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Objective
AUGUST, 1961
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Deep South Governors Organize
IIIending the initial meeting in Jackson, Miss., were, from left, Arkansas Gov.
Orval faubus, Alabama Attorney General MacDonald Gallion, Alabama Gov.
jrnof John Patterson, Alabama Highway Director Sam Engelhardt, and Mis
sissippi Gov. Ross Barnett, who called the meeting.
Unity’ Program Proposed
At Governors’ Meeting
JACKSON, Miss.
Four Deep South governors
1 and 22 other officials from
seven Southern states met here
My 19 at the invitation of Mis
sissippi Gov. Ross Barnett to dis
cuss a “unity” program proposed
by Barnett on issues of state sov
ereignty and economic develop
ment.
Governors present in addition to
Barnett were John Patterson of Ala
bama, Ernest F. Hollings of South
Carolina and Orval E. Faubus of Ar
kansas. All Southern governors were
mvited, and representatives were sent
from Florida, Georgia and Kentucky.
They included Ralph Odom, an as
sistant attorney general of Florida, At
torney General Eugene Cook of Geor
gia and Foster Ockerman, director of
the Kentucky Department of Motor
Vehicles.
Gov. Barnett submitted a 17-page
document for consideration, suggesting
that the program be called “Southern
Action for Expansion” (SAFE). He
said it included four points including
“improvement of the South’s position
in its fight for the right of self-de
termination and preservation of con
stitutional government.” The plan also
calls for expansion of Southern econ
omy, Latin American trade and re
search, the statement said.
(See GOVERNORS, Page 2)
THE REGION
At Least 18 Districts tNanning
Initial Desegregation This Fall
A t least 18 Southern school
districts plan to desegregate
for the first time this fall, four
by court order and 14 through
voluntary programs.
The districts planning their initial
admission of Negroes to formerly all-
white schools at the beginning of the
1961-62 term include six in Virginia,
four in Texas, three in Tennessee, two
in North Carolina, and one each in
Florida, Georgia and Kentucky.
Desegregating these districts will
make 801 districts with biracial schools
in the 17 Southern and border states,
plus the District of Columbia. The
area has 6,663 school districts but only
2,813 are biracial. A biracial district
is one having both white and Negro
students, whether the schools are seg
regated or desegregated.
In addition to these first desegrega
tions announced for the fall, Southern
School News correspondents report
other districts already desegregated
will have more Negroes in biracial
classes. The number of Negroes at
tending classes with whites was ex
pected to remain at about seven per
cent of the Negroes in the region’s
public schools.
Five Colleges Change
Five colleges, including four private
and church institutions, will admit Ne
groes for the first time in the fall
quarter. Georgia Tech has accepted
voluntarily three Atlanta Negro fresh
men. Another public college, Texas
Tech, recently altered its segregation
policy by quietly admitting Negroes
for the summer session.
The private schools desegregating
this fall will be Mars Hill College,
Duke University and Davidson Col
lege, all in North Carolina, and Ok
lahoma Christian College.
The number of completely segre
gated states will drop by one again
this year. Georgia will have its first
desegregated school below the college
level when 10 Negroes enter the 11th
and 12th grades of Atlanta high schools.
The grade-a-year plan was ordered by
a federal district court.
Alabama, Mississippi and South
Carolina are not expected to admit any
Negroes to white schools at the pub
lic school or college level. Reports
have been made that Negroes will at
tempt to register at public colleges in
Alabama and South Carolina.
Chairman Predicts
Orleans Parish at New Orleans de
segregated last year, becoming the first
Louisiana district to put Negroes in
white schools. The first four Negroes
involved have been reassigned to the
same two schools and the school board
chairman has predicted the district will
have four to six biracial schools when
assignments are completed.
The six Virginia communities de
segregating for the first time will make
17 districts in the state having biracial
schools. Falls Church, which has voted
itself from under control of the State
Pupil Placement Board, assigned three
Negroes to formerly white schools. The
state board made these assignments in
other districts: Stafford County, two;
Prince William County, one; King Wil
liam County, one; Montgomery County,
two; and Roanoke County, one. State
board assignments of additional Ne
groes for the 11 communities already
desegregated are expected to at least
double the 208 Negroes attending
schools with whites last year.
Two large Texas cities, Dallas and
Three States Enact Major School-Race Bills
fjNLY THREE of 14 legislatures
^ meeting this year in Southern
border states have taken
Nor actions on issues of school
legation-desegregation.
, Louisiana and Georgia produced the
of the 1961 legislation on the sub-
^ including school-closing and tui-
jm-grant measures, and Arkansas
viators sought to bolster their stand
gainst compulsory attendance at bi-
' 5c ’ a l schools.
..Lawmakers of most other states in
' e region either bypassed the issue
, touched lightly on it, some of them
, rrim g attention to issues raised by
‘toedom riders” and sit-in demonstra-
F 8, In four border states with laws
Policies calling for nonsegregated
eols and colleges, assemblies en-
. or considered measures to re-
H, Ve rerna unng racial aspects in their
'National programs.
^uisiana’s General Assembly, which
^ W three sessions during the first
v, °I 1961, set the stage for a major
t,,, whether the 14th amendment
jo e U.S. Constitution requires states
^Provide public education. In Vir-
pjj! a similar issue is involved in a
ijg *!§ lawsuit challenging the clos-
Prince Edward County public
°ols in li eu c f court-ordered deseg-
'wtion.
more than a dozen actions
isjjtoS to races and the schools, Lou-
^ legislators enacted a law pro-
tleetj 8 that school boards may call
> 0(1 j ans to determine whether voters
6a Ve father close public schools than
mem desegregated.
; I Overwhelmingly
■. 4, g ^hool board of St. Helena Par-
to (j-Trirri county under court order
SW., legate its schools “with all de
rate
speed,” called an election un-
t>
'-ary ^ aw (Act 2, Second Extraordi-
ss ion), and the vote was over-
• " ln Sly to close the schools. The
• 'N mider attack in federal dis-
’ ^ as been tied to provisions
' l as t year for private, nonsec-
-bools financed by state grants-
individual pupils, and the
re appropriated $4.5 million
for tuition grants without specifications
as to its distribution.
The three-judge federal court at
New Orleans, which was assigned the
St. Helena litigation, invited attomeys-
general of the 50 states and the United
States to file briefs on the question of
whether states are obligated to pro
vide public schools, setting Aug. 4 as
the deadline for filing.
Local option by referendum on both
school closing and reopening high
lighted five measures on races and
schools enacted by the Georgia legis
lature. Under the new Georgia law,
also accompanied by a revised tuition-
grants law for attendance at private
schools, voters within school districts
not only could decide whether the
schools should be closed but also
whether they should bereopened. Ref
erenda would be called by petitions to
school boards.
Georgia repealed or otherwise in
validated earlier legislation which
would have forbidden state or local
funds for desegregated schools or those
expecting to desegregate. Another law
repealed would have permitted the
governor to close a single school in a
system ordered to desegregate. Gov.
Ernest Vandiver called for repeal of
such measures, terming a mandatory
school-closing law “an albatross”
rather than “a source of hope.” His
decision followed court-ordered admis
sion of two Negroes to the University
of Georgia.
Provide A Choice
Both Georgia and Arkansas assem
blies proposed amendments to their
state constitutions intended to provide
a choice by pupils or parents as to
attendance at segregated or nonsegre
gated schools.
Arkansans will vote next year on an
amendment, backed by Gov. Orval E.
Faubus, which would specify that no
child shall be denied his constitutional
right to a free public education because
of his refusal to attend school with a
student of another race, provided the
child’s school board believes that such
attendance would be inimical to his
welfare. The measure duplicates pro
visions in four existing Arkansas laws.
Georgia voters next year will decide
for or against an amendment designed
to spell out freedom from “compulsory
association” at all levels of public edu
cation.
Although Louisiana legislators did
earmark funds in general appropria
tions bills for grant-in-aid scholar
ships for pupils to attend private
schools, they earlier rejected a cent-
per-dollar sales tax increase which
Gov. Jimmie H. Davis said was needed
to finance such a program. Opponents
of the increase won with their argu
ment that the school segregation issue
was being used as a wedge to provide
an additional $28 million annually,
which could be diverted to other pur
poses.
Continue Open Attacks
Both the Louisiana and Arkansas
assemblies continued their open attacks
on federal courts for their desegrega
tion rulings. In Arkansas, a resolution
was adopted asking Congress to pro
pose a constitutional amendment al
lowing U.S. Supreme Court decisions
to be overruled by the legislatures of
three-fourths of the states. Louisiana
legislators, continuing to protest fed
eral “encroachment” on the states,
again officially condemned U.S. Dis
trict Judge J. Skelly Wright, who or
dered desegregation in New Orleans,
and demanded by resolution that he
not be promoted to the U.S. Fifth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals.
(See LEGISLATION, Page 2)
Galveston, will desegregate under court
order, while two small communities
Lockney in Floyd County, and Jud-
son Rural School in Bexar County,
voted last spring to desegregate vol
untarily this fall. About 75 Negroes
are expected to transfer to a white
school when Austin desegregates the
sixth grade under a descending grade-
a-year plan in September.
Three upper East Tennessee school
districts, Johnson City, Washington
County and Kingsport, have voluntary
grade-a-year programs beginning this
fall. This will make 10 Tennessee de
segregated districts. Knoxville, which
started a grade-a-year plan with the
first grade last year, is scheduled to
desegregate a vocational high school
when school opens. The Jackson, Term.,
public school system, which has been
segregated up to now, said it would
consider two Negro applications for a
white high school under the state’s
pupil assignment law.
First Three Grades
In North Carolina Asheville an
nounced a desegregation policy for the
first three grades but admitted five
Negro students to only the first and
second grades. Dunn High School in
Harnett County, scene of several In
dian protests over segregated schools
last year, has accepted 20 Indians this
year.
Four North Carolina districts have
increased their Negro assignments in
white schools for the coming year.
Chapel Hill, home of the University of
North Carolina, has put all first grade
assignments on a geographical basis,
which would put about 40 Negroes in
formerly white schools and several
whites in formerly Negro schools. The
Charlotte-Mecklenburg County system
will have 14 Negroes compared to two
in white schools last year; Greensboro
17 compared to five; and Raleigh, ten
compared to one.
(See THE REGION, Page 2)
In This Issue
State Reports
Alabama 12
Arkansas 16
Delaware 6
District of Columbia 14
Florida 2
Georgia 8
Kentucky 1
Louisiana 3
Maryland 10
Mississippi 15
Missouri 7
North Carolina 12
Oklahoma 15
South Carolina 13
Tennessee H
Texas 9
Virginia 5
West Virginia 13
Special Articles
Governors Meet 1
The Region 1
Legislation 1
Tuition Grants 1
Louisiana Debate 3
Judge Oren Lewis 5
Dallas Citizens Council 9
Baltimore Segregation 10
Tuition Grants Under Test In Two Courts
BY TOM FLAKE
C ourt decisions may indicate
soon whether tuition grants
from public funds legally can
provide both “freedom of choice”
as to school and “equal protection
under the laws” within the U.S.
Supreme Court’s specifications.
Prince Edward County, Va., and St.
Helena Parish, La., are the initial prov
ing grounds. Cases from both places
involve the legality of closing public
schools and substituting segregated
schools operated as private enterprises
and financed through tuition grants
relayed through the pupils.
A substantial question at the mo
ment is how the ultimate court de
cision in either of these cases will af
fect operation of tuition grants pro
grams in areas where public schools
remain open, as in much of Virginia,
with some of the public schools bi
racial, some segregated.
In Virginia, elementary or high
school pupils have the privilege of
leaving their regularly assigned public
school to attend (1) a nonsectarian
private school anywhere or (2) a pub
lic school outside their own district.
New laws in Louisiana and Georgia
are similar to that of Virginia but
limit attendance under grants to non-
secterian private schools.
The Virginia, Louisiana and Georgia
tuition grant laws contain no reference
to race, nor to segregation or desegre
gation. They contain within them
selves no provision for closing of pub
lic schools, although this may be pos
sible under other statutes or simply
by failure to appropriate money for
public schools. They specify that the
grants go to pupils—not to schools—
and that the states have no responsi
bility for operating the private schools
other than to set minimum standards
for them.
All agree that grant money cannot
be spent for education in parochial or
church-controlled schools because of
the constiutional ban on church-state
involvements. Without exception, this
prohibition has appeared in all tuition-
grant legislation passed to date, not
only in Virginia, Louisiana and Geor
gia but also in Alabama, Arkansas and
North Carolina.
The Virginia Board of Education an
nounced on June 23 a formal rule
against tuition grants being used at
schools operated by the federal gov
ernment. The rule, already followed
as a matter of policy, was made sub
ject to approval as to legality by the
state attorney general.
Virginia appears likely to remain the
center of attention on the tuition-
grants issue because:
(See VIRGINIA’S, Page 4)