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PAGE 2—FEBRUARY, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
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Agency Leader Calls for Look
At School, Area Relationships
By EDGAR JONES
BALTIMORE
he need to take a long and
searching look at the relation
ship between public schools and
their community in racially
changing neighborhoods claims
the high priority of school official
and citizen, Edward L. Holmgren,
executive director of Baltimore
Neighborhoods, Inc. declares
Continued failure to do this will
seriously hamper efforts to
achieve stability in changing
neighborhoods, he explained in
an interview for Southern School
News.
As head of a private metropolitan
Baltimore agency dedicated to orderly
integration of residential areas, Holm
gren said that once a neighborhood
school has turned from white to pre
dominately non-white, it is extremely
difficult to get new white families to
move into the area unless they have
no children or only very young ones.
“Neighborhood groups seeking to
stem the white flight from the city
need the assurance that school offi
cials recognize the problem and are
seeking the means to make the school
more responsive to the changing needs
of the community it serves,” Holmgren
said. “School boards and administrators
should accept the new responsibility
imposed by integration of schools to
make it succeed, and not merely by
placing white and Negro children at
adjoining desks,” he continued, add
ing:
“They recognize the problem with
out saying so in their frequent state
ments about ‘culturally deprived’ chil
dren, by which they refer almost en
tirely to Negro children without ac
knowledging the fact. They know that
Negro children are hampered by past
schooling. The whole point of the Su
preme Court decision was the fact that
Negroes in segregated schools were
getting less of an education than white
children. By shifting to a white school
these children did not suddenly attain
the same educational level as white
children. Many are behind and have
special needs that must be acknowl
edged and met.
“Yet school officials pretend that
'■Mldren are children, regardless of
background, and that it would be dis
criminatory on their part to keep racial
statistics or show concern when de
segregated schools change rapidly to
predominantly colored schools or be
come, in effect, resegregated schools.”
More Attention
A soft-spoken, but vigorous, white
man of 38 years who came to Baltimore
last September from Chicago, where he
also was engaged in housing and race-
relations work with the Chicago Urban
League, Holmgren takes the view—
expressed from time to time by af
fected neighborhood associations—that
school officials ought to give more
attention to what is happening racially
in the schools. He said:
“Just as it was the school board’s
responsibility in 1954 to make deseg
regation work, it has the responsibilitv
to make it work now, in the light of
changing times and conditions. School
board members have the responsibility
to prevent resegregation. Thev should
be showing an awareness of the lower
status of many Negroes and acting to
meet the needs of the rest of the com
munity.”
Asked to specify the needs to which
he referred, Holmgren replied,
“The schools have to find out needs
in terms of achievement levels. It does
not always mean problems associated
with Negroes, but in some cases it
may. The schools have a notion that
once a school reaches a certain propor
tion of non-whites, then we can do
less in terms of education. The feeling
is that Negro parents are often less
demanding than white parents and will
not press for enrichment and other
fringe benefits. They justify it by say
ing they can’t get the teachers for
fringe benefits and that Negro children
are not at the cultural level where such
enrichment can be grasped. Thus, the
level of education goes down at the
very time it should be going up.”
Feels Threatened
Historically, Holmgren noted, com
paring Negroes with previous in
migrants to urban areas, “the “host
group’ has had an effect on the in
coming minority group, which strives
for the ways of the majority. It always
takes time for the culture and stand
ards to rub off. But schools and neigh
borhoods in Baltimore change so fast
that the host group in this instance
feels threatened and rims. If the hous
ing market operated normally, and the
Edward L. Holmgren
A long and searching look
change came more slowly, then the
stability of schools and neighborhoods
would be assured.”
In reply to a question as to whether
neighborhoods would be more stable
without school desegregation, Holm
gren said:
“I doubt it; at least, not at the out
set. Baltimore had its changing neigh
borhoods before school desegregation
began in 1954. Chicago has always had
a non-discriminatory school system,
yet it has much the same neighborhood
shifts as Baltimore as the result of the
same urban industrial phenomenon.
We can’t separate schools from neigh
borhoods; schools and neighborhoods
are the same.
“If anything, neighborhood changes
have had a greater effect on the schools
than vice-versa. Incoming Negro fami
lies have more school-age children,
and fewer of them go to private and
parochial schools than was true when
white families occupied a given area.
So a change from white to colored
residents immediately imposes a heav
ier burden on a neighborhood school.
“At some point, though, the change
in schools affects neighborhoods. It
becomes a problem of numbers, which
relates to the ability of schools to
absorb new children and still pre
serve educational standards. In some
schools the majority of pupils are
Negroes but because of their similar
socio-economic level the white families
feel no threat to their well-being; they
accept a white minority status. By and
large, however, white persons cannot
stand minority status. They find some
thing alien and unAmerican about it.”
Lack of Districting
Holmgren was asked if he subscribed
to the belief of some neighborhood
groups that they would be helped if
Baltimore had prescribed school at
tendance areas instead of allowing
pupils to transfer freely from one
school to another. He replied, “I can’t
answer what effect the lack of district
ing has. Districting can be argued
either way.”
Holmgren said:
“If you force all children in a given
area to go to a certain school, and the
whites are in a minority, then the
white families either send their chil
dren to private and parochial schools
or move to another district. On the
other hand, if you follow the Baltimore
plan and allow children to go to
schools outside their home areas, then
there may be a greater influx of Ne
groes in a given school than there is in
the surrounding area, and a greater
outward movement of white children
to other schools. In a way, Baltimore’s
freedom-of-choice plan buys time for
a changing neighborhood in that par
ents dissatisfied with the neighborhood
school can send their children else
where without themselves moving
away.”
Holmgren explained that in order to
regain stability in a changing neigh
borhood, it was necessary not only to
avert white panic and win acceptance
of Negro neighbors, but also to induce
new white families to move in and
thereby maintain a racial balance.
Asked how the schools affected this
effort, he said,
“Some of those working to preserve
residential stability regard their neigh
borhood school situation as the crucial
determinant in getting new white fam
ilies with children. Our experience
with a sales-rent program for chang
ing neighborhoods bears this out. In
neighborhoods where the schools are
predominantly Negro, we only can get
childless white couples or those with
infants to move in. Before moving in
a husband and wife with school-age
children naturally asked what the
school is like; if they hear that white
children are in a minority position,
they turn elsewhere. They equate the
number of Negroes with lower class
standards; it is not necessarily so, but
that is the way most people feel.”
Recognize Responsibility
Questioned as to what the schools
can do, Holmgren responded, “First,
they can recognize their responsibility
in a situation of city-wide concern;
second, instead of glossing over the
problems of integration, school officials
would do better to try and raise the
achievement level of educationally dis
advantaged children so that they can
compete on equal terms with children
who have had the benefits of sound
education. The argument of school
people is that such a program costs
money. Indeed it would cost money,
but if schools are worth saving, it is
a socio-economic cost that we have to
bear.
“Look at the Ken-Gar project in
Montgomery County which has been
attempting to upgrade the scholastic
level of Negro children with limited
backgrounds. (For the Ken-Gar story,
see Southern School News, May,
1961.) Or look at New York’s Higher
Horizons program. It becomes a matter
of working to get more productive citi
zens, of spending now for positive
social ends rather than spending later
for negative ends, such as welfare,
policing, penal institutions and the
like.”
Asked if the schools should have a
quota system to maintain a racial bal
ance, Holmgren said that quota was a
“dirty word.” But he pointed to an
outlying school to which Negro chil
dren from a blighted downtown section
are being transported to relieve over
crowding. “If children are to be trans
ported,” he asks, “why bus them all
to a single school? Why not a wider
distribution? As it is now, we have
complaints from the white and Negro
parents of the school that standards are
lowered to the level of the new chil
dren and enrichment programs are not
even considered. This is not good edu
cational policy.”
Holmgren himself has bought a
house for his family in a middle-class
neighborhood that for the past several
years has had a substantial number
of Negro residents. His four children
attend public schools that have size
able numbers of Negro pupils. He dis
plays his large brick house on a spa
cious lot as proof of what his organiza
tion preaches: The best housing
bargains in Baltimore are to be found
in the desegregated neighborhoods.
Top Businessmen
Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc. was
chartered early in 1960 as a private
organization backed by neighborhood
and civic groups, most notably the
Greater Baltimore Committee, com
posed of the top businessmen in the
city. “Business leaders know that the
city’s vitality is threatened by contin
ued racial change,” Holmgren explain
ed, “and that expensive renewal plans
such as Charles Center [a new office
complex arising in downtown Balti
more] cannot succeed if the change
persists. They see the city losing too
many taxpayers and too many accepted
values.”
The program he directs is based, he
said, on two principal postulates: “(1)
Neighborhood panic when racial change
occurs is a self-defeating process which
can be averted, (2) the market for
housing must be an open market for
all people, with only the color of their
money determining their places of res
idence.”
On the subject of white panic and
subsequent flight, Holmgren says:
“The panic stems from a fixed attitude
that goes back a long way: it is an
attitude fixed in Negro minds as well
as white minds that neighborhoods are
either all-white or all-colored. We be
lieve there is a third alternative—inte
grated neighborhoods. The common
reaction, if the Negroes move into a
previously white area, is ‘of course you
move out.’ The Federal Government
has fostered the creation of vast sub
urban developments through FHA
mortgage insurance programs, permit
ting builders of new suburbs to dis
criminate with everybody’s tax dol
lars. It has helped to create the ‘white
noose’ around urban centers.
“Part of our job is to make white
residents understand that they don’t
have to move out. In many cities, and
in a few sections of Baltimore, some
white families have seen a chance for
democracy to work and have seized
the opportunity to have their children
experience the melting-pot process
that has been a strong, constructive
part of this country’s tradition. They |
Maryland
(Continued From Page 1)
bers will assume jurisdiction over ques
tions previously left to the courts to de
cide, instead of continuing to draw a
fine line between administrative and
legal matters.
Under Maryland law one of the duties
of the State Board of Education is to
determine the educational policy of the
state. Under the same law, the foremost
duty of county school boards, county
school superintendents and the state
superintendent of schools is to carry out
the educational policies of the state. By
making its statement a “declaration of
the educational policy of the state,” the
board has imposed a mandatory re
quirement on local school officials to
move toward “full compliance with the
Supreme Court’s decree at the earliest
practicable date.”
No explanation of the board’s state
ment was issued, and no indication was
given as to specific findings in its re
view of desegregation to date. But in
pointing to the fact that “desegregation
has not moved as rapidly in some parts
of the state as in others or not at all,”
board members made evident their
awareness that in eight of Maryland’s
22 biracial county school systems no
actual desegregation has taken place
and that five or six other counties have
only relatively small numbers of Ne
groes attending formerly white schools.
Among the local policies in one
county or another that could be affected
by the board’s declaration of educa
tional policy are 1) the initial assign
ment of Negroes to all-Negro schools
with the right to transfer to white
schools by request; 2) the establish
ment of transfer deadlines and transfer
procedures for Negro pupils that are
not applied to white pupils, and 3) the
construction of new schools and addi
tions to old schools that tend to foster
continued segregation instead of “the
furtherance of desegregated schools.”
The requirement that bus transporta
tion be provided without regard to race
also could have an impact since school
bus segregation is the prevailing pattern
in many counties.
★ ★ ★
With the appointment of a Morgan
State College official to fill a vacancy,
the Baltimore Board of School Com
missioners for the first time has two
Negroes among its nine members. Prev
iously it had been customary to have
one Negro member. Last year for the
first time Negro pupils outnumbered
white pupils in the city school popula
tion.
The new school board member named
by Mayor J. Harold Grady was J. Percy
Bond, director of
admissions
and placement at
Morgan, a pre
dominantly Negro
state college. A
graduate of How
ard Univer
sity with an M.A.
from Cornell,
Bond taught Eng
lish at Morgan
from 1948 to 1951
and was dean of bond
men in 1951-52 before assuming his ad
missions post. Before going to Morgan,
he was administrator of the National
Youth Administration for Washington
and southern Maryland and also did
extensive refugee work in Italy, for
which he was decorated by the Italian
Government.
In addition to his new duties on the
school board, Bond is a member of the
Maryland Commission on Problems of
Illegitimacy and a director of the Balti
more Urban League, the Big Brothers
of Baltimore and a branch of the
YMCA. His appointment to the school
board, which runs until March 1, 1966,
was unanimously confirmed by the
Baltimore City Council. The other Ne
gro board member is Mrs. Elizabeth
Murphy Phillips, a regular contributor
to the Baltimore Afro-American which
is published under the long-time direc
tion of the Murphy family.
Along with Bond, Mayor Grady
named John J. Sweeney Jr., a Balti
more lawyer, to fill a second school
board vacancy. Active in city and state
bar associations, Sweeney has served on
a variety of committees and commis
sions and for the past several years has
instructed student nurses in the legal
aspects of the nursing profession.
realize that in a multiracial world, we
must learn to live together. But most
white families have fled before the
widening expanse of home-hungry
Negroes.”
Asked about the part played by
“block-busters” and other real estate
operators, Holmgren explained:
“Panic is often self-induced but can
be brought about by extraneous forces.
There is probably more extraneous in
duction in Baltimore than in most
places. Real estate operators see oppor-
(See NEIGHBORHOODS, Page 3)
Maryland Highlights
The Maryland Board of Educj.
tion, in an unanimous action, ma<j e
it the educational duty of local
school boards to eliminate racial
considerations in pupil assignment^
The board members, in a closed-
door review, found “much to
commended, some hesitation to t*
regretted” in the progress of school
desegregation to date.
Racial demonstrations on the
Eastern Shore were considered a
handicap in school desegregation, as
the Maryland General Assembly net
to consider legislation affecting pub.
lie accommodations.
The Baltimore Board of School
Commissioners for the first time has
two Negro members.
The need to consider the rela-
tionship between Baltimore’s deseg
regated schools and racially chang
ing neighborhoods was stressed by
the director of a private housing
agency.
The oldest Episcopal school for
girls in the nation announced its
readiness to admit Negroes on the
same basis as white girls.
Legislative Action
Discrimination
A Dominant Issue
The Maryland General Assembly’s
30-day session opening in February is
limited by law to budgetary affairs and
state-wide legislation. No bills affecting
school desegregation were anticipated
but the subject of racial discrimination
in places of public accommodations to
expected to be a dominant issue.
Gov. J. Millard Tawes, already cam
paigning for Democratic renomination
in the May primary, has set forth a
legislative program, with a public ac
commodations law as one of his sir
objectives. He backed a bill endorsed or.
November 1 by the Legislative Council
a between-sessions arm of the General
Assembly.
The chances of its passage were less
certain in recent weeks as the racially
sensitive Eastern Shore became aroused
by the demonstrations of “outsiders"-
for the most part students from tic
Baltimore area — against segregated
’Shore restaurants. Persons close to tie
school situation expressed concern that
the hostility stirred by the demonstra
tors, particularly in the Eastern Shore
city of Cambridge, in Dorchester
County, could make it more difficult to
bring about a quiet start on school de
segregation. Most of the ’Shore, indud-
ing Dorchester County, has no act®
school desegregation, although count)'
school board policies permit it.
The Dorchester school superintend
dent. James G. Busick, was reported *
an interview with Philip Evans of ®
Baltimore Kveninp Svn (Jan. 221 *
saying that “there isn’t any quests®
that the freedom riders had strain
relations between the races” and th J
this would hurt plans for school “ E
segregation.
Evans asked Busick about a rep°
that the freedom rides had result^
cancellation of joint white-Mjf
school athletic and music events
IK
superintendent replied that not
,thins
had been put on the school cals®
concerning these events “so n°*?j
has been canceled.” Earlier in ^
school year Busick had described
racial cultural and athletic events
being part of Dorchester’s prepur 3 * 1
for desegregation.
enn/ZoDUn/je
Academy Adopts
New Race Policy
&
Hannah More Academy, the <*
Episcopal school for girls in the na
announced in its January News- ^
to alumnae that it was prepared *° ^
cept qualified Negro applicants on ^
same basis as white ones. Locatuv
Reisterstown, to the north of Ban ia ^
the school was opened in 1832 311 >
about 100 girls in grades one
twelve. , jg*
The announcement said: “To 0 1
have never had an application ft ^
Negro or an Indian. If we di ^
should weigh issues in the sa f ie ,: ( &
and accept or reject on the 0 3 bjJ
1 individual >
whether the girl, as an
of God, would seem more likely *°
from or be hurt by being 3 ,
here. Obviously, this would also 1
her ability to contribute to our -
for no one really receives witho (.
ing. Should the decision be f° r ^ f
ance, there would be no sP eCl
nouncement. We do not feel tb 3 Jr
one’s duty deserves or requi r ® s
licity.” ?