Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16—MAY, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
WEST VIRGINIA
Shriver Notes
World Interest
CHARLESTON
very move to end racial dis
crimination in Charleston is
of great importance to the Peace
Corps movement overseas, said
Peace Corps Director R. Sargent
Shriver April 26 in an address to
1,100 people attending the third
annual dinner of the Mayor’s
Commission on Human Relations.
“All our work will go for naught if
we’re not backed up by action at home,”
he said. “No African Negro will believe
we’re sincere as long as we wrong his
brother in America.”
The Peace Corps, said Shriver, is a
“human relations agency. Most of the
under-developed world is colored . . .
and we stand on trial because of our
past sins.”
Shriver was particularly praiseworthy
of the progress made in the populous
Kanawha Valley in school desegrega
tion, as well as opening its hotels and
restaurants to Negroes. “I have not
come here to teach you but to praise
you,” he said.
Fully Desegregated
Kanawha County, which has approxi
mately 10 per cent of the state’s pop
ulation, has been fully desegregated
since 1956. Its teachers as well as its
school children are in desegregated
situations.
Since this move was made, desegre
gation has extended into other fields,
primarily public accomodation, and the
Mayor’s Commission on Human Rela
tions, was created to assist in all fields
of desegregation.
It was founded by the late Mayor
John T. Copenhaver, and at the dinner
where Shriver spoke the mayor’s widow
was presented a plaque in recognition
of the work Copenhaver did as a pub
lic official.
While he was mayor, the school de
segregation program was instituted, and
he worked closely with school officials
to carry it out with a minimum of dis
turbance.
One Demonstration
Only one public racial demonstration
has broken out at a local school, and
city police quickly moved in and
stopped it. The desegregation move here
has become a model for action in other
areas.
Two years ago, the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People was complimentary of desegre
gation here, saying Charleston had one
of the best programs in the country.
But more recently local NAACP of
ficers have begun to raise objections to
what they look upon as discrimination
in the hiring of Negro teachers. They
charge that only 17 Negro teachers have
been hired since 1954 in the county,
which employs 1,000.
Teacher shortage is a problem in all
parts of West Virginia. Low salaries are
blamed.
Under Survey
Human Rights Group
Seeks College Aid
On Wider Program
The West Virginia Human Rights
Commission decided on April 18 to en
list the help of state colleges and uni
versities, as well as mayors, in broad
ening the base of its program.
It voted to ask mayors of the state’s
cities to appoint local human rights
commissions. From the colleges and
universities it hopes to get research
assistance in probing the various areas
of prejudice and discrimination.
Specifically, the institutions of higher
learning will be asked whether they
have conducted previous research or
would be interested in launching new
such projects.
The commission also would like to
have additional data on the types of
jobs in which Negroes are employed,
what is happening to Negro graduates,
and what research might be conducted
on the school dropout problem.
Over the State
Heretofore, the commission held one
of a series of public hearings in Char
leston, and among those invited were
school officials. Hearings are being ar
ranged in other parts of the state as a
means of determining the climate of
human relations.
The dropout problem in West Vir
ginia recently was the subject of a State
Department of Education Survey, ac
West Va. Highlights
R. Sargent Shriver, director of
the Peace Corps, complimented West
Virginia on its school desegregation
progress and said every move to end
racial discrimination is of great im
portance to the Peace Corps.
The West Virginia Human Rights
Commission has decided to ask the
research staffs of the colleges and
universities to assist it in broaden
ing its anti-discrimination program.
The NAACP has taken the problem
of school dropouts among Negro
children to the Rights Commission.
Bluefield State College, now under
survey as to its future status as a
college, has been given the green
light to construct a new building on
the campus. Bluefield has had
growth problems since the 1954 de
segregation decision by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
cording to Asst. Supt. William K. Ham
ilton. About 30 per cent of the children
leaving school between the seventh and
12th grades did so because of what
Hamilton termed “a poor attitude or
the school’s failure to meet pupil
needs.”
Hamilton said there was no attempt
to determine the number leaving
school according to race. But Willard
Brown, counsel for the West Virginia
NAACP, said informal surveys made by
his organization find that many Negroes
are among the dropouts.
‘Summary Check’
He called the NAACP survey “a sum
mary check” and said further investi
gation in the field is in progress.
So far the organization has discover
ed, said Brown, that much of the drop
out problem among Negroes stems from
lack of interest among white teachers
in the children. Also, he said, the chil
dren become discouraged because they
are not included in extra-curricular ac
tivities and therefore feel they are not
a part of the school program.
Further, he said, many of them feel
there are no job opportunities of the
type they want in the state, so they quit
school and go elsewhere.
He said he has talked with Howard
McKinney, executive director of the
State Human Rights Commission, on the
dropout and employment problems and
may go before the commission after he
and others in the NAACP obtain more
definite information.
New Rules
The Human Rights Commission has
prepared a new set of rules and proce
dures, and among them is one that says
a complaint brought to the commission
must be filed within six months of the
date of the alleged discriminatory act.
The new regulations include ma
chinery for the executive director or
commission member to investigate com
plaints and outline ways that problems
can be resolved by “conference, con
ciliation and persuasion.”
There also are provisions for public
hearings “when efforts to conciliate fail,
or whenever in the commission’s judg
ment circumstances so warrant,” with
resulting recommendations to be made
available to the parties and—in the
commission’s discretion—to the public.
The Human Rights Commission was
created by the 1961 Legislature.
In The Colleges
Bluefield to Plan
Buildings Despite
A Clouded Future
Bluefield State College, its future
under a cloud for several months, was
authorized by the State Board of Edu
cation April 25 to prepare final plans
for a new student union building and
cafeteria.
President L. B. Allen was given the
authorization at a meeting of the board
in Charleston.
The structure will cost an estimated
$437,858, of which $396,000 will be ob
tained through issuance of revenue
bonds which the Federal Housing and
Home Finance Agency normally would
be expected to purchase.
The remainder, according to Dr. Al
len, can be met from the equipment
account of the college.
H. K. Baer, secretary of the board,
will open bids on the proposed bond
sale a day or so before the next meet
ing June 13-14.
This action came as somewhat of a
surprise after the board called March
16 for a study of Bluefield’s needs and
potentialities.
Bluefield has been in trouble since it
GEORGIA
Atlanta Negroes Contest Pupil
Placement Plan in Court Suit
Georgia Highlights
MACON
he Atlanta pupil placement
plan was attacked in a federal
court suit asking complete deseg
regation of the public schools in
Georgia’s capital city.
The suit was filed April 30 by 10
Negro parents. It asks the U. S. Dis
trict Court to enjoin the Atlanta Board
of Education and Supt. John W. Let-
son against “continuing to maintain
and operate a desegregated, biracial
school system.”
The pupil placement plan was ap
proved by a federal court in 1961. Ten
Negroes of more than a hundred who
applied were ordered admitted to white
schools. Subsequently, one Negro stu
dent decided to go to a Negro school
before the term opened, and another
transferred back to her old Negro
school after attending a white school
for several weeks. Eight of the 10 have
been attending four white schools in
Atlanta this school term.
Transfer Applications
The suit was filed one day before
the Atlanta system began receiving ap
plications from Negro students for
transfer. Under the plan, in the second
year of desegregation, Negroes may
apply for transfer to the tenth, eleventh
and twelfth grades of white schools.
Requests for “complete elimination
of all distinctions in the operation of
the public school system” were en
tered in the form of a motion to amend
the court’s original order to desegre
gate. They were filed by Negro attor
neys Donald L. Hollowell and E. E.
Moore Jr.
The suit charged that the school
board had failed to reorganize into “a
unitary non-racial system as required”
and claimed that “The defendants have
continued to maintain a separate sys
tem of elementary, junior high and
senior high schools limited to attend
ance by white students.
Other Complaints
Other complaints were:
(1) Criteria of the plan approved by
the court are applied only to Negro pu
pils seeking reassignment to white
schools. This referred to the placement
tests.
(2) School officials have continued to
place Negro personnel in Negro schools
and white personnel in white schools.
(3) Negroes in overcrowded schools
were transferred to other Negro schools
farther away than white schools.
As an alternative to injunctive ac
tion, the suit requested that Atlanta
school officials be required to offer a
plan for assignment of both students
and teachers on a non-racial basis.
School officials reportedly were sur
prised by the suit.
A. C. (Pete) Latimer, school board
attorney, said he hoped “we will be
permitted to continue with our pupil
placement plan.” He said the plan, not
based on or administered in terms of
race or color, is the best method of
achieving the mandate of the federal
courts.
★ ★ ★
Atlanta Negroes sued in federal
court for an end to the pupil place
ment plan under which city schools
desegregated in 1961, and demanded
complete desegregation of Atlanta
public schools.
A three-judge federal court threw
out the county unit method of deter
mining winners in the state Demo
cratic primary, and this was ex
pected to have an effect on desegre
gation in the state.
New candidates for statewide of
fice qualified as the May 5 Demo
cratic primary qualification deadline
neared, and the Republicans nom
inated a candidate for Governor of
Georgia.
composed of Judge Elbert Tuttle and
Judge Griffin Bell of the U. S. Fifth
Circuit Court of
Appeals, and U. S.
District Judge
Frank Hooper of
Atlanta.
The ruling fol
lowed a special
two weeks session
of the legislature
in which a law re
vising the county
emit system to
tuttle give heavily-pop
ulated counties a
BEl l HOOPER
greater sayso in Democratic primaries
was passed. The unanimous decision
of the court said that the unit system
is not unconstitutional per se, but the
plan enacted on the last day of the
special session by the General As
sembly of Georgia was not fair enough
to meet legal tests.
The decision affects only the way the
votes will be counted in Democratic
primaries. Another federal court suit,
to be heard in May, demands reappor
tionment of the legislature.
The outlawing of the county unit
Political Activity
system vote-counting method and th
expected legislative reapportionment,
is believed, will have an effect on <j« ,
segregation patterns in the I
schools and in other fields. '
The reasoning is that urban areas art jj
more moderate in their approach to 4 a
segregation, and under the decision a
urban areas will exert much greafe °
influence in elections.
The judges enjoined use of *
county unit method of counting votes *
whether by virtue of statute or path- *
rule” unless some system is devised 3
that meets a standard outlined in the
decision.
This means that that party may set -
up its own unit vote county, but it
must be representative. The judges did *
not say the Democratic primary must 3
be decided by popular vote, but the \
only alternative the court left to popu- 3
lar vote is a unit plan proportionate to .
population or voter strength.
Fear Atlanta
Some observers said they feared state k
politics would be dominated by Atlan- 5
ta, in which a large Negro vote is cast i
Senator Herman Talmadge termed ll
the decision “appalling.” !i
Two gubernatorial candidates, Lt. 5
Gov. Garland T. Byrd and State Sena
tor Carl Sanders, blamed the legislature j
for not coming up with a county unit
plan which would suit the court. The :i
third major candidate to succeed Gov. s
Ernest Vandiver, former Gov. Marvin 0
Griffin, said Byrd and Sanders spent 0
too much time fighting him and not
enough saving the county unit system. S
Former Atlanta Mayor William B. i
Hartsfield, who had taken the county s
unit issue to the U. S. Supreme Court s
twice and lost, said the decision meant
“the political emancipation of hundreds i
of thousands of Georgia citizens. At- >
torney Abram praised the tribunal for a
being the first court in the nation—“for e
the first time in judicial history”—to :
apply the constitutional principle of :
“equal protection” to voter strength.
Law Since 1917
The Neill Primary Act, which was 1
overturned by the federal court deci
sion, had written the unit system, long
used by the party, into law in 1917.
The state prepared to appeal the de-
cision and Gov. Vandiver announced '
all races for state office would be on ,
a majority rather than a plurality basis
if the State Democratic Executive ’
Committee followed his recommenda- j
tion. Griffin protested the primary !
should be decided on a plurality basis |
Observers argued this showed Griffin
thought he could split the Byrd-San-
ders votes and amass a higher total
than either but could not win in a run
off.
Byrd, Griffin, Sanders Entered
In Democratic Governors Race
Federal Court Decision
Kills County Unit System
A political era came to an end in
Georgia April 28 when a three-judge
federal court killed the county unit
system “in its present form.”
The county unit system of vote
counting had given rural counties a
great advantage in Democratic pri
maries. A suit asking that the system
be abolished was filed by James O’Hear
Sanders, a retired Atlanta business
man, with Morris Abram of Atlanta as
attorney.
The special three-judge panel was
was changed from a Negro to a de
segregated college in 1954. Most of its
problems stem from the fact that it has
not attracted enough students to hold
down per-student costs to or even near
the state average.
Allen was directed by the board to
make a study this summer of future
curriculum needs in the areas of teach
ing, liberal arts and technical educa
tion.
In an appearance before the board in
March, Dr. Allen said a thorough study
should be made before deciding whether
the college should become a two-year
technical school.
Such a change was proposed in legis
lation that went to the Legislature in
January but failed to get majority sup-
(See WEST VIRGINIA, Page 17)
— KUkViMAi. 1LU j cuinc
became a three-man race when Sta
Sen. Carl Sanders of Augusta qualifie
Previously, Sanders had said he wou
] run for lieutenant governor.
Sanders will go up against Lt. Go
| Garland Byrd and former Gov. Marv
j Griffin. Sanders is considered modera
j in his views on racial relations
compared with the views of Byrd ai
Griffin. The death of the county ur
I system of counting Democratic primal
votes was interpreted as a boost fi
the candidacy of Sanders, who lives
an urban area.
The Republicans nominated a cand
date for governor for the first time
nearly a centui
in Georgia. He
Ed Smith, a C<
lumbus attorm
chosen at the sta
GOP convention
Smith a 1
nounced he
against the ccu-
ty unit systei
but in an Atlan
television i n t e :
view he dodged
question concert
ing his stand on desegregation.
Meanwhile, another “urban an
moderate,” Mayor Edgar Wilson 1
Macon qualified to run for lieutenai
governor. Others in the race are Pet<
Zac Greer, former executive secretai
to Gov. Vandiver; Rep. John Sheffiel
Quitman; Senator Spence Grayso:
SMITH
Savannah; Rep. Culver Kidd, Milledge-
ville and Dr. Winston Burdine, Atlanta
Grayson, although from a large city, 15
not considered a moderate and Bu r "
dine is not considered to be a mal D
contender for the state’s No. 2 post-
Other Candidates
Other potential candidates were talk
ing about entering the race as the M®.
5 qualifying deadline neared.
The Democratic nomination for 8°'
ernor has been considered the same
election for many years in this s .
and Smith’s candidacy is not consi
ered a serious threat to whoever g al "^
the nomination at this time, but it * c j
noted that the state Republican P ^
form committee promised to “keep &
relations out of politics.” The com 1111
tee has one Negro member.
Negroes in Richmond County
gusta) won four of the 32 seats on ^
county Democratic Executive *-' orn
tee April 19. And in Bibb County ( M (y 1
con), four Negroes qualified for c0 jp
Democratic Executive Committee P°L
for the election which will be ^
along with the state primary, Sepf l
★ ★ ★
Willey A. Branton, the first
graduate of the University of Ark
law school, was named to head
Voter Education Project (VEP) 1 ® aS e
lanta. A two year campaign to in c jj
Soutern Negro voter registrafi 0 ; 1
planned. *