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PAGE 2—JUNE 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Judge Lewis Suggests Test Of Virginia State Laws
(Continued from Page 1)
county school board, told the court
that the government contends it isn’t
seeking punitive action and is proceed
ing in moderation. But, Denny added,
“beneath the moderation and sweetness
is a boot, a rack and a screw.”
He said the government’s proposal
to intervene in the case was an insult
to the court.
At the end of the hearing, held
May 8 and 9, Judge Lewis announced
that because of a crowded docket he
could not begin considering his de
cision until early in June.
Political Activity
Desegregation Gets
Attention In Races
For State Offices
C HARGES AND COUNTERCHARGES
relating to the school deseg
regation issue claimed the major
attention of Democratic candi
dates for governor and lieutenant-
governor during campaigning in
May.
The two gubernatorial aspirants—-
Lt. Gov. A. E. S. Stephens and for
mer Attorney General Albertis S. Har
rison—exchanged verbal blows over
Harrison’s role in events prior to the
federal government’s move to inter
vene in the Prince Edward school case.
Late in April, when the federal
government filed a petition to enter
the Prince Edward case, U.S. Attorney
General Robert Kennedy told report
ers that earlier he had held confer
ences with Virginia officials in an
effort to reopen the county’s schools.
Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. said he
knew nothing of any such conferences.
Tells of Meeting
On May 2, Harrison revealed that he
had met with Kennedy on the Prince
Edward matter in the early spring,
along with Virginia Asst. Attorney
General Kenneth C. Patty and William
C. Battle of Charlottesville, who was
Virginia campaign manager for Presi
dent Kennedy. Harrison said he told
Robert Kennedy that the operation of
schools is a local function in Virginia
and that the state had no control over
whether a county does or does not
choose to operate schools.
Stephens said he was astounded by
Harrison’s “belated admission that he
was the leader” with whom Kennedy
discussed the case.
“It is incomprehensible to me,” he
said, “that Mr. Harrison would with
hold until now—apparently under
pressure—the fact that such a confer
ence was held, and I am astounded that
he made no mention of it to the gov
ernor of Virginia.”
Harrison replied that he had told
Kennedy that no federal court order
was being violated in Prince Edward.
He said there was no reason for him
to tell the governor about this.
“Nothing was said to indicate that
the federal government would request
action by a federal court which would
prevent the operation of all public
schools in Virginia unless the public
schools in Prince Edward county were
reopened,” Harrison added.
Meanwhile, in speeches and state
ments at various places in the state:
® Stephens said people cannot tell
from Harrison’s statements whether he
supports Virginia’s freedom-of-choice
school program.
• Harrison said of State Sen. Armi-
stead L. Boothe, who is running for
Virginia Highlights
Federal District Judge Oren R.
Lewis took under advisement the
United States Justice Department’s
bid to intervene in the Prince Ed
ward County school desegregation
case.
The question of which of the can
didates are the strongest supporters
of public schools and of Virginia’s
“freedom-of-choice” school program
became the major issue in the Demo
cratic primary campaign.
The Virginia Education Associa
tion expelled the Arlington Educa
tion Association after the latter
group admitted Negro teachers.
lieutenant governor on the Stephens’
ticket, that “if there is one man in
Virginia who is entitled to no credit
for freedom-of-choice, it is the candi
date for lieutenant governor on the
Boothe-Stephens ticket.” He said
Boothe fought the tuition grants pro
gram in the General Assembly.
• Boothe called the campaign for
lieutenant governor between himself
and State Sen. Mills E. Godwin “a
fight between school-closer Godwin and
school-opener Boothe.”
• Godwin “strongly rejected” the
Boothe charge. He said he had worked
for public schools segregated or with
a maximum of segregation.
Byrd’s Support
Harrison and Godwin have the sup
port of the Democratic organization
headed by U.S. Sen. Harry Flood Byrd.
Stephens, formerly a leader in that
organization, has strongly denounced
it in recent campaign speeches.
Writing in the Richmond Times-
Dispatch, veteran political reporter
James Latimer said on April 30 that
the Kennedys may unintentionally have
come to the aid of the Byrd faction in
state politics by intervening in the
Prince Edward suit.
Latimer said Byrd and his “mas
sive resistance” forces have been
charged with wanting to close all pub
lic schools rather than sanction any
desegregation.
‘Closers’ and ‘Openers’
Now, Latimer continued, the federal
government has asked that the state be
enjoined from spending money for any
schools unless the Prince Edward
schools reopen, so perhaps the Ken
nedys can be tagged with the school-
closer label while the Byrd forces take
the role of trying to keep the schools
open.
“In any event,” Latimer wrote, “the
new threat of federal forces might serve
as fortuitously in state politics as did
the paratroopers in Little Rock in
1957.”
(The Little Rock episode, occurring
during the last Virginia gubernatorial
campaign, was believed to have cost
the Republican candidate votes.)
Byrd Scores NAACP
Sen. Byrd, who earlier had denounced
the federal government’s action in
Prince Edward, turned his fire on the
NAACP in a speech May 12 at the
bi-centennial observance of Bucking
ham County, adjacent to Prince Ed
ward.
He charged that the NAACP “is
more interested in the integration of
public school children than it is in
the education of colored children,” and
that “the NAACP alone is responsible
for the fact that 1,700 colored children
in Prince Edward County are not now
Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Confers on Prince Edward
Educators and legislators meeting with the governor were, from left: State Sen.
Mosby G. Perrow; State Supt. of Public Instruction Woodrow W. Wilkerson; Mrs.
John Galleher; the governor’s executive assistant, Peyton S. Winfree Jr. (standing);
Attorney General-designate Frederick T. Gray; Lewis F. Powell Jr.; William J. Story;
Leonard G. Muse; Colgate W. Darden Jr.; and Gladys V. Morton.
1
NAACP Rally At Farmville Unmarked by Incident
Gathering on Prince Edward County courfhouse steps observed the seventh anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Courf's decision
in the school desegregation cases.
attending good schools with qualified
teachers.”
Byrd said white leaders of the county
had offered to help the Negroes set up
their own private schools, but that the
NAACP had persuaded the Negroes not
to accept.
Byrd said Oliver W. Hill, NAACP
attorney from Richmond, and Roy Wil
kins, NAACP executive director from
New York, rushed to the county in
December, 1959, when whites offered
to help the Negroes start schools.
He said Hill told the Negro parents
that some benighted individuals were
trying to entice them away from their
rights by promising them a private
school, and that losing one or two years
of Jim Crow schooling would not have
any bad effects educationally.
Wilkins, Hill Reply
Wilkins and Hill fired back at Byrd
at a rally held on the steps of the
Prince Edward courthouse in Farmville
May 20 to observe the seventh anniver
sary of the Supreme Court’s desegre
gation decision.
Speaking to a crowd estimated by
town officials at about 1,000, Wilkins
declared:
‘The role of the Byrd machine on
the school integration issue has been
one long, tragic mistake from the very
beginning.”
Commenting on the rejection of aid
from whites to set up private Negro
schools, Wilkins said:
“Negro citizens of Prince Edward
county did not go to court in 1951 to
abolish public segregated schools, and
they did not fight their way to victory
in the nation’s highest court in 1954
in order to turn around in 1960 and
accept private, segregated schools.”
‘Crime Against Humanity’
Hill declared that in closing the
schools, officials and white citizens of
Prince Edward “are guilty of a crime
against humanity no different than the
crimes perpetrated by Eichmann and
his Nazi cohorts, except in the matter
of the degree of the offense.”
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt said in Nor
folk May 10 that she thinks it is “al
most a crime to deny public education
to any child in our country, particu
larly when the Communists are stress
ing education.”
Her remark was in reply to a ques
tion whether she thought it was proper
for the federal government to intervene
in the Prince Edward school case. Mrs.
Roosevelt was in Norfolk for a speaking
engagement.
Schoolmen
YEA Expels Teacher
Group In Arlington;
Admitted Negroes
T he Arlington Education As
sociation violated the rules
of the Virginia Education Asso
ciation by admitting Negroes to
membership and was promptly
expelled from the state organi
zation.
The AEA voted 519 to 463 in April
to admit Negro teachers, and on May
15 the association formally accepted 81
Negro members.
That same day, the board of direc
tors of the Virginia Education Associ
ation, meeting in Richmond, voted 19
to 2 to reaffirm its stand to dismiss
any member association which admits
Negroes. The action was in accord
with a resolution adopted by the
VEA’s Delegate Assembly in 1955
which stated that all VEA groups
“must continue to operate in their his
torical and traditional manner.”
Executive Secretary Richard Neal
of the Arlington association said later
that his group “undoubtedly” would
retain an attorney to help seek rein
statement in the VEA.
Although the AEA is no longer con
nected with the VEA, Arlington teach
ers may retain their individual mem
berships in the VEA so long as there
is no other VEA-affiliated association
in the county.
One member of the Arlington associ
ation, Dr. James Tyler, is president
elect of the state association. Tyler,
principal of Kenmore Junior High
School, said there is no legal restric
tion to prevent his taking office as
president later this year. Tyler was
one of the two VEA directors who
opposed expulsion of the Arlington
group.
A group of Stratford Junior High
School parents in Arlington voted May
15 to hold the school’s senior prom on
a desegregated basis. Ten Negro stu
dents attending the ninth (senior)
grade will be allowed to attend.
The prom will be held at a church,
since Arlington school board rules pro
hibit desegregated social affairs in the
schools.
On Target
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Meanwhile, At Another Level
Of Government . . .
In the Colleges
William And Mary
Has Given Degrees
To Two Negroes
Southern School News
survey has turned up the
previously unnoted fact that the
College of William and Mary has
awarded degrees to two Negroes
It had been previously under
stood that only one Negro had at
tended the school, and that this
student did not graduate.
Hulon La Vaughan Willis, who had
received the degree of Bachelor of
Science from Virginia State College
(Negro) in 1949, was admitted to the
College of William and Mary on Mard
22, 1951, and was awarded the degree
of Master of Education on Aug. T
1956. He attended during the summei
sessions of 1951, 1952, 1954 and 1956.
Edward Augustus Travis of Hamp
ton, who had received the Bachete
of Science degree from the Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical College
was admitted to the college on Aug
31, 1951, and was awarded the Bache
lor of Civil Law degree on Aug. »
1954.
A Negro woman, holder of the
gree of Bachelor of Science in Educa
tion from Temple University, was
mitted to the college on Sept. 20, U®
but withdrew at the end of d*
academic year because of failure ®
maintain the required “C” average.
State NAACP Leader
Gets Federal Office
liver W. Hill, head of &
NAACP’s legal staff in Vir
ginia, was sworn in May 1®
assistant to the Commissioner °-
Federal Housing.
Hill, a former member of the
mond City Council, was appointed •
Commissioner Neal J. Hardy to
as assistant for inter-group relati 0 ^
service concerned primarily
housing problems affecting min®
groups.
Nashville Banner
★ ★ ★
Thomas J. Michie, Charlottesville*,
torney and city councilman, was ® ^ j
nated by President Kennedy on 1 ’■
to be federal
judge for the
Western District
of Virginia. Mi
chie, a self-styled
“liberal Democrat,
will succeed the
late Roby C.
Thompson.
The newly
named judge was
mayor of Char
lottesville during
that city’s school
desegregation crisis of 1958, w r>;
schools were closed under the
ing Virginia law because they ha $
ordered desegregated. Michie t^, ffl I
position then that the only ^
micH' 1
vhen*
by 1
maintain total segregation was
ing public schools, and he sa
opposed to doing that.
id K