Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY, 1962—PAGE 7
West Virginia
(Continued From Page 5)
^ 1962 legislative session a resolution was
introduced to make it a technical cen
ter. The legislation never got out of
committee.
In speaking of Bluefield’s situation,
Dr. Allen said, “If Bluefield had been
accorded normal growth, the acceptance
would have been greater when 1954
came.”
He said Bluefield simply has not had
the facilities other schools have. Yet,
he went on, 40 per cent of the student
body is now white. In other words, 250
boys and girls attending Bluefield are
white.
Another problem is the rapid exodus
of Negroes from the state in recent
years, he explained. These are families
of former miners who, when mine
mechanization started, could no longer
find jobs.
They have gone to other states in
search of work, and this has reduced
the Negro drawing population for the
college. Most Negro students come
from McDowell and Mercer counties
where mining plays an important part
in the economy.
Another College
West Virginia State College at Insti
tute, another Negro college prior to
1954, has enjoyed growth in recent
years, but about this Dr. Allen said,
“West Virginia State was fortunate. It
had the equipment and buildings to at
tract white students.” More than 70
per cent of State’s students are now
white.
Given the proper facilities, Bluefield
would have no more difficulties, said
D r . Allen. He specifically wants a new
-Neg library and student union. “If we had
such facilities,” he explained, “I don’t
ums' believe the picture would be overdrawn
JC * e “ as to size, enrollment and purpose that
E Fre t b e college serves today.”
Y> w Bluefield, he went on, is so “far
eachii d 0W n” in facilities that it will take a
necc j on g ti me to make a comeback.
>artic i n an effort to recover, Dr. Allen
has applied to the state board for funds
at 4 to build a new science classroom build-
teacl i n g an( j a health and physical educa-
schoo tj on building,
died
ters 1 ‘Shortchanging the Kids’
s cou H e illustrated Bluefield’s problem by
is cot saying, “Here we are—offering majors
| in these fields and in both we don’t
'have the proper facilities. This is short -
ral nf changing the kids.”
schoi Along with being a four-year liberal
he Warts college, Dr. Allen said Bluefield
oes a has tremendous possibilities in the
Plica? adult education field. He would like to
see adult education upgraded and made
jan important part of his institution’s
program.
Also, he foresees the day when Blue-
contt fi e ifi an d Concord State College, just
fide '20 miles away at Athens, could be
terwimade a University of Southern West
issue Virginia. He is strongly opposed to the
rais technical center idea,
on v
teachi ★ ★ ★
eff* ^itl 1 a large influx of students ex-
color pecte( ^ on TVIorris Harvey College
campus at the beginning of the fall
term, college officials are faced with
housing problems.
rn o J^ orr lp Harvey, a privately owned
i college in Charleston, is the state’s only
o segregated institution of higher learn-
1 °boal n ? ^ ^ as grown steadily since the
, j other colleges and universities were
• - desegregated in 1954 and today has its
1 d ; dd e ‘ s t enrollment in history.
^wt; Vt Iso ‘ n *he greater Charleston area
s ^ West Virginia State College, a former
.(-<cg r ° college that now is 70 per cent
just 25 miles away in the
next county is desegregated West Vir-
° Institute of Technology, with an
, . ( er >rollment predominantly white.
pt , 0rris Harvey officials have ap-
“Ped to home owners in the vicinity
\ 'cj 1 '' , e college to provide housing for
le. female students.
egrs Morris Harvey now has two resi-
F rtrs ence halls for men and women. Two
itegr*more wiU be completed by the time
sc ool opens in September, but room
reservations were taken up about two
months ago.
The school, along with attracting
students from West Virginia, has had
a large influx of students from the
northeast, principally New York and
New Jersey.
Community Action
efore
3,1 Swimming Classes
- d at ’Fk
Ss eclared Nonracial
Mai'
0 re v t ue Summers County Board of Edu-
n pli^ atl °u and Hinton YMCA have drawn
ips > ih re ^ rom Negro groups in Hinton for
1 o# c e 15 P° lic y on us e of a swimming area
boaf<> ,~^ ues done State Park,
but s ri F charge was made to the State De-
e ment of Natural Resources that Ne-
ire. A t° Cyddren were not allowed to reg-
af r s er t° r swimming classes at the park.
■lecuti
imissi
Eelatic
from
aferei
to a
ARKANSAS
School Desegregation Again Developing
Into Major Issue of Political Campaign
LITTLE ROCK
our of Gov. Orval E. Faubus’
opponents for the Democratic
nomination for governor were
working hard through June, and
Faubus opened his campaign for
a fifth term June 28.
As an issue, school desegregation was
muted and indirect until the governor
made his opening speech. Now it seems
likely to be one of the main themes
of the hard campaigning leading up to
the first primary July 31. This also was
the pattern of the 1958 and 1960 Demo
cratic primary campaigns.
It looked as if three of the candi
dates would have preferred to leave the
race issue out of the political campaign.
Sid McMath, former governor, said it
was something that should be left to
the courts and to local authorities, but
that he never would advise the people
to go against a court order.
Vernon H. Whitten, South Arkansas
businessman, said it was an “emotional
question” which did not belong in the
campaign. He calls himself a law-and-
order segregationist who doesn’t ap
prove of desegregation for social rea
sons but would not close the schools to
prevent it.
David A. Cox, East Arkansas rice
farmer, sees nothing wrong with de
segregation and has paid a call on Amis
Guthridge, president of the Capital
Citizens Council at Little Rock, to up
braid him for the “reverse freedom
rides.”
Alford and Coffelt
U.S. Rep. Dale Alford (D-Ark) was
edging into the race issue even before
Faubus opened, and what the sixth
candidate, Kenneth C. Coffelt, Little
Rock lawyer, will do is not known.
Coffelt, an old-fashioned orator, gave
the subject classic treatment at a meet
ing of Negro ministers in North Little
Rock. Toward the end of his speech,
he brought up the race issue and said
the ministers probably wanted to know
what he would do about it. He said he
would do what is right.
“You probably want to know what
I mean by that,” he went on. “Well,
I’ll tell you, I’ll cross that bridge when
I come to it!” he shouted, and drew
loud applause.
Dr. Alford when in East Arkansas
has used jokes about the Negroes and
also has attacked the Pine Bluff Com
mercial and Patrick J. Owens, the
editor of its editorial page. He said
the Commercial was playing into the
hands of professional rabble rousers
who would destroy the best racial re
lations in the world.
As an example he cited an editorial
in the Commercial which said that the
most salutary thing about the campaign
so far was the absence of the racial
issue but that Alford, Faubus or Coffelt
might bring it up later on.
Cross-Burning
The candidate’s brother, Boyce Al
ford of Pine Bluff, on another occasion,
referred to the burning of a cross at a
Negro church in Pine Bluff, and said
that the segregationists were trying to
figure out who burned the cross, “Fau
bus or the NAACP?”
The cross was burned the night be
fore an NAACP meeting at which Mrs.
L. C. Bates was to speak. She has been
in New York writing a book most of
the last year or so, and Boyce Alford
Mrs. Gene McDowell, Negro, con
tended in a letter to State Parks Direc
tor Kermit McKeever that the YMCA
conducted the classes, but that they
were supported by the Summers
County Board of Education and Sum
mers County Court with taxpayers’
money.
The Board of Education said in a
statement that it provided funds to pay
instructors “for all children desiring
to participate.”
Orders Non-Discrimination
McKeever ruled, after getting Mrs.
McDowell’s letter, that swimming
classes at Bluestone State Park must
be conducted on a non-discriminatory
basis by sponsoring groups. His order
went out June 19.
“Our feeling,” McKeever said, “is
that the children have the same right
to go to the pool as anyone, and we
will inform the YMCA to this effect.
All pools at the state parks have al
ways been integrated.”
He said further that the Hinton
YMCA “is going to have to comply
with the law of the land if it wants
special privileges in the use of the
pool.” # # #
Arkansas Highlights
Once again, in the Democratic
gubernatorial campaign, school de
segregation is developing as one of
the main issues. Gov. Orval E. Fau
bus, running for a fifth term, is
linking his main opponent, former
Gov. Sid McMath, with the “inte-
grationists” and Negro block voting,
and is calling him not trustworthy.
When next fall’s first-graders reg
istered June 5 in the Dollarway
School District at Pine Bluff, no
Negroes appeared at the formerly
all-white Dollarway School. Under
the plan, this registration is the
standard way for Negro pupils to
enter the white school. But the
board received a request for the
transfer of a Negro girl, in the 10th
grade next fall, to the white school.
Twenty-one Negro students, as
signed to Negro schools, asked the
Little Rock School Board for hear
ings on their requests for admission
to the desegregated junior and sen
ior high schools.
commented, “Isn’t it peculiar that
Daisy Bates appears about the time
that Orval Eugene chooses to run for
re-election?”
Faubus on a television program
j where each candidate is being inter-
S viewed in turn was asked if he could
think of anything he wished he had
done differently. The governor reflected
a moment, then said there were no
major decisions he would change, per
haps a few minor ones, but nothing im
portant. That includes, he added, what
he did during the 1957 crisis at Little
Rock Central High School.
At the Arkansas Boys State encamp- j
ment earlier, he submitted to questions
from the high school juniors there.
Some of them as recorded by the Ar
kansas Democrat reporter were:
Q. What was the purpose of closing
the schools a few years ago?
A. It was whether I would use force
to integrate or use force to keep order.
I preferred to let the people decide J
Schoolmen
Dollarway School District at Pine
Bluff held registration June 5 for pupils
who will enter the first grade in Sep
tember, and no Negroes applied at the
formerly all-white Dollarway School.
Asked what that meant, Supt. Charles
Fallis said he did not know.
Under the Dollarway desegregation
plan sanctioned so far by the federal
courts (Dove v. Parham), registering
in the first grade is almost the only
way a Negro child can get into the
Dollarway School instead of the all-
Negro Townsend Park School (both
schools have grades 1 through 12).
But the board received a request for
a transfer at a higher grade. George
Howard Jr., attorney for the plaintiffs
in the Dollarway case, requested that
his daughter Sarah, 16, who will be in
the 10th grade next fall, be transferred
from Townsend Park to Dollarway.
Howard and his wife met with the
school board, June 26, to give their
reasons for the requested transfer. The
reasons were, first, that they want their
daughter to have “an integrated edu
cation” and, second, that the Dollar
way School offers better educational
opportunities because it has been ac
credited by the North Central Associa
tion of Secondary Schools and Colleges
while the Townsend Park School has
not.
The board said that it would make
a decision on the request “within a
reasonable length of time.”
History of Case
The history of the case gives little
indication that a transfer will be made
at the 10th grade. The suit was filed
by three high school students, and in
resisting it the Dollarway board came
up with a plan for desegregation, be
ginning in the first grade and providing
for no transfers at grades above the
first grade.
Under that plan, one Negro girl en
tered the first grade of the white Dol
larway School in 1960. In 1961, the
whether or not to close the schools—
I didn’t want the decision. The people
voted to close the schools.
Q. Did you agree with the govern
ment’s use of federal troops to settle
integration disputes?
A. That is government by force. You
cannot change your race. I don’t mean
that one race is superior to another,
but there is no way to wipe out the
difference. History shows the closer two
different races are pushed, the worse
their relations get. Even Eisenhower’s
brother told him he had bad advice
when the crisis came up.
Centers on McMath
When the governor opened his cam
paign, at El Dorado, in South Arkansas,
he picked McMath as his chief oppo
nent, and set out to turn the race issue
against both McMath and Alford. The
portion of his speech dealing with them
read:
“We have Sid McMath, the chosen
candidate of Hugh Patterson, publisher
of the Arkansas Gazette. He has al
ready been publicly endorsed by the
Women’s Emergency Committee, the
integration-front organization for Little
Rock and Arkansas.
“Don’t ever forget that Sid McMath
and his close associate, Henry Woods,
were a part of the self-constituted
committee that invited the President
to send the federal troops to Little
Rock in 1957.
“These two men also visited almost
daily the Headliner Club in Little
Rock, where, under the leadership of
Harry Ashmore, they worked at indoc
trinating the hundreds of visiting news
men of the press, radio and television.
Quotes Magazine
“It was there that Mr. McMath made
the statement, quoted in Life magazine,
that ‘The only mistake I made as gov
ernor w»as building that road (into
Madison County) and letting Orval
out.’
“It was there the statement was
made, quoted in Life magazine, which
I attribute to Henry Woods, which said,
‘The first time I saw Orval he came to
town in a 10-dollar suit with the cuffs
somewhere north of the socks.’
“It is also well to remind ourselves
now that Mrs. Daisy Bates, the NAACP
board assigned one more to the first
grade and one to the second, but Judge
J. Smith Henley in Federal District
Court said that that was not enough
to satisfy the order from the Appeals
Court. He ordered two more admitted,
so in the school year just ended, Dol
larway had two Negro first-graders
and two Negro second-graders in de
segregated situations (SSN, September
and October, 1961).
The question now is what Judge
Henley would do, or whether he would
do anything, when no new applicants
have appeared. The question may not
get to him. In the past the assignment
issue went to court only when Negro
plaintiffs were protesting the board’s
assignments.
★ ★ ★
Twenty-one Negro students at Little
Rock, assigned to Negro schools for
1962-63, have asked the school board
for hearings on their requests for as
signment to the desegregated schools.
One of the 37 Negro students as
signed to desegregated schools has re
quested transfer back to an all-Negro
school. The other 18 of the 40 reassign
ment hearings requested do not in
volve desegregation.
Reassignment hearings are part of
the procedure set up in 1959 under the
Little Rock plan. First the board as
signs each student to a school. Any
student not satisfied with his assign
ment may request and receive a hear
ing before the board to try to get it
changed. If still not satisfied, he then
may go to court. The board held the
reassignment hearings June 25-26.
In making the original assignments
for 1962-63, the board considered re
quests from 103 Negro students for as
signment to the desegregated junior
and senior high schools, and it granted
37 of those requests. Compared to this
year’s 21 hearings requested by Ne
groes, last year there were only 15.
No Negroes Seek Admission
To Dollarway’s First Grade
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Kennedy, Arkansas Democrat
leader, is back in the state on a speak
ing tour. On Sunday, June 17, in a
speech at Pine Bluff, she urged her
listeners to vote in a block. For which
candidate in the governor’s race is she
urging this block vote?
“The struggle for constitutional gov
ernment, including the right to manage
our own schools, goes on. The struggle
is not yet won, and neither is it lost.
Upon the outcome of this contest de
pends the future of our children, the
welfare of all the people, the life of the
nation itself, with the liberty we have
enjoyed.
“Let us consider this question. In the
difficulties that may be encountered in
the days ahead in this County of Un
ion, and all across the state, do you
want Sid McMath to have control of
the state police and command of the
10,000 members of the Arkansas Na
tional Guard?
Turns to Alford
“Now, in this situation, with the di
rection of the state and the welfare of
the people so vitally involved, what is
Dr. Dale Alford doing in this race?
“Most of us believe in states’ rights.
The proper division of powers—local,
state and federal—has been the very
foundation of our government, and the
greatest assurance of the people’s lib
erty since the founding of the nation.
“Dr. Alford is attempting to do what
the enemies of states’ rights have so
far been unable to do. He is attempt
ing to divide our forces, thus providing
the only opportunity for our enemies
to take over the state government.
“What he is doing now is the most
pleasing thing that he could possibly
do for the dyed-in-the-wool integra-
tionists of the state. When he first an
nounced, they called him by the dozens
(and one person can make many calls,
remaining unidentified, or giving dif
ferent names), and urged him to run.
He took the bait—hook, line and sink
er—and he is now doing what every
enemy of states’ rights wants him to
do.”
Scores McMath
In his next speech, the governor said
of McMath, “I know him. He cannot
be trusted.”
McMath said he would give a docu
mented answer to the Faubus charges.
Alford responded immediately with a
statement, smarting that the governor
had questioned his fidelity to states’
rights.
“Orval Faubus has done absolutely
nothing to preserve the states’ rights
of Arkansas,” his statement said in
part, “since the so-called ‘Little Rock
Central High School incident.’ Arkan
sas has more integration in her public
schools today than any other state in
the South outside of North Carolina,
who has an open integrationist gover
nor. In his typical holier-than-thou
dictatorial attitude, Faubus once again
raises the race issue only when it will
serve him in an election. I challenge
Orval Faubus to a public debate on
the question of states’ rights and his
integration program and his complete
surrender to the NAACP at the Dol
larway School.”
Who They Are
The names and terms used by Fau
bus are familiar in Arkansas but may
require reminders for others.
McMath and his law partner, Henry
Woods, were among the small group
of Little Rock leaders who objected to
the course of action chosen by Faubus
in September of 1957 when he used the
National Guard to prevent nine Ne
gro students from entering Central
(See ARKANSAS, Page 9)