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PAGE 14—JUNE 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
FLORIDA
Dade Expected To Have
More Biracial Schools
MIAMI, Fla.
ade County may have six
more desegregated schools
next fall. This seemed likely after
the school board began considera
tion of nearly 800 applications for
transfer under procedure set up
in the pupil assignment law.
Among these, 218 will be given
special study, including 58 from Ne
groes seeking enrollment in all-white
schools. These will be checked accord
ing to criteria set up in the law. A
preliminary review indicated that a
number meet the necessary require
ments for approval.
If this is borne out by further
study before the final decision next
month, this would be the situation:
Allapattah Elementary School—Re
quests have been received from 14
Negroes to attend this all-white school.
The board asked for additional infor
mation about distances from homes to
this and nearby Negro schools. The
outlook is that several applications, at
least, will be granted.
Coconut Grove Elementary—Three
requests from Negroes are likely to be
granted.
Gladeview Elementary—Eleven appli
cations are being screened, with pros
pects that several will be approved.
Riverside Elementary: A Spanish
speaking Negro, whose family recently
came to this country, has applied. This
school has a 90 per cent enrollment of
Cuban refugee and Puerto Rican fam
ilies, and the application is almost
certain to be accepted.
Miami Beach High: One Negro girl
has applied. The only question is
whether she is a bona fide resident of
Miami Beach, which has no Negro resi
dential area.
Full Desegregation
One additional school, Earlington
Heights Elementary, is slated for full
desegregation. Between 200 and 250
Negroes will be assigned to this school
now being attended by 356 white chil
dren. Parents have been notified of
the impending change and informed
of their rights under the assignment
law. About 160 have responded that
their children will remain.
Fulford Elementary in a suburban
North Dade area has two Negro chil
dren this year. Ten more applications
are on file.
North Miami Beach Junior High’s
one Negro pupil is expected to return.
Air Base Elementary will continue its
policy of full desegregation, the extent
depending on the racial makeup of
personnel at nearby Homestead SAC
Base, which it serves.
Only Negroes Attend
Orchard Villa Elementary, where de
segregation first was tried two years
ago, technically is still biracial, al
though in practice only Negroes now
attend.
This shapes up as the extent of de
segregation in the next school year,
although other transfer requests affect
six high schools. Under school board
procedure district lines do not apply
to high schools, and these applica
tions probably will be denied.
The prospect of desegregation far
beyond the token stage has caused little
stir in the community.
The only other school desegregation
in Florida is expected in Escambia
County (Pensacola). Under a federal
court order, the school board has until
June 15 to file a desegregation plan.
Legal Action
Duval Board Asks
U. S. Supreme Court
To Order Hearing
T he U. S. Supreme Court was
asked by the Duval County
school board to order a hearing
by a three-judge federal panel on
the constitutionality of the Flori
da pupil assignment law.
This maneuver in the Duval County
school suit (Braxton et al v. Board of
Public Instruction of Duval County)
delayed further action in the federal
district court until the question could
be decided. District Judge Bryan
Simpson denied the request for the
panel last March and the school board
attorneys filed mandamus proceedings
to compel him.
The petition said attorneys for the
NAACP who filed the Braxton case
challenged the constitutionality of the
Florida Highlights
School desegregation will be ex
panded next fall in Dade County,
where Florida’s first biracial classes
are operating. A study of applica
tions for transfer by Negro students
indicated, according to school offi
cials, that some Negroes will be
assigned to six more white schools.
The Duval County school board
asked the U. S. Supreme Court to
order a three-judge panel to pass on
the constitutionality of Florida’s pu
pil assignment law.
The Florida legislature, near the
end of its biennial session, still had
developed no sentiment for new
racial laws and only one bill—to
aid private segregated schools—was
considered likely to pass.
assignment law by this paragraph:
“The plaintiffs herein have not ex
hausted the administrative remedies
provided by the Florida pupil assign
ment law for the reason that the rem
edy there provided is inadequate to
provide the relief sought by the plain
tiffs in this case.”
Constitutional Questions
This, the school board attorneys said,
“commits them irrevocably to the con
tention that constitutional questions are
involved.”
Federal court procedures call for a
three-judge court to hear matters in
volving the constitutionality of a state
law.
The school board said that Judge
Simpson, in denying the first request,
apparently based his decision on the
Tampa school case, in which the U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
that the placement law could be chal
lenged without first complying with all
administrative proceedings. Other ap
pellate courts have ruled differently,
the petition said.
“This is a matter of grave concern.
That apparent conflict between the de
cisions on that point should be re
solved by this court.”
★ ★ ★
The Supreme Court also accepted
another Florida racial case. It agreed
to hear the appeal of the Rev. Theo
dore R. Gibson, head of the Dade
County NAACP, who was sentenced to
jail for contempt of the legislative com
mittee investigating alleged Communist
infiltration of the NAACP, (Gibson also
is the plaintiff in a long-standing Dade
County school suit.)
The committee, which has been con
ducting its investigations for five years,
demanded that Gibson produce mem
bership lists. He refused and was held
in contempt. On appeal the Florida
Supreme Court ruled Gibson was not
required to hand over the lists but
should have them available for his
own reference in answering the com
mittee’s questions. When he again re
fused to comply, he was ruled in con
tempt and sentenced in the state court
to six months in jail and fined $1,200,
with an additional six months if the
fine was not paid.
Gibson based his refusal on the
grounds that the records would be used
to intimidate and embarrass NAACP
members.
★ ★ ★
The Pinellas Circuit Court granted
a permanent injunction to Webb’s City,
the nationally known store that offers
a variety of goods and services under
one roof, against picketing by Negro
demonstrators. The far-reaching de
cision by Judge Jack F. White may
affect other sit-in cases.
The suit grew out of incidents last
December when the demonstrations
were staged to open lunch counters
in the St. Petersburg area to Negroes.
The suit was pressed despite the fact
that Webb’s City and other establish
ments agreed to desegregate their food
services, and this is now the general
practice in the county.
Judge White held that the pickets
were concerned as much with employ
ment opportunities as they were about
the segregated lunch counters, and that
their activities were “inflammatory and
damaging.”
Even under the most liberal concept
of our constitutional system, said the
judge, “there remain some areas in
which private individuals and busi
ness establishments have the legal right I
to pursue distinctive policies not wholly
acceptable to others. Even peaceful
picketing is not necessarily equated
with the constitutional guarantee of
free speech. It follows that where
picketing is inflammatory and damag
ing in purpose and effect, as in the
instant case, the actions of the de
fendants are unlawful and not clothed
with constitutional protection.”
Legislative Action
Assembly Increases
Municipal Powers
To Handle Mobs
TMT oved by racial strife over
the “freedom riders” in Ala
bama, the Florida legislature in
troduced and enacted within one
hour a bill to increase the powers
of municipalities in dealing with
mobs. The new law would permit
any city commissioner or council
member, instead of only the
mayor at present, or the state
highway patrol to order the dis
persal of any “unlawful gather
ing.” Broader powers are given
city and state police to handle
mob threats.
Gov. Farris Bryant asked for this
bill and was expected to sign it. Sen.
Wilson Carraway, who sponsored it,
said it was needed to “cope with un
savory characters.”
As the legislature neared its close,
this was the only new racial bill that
had developed. The so-called Reedy
bill, to set up a $50,000 to present, in
concert with other Southern states,
the Southern attitude on segregation to
other parts of the country, was killed
in routine fashion.
This bill was passed at the last ses
sion and vetoed by Gov. LeRoy Collins
as a useless waste of state money. It
came before the present session on the
question of overriding the veto. It has
been endorsed by present Gov. Farris
Bryant as a tool to attract industry
to Florida. However, it failed by a
wide margin to muster the necessary
two-thirds vote.
★ ★ ★
Another segregation measure was
considered to have a good chance of
getting by in the final stages of the
session. This, by Rep. Mack Cleveland
of Seminole County and 70 co-spon-
sors would provide state aid for a
system of private schools to serve pu
pils withdrawing from biracial schools.
The proposal would allow credits up
to $250 against the school tax of prop
erty owners who contribute to or pay
tuition to a private school. It would
have no effect on non-property owners.
Cleveland’s Bill is almost identical
with measures offered two years ago
when opponents contended they were
impractical and unconstitutional. How
ever, Cleveland said he was offering
the bill again just to see what the leg
islators wanted to do with it.
In The Colleges
White Asks Admission
To All-Negro College
O fficials of the Florida Agri
cultural and Mechanical Uni
versity of Tallahassee, with an
all-Negro student body, are
studying the application of a
white student.
Troy Lawrence Ruther, to enroll as
a freshman in summer classes begin
ning next month. Ruther, a native of
Miami, said the courses he wishes to
take are not readily available else
where. # # #
Maryland
(Continued From Page 12)
pupils had to file their transfer re
quests by May 18 to be reassigned in
the upcoming school year. At that time
he did not know if there would be
any applicants. There have been none
in past years. Like Kent, neighboring
Queen Anne’s has had the same trans
fer deadline for several years, without
any applicants. Both have Negro en
rollments above 25 per cent.
Carroll County
Carroll County in the central western
sector of Maryland has set June 5 to 7
as the dates for transfer applications.
County Superintendent Samuel M.
Jenness said in May that the applica
tion period would be announced in all
schools and in the county newspapers.
Asked if he anticipated more changes
than in the past, Jenness replied that
he had not “heard anything at all”
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 13)
Seven damage suits totaling $500,000
against the late Little Rock Police Chief
Eugene G. Smith were reinstated April
27 by the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court
at St. Louis and sent back to District
Court at Little Rock for trial with the
administrator of Smith’s estate as the
substitute defendant. Smith killed him
self March 18, 1960, and the District
Court had ruled that his death brought
the cases to an end.
All seven cases stem from arrests
made by the Little Rock police during
troubles connected with school deseg
regation at Little Rock, either the dyna
miting of the school board office or the
march on Central High by a mob of
segregationists on August 12, 1959.
W / hat They Say
Arkansas Methodist
Rebukes Ministers
On Racial Stands
A re Southern Ministers Fail
ing the South?” is the title of
an article in the May 13 issue of
the Saturday Evening Post, writ
ten by the Rev. Robert Paul Ses
sions, 36, native of Arkansas and
pastor of the Methodist Church at
Booneville, Ark. His answer is an
emphatic “yes.”
He wrote that the great majority of
ministers were “integrationists at
heart” but were compromising their
convictions for the sake of continued
popularity and the surface prosperity
of their churches.
With a touch of sarcasm he listed the
10 most popular ways that ministers
choose to remain comfortable with their
inner convictions yet popular with
their Southern congregations:
1) Defend their convictions on the
ground that it is the law of the land,
not on the basis of its moral rightness.
2) Take the public pulse and act
accordingly (“A technique we Arkan
sans have learned from Orval Faubus.”)
3) Ignore the whole thing.
4) Be concerned about the issue but
don’t indicate which way your feelings
lie. (He cited former Congressman
Brooks Hays of Little Rock as a prime
example.)
5) Walk the middle ground, neither
for nor against.
6) Take a stand for taking a stand
but don’t say what your stand is.
7) Obfuscate—discuss the issue in
terms so unclear that nobody can un
derstand.
8) Delay adopting a policy, even by
referring the issue to a committee if
necessary.
9) Act collectively, avoid personal in
volvement.
10) Finally, “Take your time . . .”
He mentioned the vote of the Board
of Trustees of Hendrix College at Con
way, a Methodist institution, which de
cided last year to continue segregation.
Of the 23 trustees present, ten were
ministers. Two abstained from voting,
Rev. Sessions said, but the other eight,
including Bishop Paul E. Martin, voted
for segregation.
but that he expected there would be
a “reasonably good number” of Negro
pupils in the two schools that have
had some mixed classes for some time
and probably a few in other schools.
In the past year 44 Negro pupils at
tended four predominantly white
schools, while 141 remained voluntarily
in all-Negro schools. The county has
more than 10,000 white pupils.
Prince George’s County
The transfer application period in
Prince George’s County runs from the
first Friday in May to the last Friday
in July. The huge county, which is in
part a portion of Washington suburbia
and in part a segment of rural south
ern Maryland, had 61,000 white and
8,700 Negro school pupils in the past
school year. Under the county’s vol
untary transfer program, 339 of the
Negro pupils were enrolled in 30 pre
dominantly white schools. The county
has by far the largest number of Negro
pupils of any district in Maryland, aside
from Baltimore city.
Calvert County
Calvert County in Southern Mary
land, which is the only school district
outside Baltimore city to have more
Negro than white pupils (51.4 per cent)
has not set a transfer application pe
riod. County Superintendent Maurice
A. Dunkle explained that it has not
been the county’s policy to have an
application period, since there has been
no move on the part of Negroes to seek
admission to white schools. All county
schools are desegregated in principle.
Community Action
NAIRO Schedules
Regional Meeting
On Race Relations
T he National Association.
Intergroup Relations Of
cials, an organization interest \
in racial equality, will hold '
regional conference June 1-2. i:
a church camp a few miles ^ t
of Little Rock. It will be the fj. ^
such conference ever held byt?"
NAIRO in the South.
Racial equality in the schools and8,^
development of better communication i n
between the races will be the thea &
of the conference.
★ ★ ★
0
■■ r
Nothing came of the resolution ado*
ed March 27 by the Greater Little P l9s a
Ministerial Association requesting 4 ?
school board and business, civic and*
ligious leaders to prepare the com% b
nity for greater compliance with cog. s
orders for school desegregation (SSJ *
May). Six weeks later the presidenti a
the association, the Rev. Charles I
Higgins, said that the committee ap.
pointed to work on the project had let«
two meetings and that the only siij, *
gestion it had made was that the cos. -
mittee have a meeting with the schod'
board. Rev. Higgins said the commits 1
hoped to meet with the school board*
June 26.
★ ★ ★
About 25 Negroes attended a meet®
Sunday, May 14, at Miles Chapel CM
Church at Little Rock to celebrated*
seventh anniversary of the 1954 Su
preme Court decision against schwl
segregation.
The meeting was sponsored by _
NAACP. The speakers were the Ret
Wesley Gary, a recent graduate of tin.
Perkins School of Theology at South
ern Methodist University and now pas.
tor of Miles Chapel Church, and E, T
Trimble of Little Rock, Negro attorney.
Gary, also a Negro, criticized tk
Southern Baptists as race-baiters an
ultra-conservatives who label as ed
munist anybody who favors des _
tion. “Get rid of all the Southern
tists and we will have a wond
South,” he said. This and his ridiv
of “Mississippi rednecks” drew loud ap
plause.
★ ★ ★
The Little Rock Chamber of Con
merce announced May 20 that its tw
bomb reward funds—$25,000 for tk
1959 Labor Day bombings and 22$
for the February, 1960, dynamiting 0
the home of a Negro student—had bo®
paid out. It did not reveal any nan*
A lawsuit filed April 7 by four claim
ants to the $25,000 reward was dis
missed May 19. # # ■
Sli:
Status-
♦ Facts at fingertips.
That is the purpose of the *
annual status report on
scho»
segregation-desegregation n>
southern states.
♦ Statistics at a glance.
g|t ;
Clearly compiled and
usefo* L
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^ Data of utmost vali* e ‘
Schools, colleges, enrol
,Umen |s
teachers, legislation, laws 11 ' 15 -
♦ Year by Year
mi
desegregation
are listed f° r
10
Major
ments are listen *“*
through 1961. Other tables ^
pare the statistical develop® ^
from 1954 until the pres e ®Jj f
the districts under orders ^
segregate, and show the W 5
segregation in each state-
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