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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1962—PAGE II
TEXAS
Connally, \arborough Lead in Primary for Governor
AUSTIN
> Tegro votes apparently played
I an important role in Demo
cratic party politics in Texas as
candidates with their backing
stood out in the May 5 nominat
ing primary.
Gov. Price Daniel lost his bid for re-
election, as former Secretary of Navy
John Connally led a six-man field with
® approximately 30 per cent of the total
vote. He was followed by 36-year-old
Don Yarborough, Houston lawyer and
1 avowed New Frontiersman. Connally is
' a protege of Vice President Lyndon B.
Johnson, but vowed his independence
from Johnson during the campaign.
Winner of the June 2 run-off will
meet Jack Cox, the Republican nom
inee, in the November general election,
which has prospects of becoming the
first real two-party battle for that Texas
office in this century.
In gaining approximately 20 per cent
of the total vote to nose out Governor
Paniel’s bid for an unprecedented
fourth two-
year term, Don
Yarborough drew
support from the
liberal -
loyalist group,
which has tried
unsuccessfully for
years to win con
trol of the state’s
Democratic party
machinery as well
as its major of
Sees. CONNALLY
Both Connally and Yarborough drew
considerable support from Texas Negro
voters—who reportedly qualified to vote
this year in proportionately greater
numbers than white citizens. Governor
Daniel, on the other hand, received
scant support from this direction, partly
because he signed bills in 1957 designed
! to slow down desegregation of the pub
lic schools. Other candidates were for
mer Gen. Edwin A. Walker, Attorney
General Will Wilson and Marshall
Formby.
The effect of Negro votes was felt in
j several other races. The incumbent
Judge W. A. Morrison of the Court of
Criminal Appeals easily defeated Dis
trict Judge Otis T. Dunagan of Tyler,
who placed the National Association for
Advancement of Colored People under
an injunction against encouraging
school desegregation lawsuits. (State v.
NAACP, SSN, November, 1956).
In other races:
James A. Turman, speaker of the
Texas House of Representatives sup
ported by many Negroes, is in a run
off with State Sen. Preston Smith for
Democratic nomination for lieutenant
Carswell
(Continued From Page 10)
necessity of taking an oath to support
and defend the Constitution of the U.S.,
understand that such oath will demand
lhat you support and defend the pro-
v isions of Article 1, Section 1, of the
Constitution, that all legislative powers
herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the U.S., which shall con-
sist of a Senate and House of Repre
sentatives, and that therefore you will
oe bound by such oath not to partici
pate knowingly in any decision to alter
me meaning of the Constitution itself,
°r of any law passed by Congress and
adopted under the Constitution.”
Promptly Confirmed
This unusual oath caused consider
able discussion in Washington, but
Carswell’s nomination was promptly
■■""firmed and he assumed office.
He succeeded retired Judge Dozier
, . Devane, one of the most colorful
Jurists in Florida. “I loved being a
judge and I hate to retire,” said the 74-
Year-old Devane on this occasion. “But
. have worked all my life and I do not
Wend just to sit around hunting and
shing now that I am going to become
■"active.”
Judge Devane was noted for the vig-
or ous language of his decisions. In a
c ase involving segregated bus seating
I", Tallahassee, he said in his opinion:
Ve ry segregation law in this state is
1 a -' dead as a doornail.”
Judge Carswell quickly became
"own as a hard-working jurist, well-
e "sed in law and with an ability to
1 e precisely. In handing down his
uc;sion in the Escambia County school
}. Jbe first sweeping desegregation
ji ‘ In 8 i" the state—he gave weight to
e defendant school board’s plea for
"me.
J**ambia, with Pensacola as the
r seat, is in an area where seg-
e gation sentiment is strong. The judge
governor.
Tom Reavley, Austin lawyer and for
mer Texas secretary of state, endorsed
by Negro groups, will be in a run-off
for attorney general with Waggoner
Carr, former speaker of the House, who
led a six-man field by a large margin.
Woodrow Bean, El Paso county
judge, reached the run-off in a state
wide race for congressman-at-large,
despite withdrawal of support by organ
ized labor on revelation that he had
failed to file an income tax return in
10 years. Bean is liberal-backed, and
will be in a run-off with former State
Rep. Joe Pool of Dallas, who sponsored
segregation bills in the legislature in
1957.
Jack Strong of Longview, backed by
union labor and political liberals,
scored an upset victory over State Sen.
Wardlow Lane of Center, seeking re-
election. Lane has been a pro-segrega
tionist leader.
In an advisory referendum on wheth
er to abolish the poll tax, the Democrats
vote about nine to eight in favor of
abolishment and the Republicans favor
ed ending the tax by about four to
three. The poll tax referendum was
purely advisory for the next legislature.
In the primary, about one and one-
half million Democrats voted and about
125,000 Republicans cast ballots.
Negro Endorsements
The Texas Council of Voters, a Ne
gro group, did not endorse any can
didate for Governor. Some Negro lead
ers endorsed John Connally, as did The
Houston Informer, a leading Negro
newspaper.
Noel Siwel, a writer for the Dallas
Post Tribune, which circulates mainly
among Negroes, said before the election
that Don Yarborough, backed by union
labor leaders, would fail to get some
votes which went to liberal Demo
crats in the past.
“Many Negroes are inclined to back
up on their usual support of a candi
date who has organized labor’s endorse
ment,” Siwel wrote. “And according to
this report, Yarborough may be lacking
in his favored position with Negro
voters.
“Negroes in recent years have come
to realize that organized labor is one
of the most discriminating groups in
our economy, so far as he is concerned.
Looking to Washington
“Connally is stepping up his appeal
to Negro voters on the assumption that
he is the choice of the national admin
istration in Washington . . . But Negro
voters ... are urged to believe that the
administration does have a choice.”
The article declared that “the very
small percentage” of Negroes voting for
allowed a full year for preparation and
set down a clear course for the school
board to follow. The school board ac
cepted the decision without appeal,
asking the Escambia County residents
to pray for success.
Judge Carswell was bom in Irwin ton,
Ga. His father served as Georgia’s sec
retary of state and other members of
the family were prominent in public
affairs. He received his undergraduate
education at Duke University and took
his law degree at the University of
Georgia.
Admitted to the bar, he practiced in
Macon, Irwinton and Gordon before
moving to Tallahassee.
Judge Carswell served four years as
a Naval officer and did post-graduate
work at the U.S. Naval Academy after
World War II.
In several segregation decisions,
Judge Carswell has ruled for strict
conformance with the law but his ap
proach is summed up in his instruction
to the Escambia school officials to “af
ford reasonable and conscious opportu
nity” for all youngsters, regardless of
race, to attend the school of their
choice. # # #
Florida
(Continued From Page 10)
vid Eldredge sponsored, Florida has
been able to comply with the Supreme
Court decision without overturning our
traditions with a fairness that meets
with general approval of minority
groups.”
Eldredge charged that Fascell en
dangered Florida race relations by his
votes for urban renewal, under which
rehabilitated property would be “ex
cluded from local laws and customs
concerning segregation.”
Fascell charged his opponent was
creating a racial issue that did not exist.
He said Eldredge was one of the Florida
legislators who voted for a $500,000 ap
propriation in the North. # # #
Price Daniel “are those that are in state
employment.”
The Negro voters’ council endorsed
Jarrard Secrest for lieutenant governor
based on his opposition to pro-segrega
tion measures as a state senator.
Tom Reavley, Austin attorney and
former secretary of state, was generally
favored by Negroes in the race for at
torney general, based on many speeches
he has delivered for racial fairness and
harmony.
Negroes apparently gave heavy back
ing to Judge W. A. Morrison, seeking
re-election to the Texas Court of Crim
inal Appeals. His opponent, Dist. Judge
Otis Dunagan of Tyler, placed the Na
tional Association for Advancement of
Colored People under an injunction
against fomenting school desegregation
lawsuits (State v. NAACP—SSN, No
vember 1956).
Vernon McDaniel, executive of a
statewide Negro teachers’ association,
said in Austin that Texas candidates
generally were acceptable to his race in
1962. He said the Negroes’ main con
cern today is equality of opportunity in
employment, saying that automation is
putting a squeeze on the jobs available
to Negroes.
Schoolmen
District Approves
Biraeial Schools
Voters at Morton Independent School
District in Cochran County, West Texas,
authorized desegregation, to be started
next fall. The vote was 149 to 67. Last
year, the system had daily average at
tendance of 997 white pupils and 60
On April 9 United States Judge
John F. Dooling Jr. in the U. S.
District Court for the Eastern Dis
trict of New York handed down an
opinion in the case of Branche v.
Board of Education of Hempstead,
involving de facto school segrega
tion. Judge Dooling said: “Segregat
ed education is inadequate and, when
that inadequacy is attributable to
state action it is a deprivation of
constitutional right . . . That it is
not coerced by direct action of an
arm of the state cannot, alone, be
decisive of the issue . . The text
of Ju’ge Dooling’s opinion is repro
duced in full below, with the ex
ception of legal citations, which
have been omitted. Subheads have
been added.
Defendants have moved for summary
judgment dismissing the suit of the
plaintiff grade school children (suing
by their parents as next friends) for
an injunction against defendants’ al
leged maintenance of racially segregat
ed public grade schools and their al
leged restriction of Negro children to
attendance at them and defendants’
alleged denial to Negro children of
equal access with white children to
equal facilities in the schools of the
district. The complaint prays also for
an injunction against a projected ref
erendum and bond issue and a related
program to enlarge two predominantly
Negro schools in the district. The gist
of defendants’ contention is that the
facts they bring forward by the affi
davit of their Superintendent of Schools
demonstrate that defendants have not
by any design, pattern of conduct, or
contrivance created or maintained seg
regated education in the grade schools
of the district because the distribution
of white and Negro children among the
six grade schools of the district is the
result solely of the residential pattern
of the district; (Footnote: It was stated
orally, without contradiction, that the
residential pattern was not the product
of anything, such as zoning, that could
be considered state action or of any
system of restrictive covenants. For
present purposes, it may not be pre
sumed that the implied residential seg
regation could be challenged in law.)
that the school boundary zones are not
“gerrymandered” but drawn on the
basis solely of the considerations
proper to the design of school zones
and that the schools are, similarly,
properly located in the zones. On these
facts, defendants contend, plaintiffs’
claim is fatally defective because it
Texas Highlights
Texas Democrats put John Con
nally and Don Yarborough into a
nomination run-off for governor,
with the winner to oppose Repub
lican Jack Cox in what appears to
be the liveliest two-party November
general election in the state’s his
tory.
Desegregation was voted for Mor
ton in West Texas.
Records at Texas Education
Agency indicated that two more
rural high schools had abolished ra
cial segregation: Southside in Bexar
County and Skidmore-Tynan in Bee
County.
The agency also revealed that 184
school districts, mostly in segregated
schools of East Texas, stand to lose
federal funds under the “impacted
area” program, where federal of
ficials seek to eliminate segregation.
A petition to desegregate schools
at Georgetown, near Austin, will be
presented to the school board on
May 10.
U.S. District Judge James Noel
ordered the top three grades in
Texas City public schools, Galveston
County, to begin desegregation in
September 1963, with downward de
segregation afterward one grade an
nually.
Negroes.
One hundred and forty-nine other
Texas districts have desegregated, at
requires for its support an affirmative
legal duty to integrate educational fa
cilities and there is no such legal duty
as distinguished from a duty not to
segregate children racially for educa
tional purposes . . .
The affidavit of the Superintendent
of Schools supplies the following data:
Union Free School District No. 1,
Town of Hempstead, Nassau County,
was created by special legislative act in
1863 and is perpetuated by Article I,
sections 500 to 510 of the Nassau County
Civil Divisions Act .... The School
District is almost entirely within the
Village of Hempstead but does not in
clude the whole village. The population
of the district is about 25,000. In May
1961 about 47% of the children in the
district grade schools were Negroes and
53% were whites. (Footnote: In the
single high school of the district 31%
of the students are Negroes.) There
were eight grade school buildings in
the six school zones.
The entire school district extends
only a little over two and a half miles
in its direction of greatest length, a
line traversing three school zones.
Roughly, the school district measures
two miles by one and a half miles.
Until 1949 the Board of Education
had not adopted official school zone
boundaries but it did so in 1949; there
was an appeal to the Commissioner of
Education as to the boundaries for the
one predominantly Negro school, the
Prospect School, apparently on a racial
segregation ground. The appeal resulted
in the Board’s redrawing the school
zone boundary for that one school; the
Commissioner, in effect, approved the
Board’s position that the new boundary
had “encompassed reasonably the area
that naturally belongs to the Prospect
school” as against “any charge that it
discriminates between Negro and white
children.” The superintendent states
that the boundaries of the school zones
followed, wherever possible, main
highways and that the schools are
roughly centered in their zones and all
are less than one mile from the homes
of all the students.
Schools Zoned
At the time of the zoning the Board
also adopted a resolution requiring all
the children to attend the school of the
zone of their residence except where
special circumstances required attend
ance at special classes and except for
a self-liquidating provision allowing
children to finish in the schools they
were then attending and allowing
younger children to attend out-of-zone
least in part and two others, Cisco and
Eastland, have voted to eliminate seg
regation starting in September. Fort
Worth is under a federal court order to
begin desegregation in September 1962,
and a federal judge recently ordered
Texas City to begin the process in Sep
tember, 1963. (See Legal Action.)
The 149 desegregated schools include
two newly discovered through records
at the Texas Education Agency. These
are Southside Rural High School Dis
trict, Bexar County (San Antonio), and
Skidmore-Tynan RHS, Bee County,
South Texas. Both are in areas where
schools generally have desegregated.
Last year, Southside had 1,129 white
and 5 Negro students in average daily
attendance; Skidmore-Tynan 418 whites
and 17 Negroes.
Petition at Georgetown
Meanwhile, a petition seeking to end
segregation in public schools at George
town was prepared for decision by the
school board on May 10. It is a refer
endum request by 453 voters, headed
by the Rev. Richard Smith of the First
Methodist Church. Georgetown is a
long-time cotton-farming center and
county seat 30 miles north of Austin,
where schools have desegregated.
Georgetown has about 1,100 white
and 127 Negro pupils. Newspapers re
porting the desegregation proposal de
scribed the Negro school building as “a
disgrace” which must be replaced unless
the system desegregates. A building
bond issue is under consideration for
the Georgetown school district.
Lockhart, about 30 miles southeast
of Austin, faced a dilemma over seg
regation, brought about by the refusal
of voters to approve a bond issue. A
(See TEXAS, Page 19)
schools in which their siblings were
pupils.
The school boundary zones have not
been changed since 1949 but in 1953 the
Marshall school was built as a feeder
to the Franklin school and in 1955 the
Jackson Annex was built near the
Jackson school. All the other schools
were apparently built in or before
1928. From 1949 to 1961 the percentage
of Negro children attending the schools
was as follows:
School
No. of
Negro Children
Classrooms
Percent
of
1949
1961
Fulton
16
3.2
1.0
Washington 13
4.7
33.0
Jackson
)
)
) 21
16.5)
67.0
Jackson Annex)
)
Prospect
11
90.9
86.0
Ludlum
15
6.4
5.0
Franklin
)
)
) 36
14.3)
78.0
Marshall
)
)
The change in percentage is said to
reflect truly the increased ratio of Ne
gro residents in each school zone. If no
significant effect flowed from the limit
ed right to attend out-of-zone schools,
the result followed inevitably from the
static zone boundaries, the requirement
that the children attend the school of
the zone in which they lived, and the
change in residential pattern.
1,000 Transfers
To redistribute the children so as to
have the same percentages of Negro
and white children in each school would
involve about 1,000 transfers. The Board
rejected a proposal to effect such
transfers on the grounds that they
would involve more hazardous travel
for the children, a serious problem in
deciding whom to transfer and the pos
sible need for transportation that
could be authorized only by a favorable
vote of the whole district, and that the
program would cause serious disagree
ment along racial lines, involve jetti
soning the order of the Commissioner
of Education directing or approving the
geographical proximity basis of school
attendance, and, in the Board’s con
sidered judgment, would fail to solve
the problem and require abandoning
the only workable plan of school at
tendance for Hempstead, that is one
that develops elementary school zone
lines on the basis of geographical
proximity.
To the general charges of maintain
ing unequal facilities the Superinten-
(See TEXT, Page 19)
U.S. Judge Rules on De Facto
Segregation, Hempstead Case