14
when they staged a 40-minute sit-in
demonstration in a downtown drug
store. They were released on $1,000
bail each pending trial in municipal
court Jan. 3. Four Lynchburg stores
desegregated their lunch counters in
November, but the drugstore in ques
tion was not one of them.
RICHMOND—Directors of the Vir
ginia Defenders of State Sovereignty
and Individual Liberties, meeting here
Dec. 3, adopted a 10-point conservative,
antisocialist program, the first point
of which was: “We support a sound
system of education controlled by par
ents and designed to educate our chil
dren, and to lead our children to un
derstand our precious heritage of lib
erty.” Robert B. Crawford of Farm
ville was re-elected president of the
board of the Defenders, the state’s
largest pro-segregation organization.
RICHMOND—The Rev. P. B. V/alker,
pastor of Third Street Bethel AME
Church, was re-elected president of
CHAIRMAN W. W. VAUGHAN
Will and welfare
the Richmond branch of the NAACP.
He defeated a 33-year-old attorney,
Clarence W. Newsome, who had rep
resented Negro students arrested dur
ing sit-in demonstrations here. New-
some had called for a more militant
fight against racial segregation. Rich
mond daily papers said the election
result was a victory for the Rev. Mr.
Walker’s “conservative” leadership.
Increasing Scholarship
Use Noted In Survey
On the basis of a survey it conducted,
the Richmond New Leader reported
that “Virginia public school pupils in
increasing numbers are pulling out of
their local schools and using tax-sup-
ported pupil scholarships toward at
tending private schools or public
schools elsewhere.”
Information on scholarships (or tui
tion grants) was furnished the paper
by school officials in 84 of the state’s
98 counties and 25 of its 32 cities.
Grants have been approved for 6104
pupils in those localities this year. The
total for the same localities last year
was 4,505. Some applications have not
yet been acted on.
Under the law, a pupil may apply
for a grant to attend a private non
sectarian school or a public school out
side his own locality. The maximum
grant is $275.
Prince Edward County, where pub
lic schools are closed, has the largest
number of grants—1,324. Nearly all of
these are going to children who are
enrolled in the countywide private seg
regated white school system.
A large number of the remaining
grants are for children in those Vir
ginia localities where one or more
schools have been desegregated- How
ever, a large number also are going
to children from segregated systems in
counties adjacent to large cities. Chil
dren are leaving these county schools
to attend private schools or the public
schools of the adjacent cities.
The News Leader reported that some
school superintendents criticized the
grants program and said it was being
“abused.”
Superintendent Critical
Bland County Supt. J. O. Morehead
was quoted as saying: “The Bland
County school board feels that the en
tire plan and idea of the pupil scholar
ship program is so absurd that we have
not made public the plans and possi
bilities under this program.”
Supt. T. Benton Gayle said that both
the King George and Stafford County
school boards have refused to take
any part in the processing of grants.
“We believe this will grow out of all
proportion to what was intended. . . •
Many parents are just now becoming
aware of the possibilities of financial
assistance from this source.
In Richmond, the city school board
appealed to City Council for an addi
tional $3,500 to help finance the grants
program. The board so far this year has
approved 59 grants, as against 28 for
the entire 1959-60 school year. The
original city appropriation for grants
in Richmond this year was $5,000-
State Sen. Edward E. Haddock of
Richmond said he would work for re
peal of the tuition grants program at
the 1962 session of the General As
sembly.
Senators Differ
In a statement Dec. 1, Haddock de
clared: ...
“Unless this law is repealed, it will
drain the lifeblood out of our public
school system and increase the tax bur
den even more on an already over
taxed public.”
But another state senator from Rich
mond, Edward E. Willey, said he
thought the program was working out
exactly as the Legislature had intended.
“In my opinion,” he said, it was
the intent of the Legislature to allow
true freedom of choice, and there has
been no abuse of the program.
Those who claim the program is be
ing abused say that it is being used in
(See VIRGINIA, Page 11)
WEST VIRGINIA
Human Relations Commission Sought
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
A bill to create a West Vir-
-E*- ginia Human Relations Com
mission has been drafted and will
be submitted to Gov.-elect W. W.
Barron for consideration. Attorney
William L. Lonesome, Negro, said
he wrote the bill, which was dis
cussed Dec. 14 at a meeting of
Charleston Mayor John Shank-
lin’s Commission on Human Rela
tions.
Under his bill, the state Human Re
lations Commission, said Lonesome,
would be a nine-member body with an
executive director. Its objective would
be better racial relations throughout
the state.
The new commission would have “no
punitive powers” Lonesome said, but
would be able to summon and sub
poena witnesses. No more than five of
the members would belong to the same
political party. All members would be
appointed by the governor.
Lonesome noted that the state plat
forms of both political parties are com
mitted to such a program of action.
Barron has made no comment on his
position in the matter. He will take
office Jan. 16 and address the Legis
lature two days later, when he will
outline his legislative program.
Authority Limited
L. Leo Kohlbecker, chairman of the
Charleston Human Relations Commis
sion, said his group’s authority was
limited to the city of Charleston. “As
a commission we can’t help in the es
tablishment of a state commission,” he
added.
Kohlbecker suggested that the most
important role for such a state com
mission would be to encourage the
creation of local human relations com
missions in other parts of the state.
He said the Charleston commission,
first in West Virginia, would be de
lighted to work with a State Human
Relations Commission if the 1961
Legislature brings one into existence.
Leader in Effort
A leader in the effort to achieve
legal equality for Negroes—Miles C.
Stanley, chairman of the state advisory
committee to the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission—on Dec. 6 had said he
would ask for the establishment of a
state Human Relations Commission.
He said the most important duty of
the commission would be to establish
where discrimination is practiced and to
what extent. The information then
would be made available to the Legis
lature when it considers laws making
racial segregation illegal.
“Although West Virginia has a good
record on integrating its schools, dis
crimination is still practiced here on a
large scale than many people might
think,” Stanley said.
Opinion was not unanimous among
civil rights workers that the commis
sion should be established immediately,
he added. He said the difference of
opinion is based on approach rather
than on goals.
At the time he commented, Stanley
said a bill had not been drafted but
the thinking was that the commission
should be made up of about five mem
bers—“people of stature, interested in
civil rights and human relations, and
representing a cross section of society.”
He said the Legislature would be
asked to appropriate enough money to
hire a professionally trained staff for
the commission. He said he wasn’t
sure, but he pointed out that $25,000
was appropriated in Kentucky for the
establishment of a similar group.
“The staff would do the actual work.
The commission would give the direc
tion.”
Stanley, who also is president of the
West Virginia Labor Federation, said
he thought the commission would be
approved. “After all,” he said, “the
idea was endorsed in the state plat
form of the Democratic and Republi
can parties.”
He predicted that West Virginia
would have a Human Relations Com
mission early next year.
The State Tax Study Commission
wound up 17 months of study Dec. 6
with a solid recommendation that West
Virginia revive the personal income
tax if new sources of revenue are
needed in 1961.
Charleston General Hospital—which
was involved in a controversy earlier
this year over non-admission of Ne
gro girls to the hospital’s nursing
school—has employed its first Negro
nurse.
Miss Gertrude Thome, nursing di
rector, said afterwards she has no
doubt that other Negro nurses will be
employed in the future.
“She was a good applicant,” Miss
Thome said about the Negro nurse.
“She applied and we hired her, and
that was that.”
The new nurse, a resident of Insti
tute, previously had worked at
Charleston Memorial Hospital. Mem
orial and several other city hospitals
long have had desegregated staffs.
# # #