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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY. 1962—PAGE 7
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
87th Congress Faces New and Unexpected
Rush of Activities in Civil Rights Field
‘The White House Would Like
To Borrow Some of Your—”
WASHINGTON
A NEW AND UNEXPECTED flurry of
\ civil rights activity on Capitol
gill developed shortly after the
g7th Congress convened in Jan-
a ary for its second—and election
year—session.
Attention focused on two actions—
President Kennedy’s announced inten
tion to name Housing Administrator
gobert C. Weaver, a Negro, as secre-
Ury of his proposed Department of
Urban Affairs and Housing, and an
administration-backed bill to make a
sixth-grade education the only pre
requisite for voting in federal elections.
But it appeared likely that action on
these steps might trigger a full-dress
debate on other civil rights measures,
including school desegregation.
In his state of the union message to
Congress Jan. 11, the President devoted
more attention to civil rights than had
been expected. He pledged his “full
support” to pending bills “strengthen
ing the basic rights” in the areas of
voting, education and travel. But he did
not identify these measures, except for
this reference:
“The right to vote should no longer
be arbitrarily denied through such
iniquitous local devices as literacy
tests and poll taxes.”
Major Proposals
Major proposals dealing with school
desegregation pending before Congress
are:
• A Civil Rights Commission recom
mendation that every segregated school
district be required to draft a plan for
desegregation within six months.
• A program of federal assistance
for districts desegregating their schools.
• The so-called Title III provision
which would permit the Justice De
partment to take the initiative in filing
desegregation suits instead of leaving
it to individual plaintiffs.
The President made it clear in his
state of the union message that he
would not offer an Administration
package of civil rights legislation. He
emphasized steps taken by the ad-
■ainistration under his executive pow
ers and said there was “much more to
be done.”
Criticisms from GOP
The House and Senate Republican
headers criticized the administration’s
av il rights record in statements issued
tot 14. Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R-
said school districts should be
“elped with their desegregation prob
e's and that the federal government
^ould have more authority to prevent
"^crimination in employment. Rep.
•Varies A. Halleck (R-Ind.) chided the
Resident for failing to carry out his
ta ®paign promise to issue an executive
,r der barring segregation in federally
^ed housing.
to response to a question about the
held-up housing order at a Jan. 15
pres s conference, Kennedy declared he
*°uld act to advance Negro rights “in
5 Way which will maintain a consen-
of national opinion on the prob-
Jem.
I think I have stated that I would
/'J e that order when I considered it
os in the public interest,” Kennedy
“and when I considered it to make
Portant contributions to advancing
frights of our citizens.”
The President asserted that his ad-
'yOftration had made more progress
. civil rights in 12 months than had
II achieved in the previous eight
?e ,^> adding:
oo W e are proceeding ahead in a
w hich will maintain a consensus
0 ' w hich will advance this cause.”
Hu MPHREY RUSSELL
hrst administration-backed civil
. bill since Kennedy took office
.T * r ‘fi' 0< fu ce d Jan. 25 by Senate Ma-
4 deader Mike Mansfield (Mont.)
wipe out literacy tests and
s kcti V °fi n S requirements for federal
Jr ar j e ° ns > substituting a simple sixth
ly education requirement.
-cajiv Measure was attacked as “polit-
Vsell lnS P ire d” hy Sen. Richard B
•*V S i (H-Ga.), chairman of the Sen-
southern caucus. Similar com
D. C. Highlights
Congress opened to an unexpected
flurry of civil rights activity, and
some Capitol Hill leaders predicted
action in this session on long-pend
ing school desegregation measures.
Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare Abraham A. Ribicoff
told a House committee that an anti
segregation rider would kill chances
of federal aid for medical and dental
education.
NAACP leaders voiced disap
pointment with the Administration’s
civil rights record and predicted a
drive against “token” school deseg
regation.
ments were made about the President’s
announcement that Weaver would be
come the first Negro cabinet member
if the Urban Affairs Department were
established.
But Democratic leaders denied the
charges, and Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey
(D-Minn.), assistant majority leader,
predicted that before the session is
over the administration will go on
record on most of the major civil rights
proposals long pending in Congress,
including the provision of federal fi
nancial assistance to school districts
complying with the Supreme Court’s
1954 desegregation order.
Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.) said
Jan. 28 that executive departments of
the government have taken their
“share of the load” in civil rights ac
tion, and that legislation is now neces
sary. He asserted a need for a law
conferring upon the Attorney General
the power to institute school desegre
gation and other suits.
Attorney General Robert F. Ken
nedy, who left Feb. 1 on an extensive
overseas tour, said in a television in
terview Jan. 30 that the administration
is not interested in sponsoring civil
rights legislation “which has no possi
bility of enactment” because “what we
want to do is actually accomplish
something.”
The Attorney General conceded that
the administration might be praised if
it were “a real advocate of civil rights
legislation or civil rights action, even
though they don’t do anything.”
But, he added, “we’re not interested
in pushing anything down people’s
throats. We’re trying to work these
matters out, easily, realizing the whole
time that we have to make progress
and that we won’t accept the status
quo."
Wilkins Says Civil
Rights Record
Is Disappointing
Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People expressed
disappointment with the administra
tion’s civil rights record Jan. 2. He
also asserted that “the racial bloc in
Congress cannot be appeased ... it
has to be challenged and defeated.”
KENNEDY WILKINS
In his annual report, Wilkins cited
the failure of President Kennedy to
issue an order against housing bias,
the lack of administration-sponsored
civil rights legislation and the “ex
tremely token basis” of school deseg
regation in 1961.
“There are still nearly 2.5 million
Negro children in segregated school
systems and three states—Alabama,
South Carolina and Mississippi—re
main completely segregated,” Wilkins
said.
On Jan. 11, Wilkins issued an NAACP
statement praising the reference to
voting rights in the President’s state
of the union message and expressing
the hope that Kennedy “may even
tually abandon his previous position
and support certain other civil rights
bills.” He said these were needed in
the areas of employment, school de
segregation and Justice Department
power to initiate suits.
To Fight ‘Tokenism’
Jack Greenberg, who recently suc
ceeded Thurgood Marshall as Director-
Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense
and Education Fund, said Jan. 16 that
the advance of school desegregation
from “tokenism” will be among the
major areas of civil rights legal activ
ity in 1962.
“The defense of ‘token’ plans by
Southern officials has now moved into
a sort of white collar crime category,”
Greenberg said. “We don’t get the ob
vious ‘we don’t want any Negroes in
our schools’ argument, but rather a re
liance on technicalities and the con
cealment of the true reasons for the
exclusion.”
Greenberg said the NAACP would
fully support “trench warfare” against
“token” desegregation. He also listed
teacher desegregation among fields in
which there will be heightened legal
activity this year.
★ ★ ★
Howard University President James
M. Nabrit Jr. and Washington attorney
David E. Feller were elected to the
board of directors of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Education fund Jan. 12.
★ ★ ★
Mordecai W. Johnson, president
emeritus of Howard University,
charged Jan. 14 that Christian Sunday
schools are “the most universally seg-
“ ‘Course I Like Presidents!
Some of Mah Bes’ Friends Are
Presidents—Long os they Know
Their Place.”
Haynle, Louisville Courier-Journal
regated school system in the United
States.”
“A few Christians could impress the
Supreme Court to integrate all the
public schools of the country, but they
(See D. C., Page 10)
WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Not Likely to Close: President
CHARLESTON
P resident Joseph C. Jefferds of
the State Board of Education
said Jan. 16 that “as a practical
matter” he did not think Bluefield
State College was likely to be
closed.
“And I don’t think the closing is nec
essary,” Jefferds added. Bluefield State
has been under close scrutiny by the
board since the 1954 U.S. Supreme
Court decision because of its failure to
attract students in sufficient numbers.
A former Negro college, it now is de
segregated.
Jefferds’s statement came during an
appearance by the Board of Education
before the Senate Finance Committee
in support of the board’s budget rec
ommendations for instiutions it admin
isters.
Sen. Paul J. Kaufman (D-Kanawha)
noted figures submitted by the board
showing that at the eight colleges and
one university it administers, the an
nual per-student operating cost ranges
from a low of $500 at West Liberty
State College to a high of $1,100 at
Bluefield State. West Liberty is the
northern-most college in the state,
Bluefield the southern-most.
Jefferds, pointing to the proximity
of Concord College at Athens to Blue
field, said, “I don’t think, probably,
that we can justify two full-scale AB
schools 20 miles apart.” But, he said,
Bluefield State President L. B. Allen
was working on recommendations look
ing to conversion of the school into a
technical institute in which the pro
gram would be for “two years pre
sumably.”
Jefferds said the board expected to
have its own plans for conversion of
Bluefield State ready in about a year.
An increasing trend toward going to
college on a commuter basis was one
factor cited by Jefferds in favor of
keeping the college open. Because of
increased costs, he said, more and
more students are going to college in
or near their home communities. He
said economic conditions in the Blue
field area also were a factor to be con
sidered.
West Virginia Highlights
The long struggling Bluefield
State College, a Negro institution
until the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling, probably will not be closed,
President Joseph Jefferds of the
State Board of Education announced.
A Bluefield State College profes
sor has announced that he will leave
the college at the end of the school
term because of racial tension and
discrimination in the Bluefield area.
The West Virginia Human Rights
Commission has named a director at
$8,000 a year.
College Professor Hits
Bluefield Racial Tension
A Bluefield College professor said
racial tension was so great in the Blue
field area that he would not remain
to teach next year.
“How does it feel to teach in a city
where you can’t go to a movie, bowl,
eat in a restaurant (except in bus sta
tions), or even visit a white church?”
asked Felix L. Paul.
Paul, an assistant professor of for
eign languages, expressed his views in
letters to the editor of the Charleston
Gazette and Bluefield Daily Telegraph
on Jan. 23. Bluefield is West Virginia’s
most southern city and spreads across
the border into Virginia.
“There are tensions, conflicts and
suspicions here which drive people to
racial aberrations,” he wrote. “In Blue
field, almost everybody seems to be
afraid.”
‘Reservoir of Goodwill’
“I do not mean to imply,” said Paul,
“that everybody in Bluefield is preju
diced. An immense reservoir of good
will exists here.”
He praised some white students at
Bluefield State, the YWCA, the bus
station restaurants and the local news
papers for their contributions to good
race relations.
But Paul thinks racial tensions in the
community are an “obvious reason for
the present dilemma of Bluefield State
College,” which several state legisla
tors have suggested should be closed
and converted into a vocational re
habilitation center.
Bluefield has been the most consistent
scene of restaurant sit-ins and theater
picketing in West Virginia. Bluefield
State students have taken part in the
picketing.
Legislative Action
House Considers
School Proposal
A resolution was introduced in the
House of Delegates Jan. 22 aimed at
abolishing Bluefield State College. Its
sponsors were Del. Charles Lloyd (D-
Monongalia) and Del. J. Paul England
(D-Wyoming). Under the resolution
they asked permission to introduce a
bill abolishing the college.
The legislative session is for budget
ary matters and only such other emer
gency measures the governor puts in
the legislative call. Other legislation
cannot be considered except on a two-
thirds vote of the legislative member
ship.
The Lloyd-England proposal went to
the Committee on Education Jan. 23.
Under terms of the resolution the col
lege would be transformed into a vo
cational rehabilitation training center.
Miscellaneous
Commission Gets
First Director
A 43-year-old Quaker who has
worked to improve human relations
from Iowa to Palestine is the first ex
ecutive director of the new West Vir
ginia Human Rights Commission.
He is Howard W. McKinney, former
director of the Erie, Pa., Community
Relations Commission, a city agency
concerned with eliminating discrimina
tion in employment and other areas of
community fife.
His appointment was announced in
Charleston Jan. 2 by the state commis
sion, which has considered 13 appli
cants for the $8,000-a-year position
since it was organized last September.
The Human Rights Commission was
authorized by the 1961 legislature to
seek an end to racial discrimination
and tension in education, employment
and public accommodation.
At a commission meeting Jan. 16 the
group decided to hold the first of a
series of statewide hearings in Charles
ton Feb. 20. It will include testimony
of witnesses on equality of opportunity
for minorities in education, employ
ment and places of public accomodation.
During the meeting Gov. W. W. Bar
ron appeared and announced he had
issued an executive order banning job
discrimination against Negroes and oth
er minorities in state government. Bar
ron, an outspoken foe of segregation
in the public schools for a long time,
looks on his order as one way of open
ing opportunities to them after they
graduate from West Virginia schools
and colleges.
“It is a plain and positive obligation
of the government,” he said in the ex
ecutive order, “to promote and ensure
equal opportunity for all qualified per
sons, without regard to race, creed, col
or, or national origin.”
★ ★ ★
The Charleston Mayor’s Commission
on Human Relations announced through
Miles C. Stanley Jan. 10 that it will
make a study of “what’s happening to
Negroes graduating from high school
and college.”
The study, according to Stanley, will
seek to determine whether Negro grad
uates find jobs which suit their ability,
or, as Negro leaders in Charleston al
lege, they are forced to migrate to
other states because of job discrimina
tion.
“We want to find out what the trend
is,” said Stanley, “and are planning to
use some outside resources.” # # #
A