Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 12—SEPTEMBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
OKLAHOMA
One School Resegregates;
Several More Desegregate
OKLAHOMA CITY
onetime white elementary
school in Tulsa opened the
1962 fall term with all Negro stu
dents but retained a biracial fac
ulty at least temporarily.
Resegregation of the Burroughs
school marked the final failure of sev
eral years of neighborhood stabilization
efforts in the Reservoir Hill section of
Tulsa.
The fall enrollment, however,
brought racial desegregation for the
first time to several more Tulsa schools
and two additional ones in Oklahoma
City.
The Tulsa Board of Education said
Negro students enrolled at five schools
that had only white pupils last year.
A spokesman pointed out some of the
schools may have had one or two Ne
gro students in previous years.
Longfellow and Riverview Elemen
tary Schools received one Negro each;
Robertson and Whitman, four each, and
McLain High School, two.
Annexed Districts
Four other schools brought into the
Tulsa system by annexation of two
adjoining districts during the summer
also enrolled Negro students. They
were East Central elementary, junior
and senior high schools and Lynn Lane
elementary school. The school board
spokesman said he did not know
whether the schools had Negro pupils
previously.
Tulsa now has biracial student bodies
at eight elementary, four junior high
and four senior high schools. That
means 520 Negroes are attending classes
with 11,948 white children.
It was possible that late enrollments
might still bring some white students
back into the Burroughs school. For
the time being, said Morgan Powell,
public relations officer for the Tulsa
school system, Burroughs would have
a faculty of 15 Negro and 14 white
teachers. J. J. Morton, a white man,
remains the principal.
At the end of the 1961-62 school
year, Burroughs had three white stu
dents and three Negro teachers.
In Oklahoma City, five Negro chil
dren enrolled at Polk Elementary
School and two at Longfellow Ele
mentary School. Both are in the north
east part of the city and until now have
had only white pupils.
Elsewhere in the state the only
known extension of desegregated
classes is at Hobart, in southwestern
Oklahoma. There a three-step desegre
gation program begun in 1955 has been
completed by the closing of a Negro
school and the assignment of 66 Negroes
in grades one through four to white
schools (SSN, May, 1962).
The appearance of Negro children at
Oklahoma City’s Polk Elementary
School was no surprise because of re
cent migration of Negro families into
the area.
However, desegregation of Longfel
low had been thought to be about a
year away.
The five Negroes who enrolled at
Polk are from three different families,
whom the principal, Lucille Roehr,
described as “very professional.” At
least one of the families, she believes,
moved into the district from another
state. Another, with two pupils, came
from the Harmony school district,
where classes have been desegregated
several years.
One of the five children is in kinder
garten while the others are in the first
and second years. Miss Roehr explained
Polk follows the ungraded primary
plan, in which the students proceed
through the first three grades at their
own individual speed.
The Negro youngsters were among
245 children who enrolled at Polk the
first day. This is 45 short of last year’s
membership. Miss Roehr pointed out
some families on late vacations remain
out of town until after the Labor Day
holiday. She expected late enrollments
to boost the membership closer to last
year’s total of 290.
Real Estate Activity
However, the principal conceded
there is more than the normal amount
of uncertainty over the size of the en
rollment this year because of the con
siderable real estate activity in the
area. Polk is located at Northeast 36th
and Prospect, but its southern attend
ance area boundary is Northeast 30th
St. In recent months Negro families
have moved into homes on Northeast
33rd and 34th.
“There are a number of homes for
sale and vacant,” Miss Roehr said.
“We’re well aware that enough white
families have left to account for a room
full of children.”
She said she and her staff were able
to count 45 pupils (although not that
many families) who had moved from
the Polk district.
“But we’ve had a lot of new white
families that have moved in,” she said.
“There are just as many new white
families as Negro, if not more.”
Not only that, she said, but a number
of white children have come to Polk
by special transfer from other districts,
particularly Harmony and Edison. She
attributed this to an “outstanding”
special education program at Polk.
Because the movement of Negro fam
Oklahoma Highlights
Fall enrollment resulted in re
segregation of a Tulsa elementary
school and desegregation of several
more schools in Tulsa and Okla
homa City.
A Negro youth’s federal court suit
charging discrimination by the Okla
homa City school board was renewed
with the filing of an amended com
plaint listing additional plaintiffs
and 31 interrogatories addressed to
the superintendent.
ilies into the Polk area began some
months ago, the teachers there expected
and were ready for desegregation, Miss
Roehr said.
“Our teachers were given the oppor
tunity last spring to be re-assigned in
view of the people moving in,” she said.
“But none of them asked for it.”
The principal also checked with a
new staff member assigned to Polk to
determine to see if she might be op
posed to teaching Negro children. The
teacher said she had no particular feel
ing about it, and she ended up with
one of the Negro pupils, Miss Roehr
said.
The attitude of the faculty, said
another staff member, Mrs. Mary Mc-
Minimy, is that it will be an “inter
esting” experience to teach biracial
classes. Some of the teachers have al
ready been in schools which had Negro
students.
No Objection Heard
No objection or even a complaint was
heard from parents of white children
about the presence of Negro pupils,
Miss Roehr said. The Polk Parent-
Teacher Association president, Mrs.
Warren Slick, helped with the enroll
ment process.
“Really, people aren’t making an is
sue of this,” the principal insisted.
A similar report came from Longfel
low Elementary School, 1201 Northeast
38th St. Two Negro children, both in
the same family, enrolled, one for the
first year and the other for the second
year of the ungraded primary. The
children attended Garden Oaks, an all-
Negro school last year.
Longfellow enrolled between 365 and
370 pupils the first day and Ellen Reid,
principal, predicted the number will
rise a little higher with the return of
vacationing families. The total so far is
about the same as last year.
The Longfellow district has lost some
white families but gained others, Miss
Reid said. Only one other Negro fam
ily is in the district and it has no
school-age children, she said.
A board of education official had said
earlier in the summer the northward
movement of Negro families would re
sult eventually in desegregation of
Longfellow. He apparently didn’t ex
pect it this fall.
On the other hand, Miss Reid said
Virginia
(Continued From Page 3)
Pupil Placement Board to avoid admit
ting qualified Negroes to the predomi
nantly white school. Two Negroes at
tended the high school last year.
Community Action
Relocation Plan
Held in Readiness
For Negro Students
The Virginia Teachers Association
(Negro), meeting in Richmond Aug.
25, approved a plan to relocate and ed
ucate about 200 Prince Edward children
if the county’s public schools do not
open this fall.
The VTA Prince Edward Pupil Re
location Project was proposed by Dr.
J. Rupert Picott, the association’s ex
ecutive secretary.
Each of the 128 local VTA affiliates
will be asked to take responsibility for
one or more Negro children. The local
associations will find homes in which
the students can live. They would pay
she knew the Negro family with the
two school-age children was in the
Longfellow district. She said it moved
in during the summer.
There were no objections from the
staff and none of the teachers asked
for re-assignment. Miss Reid said she
also knows of no objection from the
white parents.
“There’s been knowledge of this
(possible desegregation) for some
time,” she pointed out. “We hoped it
would be normal, and from all evi
dence, it was.”
Eleven Biracial Schools
The enrollment of Negroes at Polk
and Longfellow brings to 11 the num
ber of desegregated schools in the Ok
lahoma City public school systems. The
others are Central, Northeast and Star-
Spencer High Schools and Harmony,
Edison, Lincoln, Walnut Grove, River
side and Orchard Park Elementary
Schools.
William H. French, research director
at the board of education, said that, in
addition, Page— a traditionally all-Ne
gro s c h o o 1—and Culbertson—a one
time white school that became re-
segregated as Negro—have had a few
white students enrolled from time to
time. Also, the child of a Negro house
keeper was enrolled at one time in
Wilson Elementary School, which is
some distance from the normal Negro
residential areas. The child’s parent
was living at the time as a domestic in
a white home.
The state department of eduaction
said it has received no reports of addi
tional or expanded desegregation.
Legal Action
Negro Boy in Oklahoma City Renews School Suit
A Negro youth’s fight to pin a “racial
discrimination” label on the Oklahoma
City Board of Education has been re
newed in federal court.
Rebuffed in efforts to have the board
adjudged guilty of unconstitutional use
of its pupil placement authority, at
torneys for Robert L. Dowell are seek
ing now to prove specific acts of dis
crimination.
An amended complaint in the case,
Dowell v. Board of Education, was filed
Aug. 22 in U.S. District Court for
Western Oklahoma.
On Aug. 28 young Dowell’s attorneys,
John E. Green and U. Simpson Tate,
also submitted 31 interrogatories ad
dressed to Dr. Jack Parker, superin
tendent of the Oklahoma City school
system.
Case Reassigned
The case was re-assigned July 10 to
District Judge Luther Bohanon after a
three-judge court, including Bohanon,
ruled it was without jurisdiction be
cause the issue involved was a factual,
rather than a constitutional one.
Judge Bohanon gave the plaintiff 30
days in which to declare his intentions
to proceed further. He did this, fol
lowed it with a motion for a new trial,
which was, in effect, over-ruled and
then filed an amended complaint.
It cites a number of acts which the
plaintiff contends prove the board of
education has been guilty of discrim
ination toward Negroes. The amended
complaint also lists three intervening
plaintiffs—Vivian C. Dowell, by her
father, A. L. Dowell; Edwina Houston
Helton, by her mother, Mrs. Gloria
Burst; and Gary Russell, by his father,
George Russell.
The threee intervenors, all minors,
are Negro students who allege they
have been discriminated against by the
board in the denial of special transfers
into predominantly white schools.
Vivian, a sister of the original plain
tiff, is an eighth-grader at Pleasant Hill,
a dependent school district adjoining
the Oklahoma City school district on
the east.
Her father, an optometrist, included
her in the request he made last year
to have Robert transferred into the
Oklahoma City school system. Robert’s
request was granted because Pleasant
Hill has no high school. Vivian was
turned down on grounds classes were
available through the eighth grade in
her home district.
Robert enrolled first in the all-Negro
Douglass High School, then won a j
special transfer to Northeast, a biracial
school. The fact that this was granted
only on condition he take a course not
available to him at Douglass was his
basis for charging the board with dis
crimination in the federal court suit.
The amended complaint states it
would be a matter of convenience for
the Dowell children to attend the same
school. Documentary proof exists in
the office of the county superintendent
of schools, the plaintiffs allege, of en
tire white families receiving transfers j
so they could all attend the same
school.
Edwina Helton is a fifth-grader at
Culbertson. She has sought a transfer i
to Harmony School every year since i
she was in the kindergarten on grounds
it is only three blocks from her home,
while Culbertson is 13 blocks away, the
complaint states. Although her home
is in the Culbertson attendance area,
the complaint alleges white children
who live in the same block and with
whom Edwina plays have been allowed
transfers to Harmony. It adds Edwina
suffers from asthma and that no bus
service is available to the Culbertson
school.
Gary, now a lOth-grader at Douglass,
attended the old Webster Junior High,
a biracial school.
In a general re-vamping of east-side
school boundary lines in 1960 Webster
became Moon, an all-Negro junior high,
and was placed in the Douglass attend
ance area. Previously, students leaving
Webster had the option of attending
either Douglass or Central.
White Transfers
The amended complaint states that
an older sister of Gary was allowed
to continue at Central and graduate
despite the change in the boundary
lines. Since Gary attended Webster
while the option was in effect, he be
lieves he should be allowed to go to
Central, too. The complaint also al
leges white children in the same block
—some of whom live east of him (that
is, closer to Douglass)—were allowed
transfers to Central out of what is now
the Moon Junior High area.
Other allegations of discriminatory
acts by the school board cited by the
plaintiffs: Use of separate buses to
transport Negro and white children to
Star-Spencer High School and faculty
segregation—that is, all-Negro schools
have only Negro teachers and white
or predominantly white schools have
only white teachers.
The interrogatories addressed to the
superintendent deal with the alleged
acts of discrimination and with the
school board policy on transfers, in
which a child whose race is in the
minority in a school is allowed to
switch to a school in which his race
is in the majority.
Other questions deal with per capita
expenditures for predominantly Negro
schools and those predominantly white.
Answers Expected
Board of education answers to the
amended complaint and to the inter
rogatories were expected in September.
The original plaintiff’s motion for a
new trial of the case heard by the
three-judge court was filed Aug. 8. It
asserted the court erred in making any
findings of fact or conclusions of law
in a case in which it found itself “with
out jurisdiction.” The plaintiff argued
that, having concluded there were fac
tual bars to the existence of its juris
diction, the statutory court was with
out power to consider any other issues
before it.
Judge Bohanon said the motion was,
in effect, over-ruled by his granting
the plaintiff 15 days to amend his com
plaint and proceed with the case in his
court. He added the case addresses
itself now to a question whether there
is or was discrimination to the extent
that an injunction should be applied.
# # #
room and board, and also tuition ^
local schools.
Dr. Picott said the Prince Edward
County Christian Association, anothej
Negro oragnization, has made a survej
to find students who can be selected
for the plan.
“We shall try to take children who
are old enough to leave home and who
could be depended upon to spend sij
months to a year away from their birth
environment,” Dr. Picott explained
Parents will be asked to help finance
the project.
★ ★ ★
The American Federation of Teach,
ers (AFL-CIO) voted Aug. 23 to in.
struct its leadership to consider the
feasibility of sending an “AFT Peace
Corps” into Prince Edward to provide
“emergency education” for Negro chil.
dren.
The proposal was made to the union
membership in convention at Detroit
by Henry B. Waskow of Baltimore. It
was part of a resolution condemning the
Prince Edward board of supervisors foj
“their failure to provide public schools
for the children since 1959.”
★ ★ ★
The Virginia AFL-CIO, in conven
tion at Norfolk, called for adoption of
a statewide compulsory school attend,
ance law and expressed opposition to
the closing of public schools for anj
reason.
Virginia’s state attendance law was
repealed by the General Assembly in
1956. In 1959, a compulsory attendanco
law was re-enacted, but the localities
were given local option to come under
it or not.
★ ★ ★
The NAACP charged that the Uniteo
States Army was practicing and con
doning racial segregation in the educa
tion of children of military personnel
stationed at Ft. Lee.
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a telegram to Secretary of the Arm; chan
Cyrus R. Vance on Aug. 16 which said repos
in part: Thes
“We direct your attention to ths Negr
memorandum dated July 23 of the com- une
mander Ft. Lee . . . This advises de- S roe!
pendents of personnel residing at FI high
Lee and the Ft. Lee apartments tha* ass ig
their children will attend schools ol tal Y
Prince George County except ‘Negrt sc hos
children . . . will attend Petersburg Me
public schools.’ accej
“This use of military authority to di- j' e( W l
rect children to attend segregates hlg h
schools violates the constitutional right and
of the children and their parents ant
is contrary to executive order. We urgi
you to immediately order Ft. Lee com
mander to rescind this directive.”
Vance’s Reply
In a telegram replying to Mitchell
Secretary Vance said:
“The local school board of Prin«
George County has responsibility ft
providing educational facilities for chil
dren residing at Ft. Lee. The count!
indicates the specific schools whid
children from the post will attend.
‘This is not a matter over which p
army has any control. The command®
general of Ft. Lee, in his information*
memorandum, was indicating the plac
and time of registration of all post chil
dren and the assignment to schools *
indicated by the local school authori
ties. This was not an order to atten
these specific schools.
“The army does not sanction segre
gation in any situations under its cot
trol. The choice here is to allow i-
children to attend schools designate
by the school board or not attett
school at all.”
W. Lester Banks, executive secretal
of the Virginia NAACP, termed Vance
explanation “wholly unsatisfactory.”
Cites Overcrowding
The Prince George County schd
superintendent, in a statement Aug. *
said Negro children from Ft. Lee wd 1
being assigned to Petersburg ctf
schools because the Prince Georf
schools are overcrowded.
Meanwhile, Mitchell sent telegram
to Attorney General Robert F Kd
nedy and to Secretary Anthony J. Ce^
brezze of the Department of Heal"
Education and Welfare, urging them*
take steps to permit the Ft. Lee ch"
dren to attend desegregated schools-
In his response, Secretary Celebre^
said his department intends to (
through with an announced plan to st c
government payments to certain rad 3
ly segregated schools in SeptemH
1963. The plan, originally annound
by former HEW Secretary Ribicd
would stop federal impacted area fu® 1 '
to schools in areas where the child 1 ”'
of military personnel are forced to 3
tend segregated schools. # #
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