Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—OCTOBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
VIRGINIA
U.S. Government Files Suit Attacking
Segregation in Prince George County
RICHMOND
he Justice Department of the
United States filed suit Sept.
17 seeking an end to racial segre
gation in Prince George County
schools attended by children of
federal personnel. (United States
of America v. School Board of
Prince George County.)
Prince George County, which re
ceives federal impacted area school
funds, has the responsibility for pro
viding education for children of per
sonnel stationed at, or working at, the
Ft. Lee military base.
White children, whose parents live
on or off the base are educated in the
county schools. Negro children whose
parents live off the base also attend
county schools, but Negro children who
live on the base are sent to schools in
the nearby city of Petersburg. All the
schools involved are segregated.
Filing of the suit marks the first time
the federal government has initiated
a school desegregation case.
Intervention Attempted
In June, 1961, the Justice Department
attempted to intervene in the Prince
Edward County desegregation case on
the side of the Negro plaintiffs, but the
move was rejected by District Judge
Oren R. Lewis. Judge Lewis said then
that “the granting of intervention will
unduly delay and prejudice the adjudi
cation of the rights” of the plaintiffs
and of the county school board.
The Prince George suit was filed in
the U. S. Eastern District Court at
Richmond, the same court handling
the Prince Edward case. However,
Judge Lewis is now assigned to the
Northern Virginia division at Alex
andria, and newly-appointed District
Judge John D. Butzner Jr. occupies the
bench at Richmond and will hear the
new case.
In a statement released by the Justice
Department Sept. 17, Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy said:
“I think it should be made clear that
this suit does not threaten an end to
financial assistance to the Prince
George County schools.
“The purpose, rather, of the suit is
to seek an end to unconstitutional
school segregation in an area where
such segregation directly affects the
armed forces.
“It makes no sense that we should
ask military personnel to make sacri
fices and serve away from home and at
the same time see their children treated
as inferiors by local requirements that
they attend segregated schools.
“It is even more incongruous con
sidering that these school systems are
supported by public funds, contributed
in part by the fathers of these children.”
In its petition, the Justice Depart
ment declared that unless segregation
in Prince George is prohibited, the gov
ernment will suffer “impairment of the
service and morale of its military and
civilian personnel.”
Units at Ft. Lee
Ft. Lee is the site of the U. S. Army
Quartermaster School, the Logistical
Management Center and 11 other army
units. The post has 5,678 military per
sonnel and 2,088 civilian employes.
Last year 1,818 children of the fed
eral personnel attended Prince George
schools. This year 117 Negro children
from the base are attending Petersburg
city schools. County officials say these
Negro children are sent to Petersburg
because of lack of room in county
schools. The county reimburses the city
for the cost of educating these students.
The Prince George case is of po
tentially great significance because of
its possible bearing on similar federal
impacted areas throughout the South.
In the 17 Southern and border states
there are 242 impacted school districts
which accommodate children connected
with 369 military bases or other federal
installations.
Last year 751,058 federal personnel
children attended schools in these
areas. All but 69,864 were children
whose families lived in the local com
munities rather than on the bases.
Prince George County has received
about $2.5 million in federal school aid.
This has included about $1.1 million for
operation and maintenance and about
$1.4 million for construction.
Impacted areas throughout the nation
received $286 million in federal funds
last year, with about one-fourth of that
total going to schools in the Southern
and border states. Since the aid pro
gram was begun in 1950, local school
districts have received about $2.5 billion
from the federal government.
In addition to the county school
board, defendants in the Prince George
suit are James O. Moorehead, county
superintendent of schools, and the
Commonwealth of Virginia.
★ ★ ★
Negroes of Frederick and Shenandoah
Counties in the northwestern part of
the state filed desegregation suits Sept.
18 in the Western Virginia Federal Dis
trict Court at Harrisonburg. (Brown v.
Frederick County School Board; and
Woodson v. Shenandoah County School
Board.)
Neither of the counties operates a
Negro high school. Negro children are
sent outside the counties to school.
★ ★ ★
Charging local school officials with
“discrimination of the grossest kind,”
Federal District Judge Walter E. Hoff
man on Sept. 11 ordered a six-year-
old girl admitted to the first grade of
York County’s all-white Grafton -
Bethel Elementary School.
Judge Hoffman found that the child
had been admitted to Grafton-Bethel
on August 28 because the principal be
lieved her to be white. Then, according
to the judge, school officials discovered
that the child’s father was of Brazilian
descent and transferred her to an all-
Negro school.
York thus became the 10th school
district to desegregate in Virginia this
fall and the 30th since the first deseg
regation occurred in the state in Feb
ruary, 1959.
¥ ¥ ¥
Two of Virginia’s so-called anti-
NAACP laws, enacted in 1956, were
declared unconstitutional by Richmond
Circuit Court Judge Edmund W. Hen-
ing on Sept. 14. (NAACP v. Harrison.)
He ruled out:
(1) Chapter 31, which requires or
ganizations to supply the State Corpo
ration Commission with membership
lists and names of contributors if funds
are solicited and spent for litigation in
which the organization is not a party.
(2) Chapter 35, which defines and
punishes the crime of barratry (stir
ring up litigation).
★ ★ ★
The NAACP on Sept. 20 asked the
State Supreme Court to reverse a Hus
tings Court ruling that required dis
closure of the names of donors of $25
or more to the association. (NAACP
v. Committee on Offenses Against the
Administration of Justice.)
Schoolmen
School Personnel
Desegregation
Asked By VTA
A delegation from the Virginia
Teachers Association urged the State
Board of Education on Sept. 28 to em
ploy more Negroes as administrators
and supervisors.
The group also asked for integration
of the department’s offices in the capi
tal city of Richmond and for an end
Fourth Circuit Court Kills
Virginia Highlights
The United States government ,
filed suit attacking segregation in
Prince George County schools at
tended by children of federal per
sonnel stationed at Ft. Lee.
The U. S. Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled invalid a provision
of the Charlottesville desegregation
plan that allows a child to transfer
from a school in which his race is
in the minority.
York County desegregated an
elementary school under federal
court order, becoming the 30th de
segregated school district in Vir
ginia.
Fewer Negroes are enrolled this
year than last in Virginia’s predomi
nantly white public colleges.
Most of the Negro children of
Prince Edward County began their
fourth year without formal school
ing, as white children began their
fourth year at the private segregated
schools operated by the Prince Ed
ward School Foundation.
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to the practice of designating Nggn
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The board took no action on the re
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★ ★ ★
Directors of the Lynchburg Educa
tional Foundation announced Sept. ]|
abandonment of plans, at least for tb
present, for establishment of a privat
school in that city. Lack of public in
terest was cited as the reason for th
decision.
port
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A
Lynchburg’s grade-a-year desegrega- com
tion plan went into effect this fall, wit; P ate
first-grade classes being desegregate we ^
without incident. The Education, ^eg
Foundation originally had planned t sc ^ c
open a school for first graders thi Neg
year and to add a grade each year a ™eii
public school desegregation progresset Q ues
to tl
★ ★ ★ oper
rath
Officials of Washington-Lee Hig Two
School, Arlington, were angered whe ]\jegi
they went to Patrick Henry Hig gj
School, Roanoke, for a football gan ma k
between the two schools and found tl spec
(See VIRGINIA, Page 3) wish
Minority Race Transfer Plan
The United States Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals on Sept. 17 ruled in
valid a provision of the Charlottesville
desegregation plan which allows any
child to transfer from a school in which
his race is in the minority. (Dodson v
Charlottesville School Board).
The court ordered the admission of
24 additional Negroes to Charlottesville
white or predominantly white schools.
Previously this year, 45 Negroes had
been attending the city’s two desegre
gated schools.
The court split 3-to-2 in ruling the
transfer provision invalid.
The provision was considered a key
part not only of the Charlottesville de
segregation plan but also of the deseg
regation plans of Arlington, Lynchburg,
Roanoke, Winchester and Warren
County in Virginia and of other locali
ties elsewhere in the South.
Virginia’s Attorney General Robert
Y. Button called the ruling “one of the
most far-reaching decisions entered by
any court involving segregation iry
schools since Brown v. Board of Edu
cation.”
Majority Opinion
The court majority—consisting of
Chief Judge Simon E. Sobeloff and
Judges Herbert S. Boreman and J.
Spencer Bell—said the transfer provi
sion “is clearly invalid despite the de
fense that the rules for the assignment
and transfer of pupils are literally ap
plied to both races alike.
“It is of no significance that all chil
dren, regardless of race, are first as
signed to the schools in their residen
tial zone and all are permitted to trans
fer if the assignment requires the child
to attend the school where his race is
in the minority, if the purpose and ef
fect of the arrangement is to retard in
tegration and retain the segregation of
the races. That this purpose and this
effect are inherent in the plan can
hardly be denied.
“The School Board is well aware that
most of the Negro pupils in Charlottes
ville reside in the Jefferson zone and
that under the operation of the plan
white children resident therein will be
transferred as a matter of course to the
schools in the other zones while the
colored children in the Jefferson zone
w.ll be denied this privilege. The seem
ing equality of the language is delusive,
the actual effect of the rule is unequal
and discriminatory. It may well be as
the evidence in this case indicates that
some Negroes as well as whites prefer
the schools in which their race pre
dominates; but the wishes of both races
can be given effect so far as is practi
cable not by restricting the right of
transfer but by a system which elimi
nates restrictions on the right, such as
has been conspicuously successful in
Baltimore and in Louisville.”
Two Judges Dissent
The two dissenters were Judges Al
bert V. Bryan and Clement F. Hayns-
worth Jr. Each wrote a dissenting opin
ion concurred in by the other.
Judge Bryan wrote that since the
transfer rule applied to whites and
Negroes alike, it was not discrimina
tory.
“The transfer rule is simply a means
of permitting a child to express his
wishes,” said Judge Bryan. “Surely to
allow a child such an option—even
though his wishes be based on racial
grounds—is not unconstitutional.”
In his dissent, Judge Haynsworth
wrote:
“Those conversant with the problems
of desegregation in the South know the
intensity of public concern over the
plight of children constituting a small
minority unwillingly assigned to a
school in which an overwhelming ma
jority is of the other race.
“If separation of Negro children
solely because of their race generates
i feeling of inferiority as to their status
n the community that may affect their
learts and minds in a way unlikely
:ver to be undone.’ (from U. S. Su
preme Court’s decision in Brown v.
Board of Education), such a child may
oe subjected to a much more searing
“xperience if, bereft of established
'riends and relations, compelled to at-
end a school or classes in which all
jthers are of the opposite race . . .
“It is because of such widespread
:oncem over the plight of unwilling
ninorities in particular schools that
ichool boards throughout the South
lave adopted permissive transfer pro
visions in association with assign-
nent plans based upon attendance
ireas or other objective criteria. In
;ome places, such a provision may be
issential to the institution or continu-
mce of a plan of desegregation, for it
ouches an area of peculiar public sen-
jitivity, and school boards cannot op
erate public school systems without
public support.”
John S. Battle Jr., attorney for the
charlottesville school board, said he
will appeal the decision.
TEXAS
District Votes Desegregation,
Courts Order Two Others To
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AUSTIN
ederal courts ordered deseg
regation of public schools at
Point Isabel, in South Texas, and
at A&M Independent School Dis
trict at College Station, home of
Texas A&M College.
The order for Port Isabel by U.S.
District Judge Reynaldo Garza (Gibbs
v. Point Isabel ISD) apparently will
take immediate effect, as the board in
dicated no appeal will be taken. Two
children of Henry Gibbs, Negro, seek
to enter the school which last year had
1,083 white and no Negro students.
The A&M ISD desegregation was
made effective in September, 1963, by
U.S. District Judge Joe Ingraham on
a grade-a-year basis. The East Texas
district has 300 Negro students and
1,500 whites. The case (Washington v.
Riedel) was filed in August, 1961.
Filed in September last year, and
still pending is a federal court case
(Thomas v. Bowen) seeking to desegre
gate schools at Bryan, which like Col
lege Station is in Brazos County. Texas
A&M College is the largest still-segre
gated institution of higher education in
the state.
Texas Education Agency noted that
another West Texas district, Seagraves
in Gaines County, had abolished segre
gation by election this fall. The district
had 898 whites and 40 Negroes enrolled
last year.
Other Lawsuits
Other lawsuits were filed seeking to
desegregate three Texas districts. Fed
eral court suits were filed at Beaumont,
affecting schools in Jefferson County;
at Waco for Gatesville (Central Texas)
schools; and Tyler, for Longview, to
desegregate that city’s schools.
Beaumont and Longview are both
deep in East Texas, where public
school desegregation has yet to start.
The Beaumont cases are (Edward W.
Brown II v. Harvey C. Hendrix, Presi
dent, Board of Trustees, Beaumont
ISD; and Patricia Richard et al v.
Rodney Christ, President, Board of
Texas Highlights
Two school districts planned to
desegregate by federal court order
and another by election.
Lawsuits were filed seeking to
abolish segregation in schools at
Longview, Gatesville and Beaumont.
Attorney General Will Wilson is
sued an opinion that either court
orders or favorable elections are
needed before a Texas school dis
trict can desegregate without vio
lating state law.
Arlington State College and
Southern Methodist University both
registered undergraduate Negro stu
dents for the first time.
An African editor praised “slow
. . . sensible” handling of race re
lations problems in the United
States.
An Episcopal vicar at Austin
picketed a parochial elementary
school of his church for failing to
admit Negroes.
Trustees Hamshire-Fannett ISD.)
Beaumont is in Southeast Texas, where
public school segregation remains ab
solute. However, a state college, Lamar
Tech, at Beaumont has been desegre
gated for several years.
The Gatesville suit is styled Nona
Florence Carter v. O.N. Hix, President,
Board of Education, of the Gatesville
ISD. The town’s separate Negro high
school was closed this fall for failure
to meet accreditation standards. The
students applied to enroll at the white
high school but were turned down.
Nine Negroes of high school age were
offered transportation to a Negro school
at McGregor, 18 miles away, but there
was no taker.
The federal suit involving Longview,
filed at Tyler, is Thomas Liase v. Long
view Public Schools Board of Trustees.
The state court case is Robert Adams
Sr. v. Longview Public School Bo</
of Trustees. ° s
Liase seeks to enroll in the bX Sc j 10
school and Adams Sr. to enroll Rob®
Adams Jr., and also his sister, in
junior high school. The latter case i | Jara
tacks the constitutionality of Artit
2900A, Acts of the Texas LegislaW j
(1957) which requires referendum *5
proval of desegregation, or loss of sfe
funds and penalties against school 1
ficials.
Longview is in the heart of perhS
the most segregation-minded part
Texas, and where Negroes form a la 1 * the**
minority of population. co jj e
Attorney General Will Wilson ® Tll
vised J. W. Edgar, Texas Commission
of Education, again in September 0 w j 1Q
the referendum act still applies, uni® ^
a school district desegregates in cot ^
pliance with a court order. The opin* room
request came from Yoakum ISD, wb® <j eve
a Negro applied for admission to
white school.
In the Colleges
Two More Colleges
Admit Negroes
As Undergraduates
Two more Texas colleges, ArW
State College and Southern Metho® away
University, admitted Negro un^ late I
graduates for the first time. c °mn
Arlington State, between Dallas * at thi
Fort Worth, enrolled five Neg I^ '
among about 9,000 students. It i s also j
first unit of the Texas A&M 0$ prosp
system to desegregate. The main cofl‘ tr aini
is at College Station, and other bran® Wr
are at Tarleton State (Stephen 1 ^
and Prairie View A&M. iqo «
Willie Roland of Fort Worth, ° n£ ready
(See THREE, Page 5)
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