Newspaper Page Text
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PAGE 8—FEBRUARY, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
LOUISIANA
Negroes Ask Desegregation Plan
In St. Helena, East Baton Rouge
NEW ORLEANS
r I ^he National Association for
-1 the Advancement of Colored
People filed motions Jan. 22 ask
ing the U.S. District Court to di
rect that a plan be drawn for
desegregation of public schools
in East Baton Rouge and St. Hel
ena parishes.
Judge E. Gordon West, newly ap
pointed to the new Eastern District
bench at Baton Rouge, granted a delay
while attorneys for the Baton Rouge
schools prepared a motion asking that
the case be heard in the state capital
rather than at New Orleans.
The NAACP action was filed by Lou
isiana counsel A. P. Tureaud and Mrs.
Constance Baker Motley, New York.
They said neither the school board of
rural St. Helena nor the board that
operates the public schools of the cap
ital and surrounding area have moved
to comply with a May, 1960, district
court order to desegregate with all
deliberate speed.
NAACP Motions
Motions of the NAACP said “that
approximately 20 months have elapsed
since the entry of the order of this
court and that it is apparent that de
fendants have not proceeded to make
the necessary arrangements for the
admission of children to school on a
racially non-discriminatory basis as
required by this court.”
The court was asked to direct the
elected school board to present a “com
plete plan within a set period of time
to be determined by this court for the
reorganization of the entire school sys
tem. . .” The same language was used
in the Baton Rouge and St. Helena
suits.
According to the motions, the non-
racial school system should include:
• A plan for assignment of children
on a non-racial basis.
• Allotment of funds.
• Construction of schools.
• Approval of budgets on a non-ra
cial basis.
• Elimination of any other discrim
ination in the operation of the school
system or curricular based solely on
race.
Louisiana Highlights
Negro plaintiffs asked the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern Dis
trict of Louisiana to compel the East
Baton Rouge and St. Helena parish
school boards to file plans for de
segregation of public school facili
ties.
U.S. District Judge J. Skelly
Wright granted a restraining order
against the Orleans Parish school
board as it sought to resegregate a
school desegregated in 1960.
Southern University near Baton
Rouge, a Negro institution supported
through the State Department of
Education, shut down its classes
temporarily in the wake of mass de
segregation demonstrations by stu
dents.
State Sen. Adrian G. Duplantier
and Mayor Victor H. Schiro entered
a second primary in the Democratic
primary contest for mayor.
Jack P. F. Gremillion, Louisiana
attorney general, said localities
should handle more of their own
race problems.
Attorney General Jack P. F. Gremil
lion said:
“We will be in court at the proper
time to do whatever is necessary to
present our opposition to these mo
tions.”
On Jan. 3 Gremillion had announced
that he had received notice that the
federal government had requested a
final order to desegregate East Baton
Rouge and St. Helena public schools
and six state-supported trade schools.
He said motions for a summary judg
ment were filed by M. Hepburn Many
immediately prior to Many’s resigna
tion as U.S. attorney at New Orleans
on Dec. 31.
The East Baton Rouge case (Davis v.
East Baton Rouge Parish Schools) and
the St. Helena suit (Hall v. St. Helena
Parish School Board) have been pend
ing since the early 1950s.
Court Sets Aside Action
To Resegregate School
Action by the Orleans Parish school
board to resegregate a school boycotted
by white pupils since it was desegre
gated Nov. 14, 1960, was set aside by
U.S. District Judge J. Skelly Wright at
New Orleans.
The five-member school board had
voted unanimously to change McDon
ough No. 19 to an all-Negro elementary
school. But the board’s action, voted
Jan. 8, was halted Jan. 23 by Judge
Wright on the eve of the scheduled
conversion of McDonough 19 to all-
Negro use.
McDonough was an all-white school
before desegregation was carried out
under Judge Wright’s orders in the fall
of 1960. Two Negroes enrolled and all
whites boycotted the school throughout
the 1960-61 school year. During the fall
of 1961 only a handful of whites drifted
back to the school, where three addi
tional Negroes enrolled in first and
second grades under the city’s pupil
placement plan.
Temporary Order
Judge Wright issued a temporary re
straining order against the proposed
designation of McDonough No. 19 as
an all-Negro school and against a re
districting plan, which the school board
said would have resulted in the taking
of 1,314 Negro children off of half-day
shifts in crowded downtown Negro
schools.
Under the school board plan, the 15
white children attending classes at Mc
Donough 19 would have transferred to
other white schools and the five Ne
groes would have remained where they
were.
Parents of the Negro children, how
ever, complained the board had “de
termined to transfer all white pupils
attending McDonough 19 to other
schools while refusing the five infant
intervenors the right to transfer to the
school which their present white class
mates will attend.”
The complaint, filed through attor
neys for the National Association for
(See LOUISIANA, Page 9)
Adrian Duplantier
Leads a field of nine . .
Victor H. Shiro
, with the Mayor second
Political Activity
Duplantier, Schiro To Meet
In Runoff for Orleans Mayor
State Sen. Adrian G. Duplantier, who
was at the forefront of the fight to
keep public schools open though de
segregated, ran ahead of the field in a
nine-man race for the Democratic
nomination as mayor of New Orleans.
He faces a second primary March 3
against incumbent Mayor Victor H.
Schiro, who declared in a television
debate six days before the first primary,
Jan. 27, that segregation was the prime
issue of the campaign. He said a last-
minute poll showed public concern over
desegregation.
Duplantier, quietly under attack
during the campaign on the segrega
tion issue, ran 4,000 votes in front of
Schiro, who gained the support of the
leaders of the Citizens Councils despite
his record of having maintained peace
with force as four additional Orleans
Parish public schools were desegre
gated last September.
A sampling of precincts showed Du-
Orleans Parish Officials Enforce Compulsory
School Attendance Despite Unsure Legal Status
By EMILE COMAR
NEW ORLEANS
L ouisiana’s Legislature twice
in a five-year period of its de
fense against school desegrega
tion passed laws to abolish com
pulsory school attendance.
One of the two laws—Act 27 of the
First Extraordinary Session of the
Legislature of 1960—was declared un
constitutional by a three-judge federal
court immediately after initial desegre
gation of Louisiana public schools at
New Orleans, Nov. 14, 1960.
The other—Act 28 of 1956—says in
essence that children living in de
segregated school districts shall not be
bound by the state compulsory attend
ance law designed to keep children in
school until their 16th birthday.
Though the 1956 act stands unchal
lenged, truancy and court officials of
New Orleans—the city operating the
only desegregated school district in the
state—continue to enforce compulsory
attendance and are meeting with no
more resistance than they did prior
to the date desegregation became an
issue.
Officials En?ouraged
The officials are both encouraged b
general parent co-operation on school
attendance and yet unsure of their
legal grounds to force children to re
main in school. A juvenile court au
thority at New Orleans explained that
no one has ever raised the 1956 act
to test the court’s jurisdiction over
truancy.
No such challenge is anticipated, un
less a judge might attempt to direct a
white child to attend a desegregated
school. Court attaches said such a
directive to a white pupil is highly
unlikely from any of the three judges
who sit on the New Orleans juvenile
bench.
Primarily the court attempts to settle
the truancy matters in chambers or
through its probationary staff. Gener
ally this works. The law says only that
a child must go to school, either public
or private. It does not designate specific
districts.
Since 1944, New Orleans has enforced
truancy laws primarily through the
visiting teacher program of the Orleans
Parish school board. Trained social
workers are the hub of the program.
Mrs. Mildred Seaman, head of the
visiting teacher department, said they
approach truancy from a standpoint
of finding out the nature of the cause
behind absence from school. She said
passage of the state laws to abolish
compulsory attendance statewide or in
desegregated districts has had no
noticeable effect of her work.
Few Indifferent
“Last year we didn’t have a (com
pulsory attendance) law to work under
but we went right ahead,” she said.
“Day in and day out we find very few
really indifferent parents. They know
their children can’t live in this era
without an education.”
Judge James C. Gulotta of the New
Orleans juvenile court researched the
state laws on school attendance, read
the federal decisions on the same sub
ject matter in the Bush v. Orleans
Parish school case, and came to the
conclusion that Orleans Parish could
enforce truancy regulations.
Other judges who handle juvenile
matters came to the same conclusion
at a statewide meeting in 1961. All but
those from Orleans Parish represent
areas of the state where desegregation
is not yet a reality.
Max Wright, head of probationary
services for the New Orleans juvenile
court, said the court last year moved
slowly, not knowing its grounds, but
in September of this year began accept
ance of truancy charges again. Most
charges are not directly on “truancy”
as such but rather based on the issue
that a child is uncontrollable and un
governable (U&U, in court jargon).
The issue of absenteeism as a result
of desegregation was raised by former
Orleans Parish School Supt. James F.
Redmond in a report several months
after the first two public schools were
desegregated in 1960. He said the school
board couldn’t account for more than
200 of the 1,000 children who boycotted
McDonogh No. 19 and William Frantz
desegregated elementary schools.
Attendance has dropped off this year
in four more schools desegregated. But
truancy officials note the opening of
new private schools, continued in
creases in Catholic schools, and possible
shifts of parents from one school dis
trict to another as factors taking up
the slack.
No alarming trend in truancy is
noted or anticipated.
When Louisiana revised its statutes
in 1950—four years before the Brown
v. Topeka case—RS 17-221 read:
“Every parent, guardian, or other
persons residing within the state of
Louisiana, having control or charge of
any child between the ages of seven
and 15 years, both inclusive (i.e., from
the seventh to the sixteenth birthday),
shall send such child to a public or
private day school.”
The penalty for violation was $10
and/or 10 days in jail.
Law Changed
Then under Act 28 of 1956, the law
was changed to add to the end of the
same paragraph pertaining to school
attendance:
“. . . provided, however, that the
foregoing provision be and the same
shall be suspended and inoperative
within any public school system and/or
private day school wherein integration
of the races has been ordered by any
judicial decree or other authority.”
The legislature rewrote the entire
17-221 section in 1960 “relative to
school attendance and visiting teachers,
to delete therefrom those provisions
which require compulsory attendance
of children in public and private day
schools and matters pertaining thereto.”
Act 27 of the First Extraordinary
Session of 1960 rewrote the attendance
section so that the entire enforcement
of the program fell to the state super
intendent of education, who at the time
was fighting with the legislature to
maintain segregation.
The rewritten law said:
“The state superintendent of educa
tion shall appoint or designate a mem
ber of the state department of educa
tion whose primary responsibility shall
be to supervise and enforce the pro
visions of this sub-part and who shall
serve as state supervisor of attendance.
The state supervisor of attendance
shall have general supervision over
visiting teachers or other persons au
thorized to serve in lieu of visiting
teachers, and shall be responsible for
the general administration of this sub
part. The state superintendent of edu
cation is authorized to prescribe the
duties of the state supervisor of
attendance, and to make such rules and
regulations for the performance of such
duties, not inconsistent with law, as
will promote the purpose of this sub
part.”
The act was among a host of those
passed by the legislature in its 11th
hour effort to turn back desegregation
then pending for the fall term of the
Orleans Parish school board. A three-
judge federal court first granted an
injunction against use of the act and
then on Nov. 30, 1960, declared it
unconstitutional.
The jurists said the entire segregation
package fell of its own weight since
it was based on the prime act of the
First Extraordinary Sesson of 1960.
This principal act was Act 2, Inter
position, which the court said was an
“unconstitutional premise.”
The act to abolish compulsory
attendance, like the other acts in the
package, the court held, was simply
part of a program directed at circum
venting court-ordered desegregation.
plantier received some 73 per cent of
the Negro vote, which makes up 36,000
of the total voter registration of 210,000.
All but 4,000 of the 210,000 are Demo
crats.
Twenty-three per cent of the Negro
vote went to James A. Comiskey, son
of an old line New Orleans political
power, James E. Comiskey.
Immediately after Duplantier’s sur
prisingly strong showing, Gov. Jimmie
H. Davis’s forces began exerting pres
sure behind the scenes to defeat Du
plantier in the runoff. But few political
sources believe that Gov. Davis will
publicly endorse Schiro or declare
openly that the issue was integration-
segregation.
Chris Faser, the governor’s executive
aide, made the political contacts. He
resented Duplantier’s opposition on
some of the segregation bills, which
could have closed public schools. Du
plantier was also a leader in the suc
cessful fight to defeat a one-cent sales
tax, which Davis sought to pass with a
segregation label. The money would
have gone to the state general fund.
Morrison Backers
Duplantier, a 33-year-old lawyer and
state senator since Davis took office in
1960, ran with substantially the same
backers that former Mayor DeLesseps
Morrison had throughout his 15 yean
in office. Morrison also was frequently
under attack on the race question b)
those who claimed he was soft. He won
four successive terms.
Schiro, councilman-at-large and a
member of the city administration team
with Morrison since 1950, is a 58-ye ar '
old insurance man. He reminded vote 15
at the last minute that he had P re '
vented Dr. Martin Luther King the us
of Municipal Auditorium for a P r0 '
posed talk in December, a move th»
won cheers from the Citizens Councils
On the opposite side, Schiro remind'
ed other audiences that it was he wi
maintained peace with use of his
force when the number of desegregate 0
schools in New Orleans was boost 60
from two to six.
Duplantier repeated in the campaif®
what he had said before: that he wo'
prefer separate but equal facilities
would tolerate no breach of the P*‘
and would obey feredal orders.
Three days before the election
Times-Picayune commented:
“Regardless of what may or m a >",
be said between now and election
we don’t believe that there is anyth 1 ®:
that can be done by the man who^
elected mayor New Orleans that *
have the slightest effect on any decis 1 ^
of the federal courts concerning deS**
iiiid
but
the
not
# # # possible.”
regation. ^
“As we have said repeatedly, the 1 ^
decision will do no service either^
education or to racial accommodaU
Still it is the decision which is in el ^
despite 37 court appeals from Louis 1 ^;
and the enactment of 63 new law's
the adoption of 18 concurrent re* 01
tions by the Louisiana legislature. .
“If the Orleans Parish school
the Louisiana legislature, several a ^
neys-general and several governo ^
Louisiana haven’t been able t0 ^
aside the 1954 decision, we hardly ^
lieve that anyone running for 111
will be able to do it. ^
“We’d prefer that candidates
claim that they can achieve the