Newspaper Page Text
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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY, 1961—PAGE 5
gORGIA
Ulan la Accepts 10 Negro Transfers To White Schools
MACON, Ga.
pg transfer of 10 Negro stu-
1 dents—seven girls and three
■from
Negro to white
jjools in September was ap-
joved by the Atlanta Board of
^cation.
y e gro attorneys were considering
Lg to federal court the cases of 38
jjjroes who were turned down in their
plications to transfer to the 11th or
pj, grades of specified white public
schools in Atlanta,
jje 38 Negro students who were
-jected had appealed, but a hearing
„ the appeals ended abruptly June
j»hen L. J. O’Callaghan, chairman of
aboard, refused to let administrative
5jJ members testify.
D L. Hollowell, one of the Negro
jjjrneys, said no explanation was giv-
for turning the 38 pupils down, and
lawyers needed to know what
jjcedures were used to justify such
pon. His contention that “the ruling
Holers the administrative remedy
Eich the appellants are entitled to
(jore this board inadequate” was in-
gpreted as a possible maneuver to
ft the appeals into federal court.
After the hearing was ended, O’Cal-
jghan, who said the board had made
lecords freely accessible to Negroes,
gid the appeals would be taken under
usideration. They must be decided
twithin 10 days under a desegregation
in submitted by the board and ap-
jtoved by U.S. District Court Judge
Frank Hooper.
Hollowell and E. E. Moore Jr., an-
sther Negro attorney, said they were
spared to introduce evidence at the
Fearing which they hoped would show
at white students in some of the high
bools had scored no better on tests
an the Negro applicants. Moore said
ffCallaghan’s refusal to allow testi
mony from administrative staff mem-
*s was contrary to the court-ap-
roved pupil placement plan, and added
iat he had particularly wanted testi
mony from Dr. Warren Findley, an
distant superintendent in charge of
*dng for the city school system.
Broke Up Quickly
Ike hearing had originally been
tseduled to last one and one-half
“it but it quickly broke up after the
%o attorneys said that without cer-
5111 testimony they could not continue
•d asked for a recess. After a brief
^ Native session the board voted to
for good on the question of
~ appeals.
^ ,e board was scheduled to have
Ravened July 1 to hear the appeal
*' 1 white girl, Sandra Melkild, who
turned down in her request for
from Northside High School,
°f four scheduled to be desegre-
, this fall, to another school which
not due to be desegregated,
hlanta School Supt. John W. Letson
tuiced on June 4 that the four
jTJ 6 schools to be entered by the 10
?° Hth and 12th graders are, in
, *°a to Northside, Brown, Grady
"1 Murphy.
famihes of the Negro students
O te d said they were very pleased.
the 10 students, at least two
^to be doctors, and one each
science teacher, an engineer, ar
k ®°k>gist and a midshipman at thi
“aval Academy.
^ ^ Screening Process
L ® Negro students who original-
,^ted transfer to white school
D ” rou Sh three steps in a screen-
a ;ri roce ss Achievement tests werf
it Nitv *’• followed by IQ and per-
•til ^ adjustment tests. Finally, per-
kl ^terviews were given. Unoffi-
y ^° r t' s were that only 16 Negroes
■< W, through to the personal in-
W st ®g e -
St attorneys claimed that eacl
ksjg , w as rejected solely on the
s race-
Sthf; he 10 Negroes accepted live
h ^ ah’ Present Negro schools than
S . he white schools to which they
f ac . be transferred. School official
hr Cx j C ° rs of overriding importance
Vjjj. 01 auch decisions.
S gj 1 ^. Melkild, the father of the
S , Who sought to transfer from
VaVj °°1 that will be desegregated,
n ^ re fusal of her request. He
Sc °red high on an achieve-
and said she was turned down
s
£ S
,V {q ° au se school officials did nc
Aide ^ e t a Precedent of permittin
scl sw itch from a desegre
? ^ a f) because they fear it woul
•> v °° d °f similar applications i
' A h ^ars.
Siijl a PPbcation for transfer fror
to Dykes High, Miss Melkil
Georgia Highlights
The Atlanta Board of Education
approved the transfer of 10 Negro
students from Negro schools to the
11th and 12th grades of white
schools in September. It was consid
ered possible that attorneys would
take to the federal courts the cases
of 38 other Negro students turned
down in their transfer applications.
A white girl student who applied
for transfer from a school scheduled
to be desegregated to a segregated
school was turned down by the
board. She appealed and after a
hearing July 1, it was announced a
final decision would be forthcoming
within 10 days.
The third Negro to enter the Uni
versity of Georgia was enrolled in
an atmosphere of calmness.
It appeared that five white can
didates and one Negro candidate
would be in the race to succeed At
lanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield
in the city primary Sept. 13.
Georgians were warned that ra
cial tensions may retard the state’s
industrial growth.
gave as her reason “to maintain free
dom of association.”
At its 1961 session, the Georgia Gen
eral Assembly passed a “freedom of as
sociation” law, which was interpreted
as authorizing state grants for children
who prefer private segregated schools
to public desegregated schools.
House Speaker George L. Smith HI
asked Attorney General Eugene Cook
for clarification of the law and said he
was “most distressed” because the At
lanta board rejected Miss Melkild’s ap
plication for transfer. Smith told Cook
that Atlanta school authorities took
“arbitrary action” in denying Miss Mel
kild her “basic right of freedom of as
sociation” and asked Cook to give an
official ruling as attorney general on
whether any state law prohibits a young
white girl from transferring from one
school to another to maintain her free
dom of association and thereby—as
Smith said the integrationists put it—
“protect herself from severe sociological
and psychological harm.”
Tuition grants available to Miss Mel
kild would be inadequate, and present
private schools cannot accept a large
number of additional students, Smith
said. He added:
“If Miss Melkild and all white Geor
gians can legally be the victims of dis
crimination, what can we of the Gen
eral Assembly do to protect them?
What laws can be passed to assure that
our white children shall not be denied
their civil rights?”
Refused to Rule
Cook refused to rule on whether the
Atlanta board could reject Miss Mel
kild’s application for transfer and de
clined to advise House Speaker Smith
concerning the questions he raised,
saying any ruling by his office might
throw Atlanta school affairs back into
a federal court, which has ordered de
segregation through a pupil placement
plan.
Although four white Atlanta schools
are expected to be desegregated this
fall, nine will remain all-white. There
are five Negro high schools in Atlanta
with an enrollment of 11,000 students.
The 13 white schools in the last school
term had an enrollment of 18,000 stu
dents. Total public enrollment in the
Atlanta school system is about 100,000.
Atlanta is the only school system in
Georgia which has had desegregation
litigation filed against it and the only
one ordered desegregated. Desegrega
tion petitions have been filed with offi
cials of seven other school systems over
the state.
The eyes of the nation will be on
Atlanta early in September when the
desegregation is implemented.
Mayor William B. Hartsfield believes
“school desegregation will come off
with a minimum of trouble.”
Police Chief Silent
Police Chief Herbert Jenkins is offi
cially silent, but it is known that At
lanta policemen have been given train
ing in the handling of unruly crowds.
The assumption is that Chief Jenkins
has made extensive preparations to
quickly break up a mob if the mood
becomes ugly, and to hold numerous
law enforcement officers in reserve to
rush to trouble spots if need be.
In preparation for September deseg
regation, the Atlanta Board of Educa
tion has ruled that affected school
property will be off limits to reporters
and photographers from newspapers
and otner publications, as well as radio
and television stations.
Gov. Ernest Vandiver said he believed
the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong
when it outlawed school segregation in
1954, but “the City of Atlanta is under
a court order and no matter how much
I disagree with it, that court order in
fact exists. I think my feelings are well
known on this.”
He added: “Unless the State of Geor
gia wants to secede from the United
States and fire on Ft. McPherson, we’ll
have to obey that court order.”
Served Notice
Vandiver served notice he will move
quickly to quell any violence that
mignt erupt when the schools open this
fall. “Any time the life or property of
any citizen is endangered, whatever
forces that are necessary to preserve
the peace will be used,” he said.
It is believed that the governor will
leave the handling of the situation in
the hands of Atlanta police unless called
on for assistance. In that event, it is
believed that while the governor will
do nothing to put a Negro student in a
white school, he will have sufficient
state patrol personnel on hand to pre
vent anyone from harming or stop
ping a Negro pupil entering a white
school under a federal court order.
Supt. Letson said the Atlanta area
will be living with the school deseg
regation problem for the next 100 years,
but added that the racial pattern has
already begun to change, bringing new
and subtle problems to the area’s edu
cational program.
He said the Atlanta system has been
confronted in many areas with a grow
ing Negro-to-white ratio and this has
resulted in double sessions in many
Negro schools and empty classrooms in
some white schools. “At some point,”
he said, “we must convert a white
school to a Negro school.”
A few days later, it was announced
that Whitefoord Avenue Elementary
School, in a neighborhood whose popu
lation rapidly is changing from white
to Negro, will be a Negro rather than
a white school this fall.
Grand Jury Asks
The Fulton County (Atlanta) Grand
Jury asked all political candidates (See
“Political Activity”) and citizens to
help in the task of “an orderly transi
tion of the schools this fall” in pre
sentments returned June 30.
A few days earlier, Attorney General
Cook criticized what he termed a secret
strategy meeting between Justice De
partment officials and city officials of
Atlanta on the school desegregation
problem. Cook said the law-abiding
people of Georgia had been embar
rassed and said the meeting presup
posed a breakdown in law enforcement
and defiance of the federal court order
by Atlanta citizens in September.
Mayor Hartsfield earlier had said he
had discussed the Atlanta situation with
Burke Marshall, chief of the Civil
Rights Division of the Department of
Justice, and John Siegenthaler, admin
istrative aide to U.S. Attorney General
Robert Kennedy. The mayor said the
two officials were on a tour of places
with civil rights problems, mainly to
get to know local officials and to show
“their great interest” in the problems.
The mayor said the visiting officials
made no mention of possible use of
federal marshals in Atlanta, and added
that he told Marshall and Siegenthaler
that Atlantans were “fairly competent
to handle the situation ourselves.”
The mayor said Supt. Letson told the
two visitors that school officials’ policy
is to give “full publicity” to all deseg
regation developments.
* * *
The State Board of Education was
informed by Gov. Ernest Vandiver that
the governor does not want funds for
private education tuition grants in
cluded in the state’s school budget. The
grants are designed to provide private
school tuition for students seeking to
avoid desegregated schools, although
the legislation does not specifically
spell this out.
It is reported that Vandiver wants
to see how many applications there are
before putting up money for tuition
grants. The Governor reportedly fears
that inclusion of the $1 million item in
the budget would result in a flood of
applications from pupils who are not
affected by desegregation but just want
to attend private schools.
* * *
The Georgia Conference on Educa
tional Opportunities, a biracial group,
charged that local school boards were
discriminating against Negro pupils in
‘Now . . . What Can I
Do For You Fellows?’
Baldy, Atlanta Constitution
administering state education funds. A
similar complaint had been filed earlier
by the Georgia Teachers and Education
Association, a Negro organization.
Dr. Claude Purcell, state superin
tendent of schools, said the reports
would be passed on to local system su
perintendents and he was sure the State
Association of School Board Members
would discuss the handling of the funds
at its meeting in August.
In The Colleges
Third Negro Enters
Georgia University
Without Incident
A third Negro entered the University
of Georgia at Athens amid a calmness
that contrasted sharply with campus
disorders last January when two At
lanta Negroes, Charlayne Hunter and
Hamilton Holmes, enrolled in the
school.
Miss Mary Frances Early, an Atlanta
elementary school music teacher, en
rolled for a summer quarter of gradu
ate work toward her master’s degree
at the university.
She was assigned to the same room
in Myers Hall vacated by Miss Hunter,
who is not taking summer classes.
Miss Early was one of 4,000 students
signing up for summer classes at the
Athens institution. She was the first
Negro to enter the graduate school and,
according to Dean Gerald Huff of the
graduate school, her presence caused
no incidents.
Political Activity
Mayor Hartsfield
Declines To Run
For Re-election
Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield,
who expects to guide the city through
a peaceful transition of its public
schools from segregated to desegre
gated status, said he will not offer for
re-election.
The city primary is scheduled to be
held Sept. 13, only a little more than
a week after pub
lic school deseg
regation is expect
ed to take place
in Atlanta, al
though the may
or’s term will not
end until the last
day of 1961.
A host of can
didates indicated
they would enter
the mayoralty pri
mary and, with
racial relations uppermost in their
minds, Atlantans were scanning their
records. The possible candidates are:
Ivan Allen Jr., an Atlanta business
man who has said that the Supreme
Court decision on desegregated schools
must be accepted as the law; he hopes
for Hartsfield’s support.
Fulton County Rep. M. M. (Muggsy)
Smith, who also is hopeful of obtaining
the incumbent’s backing.
State Senator Charlie Brown, who
lost to Hartsfield in a previous race.
County Commissioner James H. Ald-
redge.
Lester Maddox, an Atlanta restau
rant operator and arch-segregationist.
The Rev. William Holmes Borders,
Negro pastor of the Wheat Street Bap
HARTSFIELD
tist Church, a leader in Negro com
munity affairs and an ardent advocate
of ending all color bars.
It is reported that Austin T. Walden,
an Atlanta lawyer often employed by
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, will seek
an aldermanic post on the Atlanta City
Council.
Hartsfield has been mayor of Atlanta
for 23 years. He usually received the
bulk of Negro votes. In 1957, for in
stance, he was elected with 19,000 Ne
gro and 16,000 white votes.
Registration of Negro voters has in
creased by at least 10,000 since 1957.
A poll by Allen disclosed that the
major concern of voters in the up
coming mayoralty election in Atlanta
is “peaceful racial relations.”
* * *
President Rufus Harris of Mercer
University of Macon said race rabble
rousers in politics are “too insincere or
too ignorant” to merit holding office.
★ ★ ★
A Negro candidate, B. L. Blackman
Jr., entered the race for alderman in
Marietta (in Cobb County in the At
lanta metropolitan area) and was de
feated by only about 75 votes.
What They Say
Speaker Says Racial
Tension May Affect
Economic Growth
General Lucius Clay, Georgia-born
president of the Continental Can Com
pany, warned a Governor’s Conference
on Trade and Commerce that racial
tension may retard the state’s economic
growth.
General Clay said the desegregation
problem cannot be ignored. “Employes
being transferred to Georgia worry
about school conditions for their chil
dren,” he said.
“Manufacturers worry about the con
ditions which could develop within
their plants. Today, almost every major
manufacturer is engaged to some ex
tent in contract operations for the gov
ernment subject to anti-discrimination
laws. Most of us like to feel that we are
a part of the community where we are
located and that accordingly we must
respect and accept local customs and
conditions. None of us wants to locate
in areas where there is serious risk of
conflict between local custom and fed
eral law. We need the good will of the
community, and yet we must obey the
law.”
* ¥ ¥
Thurgood Marshall, Negro attorney
for the NAACP, addressing a Negro
audience in Macon, said Negroes in
every city in Georgia should “go to the
school board and say, ‘All right, when
and where? You have had seven years
to integrate; when are you going to
think about starting?’ ” Negroes should
not slow down, Marshall said, but “run
fast” in their push for integration.
Community Action
Governor Sanctions
Annual Meeting
On States Rights
Gov. Ernest Vandiver announced he
is giving sanction, as governor, to the
annual meeting July 24 of the States
Rights Council of Georgia in Atlanta.
There had been some questions as to
whether the council would meet this
year (Southern School News, June).
Featured speakers will be Georgia
Senator Herman Talmadge and Missis
sippi Senator James Eastland.
Vandiver said the purpose of the $25-
a-plate meeting is to raise funds “so
those who believe in states rights will
have an organization working for
them.”
★ ★ ★
The Chatham County (Savannah)
Citizens Council condemned use as a
manual of instructions by the city police
department of a booklet, “Racial Vio
lence and Law Enforcement”, published
by the Southern Regional Council. The
booklet was issued to policemen as an
aid in preparing for possible racial vio
lence, a city hall spokesman said. The
Southern Regional Council is a biracial
organization favoring desegregation.
# # #