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UNIVERSiTr Or GlOKGIA
-MAR4
LIBRARIES
1961
Solons in Fifth Special Session;
Enact New Segregation ‘Package’
Gov. Vandiver Checks Time Before Signing School Bills
Idiind him: House Floor Leader Frank Twitty, Lt. Gov. Garland Byrd, Rep. A. A.
Fowler, House Speaker George Smith.
iiORGIA
.Governor Approves Four
Open-School’ Measures
MACON, Ga.
Vandiver signed
it of i
m «t ^i ov Ernest
irally j ~
er i into law four bills designed
chain j keep the public schools open
part F at the same time to resist
segregation by legal means as
ipikP°ngly as possible,
food Some politicians called the four
p fa asures—three of them statutes and
a constitutional amendment which
t be voted on by the people in
ivember, 1962—an “open schools
ge.” Others called them a “de
package.”
. «™ese are the four most important
' J" be signed in this century” in
’Itfa, the governor commented.
citizens and some legislators I
>od
that
le
es.
schoo
in fwrf
* I
were unhappy about it, but the gov
ernor said, “The fact that Georgia has
made this move shows the nation we
are responsible people. We are not
law defiers. We intend to protect our
children. We intend to maintain our
Southern traditions.”
As the month ended, the legislature
appeared certain to pass another school
bill. The Senate voted 39-0 to drop
the age limits for applicants to Georgia’s
state universities and colleges and a
House committee reported favorably on
the measure. A two-year-old law set
21 years as the age limit for initial
admission to undergraduate work and
25 years for graduate studies.
Particular criticism arose over a
grant-in-aid plan for individual stu
dents wishing to attend private schools,
(See GEORGIA, Page 2)
NEW ORLEANS, La.
Tn the first five days of a 12-day
A session—its fifth extraordinary
meeting since two New Orleans
schools were desegregated Nov.
14 — the Louisiana legislature
adopted seven new bills on segre
gation.
Included in the package was Act. No.
1, a “local option” plan which would
permit school boards to close and sell
public schools when local voters ap
prove.
Unanswered by the act itself and by
state leaders was what happens if local
voters are in favor of retaining their
public schools even if the schools are
ordered desegregated by federal court.
Gov. Jimmie H. Davis’ administration
and segregation leaders said the act
implies no acceptance of “token inte
gration.” Members of the Orleans Parish
school board, operating the only deseg
regated schools in the state, said this
means that state funds would be lost to
localities which vote to retain desegre
gated public schools.
All the bill itself says is this:
• A school board may of its own ac
cord call a local election to see if voters
want to retain public schools or whether
they want to close the schools and sell
the properties.
• If 10 per cent of the voters of a
school district (there are 64 parish and
three city school systems in the state)
petition to have an election, the school
board would be obliged to call one.
No matter what the outcome, it would
not be binding on the local school board
or anyone else.
Only Two Opponents
The measure passed with only two
votes recorded against it among Louisi
ana’s 101 representatives and 39
senators.
Sen. Robert A. Ainsworth Jr., New
Orleans, who has vigorously opposed
many of the segregation bills of the past
four months, said the bill is nothing more
than a move for a straw vote.
Privately, well-informed legislative
sources saw in the measure this sign:
that the segregation leaders may be
willing to soften their months-long
stand against even token desegregation
if voter sympathy is in that direction.
Through this procedure Louisiana
could have biracial public schools in
some districts and private schools in
others.
Grant-in-Aid Money
Louisiana has a grant-in-aid program,
and at its fifth special session the legis
lature voted to transfer $2,500,000 from
a welfare surplus into a grant-in-aid
Integration, Desegregation
Have Distinctive Meanings
By TOM FLAKE
A definite distinction is de
veloping in the meanings of
the words “integration” and “de
segregation” as applied to edu
cation.
When the United States Supreme
Court handed down its 1954 decision
in the public school segregation cases,
the terms generally were used inter
changeably. They still are, in many
instances, but there is growing insis-
ennedy States Civil Rights Credo:
se 'Moral Authority’ and ‘Influence’
By ERWIN KNOLL
WASHINGTON, D. C.
be ^ i
pge A SU CH TIME AS I THINK it
tic: most useful and most effec-
e ' 1 will attempt to use the
to 5 ^ authority or position of in-
' S>Ce °f the President in New
and in other places. I
i, to make sure that whatever
>0 T*!
0r say does have some bene-
, - -
a®? y effect .
o ^ mat
offtys
excerpt from President Ken-
enswer to a question about New
Orleans at his Feb. 8 press conference
offers, in capsule form, a guide to the
new Administration’s attitude toward
civil rights.
Caution has been the first charac
teristic of the Administration’s ap
proach to the sensitive problems of
segregation and discrimination. And
the second characteristic has been an
unwillingness to make gestures for
their own sake and an insistence that
actions taken be made to stick.
These elements were present in
President Kennedy’s special education
message Jan. 20, which proposed a $5.6
billion aid program for public school
construction and teachers’ salaries,
Rights Commission Hears
^hool Desegregation Reports
B >’ OVERTON JONES
% WILLIAMSBURG, Va.
S. Civil Eights Com-
rpjv. Ssi °n spent most of a two-
'f L^ing here listening to ac-
V, e S how some communities
Jw^^fully accepted school
Cf\-v.. e § a tion and how others
m^rly fought it.
tffp- from six states were heard,
i^Jbia ° r Mention centered on Vir-
°f Prince Edward County’s
ent of public schools was
presented a few hours after President
Kennedy told the conference in a mes
sage:
“This is no time for schools to close
for any reason, and certainly no time
for schools to be closed in the name
of racial discrimination.”
Chasm-deep differences of opinion
separated conferees who participated in
the sessions Feb. 25-26 at Colonial
Williamsburg’s desegregated Motor
House.
Although the program chairman, the
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president
of Notre Dame University, urged “un-
(See HEARING, Page 5)
higher education facilities and college
scholarships.
Kennedy said the scholarships should
be awarded “without regard to sex,
race, creed or color—solely on the basis
of ability.”
But the message was silent on the
thorny “Powell Amendment” problem
of federal aid for segregated schools.
And on the same day Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare Abra
ham Ribicoff told a press conference
that he thought the Administration
lacked authority to issue an executive
order barring assistance to segregated
institutions.
My hope is that we will not harm
education with side issues, which block
the real intent and purpose” of school
aid legislation, Ribicoff said.
“No innocent child, whether in Mis
sissippi, Louisiana or Little Rock,
should suffer at all for the philosophy
of. his elders or of the school board.”
Weaver on Housing
Similarly, Robert C. Weaver, the na
tion’s new housing chief and the top-
ranking Negro in ' the Administration,
told a Senate committee hearing on
his nomination that while he favors
equality of opportunity in public hous
ing, he neither would nor could go be
yond policies set down by Congress and
the President. An executive order
changing those policies may be forth
coming—but there has been no indi
cation of it yet.
The Administration appears to be
committed to seeking no new civil
rights legislation for the time being;
to avoiding actions which could seri
ously endanger the President’s high
priority legislative program in the area
of health, education, housing and wel-
(See KENNEDY, Page 5)
tence that the words, if used precisely,
have different meanings.
The distinction is far from univers
ally recognized. In legal terminology,
“integration” and “desegregation” often
continue to be regarded as synony
mous. The press, both printed and
broadcast, for the most part uses the
words as if there were no difference
in their meanings. Public officials in the
South, particularly the Deep South, are
prone to speak of “integration” when
ever they discuss effects of the Su
preme Court decision.
Increasingly, however, persons with
professional interest in the aftermath
of the court action are insisting that
“integration” and “desegregation”
should not be interchanged. These
precisionists include social scientists,
journalists and educators. Some word
authorities have taken note of the
trend.
To Southern School News, this is
more than just an interesting exercise
in semantics. The words “integration”
and “desegregation” loom large in its
vocabulary, since its purpose is to dis
seminate facts on developments in edu
cation arising from the Supreme Court
opinion. This being the case, Southern
School News made a study to deter
mine the most nearly accurate defini
tions, based on current usage by those
(See AUTHORITIES, Page 4)
fund. Another $250,000 a month will be
added to the fund from cigarette tax
revenues.
No grants-in-aid are presently pro
vided but, St. Helena Parish’s school
board, under orders to desegregate
“with all deliberate speed,” is expected
to vote to abolish its public school sys
tem and pilot the grant-in-aid private
school plan in the state. The parish has
9,000 residents and more Negroes in
schools than whites.
The legislature also adopted two bills
directed at rewarding people who pro
vided but St. Helena Parish’s school
of persons who pay parents to send their
children to mixed schools.
Gravolet Cites ‘Information’
Sen. E. W. (Kelly) Gravelot, Davis’
segregation leader in the Senate, said
he had information that such payments
were being made. He didn’t explain
further.
Gravolet also steered the local option
plan through the legislature, comment
ing:
“It is not the Georgia plan, nor is it
like the Virginia plan. It is the Louisiana
plan.”
His reference was to widespread spec
ulation before the opening of the session
Feb. 15 that Louisiana’s proposals would
be similar to the new Georgia program
of restricting, if not preventing alto
gether, desegregation of public schools.
But though Louisiana voters would
vote on school closure, and possibly
later on reopening, there is nothing to
(See LOUISIANA, Page 8)
On the Inside
State Reports
Alabama 3
Arkansas 6
Delaware 7
District of Columbia 5
Florida 14
Kentucky 6
Maryland 11
Mississippi 3
Missouri 15
North Carolina 15
Oklahoma 14
South Carolina 16
Tennessee 10
Texas 12
Virginia 13
West Virginia 2
Virginia 2
Texts
Dallas 12
Davidson County, Tenn 10
Special Articles
Gov. Boggs 7
Books and the Issue 3
Judge Albert V. Bryan 13
Catholic Schools 16
Delaware Education Board 7
Fullerton Joins SREB 10
State-by-State 16
Thompson Family 9
We Were Asked 13
P<
rdp
ectiue
Segregation Issue Dominates
Only Two State Legislatures
rpHE
A RF.
SCHOOL SEGREGATION-DESEG
REGATION issue dominated only
two of the 12 Southern and
border state legislatures in session
during February. And these two
—Georgia and Louisiana—passed
bills softening their “segregation
or no schools” stand.
For the first time since 1957, Arkan
sas legislators convened with desegre
gation in only a minor role, although
Gov. Orval Faubus proposed two con
stitutional amendments on the subject.
Southern School News correspond
ents reported that the legislatures in
Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Okla
homa, West Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina
had little, if any, school-race legisla
tion up for consideration.
Another indication of a changing
attitude on the issue in the region ap
peared in a Gallup poll. Gallup report
ed that its latest survey in the South
found that 76 per cent of the persons
questioned “say they believe now that
the day will come when white and
colored persons will generally share
the same public accommodations in the
Southern states.” The copyrighted re
port noted that only 45 per cent of the
Southerners interviewed in 1957 held
this view and 53 per cent in 1958.
The same report on the survey said
that the change “will very likely be
highly unpopular.” All Gallup testings
of Southern opinion since 1954 consist
ently have recorded at least 71 per
cent in opposition to the Supreme
(See PERSPECTIVE, Page 4)