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PAGE 6—JULY, 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MISSISSIPPI
Negro Files First School Suit;
Seeks Transfer to University
JACKSON, Miss.
J ames Howard Meredith, a 28-
year-old married Air Force
veteran of Kosciusko in Attala
County, is the first Negro to file
legal action to break Mississippi’s
school segregation barriers. He is
a sophomore at Jackson State
College for Negroes and seeks to
transfer to the all-white Univer
sity of Mississippi at Oxford.
Meredith’s suit was filed in the U. S.
district court at Jackson, May 31. His
counsel, furnished by the National As
sociation for the Advancement of Col
ored People, is headed by Mrs. Con
stance Baker Motley of New York City.
R. Jess Brown, Negro attorney of
Vicksburg, is associated in the case.
Representing the state of Mississippi
is Assistant Attorney General Dugas
Shands of Mississippi. Associated with
him are Assistant Attorney General
Edward Cates and Assistant Attorney
General Peter Stockett Jr.
Meredith had asked District Judge
Sidney C. Mize for an immediate tem
porary restraining order to enjoin uni
versity officials from refusing to en
roll him for the summer session be
ginning June 8. However, the issue was
carried over to July 10 by Judge Mize
and is now before him for final hear
ing. Initial hearings were held at
Biloxi June 12, but after one day were
postponed to July 10.
The delay automatically thwarted
Meredith’s effort to enroll for the sum
mer school session.
Further Delay Possible
A decision following the July hear
ing would be in time for entrance this
fall. However, a delay could be oc
casioned by appeal to the U. S. Court
of Appeals by either side.
The petition states that Meredith had
been trying to transfer to the Uni
versity of Mississippi since Jan. 31,
1961, and that he was not advised un
til May 26 that he was not acceptable
since he has “attended a non-accredited
college” and failed to furnish “proper
certificates by citizens of Mississippi,
alumni of the university, and for other
undisclosed grounds.”
However, Meredith charges that his
rejection was “solely because of his
race and color.” He said Jackson State
College for Negroes “is a state college
under the jurisdiction of the same
board as is the University of Missis
sippi.”
The complaint states “this is a pro
ceeding for a declaratory judgment,
pursuant to provisions of Title 28,
United States Code, Section 2201, for
the purpose of having this court de
termine the question whether the
plaintiff, and members of the class rep
resented by plaintiff, as Negro citizens
and residents of the state of Missis
sippi, have a right to attend the Uni
versity of Mississippi and other state
institutions of higher learning pres
ently limited to white students, upon
the same terms and conditions applica
ble to white citizens and residents of
Mississippi.”
Meredith cites that all of his ele
mentary and high school education, ex
cept for the last year, was received in
Mississippi. His last year of high school
was received at Gibbs High School, St.
Petersburg, Fla., from which he grad
uated in June, 1951.
Served In Air Force
During the period, July, 1951 to July,
1960, he served most of this time in
the armed forces of the United States
and was honorably discharged from the
Air Force on July 21, 1960. In Sep
tember, 1960, he entered Jackson State
College for Negroes and recently com
pleted the sophomore year.
While in the armed forces, Meredith
attended the University of Kansas at
Lawrence; Washburn University at
Topeka, Kans., and the University of
Maryland, Far East Division, and
earned some college credits. He said
he is eligible for immediate readmis
sion to each of those institutions and
his record meets the requirements of
the program in the University of Mis
sissippi for which he has applied.
Meredith challenges the constitution
ality of a requirement of the Board of
Trustees that applicants for admission
must be recommended by citizens of
his county who are university alumni.
He said he was unable to comply be
cause he is a Negro citizen and there
Mississippi Highlights
A 28-year-old married ex-service-
man became the first Negro to file
a lawsuit against Mississippi’s seg
regation of schools.
The State Supreme Court re
versed the contempt-of-court con
viction of Medgar Evers, a state
NAACP official who had criticized
the punishment on a burglary count
of a Negro who unsuccessfully
sought to enter Mississippi Southern
College.
Roy Wilkins, executive secretary
of the NAACP, said “Operation
Mississippi” has been launched to
eliminate racial segregation in all
phases of life.
are “not now and never have been
any Negro graduates of the University
of Mississippi, a fact of common and
historical knowledge recognized by the
laws of Mississippi establishing sepa
rate institutions of higher learning for
Negroes.”
Attacks Alumni Provision
“The plaintiff alleges that the alumni
certification requirement is unconstitu
tional because in operation and effect
it bars the admission of qualified Ne
groes to the University of Mississippi
solely because they are Negroes,” the
complaint states.
Meredith told newsmen he wanted
to transfer to the University of Mis
sissippi because there is an inadequate
program at Jackson State College in
his desire to study political science and
history.
Asserting that he does not see “any
call for violence when I enter the uni
versity,” Meredith told newsmen that
“we have no intention of antagonizing
anyone.”
“We intend to go about this in an
orderly and proper manner,” he said.
“I don’t think integration and segre
gation are a matter of concern—it’s a
matter of an opportunity to get an
education,” he said.
GI Student
Meredith pointed out in his petition
that as a former serviceman he is en
titled to an education at the expense
of the federal government and that he
is “attempting in good faith to com
plete his education at the earliest pos
sible time.”
Asked by newsmen if he feared pos
sible reprisals because of his suit,
Meredith said:
“I don’t see why I should have any
difficulty. I don’t think we have that
kind of people in Mississippi.”
Residence Issue
At the June 12 hearing in Biloxi,
Meredith testified that he owns three
farms in Attala County and two cars
and a truck. He said he was a resi
dent of that county, but testified he
had registered as a voter in Hinds
(Jackson) County.
Assistant Attorney General Shands
questioned whether Meredith had com
plied with the residency requirements
in Hinds County which requires one
year when residence is changed from
one county to another and two years
after becoming a resident of the state.
His petition shows that he did not en
ter Jackson State College for Negroes
in Jackson until September, 1960.
Will Test Laws
Meredith’s suit, if successful, will put
to a test state segregation laws and
determine whether educational institu
tions will be closed to prevent them
from being desegregated.
Mississippi has a statute which au
thorizes the governor or any school
board to close schools on threat of de
segregation. Gov. Ross Barnett has de
scribed himself as an “uncompromis
ing segregationist.”
There could be a conflict in authority
between that given the governor by
statute and that given the college
board under a constitutional amend
ment making the board a constitutional
agency with complete control over in
stitutions of higher learning.
A statute enacted by the legislature
is not valid if it is contrary to the
constitution.
Whatever the decision in the show
down, Chancellor J. D. Williams of the
University of Mississippi, has said it
will be made “in Jackson and not on
the campus.”
Meredith’s suit asserts that the “law
is well settled that state authorities
cannot exclude qualified Negro appli
cants from state universities solely be
cause of race and color.” It also states
that “this does not raise any novel or
unsettled questions of law or fact.”
★ ★ ★
Evers Contempt Conviction
Reversed By High Court
The Mississippi Supreme Court has
overruled the Forrest County (Hatties
burg) Circuit Court conviction of Med
gar Evers, state field secretary of the
National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People, for contempt
of court.
The unanimous decision was writ
ten by Justice W. N. Ethridge Jr., al
though Chief Justice Harvey McGehee
in a separate decision said he “reluc
tantly concurred.”
Evers had been sentenced last De
cember to a fine of $100 and 30 days
in jail by Circuit Judge Stanton Hall
for an out-of-court criticism of the
conviction of Clyde Kennard, Negro
of Hattiesburg. Kennard was sentenced
to seven years in prison in connection
with the theft of chicken feed valued
at $12. He unsuccessfully sought to en
roll at all-white Mississippi Southern
College at Hattiesburg in 1959.
Issued Statement
Evers, in a statement issued at Jack-
son after the trial last November and
carried by the Associated Press, called
Kennard’s trial “a mockery of justice
held before a jury of segregationists
determined to put Kennard away le
gally.”
Kennard is still held in jail at Hat
tiesburg without bond pending appeal
of his case to the U. S. Supreme Court
following State Supreme Court affirm
ation of his conviction.
The state had charged Evers’ state
ment was “contemptuous and a con
scious effort to embarrass, impede, de
grade, obstruct, interrupt, defeat and
corrupt the administration of justice.”
Tribunal’s Comments
Although the State Supreme Court
said Evers’ statement “was false in
several respects,” the decision freeing
him asserted “we do not think that
these intemperate and partly false re
marks made and published by Evers
after the case was decided had any
reasonable tendency to impede, em
barrass, obstruct, defeat or corrupt the
administration of the court.”
“The remarks were simply unwar
ranted criticisms of the court and
jury,” the court said in noting that
“the courts are subject to the same
criticism as other people when a case
is finished.”
Community Action
Wilkins Says Drive
Launched To End
All Segregation
The New York executive secretary
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, dis
closed in Jackson June 7 that his or
ganization has “launched Operation
Mississippi whose objective is to wipe
out segregation in all phases of Mis
sissippi life.”
The statement was by Roy Wilkins,
in Jackson to address a mass meeting
of the Jackson Branch of the NAACP.
In a press conference, Wilkins said
his organization “does not agree with
the methods of the Freedom Riders
but does not sneer at them.”
Wilkins compared the biracial meet
ing to the one President Kennedy held
with Nikita Khrushchev: “Nobody
changed his mind at either meeting.”
Among the objectives outlined by
the NAACP leader for “Operation Mis
sissippi,” desegregation of public edu
cation was called a “must.” Wilkins
said the University of Mississippi and
other tax-supported colleges ought to
have Negro students, while public ele
mentary and high schools should be
brought into compliance with the U. S.
Supreme Court’s decision of 1954.
# # #
Negro Teacher in Parochial School
Virgus Streets, a chemistry and math teacher at Trinity High School, holds or
end-of-school talk with three students: Bernard Golden, Tom Leibig, and Robe
Sullivan.
KENTUCKY
Two Teachers, 11 Students
File Suit Over Dismissals
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
T WO FACULTY MEMBERS and 11
students dismissed a year
ago from Kentucky State College
filed damage suits in federal court
for a total of $650,000, or $50,000
each.
The suits charged that the constitu
tional civil rights of the plaintiffs were
impaired and their reputations dam
aged.
Named as defendants were officers
and regents of Kentucky State a pre
dominantly Negro school.
The dismissals came in the spring of
1960 after riotous demonstrations on
the campus at Frankfort. (Southern
School News, October, 1960, and pre
vious.) The college gymnasium was
burned at the climax of a series of stu
dent uprisings that included a boycott
of the school cafeteria:
Faculty members Arthur Norman,
Philadelphia, and Robert E. Boyd,
Johnson City, Tenn., and some of the
students maintained they were ousted
because of their work for CORE. The
Frankfort chapter of CORE used col
lege students in a workshop on meth
ods of nonviolent demonstrations.
The plaintiff’s attorney, Harry S. Mc-
Alphin, said the students were expelled
for taking part in sit-in demonstrations.
Rarely Used Law
He said the suits were brought under
a rarely used section of federal law that
permits recovery of damages when an
individual’s civil rights have been vio
lated under the 14th Amendment of the
Constitution.
Involved, he said, are the sections
requiring equal treatment under law
and due process of law. The suits are
not expected to come to trial until
February.
Kentucky State College’s regents up
held the ouster of the teachers and
students on grounds that they provided
leadership in demonstrations against
college rules. The penalties given six
students, however, were reduced from
expulsion to indefinite suspension for
the stated reason that they “probably
did not provide the high degree of
leadership as the others.”
★ ★ ★
A college in Ohio and the governor
of Indiana became involved in the
aftermath of an interracial sit-in at a
Henderson, Ky., restaurant.
Two white coeds from Antioch Col
lege, Yellow Springs, Ohio, claimed
they were fired from their summer
training jobs at an Evansville, Ind.,
state hospital after being arrested
along with 22 others at the sit-in. The
firings led to protests that the girls’ civil
rights were violated.
Hospital officials said that under an
arrangement with the college, the hos
pital was responsible for the coeds’
conduct and that the girls had placed
themselves “in a hazardous position”
and were in trouble with the police.
Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh,
target of the protest barrage, ordered
that the girls be rehired on condition
that Antioch College assume responsi
bility for their behavior.
The coeds were back at work and
due to receive the pay they had lost
Kentucky Highlights
Student desegregation sit-ins were
linked to two separate civil-rights
cases. One involved damage suits
totaling $650,000 against officials of
Kentucky State College. The other
had repercussions, which spanned
the Ohio River from Kentucky into
Indiana and Ohio.
Two Negro men became the first
of their race to earn Ph.D. degrees
at the University of Kentucky.
The first Negro teacher in a
Louisville parochial high school
completed what was called a “mag
nificent” year.
after the director of the college’s co
operative work program agreed “to as
sume all the usual responsibility.”
★ ★ ★
Two Negro m c
became the --
members of thee
race to receh*
doctor of philoso
phy degrees fro 1 ;
the University 01
Kentucky.
By virtue of a-'
phabetical pr* 01 '
ity, John Thomas
Smith of Lexinf;
ton, Ky.,
SM,TH clahn to be £
first Negro to earn a Ph.D. at UK-
other is Horace Tate, a member of
faculty at Fort Valley State TeacK-
College in Georgia. ^
Commencement exercises were D '
June 5.
Schoolmen
Principal Praises
First Negro Teach? 1
The performance of the first
teacher in the parochial high scll< *T^
the Louisville Archdiocese was
“magnificent” by the school
The Very Rev. Alfred Steinh*j£j
principal of Trinity High School,
he is very sorry that the teacher, ^
gus Streets, planned to make his
year at the school his last. ^
Streets, a graduate or Fresno .
College in California, plans to PV^ope
doctoral degree in chemistry and ^ ,
to return to the West Coast to
college teacher.
During the 1960-61 year, he tj^,
chemistry, solid geometry a 11 ”
nometry at Trinity. It was
teaching job.
Father Steinhauser said be ^
Streets at the start that he wo*^ .
no difficulty on account of his
he were a strong teacher.
proved to be an “extremely ^ $
teacher,” he said, and was look
by the students.
stui
Trinity has several Negro
but none were in Streets’ clas=e • ^ f