Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—SEPTEMBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
New Orleans Public, Catholic Schools Ad
II
it 258 Negroes
(Continued From Page 1)
segregation plan approved by the U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (See
Legal Action).
In all, 127 Negroes had been sched
uled for admission to 21 public schools
which previously housed only whites.
But in early reporting some Negroes
had registered in the spring did not
show up on the school enrollment
totals.
Some crowds gathered at both the
public and Catholic schools of New Or
leans. There was no recurrence of the
violence which marked the beginning
of desegregation in the public schools
in November of 1960.
But police had to appeal publicly for
a halt to bomb scares. Fake calls that
bombs had been planted in schools sent
police and fire teams rushing to 11
schools in the first three days of the
1962-63 desegregation. The schools were
evacuated and searched before children
were permitted to resume studies.
Downtown Boycott
The boycott in the public schools was
severe in the downtown area of New
Orleans in the vicinity of Frantz and
McDonough No. 19 schools, the first two
public schools desegregated two years
ago. The school administration enroll
ment figures indicated serious dropoffs
at Semmes, Bradley, Shaw and Palmer
schools.
At Frantz School, however, the en
rollment was up to 147 as compared
with 60 last year.
McDonough No. 19 and two other
schools were converted to Negro use
under the transitional segregation plan
approved by the Fifth Circuit.
Only a handful of Negroes were at
tending classes above the first-grade
level in public schools. Twelve who
were in first and second grades last
year were eligible for admission to the
second and third grades this year but
the school figures indicated several of
them had missed the first day of classes.
Activity at Westwego
Though there was more noise than
trouble, law enforcement officers
watched one Jefferson Parish school
carefully. A Negro was jeered as she
took her child into Our Lady of Prompt
Succor school in Westwego and a rock
was thrown from the crowd. Several
persons beat on the woman’s car after
she left the school on the second day of
classes with her child.
Some 200 persons gathered on the
third day after speakers at a nighttime
rally urged unity of protests to the de
segregation.
Msgr. Raymond A. Wegmann, pastor
of Our Lady of Prompt Succor and an
assistant chancellor of the New Orleans
archdiocese, went to the assistance of
one of the demonstrators who collapsed
in the heat of the third day of the
demonstrating.
Pickets carried signs and one of the
placards said:
“The White Catholics Paid for This
School. We Should Say Who Goes
There, Not Bishop Cody.”
The reference was to Archbishop
John Patrick Cody, apostolic adminis
trator who took over the reins of the
archdiocese be
cause of Arch
bishop Rummel’s
failing health. The
changeover in au
thority came after
Archbishop Rum-
mel ordered the
desegregation.
Archbishop
Cody appeared in
a television ad
dress to students
and parents on
the second morning of desegregation.
He said the U.S. Constitution gives all
people the right to choose the type of
education they want to receive, a right
which he said is “inherent in our citiz
enry as a member of the United States.”
Praises Public
Police Supt. Joseph I. Giarrusso,
commending the peaceful lifting of ra
cial barriers in Catholic schools, said
New Orleanians “squarely faced an ex
panded school desegregation . . . with
calmness, dignity, and a complete re
gard for law enforcement.”
Since 1895, the Catholic schools have
been segregated. In that year, Arch
bishop Francis Janssens established a
school for Negroes. A small number of
Negroes had attended schools with
whites from the Civil War until that
time but most Negroes were not pro
vided for at all.
Last year 9,000 Negroes and 48,000
whites attended Catholic schools of New
Orleans. This compared with 92,000 in
the public schools of the city.
There were withdrawals from Catho
lic schools during the first few days of
Louisiana Highlights
A total of 20 public and 26 Cath
olic schools of New Orleans were
desegregated without major incident
in early September. Some Catholic
school desegregation was reported
in other areas around New Orleans.
At Buras, the first Catholic school
desegregated in Louisiana since
1895 lost its Negro students after
strong white protests.
The public school desegregation
of New Orleans was carried out
under the Orleans Parish school
board’s own traditional program, the
first drafted by the board. It was
approved by the U.S. Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals.
A suit to desegregate Tulane Uni
versity was heard in the U.S. Dis
trict Court but no decision was
reached.
The number of grants-in-aid may
reach 5,000 in Louisiana during the
present school year, according to
State Sen. E. W. Gravolet Jr., chair
man of the Louisiana Financial As
sistance Commission.
the term but the officials of the Catholic
school system said the number with
drawing or boycotting was insignificant.
Those withdrawing children included
Sidney Guillot, marshal of Westwego,
and Mayor Roy C. Keller also of West
wego. Their children had attended Our
Lady of Prompt Succor school where
the jeering and rock throwing incidents
occurred.
Enrollment of 5 Negroes
Stirs Plaquemines Parish
A week before the New Orleans
Catholic schools were desegregated, five
Negroes entered Our Lady of Good
Harbor school at Buras, 65 miles below
New Orleans. The desegregation oc
curred in the domain of segregation
leader Leander H. Perez, president of
the Plaquemines Parish council.
Only 38 whites showed up the first
day after Perez and Plaquemine Parish
School Supt. Sam A. Moncla at a public
rally urged a parent swingover to public
schools.
Perez, political boss of the parish for
more than 30 years, has been excom
municated from the Catholic Church
because of his opposition to the orders
of segregation.
The day after desegregation began,
the Negroes who had entered failed to
show up for classes and the number of
whites dropped off to 26. The following
day, the school was closed temporarily
because of threats reported by the Rev.
Christopher Schneider, pastor of Good
Harbor parish.
The FBI at New Orleans announced
it was making an investigation at the
request of Attorney General Robert
Kennedy but a spokesman for the Jus
tice Department indicated the depart
ment may lack jurisdiction.
Whites Stay Away
The school reopened after Labor Day
weekend but only 16 to 18 whites show
ed up for classes during the next sev
eral days.
Perez, in an address in front of the
school to the organized demonstrators
who formed a picket line near the en
trance, declared the Catholic hierarchy
had singled out his parish to create an
incident “because you know I have
stood up unswervingly against the
Communist conspiracy of race-mixing.”
There were withdrawals reported
from the school for mulattos also oper
ated by our Lady of Good Harbor
parish. The withdrawals came after two
Negro children—apparently those who
had entered the white school—changed
over to the school for mulattos.
In some South Louisiana areas, sep
arate schools are operated for whites,
Negroes and mulattos.
Mrs. B. J. Gaillot, segregationist ex
communicated along with Perez for op
posing the church on its desegregation
decision, was active during the first day
of desegregation of the Catholic schools
in New Orleans. She talked to some 250
persons in front of Archbishop Cody’s
residence but was unsuccessful in at
tempts to talk to him.
At Baton Rouge, where the East Ba
ton Rouge Parish school board has been
under an “all deliberate speed” order to
desegregate, Negro parents sought un
successfully to register children in
presently all white schools. (See photo.)
St. Helena Parish schools, also under
an “all deliberate speed” order, opened
their schools in mid-August on a con
tinued segregated basis.
Legal Action
Court Approves
Orleans Board’s
Transitional Plan
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals on Aug. 28 modified its own Aug.
6 decision and permitted the Orleans
Parish school board to limit desegre
gation during 1962-63 under a transi
tional plan of the board’s own author
ship.
The effect was to trim down the num
ber of Negroes scheduled to enter de
segregated schools from 231 to 127.
Three previously all-white schools—
including two which operated as de
segregated schools last year—will be
converted to Negro use under the pro
gram.
In a rapidly moving sequence of
events in court and out, the Orleans
Parish school board adopted for the
first time its own plan for desegregating
the 95,000-pupil New Orleans public
school system. The court hailed the
action.
Long-Range Plan
The Fifth Circuit took no action im
mediately on the school board’s request
that it approve a long-range plan for
desegregation, one which calls for de
segregating a year at a time after dual
school districts are eliminated for grades
one and two in September of 1963.
Members of the court in their Aug. 6
decision had said that the board should
eliminate dual districts for grades one
through five by September of 1964 and
then begin on a grade-a-year basis.
The swiftly moving chronicle of
events leading up to a final agreement
on the plans for September opening in
cluded these decisions and actions:
Ruled on Appeal
• The Fifth Circuit Aug. 6 ruled on
plaintiffs’ appeal from a decision of U.S.
District Judge Frank B. Ellis. Judge
Ellis had ordered total first-grade de
segregation for September; elimination
of dual school systems for grades one
and two in September of 1963; and a
Sister Bertha and Pupils
Looking over materials on first day at Our Lady of Good Harbor School.
The Rev. Christopher Schneider watches outside Our Lady of Good Harbor as 2 i jm
white children enter on Aug. 30. Five Negroes who had attended the dai loc:
before did not appear. ark
grade-a-year abolishment of dual dis
tricts thereafter.
Judge Ellis’ ruling was a modification
of an earlier order of his predecessor,
Judge J. Skelly Wright, who had di
rected that the first six grades be de
segregated in September because the
school board had been moving too
slowly during the first two years of de
segregation under a pupil placement
procedure.
The Fifth Circuit Judges John Minor
Wisdom, Richard T. Rives and John R.
Brown—went beyond Judge Ellis’ ruling
and ordered that the school board ad
mit students to the first grade in Sep
tember without regard to race; that it
eliminate the dual school districts for
the first and second grades in Septem
ber of 1963; and that the dual districts
for the first five grades be eliminated
in September of 1964.
Further, the Fifth Circuit ordered
that the school board use the pupil
placement procedure wisely and fairly
to permit second and third grades to
transfer from one school to another
during the 1962-63 school year.
Action Challenged
• The school board said the Fifth
Circuit was off-base; that the district
court was the one to decide on what
plan was to be followed on desegrega
tion.
Theodore H. Shepard, president of the
board, said the appeals court “tried to
do something which no other appeals
court has tried to do to a school board.
A plan for a school system is really
something for a district judge to de
cide. He best knows the situation.”
“The court of appeals,” he added,
“should realize that in matters like this
the school board is facing impossible
odds.
“While this decision may provide for
the welfare of 200 to 300 children, it
may be endangering the preservation
of public education for 100,000 children.
The situation is that close.”
Seeks To Hold Line
•The school board set out to hold the
line at least in accordance with Judge
Ellis’ ruling. On Aug. 13, the board met
and voted to formulate its own plan for
desegregation.
Not since the desegregation suit was
first filed in 1952 had the school board
offered its own plan. In the last few
years, it has been hampered from doing
so by the state.
The board was told at the Aug. 13
meeting that 231 of the 233 Negroes who
had applied to white schools after Judge
Ellis’ decision of last Spring apparently
were eligible for admission to the
schools.
Members of the board then took note
that they were without a plan while
other Southern cities each had one, and
they set about to draft one.
Plan Adopted
• On Aug. 20, the school board met
again and adopted a plan for admitting
127 Negroes to 21 public schools.
Twelve of these were the Negroes who
attended six formerly all-white schools
last year.
The board took no action at the
meeting with regard to 116 other Ne
groes who had applied to attend Mc-
Donogh No. 19, William O. Rogers and
Judah P. Benjamin schools. The three
schools are those which the board
wanted to convert to Negro use to re
lieve overcrowding in Negro schools.
The board adopted at the Aug. 20 ses-
Au<
sion a plan for desegregation whit
provides in substance:
1. Segregated school districts, for a .
grades and all schools, would be n*, r10
tained during the 1962-63 school yea
with the exception of McDonogh 1
Rogers and Benjamin. e ® e
2. The three schools named as except 03
tions would be reclassified as Neg: I®®'
schools, but only after the court ha t
approved the plan. su £
effe
Choice Provided the
3. If this approval were granted, chi 1
dren, without regard to race, who la 19bo
year attended McDonogh 19, Roger 100
and Benjamin could choose to atter mg
either the white or Negro schools i ln ,
■ and
their attendance district, without beii°
tested under the pupil placement la po1
provisions. 1 ■ ^ “
4. Compulsory segregation (throu;^ r
use of the dual school districts) woii.
be abolished for the first and seccr 1
grades in the entire school system i
September, 1963.
5. After 1963, one grade a year ther llon
after would be totally desegregate gua;
The third would be desegregated : coul
1964, the fourth in 1965, etc. appi
6. A plan of school redistricting bas° ut
upon location of school buildings ai nas
the latest scholastic census without r t0UI
ference to race will be established f
1963) for the administration of the ft
and second grades and for other grad 3
as hereafter desegregated. ; j 1
7. Applications for transfer, wk°,
white and Negro districts are abolishe le S
will be considered and granted “wh “1
good cause therefor is shown and whipart
transfer is practicable, consistent wfJud;
good school administration. f R°g
“3
Legislators Present ,
Two members of a special committcons
of the Legislature appointed to keep 1 a pp:
eye on the Orleans school sat in on t be
meeting at which the plan was % a ddi
proved. Both Sen. Charles E. Deit schc
mann and Rep. Edward F. LeBretom ‘V
of New Orleans commented favorat who
on the board’s action, though no for® Rogi
statement came from the legislate the
group. leithi
An hour prior to the session Emile 1 scho
Wagner Jr., whose term has until P chile
cember of 1964 to run, resigned ft* for 1
the school boa uni-
A vocal a! tTh
ardent segrd groe
tionist, Wag*
has been at °* part
with other ntf C0UI
bers of the bo< p^
since 1960 as ; 0 f ^
board attempted
adjust to desef t 0 n
gation while P trati
serving p utl R og ,
WAGNER
education. as vi
“I have ne to ce
been a party to the integration o' tion;
single classroom,” said Wagner. “I
not intend to start now.”
His letter of resignation was addre* ^
ed to Gov. Jimmie H. Davis. In # in ii
also mentioned that he had withdr^'three
his son from Jesuit High School, ^ the
Orleans Catholic school, because later
being desegregated. grad
iTlOVi
Approval Obtained schoi
• Armed with its plan, the Orkj p r
school board went to Judge Ellis an" w 0U ]
Negro plaintiffs, and on Aug. 26 " S cho<
okayed the program for 1962-63. J u ‘ and
Ellis said he also was willing t° scho<
along with the steps beyond 1962-63 • move
the Negro attorneys asked for ’’’desei
(See LOUISIANA, Page 7)