Newspaper Page Text
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3 Factual
Southern School News
Objective
VOL. 9, NO. 3
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE*
SEPTEMBER, 1962
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Most Schools Start Quietly
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Judge Simpson
Orders Teacher
Desegregation
MIAMI
F ederal District Judge Bryan
Simpson last month ordered
two Florida counties to cease
making racial distinctions in
teaching, supervisory and admin
istrative personnel of their school
systems.
In one of the most sweeping decisions
yet handed down in Florida school de
segregation cases, the court ordered
three of the state’s largest counties to
end their dual school systems and to
stop using criteria of the state assign
ment law to determine which schools
the children attend.
Judge Simpson ruled simultaneously
in long-pending cases from Duval
(Jacksonville), Volusia (Daytona
Beach) and Hillsborough (Tampa)
counties. His injunction forbidding ra
cial considerations as to school person
nel applied to Duval and Volusia but
not at Hillsborough, where the issue
had not been raised.
The Duval and Volusia boards were
enjoined from “approving policies, cur
ricula or programs designed to perpet
uate, maintain or support a school sys
tem operated on a racially segregated
basis.”
Neither may the boards approve
budgets or enter into contracts in con
nection with racially segregated schools.
Without Precedent
The Florida attorney general’s office,
which is studying the decisions, said
they are without precedent in this state
and probably go beyond any lower
court decision yet.
One of the three defendant counties,
Duval, has already announced an ap
peal would be carried to the U.S. Su
preme Court, if necessary.
Other desegregation suits in the
South also have included petitions for
ending discriminatory practice in re
gard to school personnel, budgets, cur
ricula and administrative procedure.
But the Duval and Volusia County
cases were the first in which a judge
ruled for the plaintiffs. In other de-
the Petitions have been denied,
field in abeyance, or returned for hear
ing on the merits.
The evidence shows,” Judge Simp-
sa *d in the almost identical orders,
that the Florida Pupil Assignment Law
a s been used to perpetuate segregation
an not to accomplish good faith de
segregation.
The Florida Pupil Assignment Law
her S ” n0 * i >rov ‘ < ^ e an adequate remedy
Judge Simpson gave the three county
school boards until Oct. 30 to submit
e ailed plans to carry out his order.
(See THREE. Page 8)
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In This Issue
Slate Reports
Alabama
Arkansas
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Mississippi
Missouri
N °rth Carolina
Gklahoma
South Carolina
lennessee
Texas
V ‘rginia ..
West Virginia .
S Peeial Articles
The Region
°utside the South .
.15
.16
.14
. 9
. 1
. 5
.19
. 1
.13
. 2
.14
.17
.12
. 9
.10
. 4
. 3
. 7
Nun Leads Class Into School
Adults gathered at St. Francis de Sales and other Catholic schools which were
desegregated in New Orleans. Nine Negro children entered this one.
LOUISIANA
Orleans Desegregation
Extended to 46 Schools
. i
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NEW ORLEANS
N ew Orleans public and Cath
olic schools admitted 258
Negroes to 46 previously all-white
schools Sept. 4, 5 and 6. There
were no major incidents.
The public schools, in their third year
of expanding desegregation, accepted
104 Negroes—most of them first-graders
entering 16 schools affected for the first
time by federal court desegregation
orders. Four other schools previously
were desegregated.
Catholic schools desegregated at the
elementary and high school level under
the March directive of Archbishop Jo
seph Francis Rummel. The schools re
ceived 136 Negroes into 22 elementary
schools and 18 of them into four high
schools.
Outside of New Orleans, there was no
other public school desegregation in
Louisiana.
However, Catholic schools throughout
the 11 parishes of the Archdiocese of
New Orleans were affected by the arch
bishop’s directive and nine previously
all-white elementaries outside the city
enrolled a total of 37 Negroes.
Fluctuations Expected
All figures for public and Catholic
schools were from official or semi-of
ficial sources who emphasized that the
total would fluctuate some after late en
rollments and adjustments within each
school.
There was some white boycotting of
both the public and Catholic schools.
Private schools said their registrations
were on the rise.
The Orleans public schools—expecting
some 95,000 students this year—made a
compilation of enrollments within three
hours of the beginning of the first day
of classes Sept. 6. It showed enrollment
down in 17 of the desegregated schools
and up in three.
These were the figures giving a pic
ture of public schools in the city:
Schools Oct. 19, ’61 Sept. 6, ’62
Enrollment Enrollment
White Negro White Negro
Allen 377 0 305 4
Audubon 143 0 103 7
Bradley 609 0 395 2
Davis 726 0 477 3
Frantz 59 1 144 3
Jackson 689 0 433 9
Lafayette 570 0 361 8
Laurel-McDonough
No. 1 765 0 613 1
Lee 377 0 235 3
Lusher 256 2 256 7
McDonough No. 10...235 0 131 10
McDonough No. 11...298 1 266 4
McDonough No. 16...216 0 164 2
McDonough No. 39... 953 0 781 1
McDonough No. 45... 467 0 470 4
Palmer 655 0 358 7
Semmes 342 0 88 8
Shaw 577 0 256 10
Washington 741 0 480 1
Wilson 394 1 366 10
The Catholic school figures were sup
plied by an unofficial but reliable source
after the second day of desegregation.
These are the schools and the number
of Negroes in attendance throughout
the Archdiocese of New Orleans:
Orleans Parish
Little Flower 8
St. Frances de Sales 9
St. Gabriel 5
Mater Dolorosa 4
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart 30
St. Ann G
St. Augustine 13
St. Frances Cabrini 8
St. Louis Cathedral 2
St. Michael 2
St. Rose de Lima 1
St. Stephen 3
Our Lady of Lourdes 5
St. Joseph 1
St. Leo the Great 22
Holy Name of Mary 2
St. Raphael 1
Incarnate Word 6
St. Joseph’s (Algiers) 1
St. Mary of the Angels 4
St. Rita 2
St. Vincent de Paul 1
Jesuit High 8
St. Joseph’s Academy (High) 6
St. Mary’s Dominican (High) 1
Ursuline Academy (High) 3
Jefferson Parish
St. Anthony 20
St. Joseph the Worker 3
Our Lady of Perpetual Help 6
St. Rosalie 1
St. Matthew the Apostle 1
Our Lady of Prompt Succor 2
St. Tammany Parish
St. Scholastica, Covington 2
St. Charles Parish
Sacred Heart, Norco 1
St. Mary Parish
Sacred Heart, Morgan City 1
The public schools admitted the Ne
groes under a transitional school de-
(See NEW ORLEANS, Page 6)
But Louisiana Has Violence
orty-six public school districts in the Southern and border region
opened the 1962-63 school year with new desegregation policies.
Although the school openings in the region generally were quiet,
violence returned to the school desegregation scene in Louisiana.
Threats of violence, bomb hoaxes, gun shots and jeering crowds ac
companied the court-ordered expansion of desegregation in New Or
leans public schools and the voluntary opening of the first biracial
schools by the Orleans Catholic Archdiocese.
Negroes are eligible to attend the schools with whites in 960 public
school districts in the region. The 17 Southern and border states, plus
the District of Columbia, have a total 6,368 school districts, and 3,047
of these have both Negro and white students, whether segregated or
desegregated.
Three states—Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina—continue to
have complete segregation at all grade levels in the ninth school year
after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that compulsory school
segregation was unconstitutional.
Only four of the 46 districts desegregating for the first time acted by
court order. The other 42 districts voluntarily admitted Negroes with
whites, although in some cases legal action was threatened or under
way. At the beginning of the 1961-62 school year, 29 districts desegre
gated, eight by court order and 21 voluntarily.
Districts Under Court Order Still Segregated
Three school districts under court orders to desegregate this fall re
opened their schools on a segregated basis.
Duval County (Jacksonville), Fla., was ordered by a U.S. district
judge to submit a complete desegregation plan by Oct. 30, but in the
meantime to end discriminatory assignment and transfer policies. The
school board announced it would appeal the decision.
Fort Worth, Texas, also had been ordered to desegregate at the open
ing of school this September, but school officials are awaiting a ruling
on their appeal to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In Prince Edward County, Va., one of the five defendants in the
original school segregation cases before the Supreme Court, public
schools apparently will be closed another year. The county closed its
schools in 1959 rather than comply with a desegregation order, but a
federal judge has ruled that other schools in the state cannot remain
open while Prince Edward’s are closed.
Negro Admission Efforts Fail
Efforts by Negroes to gain admission voluntarily to white schools
failed in Gadsden and Huntsville, Ala.; Albany and DeKalb County,
Ga.; Baton Rouge, La.; Carrollton, Georgetown, Hampshire and Waco,
Tex.,, and Powhatan, Va. These attempts were considered in most cases
as preparatory steps for legal action.
Three colleges have decided to admit their first Negro students this
fall. Johns Hopkins Medical School in Maryland has accepted a Negro
from Kenya. Manatee Junior College,
a county school at Bradenton, Fla., ad
mitted three Negro men students. The
board of directors for Arlington State
College in Texas has adopted a policy
that permits Negroes to enter the
school.
Texas has 12 new desegregated school
districts, all of them voluntary. Nine
Virginia disticts desegregated for the
first time, one acting on court orders
and the others resulting from assign
ments by the State Pupil Placement
Board. The number of new desegregated
districts in other states were: Tennes
see, eight; Florida, Kentucky and North
Carolina, five each; and Arkansas, two.
Major Opposition
Major opposition to school desegrega
tion this month centered in South
Louisiana, although minor incidents oc
curred in other spots in the South. In
New Orleans, crowds gathered outside
desegregated public and Catholic paro
chial schools to jeer Negro students and
cheer white parents withdrawing their
children. Shots were fired through a
Perez Makes a Point
Plaquemines Parish political leader Leander Perez Sr., his fist doubled, is
applauded as he addresses pickets near desegregated Catholic school at Buras.
door at a Catholic school and the win
dow of a Negro parent’s car was smash
ed at a church school. Several bomb
threats caused the removal of parochial
and public school students while
searches were made.
South of New Orleans, at Buras, a
boycott by white and threats of violence
caused five Negroes to withdraw from
a parochial school, and the school later
closed. The U.S. Department of Justice
began an investigation of the threats.
Other Incidents
Other incidents connected with school
desegregation in the South included
false bomb threats at Pensacola, Fla.,
and Chattanooga, Tenn., and the arrest
of three boys for disorderly conduct
and resisting arrest at an Atlanta, Ga.,
school.
Southern schools had opened for the
past two years without violence over
desegregation, although the 1961-62
school year was the first to be peaceful
throughout the entire term. Schools
operated quietly for the first two months
of the 1960-61 year, and then violence
broke out in New Orleans when the
first desegregation occurred there. Prior
to the disturbances in South Louisiana
this year, the last violent protests
against school desegregation in the re
gion occurred at the University of
Georgia in January, 1961, when two
Negroes entered the school under court
order.
State -bv- State
j
Here is a state-by-state summary of
school desegregation in the region, with
asterisks (*) marking new desegregated
districts:
Alabama
All public schools opened still segre
gated. Two public school desegregation
cases are pending, but the U.S. Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to
(See STATE-BY-STATE, Page 20)