Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 18—OCTOBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
NORTH CAROLINA
Assignment of Negro Brings Student Exodus
WINSTON-SALEM
tudents and teachers have left
North Elementary School in
Winston-Salem because a six-
year-old Negro girl was assigned
to the school Thursday, Sept. 13.
With the opening of school Mon
day, Oct. 1, 60 white students had
requested and received transfers
from North in compliance with
North Carolina’s Pupil Placement
Act. The act calls for automatic
reassignment of a child at the re
quest of a parent who opposes
mixed schools.
The loss of 60 pupils also meant the
loss of two teachers. Both teachers have
been reassigned to Lowrance School,
where all the reassigned students at
tend school.
The school board voted to let Paula
Deneise Morris, daughter of Mrs. Jac
queline Morris, attend North as a first-
grade pupil. The vote was 6-0, including
the approval of board member William
Knott, who lives in the vicinity of
North.
At the time of the original enrollment
240 white children attended North
School. At the end of September 180
white children were enrolled.
Winston-Salem now has two desegre
gated schools. Easton Elementary
School has 19 Negroes among 333 stu
dents. One school, Reynolds High, the
first to desegregate five years ago, is
now resegregated with no Negro stu
dents.
Neighborhood in Transition
City school officials would not make
a statement on whether North would
become an all-Negro school. It is lo
cated in a neighborhood in transition.
The Kimberley Park Negro School is
overcrowded and has four portable
classrooms.
Knott, the school board member, is
among the persons who have had their
children transferred from the school.
In the meantime, there has been no
violence or outward sign of trouble at
North since it was desegregated.
A special meeting of officials was held
Thursday, Sept. 28 to discuss North Ele
mentary School. Marvin Ward, school
superintendent; two assistant school su
perintendents; the principals of North
and Lowrance schools; and two elemen
tary education coordinators were among
the persons attending.
Ned Smith, associate superintendent
of schools, told newspaper reporters
that transfers have not been sufficient
to warrant the changing of the status
of the school. North is using only nine
of its 19 classrooms, seven for grades 1-
6 and two as rooms for classes for re
tarded children.
★ ★ ★
High Point Board Gets
Negro Transfer Request
The High Point city school board will
consider the applications of 27 Negro
children for transfer from predominant
ly Negro schools to predominantly
white schools on Oct. 24. These appli
cations resulted from hearings on re
quests for reassignment by parents of
58 Negro children.
The latest round in these requests
came Wednesday, Sept. 26, when Sam
uel Chess, a local Negro attorney, rep
resented parents of 15 children. He gave
the following reasons for the desired
transfers:
• The U.S. Supreme Court decision
of 1954 declared segregated schools un
constitutional.
• Each child involved lives closer to
a predominantly white school than to
the Negro school now attended.
• Psychologically, segregated schools
tend to thwart the ambitions and
drives of the Negro child. Segregation
has “harmful” and “deleterious” effects
on the segregated student, Chess said.
During the hearing, he withdrew the
transfer request for one child because
the white school did not have a special
education class similar to the one he at
tended at Boundary, a Negro school.
The school board promised that it
would be very considerate in dealing
with the applications for transfer.
High Point opened the school year
with 17 Negroes attending white
schools.
★ ★ ★
Asheville Approves
Two Negro Requests
Asheville approved the assignment of
two previously rejected Negro children
to predominantly white schools Tues
day, Sept. 4, opening day of school. The
city has an enrollment of 28 Negroes
N. C. Highlights
An exodus of 25 per cent of the
white student body took place within
two weeks when the Winston-Salem
city school board desegregated pre
viously all-white North Elementary
School by admitting one Negro to
the first grade. Two teachers have
been transferred to Lowrance
School, where most of the students
have been reassigned.
New desegregation and continued
desegregation in North Carolina
schools were peaceful. The state first
started desegregation five years ago
in its three largest cities—Charlotte,
Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
Legal action is threatened in two
cities, with both designed to chal
lenge the state’s Pupil Assignment
Law. One suit, if filed, would be the
first against a North Carolina school
system (Chapel Hill) with a planned
desegregation program. The other
action is threatened against Shelby,
where there has been no desegrega
tion.
Gov. Terry Sanford was picketed
in Statesville and Durham by Ne
groes demanding the end of segre
gation in education. He was on a
speaking tour of schools, white and
Negro, throughout the state.
at Newton School, desegregated for the
first time last year with five Negroes,
and 40 at Claxton School, desegregated
for the first time this year.
The school board is operating on a
three-grades-a-year desegregation plan.
In assigning the two added Negroes,
one each to Newton and Claxton, Mrs.
Don R. Printz, board chairman, told the
parents that assignments were for only
one year at a time. There is no assur
ance, she said, that the children will
stay in the same school six years.
★ ★ ★
42 Durham Negroes
Attend With Whites
Durham opened its city schools Wed
nesday, Sept. 5, with 42 Negro pupils
enrolled in predominantly white
schools, compared with 15 a year ago.
The figures by schools are:
High schools—12 in Durham High.
Junior high schools—five at Brogden,
four at Carr and one at Holland Holton.
Elementary schools—five at Fuller,
five at Holloway Street, two at North
Durham, two at George Watts, two at
Southside, two at Morehead, one at E.
K. Powe and one at Elgemont.
Durham schools were desegregated
by court order in October, 1958.
★ ★ ★
Fayetteville Committee
Studies Negro’s Letters
A five-member committee was se
lected by the Fayetteville school board
to consider a request by letter for the
In the Colleges
Several private colleges began the
1962-63 school year with an open en
rollment policy. Wake Forest College
in Winston-Salem, Duke University in
Durham and Meredith College in Ra
leigh admitted undergraduate Negro
students for degree work.
Wake Forest, which operated last
year with a limited opening for slimmer
school and graduate students, enrolled
two full-time Negro undergraduates.
One is Edward Reynolds, 20, an Afri
can sophomore from Ghana who was
forced to attend all-Negro Shaw Uni
versity in Raleigh last year although
Wake Forest students financed his trip
to study in the United States. The Wake
Forest trustees last year refused to open
the school to undergraduates. Reynolds
lives on campus.
The second student is a Winston-
Salem girl, Patricia Smith, who attends
as a day student.
Wake Forest is a Baptist college. Last
summer, a large number of Negroes,
graduates and undergraduate, studied
on campus. Reynolds and a woman un
dergraduate (not Miss Smith) lived on
campus.
Duke, which had been open to grad-
transfer of a Negro boy, James W. Wat
son, from the Negro Edward Evans
School to the all-white Central Per
son School.
The letter was written by the boy’s
father, James W. Watson, to C. Reid
Ross, school superintendent. Ross
turned it over to Neil Currie Jr. of the
board of education. Currie appointed
the special committee.
Fayetteville opened school with six
Negro children assigned to white
schools.
★ ★ ★
Counties Close Indian
School To Save Money
The 85 pupils of the previously all-
Indian High Plains School in Person
County have been put in two white
schools, Allensville and Bethel Hill.
Allensville with grades 1-8 has en
rolled 40 Indians. Bethel Hill with
grades 1-12 has 45 Indians.
This action closed historic High
Plains School, operated since 1924 joint
ly by Person County in North Carolina
and Halifax County in Virginia.
“We made considerable preparation
for the move, and it seems to have
worked out very satisfactorily,” R. B.
Griffin, superintendent of Person Coun
ty schools, said.
The move was designed to save
money.
★ ★ ★
Wilmington opened with two deseg
regated schools for the first time in his
tory on Wednesday, Sept. 5. One Negro
child attends the previously all-white
junior high school, and two Negro
freshmen attend previously all white
Wilmington Junior College.
There have been no incidents.
★ ★ ★
Parochial Schools Open
On Desegregated Basis
Roman Catholic schools opened peace
fully on a desegregated basis in several
North Carolina cities. Exact Negro en
rollment could not be determined as
yet.
The biggest enrollment appeared to
have occurred in New Bern, with at
least 40 Negroes attending an elemen
tary school for the first time. Several
white parents have withdrawn their
children. Public schools in New Bern
are not desegregated. Craven County
schools in Havelock and Cherry Point,
however, are desegregated.
In Southern Pines, 12 Negroes were
among 110 students enrolled at the Our
Lady of Victory School. This was the
second year of desegregation at this
school, started last year because of a
shortage of teachers in the Negro pub
lic school.
The new Cardinal Gibbons High
School in Nazareth of Raleigh opened
with 148 students, including 20 Negroes.
Raleigh Catholic schools have been de
segregated since 1954 by decree of
Bishop Vincent Waters.
The Bishop McGuinnes High School
of Winston-Salem was desegregated
without fanfare in its second year of
existence. Exact figures have not been
announced.
uate students, opened to undergraduate
students this fall. The number enrolling
has not been announced. Duke is a
Methodist-affiliated college.
Meredith, a Baptist college for wom
en, was opened by a vote of trustees
Tuesday, Sept. 25. The current semester
already had started, and no applicants
will be admitted to the college until the
second semester, which begins Jan. 29,
1963.
C. B. Deane, board chairman, said
there were no active applications from
Negro students at this time.
Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer has
enrolled an African, William G. Kedzai,
32, an eighth grade teacher from Um-
tali, Southern Rhodesia. He is one of
20 Africans selected by the Africa Edu
cation Committee of the Methodist
Board of Missions and Education to
study in the United States.
★ ★ ★
Winston-Salem Teachers College, a
state-supported school, desegregated its
faculty this fall with the employment of
a full-tune white English teacher and a
full-time Chinese mathematics profes
sor.
Legal Action
Negroes Threaten
To File Lawsuit
Against Chapel Hill
Negroes have threatened to sue a
partially desegregated school system for
the first time in North Carolina as a
challenge to the state’s 1955 Pupil As
signment Law. On Sept. 5 the Chapel
Hill school board denied transfer ap
peals of parents of seven Negro chil
dren and parents of seven white chil
dren for transfers.
Five Negro children, represented by
Floyd McKissick, an attorney from
Durham, sought reassignment to pre
dominantly white schools. So did the
other two. The white children sought
transfers from predominantly white
schools on a geographical basis.
All children rejected were appealing
previous rejections.
Spokesman for the parents is Mrs.
Vivian Foushee, chairman of a special
committee seeking action and chairman
of the Fellowship for School Integra
tion. The Negroes are planning to file
legal action in the Middle District U.S.
Court in Greensboro.
McKissick is requesting that the
Chapel Hill school board “come forth
with a plan in compliance with the law
of the land, as decided in the Brown vs.
School Board case; that is, to operate
all of the schools under its jurisdiction
on a non-racially discriminatory basis.”
Called A ‘Gerrymander’
He called the geographical assignment
program a “gerrymander” of Negroes
out of white school districts through ar
tificial boundaries.
McKissick presented a brief for each
child he represented. He also reported
that the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People will
support the cases.
Several other challenges to the state’s
Pupil Assignment Law are already in
federal courts. McKissick is involved
in one, McKissick v. Durham. City
Board of Education, filed in 1958, seek
ing to have the assignment law declared
unconstitutional. This case is now
pending before the Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals.
★ ★ ★
Shelby Board Refuses
To Transfer Negro Boy
The Shelby city school board may be
sued in a challenge to the North Caro
lina Pupil Assignment Law because it
turned down two requests by Mr. and
Mrs. Ray Cabiness, Negroes, to have
their son, Rayfield, transferred from the
all-Negro Cleveland County High
School to the all-white Shelby High
School.
Young Cabiness was turned down in
August, and again Sept. 3 on an appeal.
M. E. Brown, city school superintend
ent, said:
“The Cabiness boy was denied admis-
(See NORTH CAROLINA, Page 20)
In the past, the school has used sev
eral part-time white faculty members.
★ ★ ★
A white seminary graduate from
Winston-Salem who worked last sum
mer as an assistant pastor with Dr.
Martin Luther King in Atlanta, Ga.,
accepted call as a minister at North
Carolina College in Durham, a state-
supported Negro college.
The minister is the Rev. Henry G.
Elkins Jr., a graduate of the Southeast
ern Theological Seminary at Wake For
est with a B.D. degree and also the
holder of an A.B. degree from Yale
University.
At North Carolina College he is di
rector of a new program, the United
Campus Christian Ministry. This pro
gram is financed by seven religious de
nominations. A similar program has
been started at the Agricultural and
Technical College in Greensboro, also
a state-supported Negro college, with
a Negro minister in charge.
During the summer Elkins was an
assistant to Dr. King and his father, the
Rev. Mr. King Sr., co-pastors of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Private Colleges Open to Negroes
South Carolina £
(Continued From Page 17)
brought as a class action. The lawyq
admitted he had been unable to ftmj
any.
The Clemson and Clarendon cases
were the last two of a trilogy of S. C.
cases heard on three consecutive day;
by the Fourth Circuit Court. The first
concerned an attempt to desegregate at
Orangeburg hospital.
Robert Cooper, veteran member o:
Clemson’s Board of Trustees, was
quoted in the Wall Street Journal
when the Gantt case came up before
the circuit court, as saying that Clem,
son would abide by any final adjudi-
cation of the matter. He could not i*
reached, as the month ended, to verifj
or expand this quote.
What They Say
NAACP Counsel Says
State To Become
Next Legal Front
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South Carolina, one of two state
maintaining completely segregates
schools, will be one of the next major
fronts in the desegregation battle. So
warned Jack Greenberg, director-coun
sel of the NAACP Legal Defense an(
Educational Fund, in a speech befon
an NAACP rally Sept. 24 at Manning
S. C.
Greenberg attacked what he caller!
“deceitful and dishonest laws whici
do not mention racial segregation bn
nevertheless have segregation as the!
.• it
aim.
He singled out pupil assignment laws
such as South Carolina’s, and legs
tactics designed to stall desegregation.
The NAACP lawyer said that “thing
in South Carolina were not bad con
sidering things in Mississippi, when
they apparently never heard of th
Emancipation Proclamation.”
Greenberg described battles on otha
fronts, with particular emphasis on de
laying tactics he claimed were em
ployed by defendents and the high legal
fees that have resulted.
Citing costs to the fund-raising rally
Greenberg said the NAACP had al
ready spent $27,000 in the 4-month ef
fort to crack the racial barriers at the
University of Mississippi; $10,000 in to
New Orleans school case; $20,000 in i
Durham, N. C., case; $12,000 at Pensa
cola, Fla.; and $10,000 in Memphis
Tenn.
He added that segregationists thin!
of victory in terms of delay.
J. Arthur Brown of Charleston, pres
ident of the NAACP in South Carolina
told the gathering that the organiza
tion would soon be “flooding the state
with additional lawsuits” which woult
stop Senators Olin D. Johnston and J
Strom Thurmond from going aroun 1
bragging that South Carolina “is to
most backward state in America.”
Political Activity
GOP Candidate
Expects To Get
Few Negro Votes
South Carolina’s Republican sen 3 '
torial candidate, William D. Workfflf
Jr., has written off the Negro vote -
the Nov. 6 general election. In a Ser
11 television speech, the Column"
newsman and author declared that to
Negro vote “frankly is an area in wbp
I must candidly admit that the recdj
gives little hope for success for °
Workman.
“Evidence is at hand that much, &
all, but much of the Negro vote &
controlled vote.”
Community Action
College Students
End Protest March
, rtf
A group of University of South ^
olina students gave up their m ° n
long picket march in front of Co*
bia stores with integrated lunch co^
ters on September 21.
Lake High, spokesman for th e ^
dent group, said the students f e “
they had accomplished their p
of informing the public “about v r
happening here in Columbia, an“„
actly which stores were involve ■
J
Several chain stores opened
lunch counters to Negro custom 6 - r
August. Initially there was no ^ f
licity, no fanfare. ^
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