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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1962—PAGE 15
11
Desegregating College Sports
Creates Scheduling Problems
-^SEGREGATION OF ATHLETICS has
1/ created problems for both seg-
gated and desegregated colleges
the Southern and border states.
Conflicts have occurred about sched-
jng all-white teams against teams
jth Negro players, desegregating fa-
Jities for the sports fans, finding
.parate eating and hotel accommoda-
0 ns for the visiting players of a bi-
jcial team, and deciding when to
jmit Negroes to intramural and var-
jjy athletic programs.
Negroes have been accepted on some
itletic teams of colleges in the border
rea, but several Deep South teams
mtinue to refuse to play in any sports
.-test with a member of another race.
1e segregation - desegregation issue
ecomes especially complicated in an
thletic conference having some teams
flowing a strict segregation policy
id other member colleges wanting to
ecruit Negro players.
The president of the University of
intucky, Frank G. Dickey, said in
lecember of last year that the deseg-
tgation of athletic teams in the South-
astern Conference is inevitable. “It is
ast a matter of time,” Dickey said,
efore Negro players will compete in
:e conference.
The university president said he had
iiscussed the problem with other pres
ents in the 12-team conference, but
e did not specify who they were.
However, Dickey said these views on
athletic desegregation were his own
-id had not been discussed with his
Tustees, coaches, or the athletic board.
SEC Commissioner Bemie Moore,
then asked about Dickey’s statements,
i commented:
! “I wish you hadn’t asked that be
muse the problem is one I cannot solve.
“But I will say this—to quiet the
tok that the league may split into
Horth and South divisions—I believe
'Ur league is too strongly knit for
,!ll y single issue to break it up. . . . We
toll whip this thing as a unit.”
Dickey had said “the most effective
"tothod of bringing about integration
»ould be through a joint movement
f the SEC universities.”
Similar Suggestion
o A similar suggestion was made for
is Southwest Conference after a series
t student protests at the University of
e hxas last fall against segregated var-
r % athletics. A campus poll showed
. iat the students favored desegregation
. '132 to 3,293. On Nov. 11, the univer-
. toy’s Board of Regents issued a state-
s toent saying:
3 ‘We have for more than 50 years had
. "Mellent relations with the other fine
alleges and universities in the South-
*j e st Conference. The regents of the
University of Texas do not intend to
; toke any unilateral action with refer-
. inc e to intercollegiate athletics which
i ) ' ou ld disturb the excellent relations
[ Rusting between the University of
fexas, Texas A&M, the University of
* r kansas, Rice University, Texas
Christian University, Baylor Univer
sity, Southern Methodist University
and Texas Tech.”
Of the eight conference members,
only Texas, Arkansas and Texas Tech
admit Negroes as undergraduates. The
University of Texas enrolled its first
Negro in 1950 and has desegregated its
intramural athletic program.
Oklahoma City University, which
plays a number of Southern teams, ex
pects no trouble when it puts its first
Negro basketball player on the floor
next season. Abe Lemons, athletic di
rector of the Methodist school, said:
“The only places we can’t go are
Florida State and Centenary, and we
don’t play Florida State enough to
make any difference.”
OCU usually has several Southwest
Conference schools on its schedule,
but the coach said OCU had been play
ing for years against teams with Ne
groes. Lemons conceded he might have
complications in trying to obtain ac
commodations for the OCU players on
the road.
In January of this year, Georgia Tech
announced the return of Navy to its
schedule in 1964 and 1965. The two
schools had agreed in 1957 to play in
the early 1960s, but the Annapolis team
reportedly obtained release from its
commitment since a federal institution
could not participate in a game if
players or spectators would be segre
gated.
Changes In Practice
Noting the resumption of the Tech-
Navy schedule, the Washington Post
said both teams apparently figured
that any current segregation practices
would be gone by the time of the first
game in Atlanta in 1965. Or the game
could be moved to the Gator Bowl in
Jacksonville, Fla., where Tech has
played several “home” games, the paper
said.
Georgia Tech admitted its first three
Negro students in 1961 and has an
nounced it would accept more next
school year, although the athletic pro
gram remains all-white.
At the University of Tennessee, one
of 35 Negroes admitted to the under
graduate division in September made
a bid for the school’s athletic team.
William Rollins, a freshman, reported
for practice as a guard candidate for
freshman basketball, but failed to win
a place on the team.
Memphis State University
Memphis State University, which de
segregated in 1959, asked the Negro
students to skip athletic events during
the first year, but in 1961 the school
confirmed that the Negroes were at
tending the university’s football and
basketball games.
Another Tennessee state school, Aus
tin Peay, became the first public col
lege in the state to enter Negro ath
letes in intercollegiate competition. The
Ohio Valley Conference accepted the
school in April, and Austin Peay used
a Negro in an OVC track meet this
same month. The Govs track team
includes a Negro who runs the 440
and 220-yard dashes and competes in
the high jump.
Austin Peay previously was commit
ted only to the Volunteer State Ath
letic Conference. Athletic Director
Dave Aaron explained the significance
of the entry into the OVC:
“This new move opens the door for
us to play Negro athletes, something
that could be a boon to our athletic
program. Under the current setup, we
Maryland
(Continued From Page 14)
Miscellaneous
staff members.”
A “whereas” explained that the pur
pose was to bring about “equal oppor
tunities regarding admission to medical
schools and equal opportunity in the
availability of internships, residencies
and hospital staff appointments.”
could not use them against most of
the competition we play.”
Mississippi law does not prohibit
desegregated athletics, but legislators
have threatened to withdraw funds
from colleges violating the unwritten
law. Mississippi State did not take part
in the NCAA basketball playoffs be
cause of the racial situation. State
missed the 1959 and 1961 national tour
nament because of the policy.
The student newspaper at the Uni
versity of Mississippi has opposed the
policy against interracial athletic com
petition. Jimmy Robertson, editor of the
Mississippian, wrote in an editorial that
he opposed racial integration in Missis
sippi but that the athletic policy would
eventually destroy college sports in
the state.
In a letter to the Michigan State
University student newspaper last No
vember, Robertson said that “archaic
thinking” prevented Ole Miss from
playing Michigan State to determine
the nation’s top football team. At the
time, the Michigan school was number
one in the Associated Press poll and
Mississippi was second.
LSU Policy
Louisiana State University competed
against teams with Negro players be
fore the segregation issue arose, but
in recent years the school’s teams had
played only all-white squads. The
school’s classrooms have been desegre
gated since 1950. In December, 1961,
the Board of Trustees approved a pol
icy permitting LSU to compete with
college teams having Negro players.
This paved the way for LSU to accept
an Orange Bowl bid to meet Colorado,
which had white and Negro players.
The LSU board said it only was re
affirming a long-standing athletic pol
icy allowing the school to play any
college it wished. The board’s state
ment added:
“It is based on the conviction that
a major university should carry on a
program of intercollegiate athletics
against major competition. This board
believes that such a policy is impor
tant to the university’s program and
is in accord with the public interest.”
Louisiana’s 1956 legislature through
Act 579 had banned interracial sports.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1959 up
held a federal district court decision in
Dorsey v. Louisiana State Athletic
Commission that the act was uncon
stitutional.
When Loyola of Chicago played a
basketball game with Loyola in New
Orleans in January, the eating and
hotel accommodations for the Chicago
team’s Negro players brought com
plaints from Coach George Ireland.
Loyola of New Orleans has been de
segregated since the early 1950s. Ire
land said the separate facilities were
“a bad situation” and commented:
“Under the circumstances, I don’t
think we should play here again.”
A few athletic coaches have noted
a demand for Negro players. The Uni-
Books And
The Issue
The Library at Southern Educa
tion Reporting Service has acquired
these books on the race issue:
NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME
by James Baldwin. Dial Press, 241
pp., $4.50.
“The question of color” appears fre
quently in this collection of essays and
profiles written over the last six years.
The writer records his return from
self-exile in Europe and his first trip
South, where he observed the problems
of school desegregation.
Organized Medicine
favors Nonracial
Education Policy
(jJ^Stonized medicine in Maryland has
forded itself in favor of admitting Ne-
tr, S to medical schools on a basis of
I i^lity with white students.
I WiH a°use of Delegates of the Mary
’s th an d Chirurgical Faculty,
t 6sol statew 'toe organization is called,
^ wed in April to “urge its members
( t ’Element the principles of racial
;,. rv rance in all health facilities and
ices where they have influence as
★ ★ ★
A Negro has been re-elected presi
dent of the Maryland Association of
Future Teachers of America.
Gregory Daniels, a junior at Coppin
State Teachers College, became the first
Negro head of the 6,000-member organ
ization last fall when he was elected to
complete the term of the previous presi
dent, who currently is serving in a na
tional post.
Daniels was continued in office by a
resounding vote at the April 7 conven
tion of the Maryland association, the
rest of whose officers currently are
white students. The racially mixed as
sociation held its 11th annual spring
meeting on the Eastern Shore.
# # #
THE PRICE OF LIBERTY
by Alan Barth. Viking Press, 212
pp., $4.50.
The author, an editorial writer on
the Washington Post, examines the
methods used to combat crime and
argues that the basic rights are threat
ened in the name of law enforcement.
DIARY OF A SIT-IN
by Merrill Proudfoot. The University
of North Carolina Press, 204 pp., $5.
As a white faculty member at Knox
ville (Term.) College, Dr. Proudfoot
participated with the Negro students
demonstrating to obtain equal service
in downtown stores in 1960. His jour
nal records the events that resulted
in desegregation of the lunch counters.
# # #
s. c.
(Continued From Page 13)
Political Activity
GOP Candidate
Demands Special
reason to act, Pm satisfied the legisla
tors will move in the right direction.
... I don’t feel there will be any great
problem in solving the situation.”
Legal Action
Students Appeal
Breach of Peace
Legislative Session
The federal government’s announced
intention of withholding “impacted
area” funds from segregated schools
brought an early-April challenge to
Gov. Ernest F. Hollings to reconvene
the state legislature.
The challenge came from Micah
Jenkins, chairman of the Charleston
County Republican Party and long ac
tive in defense of school segregation. In
a statement to the press, he called for
legislative action to meet the govern
ment’s “blackmailing threat.”
Noting the protests against the gov
ernment’s action by Gov. Hollings and
Sen. Olin D. Johnston (both of whom
are seeking the Democratic nomination
for the U. S. Senate) Jenkins said:
“Although loud in their condemna
tions, these politicians have offered
nothing constructive as to how the peo
ple of South Carolina will meet this
blackmailing threat. . . .
“Now is the time for the State of
South Carolina to show the Kennedy
administration that it does not intend
to be blackmailed with its own money.
Such action now will give the federal
government time to build schools on
their own bases and installations, and
assume the rightful burden of educating
these children.”
No Response
There was no response from either
the Governor or Sen. Johnston to the
Jenkins statement, but the head of a
special committee on segregation said
the statement apparently had been
motivated by “political reasons.”
State Sen. L. Marion Gressette of
Calhoun County, head of the commit
tee which bears his name as its familiar
title, said:
“There is absolutely no necessity for
calling back the General Assembly. Our
fiscal year runs from July, 1962, to July,
1963, and the schools already have been
given ample funds on which to operate.
“The General Assembly convenes the
second Tuesday in January, and if and
when we are confronted with an actual
versity of Maryland basketball coach,
Bud Millikan, announced in April he
was attempting to recruit Negro play
ers. Maryland admitted its first Negro
student to the graduate division in
1936, but no Negro has ever received
a sports scholarship or been on the
varsity teams.
The Maryland coach declined to
name his prospects but said he had
talked with “a great many colored
boys.” Millikan also refused to specu
late on the reaction of other Atlantic
Conference members if Maryland re
cruited Negro players. None of the
ACC schools has had Negro football,
basketball or baseball players.
Coach Leroy Moore of the all-Negro
Prairie View A&M said this season that
he found the principal competition for
Texas Negro athletes came from de
segregated institutions in Kansas and
other non-Southern states.
Moore said that when the Southwest
Conference begins desegregated ath
letics, he does not fear the competition
in recruiting Negro athletes. He said:
“I would like to see it open up. I
believe it might hurt us at first, but
it will balance out eventually.
“When those schools integrate, how
ever, they’re going to have to be sin
cere. They’ll really have to want the
athletes and not just publicity. Some
of them won’t be honest about it, and
pretty soon some of the top boys will
be looking toward us again. But over
all it will be a good shot in the arm
for basketball in Texas.”
West Virginia University has sought
unsuccessfully to recruit Negro foot
ball players in the past. Negro athletes
refused the university’s offers in 1958,
1959 and 1960, generally offering as
their reason that the atmosphere on
the campus was not right for their race
or that they wanted to go to a school
that already had accepted Negro ath
letes.
West Virginia, which desegregated its
classes in 1938, has been criticized for
its membership in the Southern Con
ference. None of the member schools
use Negro athletes.
West Virginia has Negroes qualified
to officiate at athletic contests, but the
West Virginia Intercollegiate Confer
ence has been accused of discriminat
ing against Negro officials. Joe Peters,
a Negro official with a “superior”
rating, said in November he had no
trouble getting jobs to officiate at high
school contests but that there was a
“deplorable reluctance” to use Negro
officials at college games. # # #
Case Conviction
Attorneys for more than 500 Negro
students are appealing convictions of
breach of the peace in separate cases
before the South Carolina Supreme
Court and the United States Supreme
Court.
The case being appealed to the State
Supreme Court affects 350 Negro stu
dents, mostly of State College and Cla-
flin College at Orangeburg, who were
arrested in 1960 during a mass anti
segregation demonstration at Orange
burg.
Their convictions are being appealed
on grounds that the warrants under
which they were arrested and con
victed were vague and indefinte, that
the state failed to prove commission of
an offense, and that the students’ con-
situtional rights to freedom of speech,
assembly, and petition were violated.
Meanwhile, their attorney, Matthew
Perry, also has filed a petition for re
view by the U. S. Supreme Court of a
case in which 187 Negro students of
Columbia were arrested duing a 1961
demonstration at the South Carolina
State House. All were convicted of
breach of the peace in magistrate’s
court. The convictions were upheld by
the Richland County Court and still
later by the State Supreme Court.
The appeals are now being based on
grounds that the Negroes’ right to as
semble is secured by the federal con
stitution, and that convictions were ob
tained without “proof of commission of
the very essential elements of the
crime.” # # #
Missouri
(Continued From Page 13)
spokesman said he believed the suspen
sion was not a civil rights matter but
was “for out-and-out insubordination
and defiance of university authority.”
Dawson was heckled, booed and cat
called while trying to talk to the stu
dents. Nevertheless, he was criticized
in the Negro press, which editorially
opposed the suspensions.
Lincoln University is a land-grant
institution supported by the State of
Missouri. Before 1954 it was an all-Ne
gro institution but since that time it has
attracted an increasing proportion of
white students. At present the propor
tion of white students is 35 to 40 per
cent.
Schoolmen
Student Transport
Problem To Worsen
Despite the passage of a $23,180,000
St. Louis public schools bond issue
March 6 (SSN April), the problem of
transporting children from crowded
districts by bus each day is going to
get worse before it gets better.
As reported last month, the over
crowding in Negro districts is such that
about 4,000 children now are being
transported to schools that have space
available. Next year, the total is ex
pected to increase to about 6,000.
James F. Morrell, commissioner of
buildings, estimated to a Board of Edu
cation committee April 23 that it would
be necessary to raze about 200 dwellings
in the construction of six new elemen
tary schools.
Four of the schools are to he in the
west central section of the city, where
many Negroes were forced to relocate
because of the Mill Creek urban rede
velopment project. Morrell said con
struction of new schools would not
begin until early next year. # # #
Status . . .
What does the record show?
How many? Where?
Answers to many questions about
segregation-desegregation in Southern
schools are found in the SERS statisti
cal summary.
Figures up-dated to the end of the
1961-62 school year. Price: 50 cents.
Send your order now to South
ern Education Reporting Service,
Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nash
ville 12, Tenn.
Ifl
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