Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 20—OCTOBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
WEST VIRGINIA
Board Asked To Propose
Merger of Two Colleges
CHARLESTON
r I ''he State Board of Education
was asked Sept. 12 to recom
mend that the legislature discon
tinue Bluefield State College as
an administratively separate insti
tution and merge it with Concord
College, 20 miles away at Athens.
The proposal by board member Lacy
I. Rice of Martinsburg would not in
volve physically doing away with Blue-
field State. The college would, in effect,
operate as a Bluefield branch of Con
cord.
Rice asked the board to recommend
that the 1963 legislature make the
change as of June 30, 1963, the end of
this fiscal year.
Bluefield was an all-Negro college
prior to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court
desegregation ruling; since then it has
been in trouble. Mainly, its costs are
higher than those of other state-owned
colleges because it has had difficulty
attracting students.
Transfers Proposed
The resolution called for Bluefield
“to be henceforth operated by and as
a part of Concord College.” Bluefield’s
properties, appropriations and obliga
tions would be transferred to Concord
and the 1963-64 fiscal year budget re
quests would be added to the Concord
budget.
The board postponed action on the
resolution until its October meeting.
The board is to make a recommendation
as to the future of Bluefield State when
it goes before the Board of Public
Works at December hearings on budget
requests for next fiscal year.
Rice introduced the resolution near
the end of the first day of a two-day
board meeting. It set off a heated argu
ment—chiefly between Rice and board
member A. H. Spangler of Bluefield—
which was cut short by the board’s
departure for an evening visit to Mar
shall University at Huntington.
Since Bluefield was desegregated, its
enrollment has remained predominantly
Negro. However, President L. B. Allen
told the board at the meeting that the
summer school enrollment this year
was mostly white.
Rice presented his resolution during
a discussion after Dr. Allen’s appear
ance. He appeared to present a report
requested by the board last March
after efforts were made in the legis
lature to have Bluefield’s status changed
to that of a vocational training school.
Further Development
Allen’s 14-page report recommended
further development of the college’s
technical programs and establishment
of a full-scale evening college.
“The growth of the technical institute,
after 10 years, may warrant curtail
ment of some other portion of the
college program,” Allen’s report said.
But, he said in answer to questions,
that for the present four-year liberal
arts and teacher education programs
should remain the core of the curric
ulum.
Spangler said that as far back as six
years ago Rice “was trying to close
Bluefield State.”
Rice replied that his resolution did
not mean closing the college but merely
merging it with Concord. He said that
with Bluefield made a part of Concord
“you wouldn’t have this continual prob
lem of high administrative costs. You
would have a better school.”
Spangler said, “There has been a
concentrated effort on the part of some
to close Bluefield State College. I don’t
know why. Maybe they’re prejudiced
. . . It’s the one last school for the
Negro. They still feel it’s their school
even though it’s integrated.”
Says Veto Would Come
Spangler predicted that even if the
board approved Rice’s resolution and
the legislature passed the bill, Gov.
Barron would veto it. He said the pro
posal was at odds with everything the
state administration has been trying to
do to help economically depressed areas.
He said also that Bluefield State’s
enrollment of more than 500 last year
represented an increase of 10 to 12 per
cent and that there apparently was
another increase this year, although
student registration still was in pro
gress.
Rice said that during his tenure the
board has devoted more time to Blue
field State than to any other school.
“We’ve done everything that I know
to do.”
He predicted that if the board does
not take some action, Bluefield event
ually will be closed.
Under Survey
Sociologist Reports
Favorable ‘Climate’
To End Race Bias
A statewide survey of racial attitudes
and practices revealed that the West
Virginia climate favors continuing pro
gress in ending discrimination against
Negroes.
“The climate is good enough to be
optimistic about it,” said Dr. Henry
Shissler, professor of sociology at West
Virginia Wesleyan College.
He conducted the survey for use as
background material at a Methodist
North Carolina
(Continued From Page 18)
sion not on the basis of race, but be
cause the move would not be in his
best interests.”
Brown said the school board felt that
the Negro boy could not meet the aca
demic requirements of Shelby High
School.
Reuben J. Dailey, attorney from
Asheville, speaking for the Negroes,
said Shelby must “have double stand
ards” because Young Cabiness was do
ing well at Cleveland County High
School.
Young Rayfield has excellent charac
ter and citizenship, Brown said, but his
IQ and national achievement test scores
indicated that he might not pass the
college preparatory course at Shelby
High.
Miscellaneous
Pickets Protesting
Segregation Greet
Governor on Tour
Gov. Terry Sanford, a constant sup
porter of quality education in all his
speeches, ran into protesters and pickets
in two cities on a whirlwind statewide
torn- of public schools, both Negro and
white.
Negro pickets and students demon
strated against him Wednesday, Sept.
26, in Statesville and Friday, Sept. 28,
in Durham. Both groups were protest
ing school segregation.
The governor spoke to 750 Negro stu
dents from six schools at the all-Negro
Unity High School of Iredell County
during one demonstration and to white
students at the all-white Statesville
Senior High School during the other.
Four Negro ministers led four carloads
of demonstrators to Statesville Senior
High. They were asked to leave and
left quietly.
An hour later Gov. Sanford shook
hands with young people carrying signs
saying:
“God is color blind,” “Does Gov. San
ford believe in freedom?” and “We
Want Freedom.”
Invited Pickets
He invited these pickets—said to be
from Momingside High School, the
Statesville city school for Negroes—in
side, and they came in. The demonstra
tors, 50 in number, stayed about 15
minutes and left.
“Gov. Sanford didn’t talk about the
important thing—school desegregation
in Statesville,” they said as they de
parted.
In Durham, demonstrators greeted the
governor at all-Negro Hillside High
School and desegregated Durham High
School. On the inside at Hillside, he
shook hands with students for 10 min
utes and received enthusiastic applause.
He was cheered at Durham High, too.
★ ★ ★
Gov. Sanford announced at a speech
Sept. 13 in Polkton that he plans to ap
point a North Carolina Good Neighbor
Council to work in the field of race re
lations and economic opportunities.
★ ★ ★
The Person County Board of Educa
tion announced the appointment of a
14-member Negro advisory committee
workshop on race, which was held
Sept 17-18 in Charleston.
The survey went into all areas of race
relations, with heavy emphasis on edu
cation, job opportunities and race ac
ceptance in places of public assembly.
More than 1,000 West Virginians, in
cluding clergymen and lay leaders,
county officials and college deans, par
ticipated in the survey.
Sections Vary
Attitudes vary in different sections
of the state, said Shissler, with the
climate least favorable in some southern
counties. This is the area primarily
where school desegregation is on a
voluntary basis, and in some of the
counties it is token only.
He said citizens in the southern coun
ties are less educated than those in
counties where the climate is more
favorable.
Shissler’s analysis pointed to eco
nomic discrimination as the Negro’s
greatest problem in West Virginia.
Census figures reveal that Negroes
make less money, live in worse housing
and have a less stable family life than
whites in West Virginia.
‘Vicious Circle’
“It’s a vicious circle,” Shissler ex
plained. “The Negro is denied good
jobs because he isn’t qualified, but
then he’s deprived of the education that
would enable him to get a better job.”
Methodist ministers at the meeting
expressed confidence that their segre
gated church hierarchy soon would be
eliminated. West Virginia’s 60 Negro
Methodist churches, which have 3,000 to
4,000 members, are under the all-Negro
Central Jurisdiction.
The West Virginia Conference of
300,000 whites in 1,600 churches—the
state’s largest Negro body—already has
invited its Negro brethren to join.
The purpose of the workshop was
to help create a climate in which the
merger can be achieved.
Warns Against Unreadiness
“We’ve walked apart too long,” said
Bishop Edgar A. Love of the Central
Jurisdiction, Baltimore area. But he
cautioned against desegregation until
the proper climate is created.
Bishop Fred G. Holloway of West
Virginia agreed, but added that “we
must have a genuine commitment to
Jesus Christ.”
He pointed out that Negro and white
Methodists in West Virginia share such
West Virginia Highlights
A proposal was made that Blue
field State College, problem institu
tion since the 1954 desegregation
decision, be merged administrative
ly with Concord State College.
A statewide survey of racial atti
tudes and practices by the Methodist
Church indicated that the West Vir
ginia climate is good for continued
desegregation.
Kentucky
(Continued From Page 19)
Plaintiffs were Mr. and Mrs. John E.
Senters, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Walker,
Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Puckett, and Mr.
and Mrs. Jesse Jones. The suit was
filed by Joseph S. Freeland, a Paducah
attorney.
Motion Overruled
Federal Judge H. Church Ford over
ruled Sept. 4 a motion to dismiss $650,-
000 in civil-rights damage suits against
Kentucky State College, a predomi
nantly Negro institution.
The claims were brought by 11
former students and two former faculty
members, each seeking $50,000. All
were ousted from the school following
campus demonstration in the spring of
1960. (SSN, August and previous.)
The judge took steps to clarify cer-
on Wednesday, Sept. 5. R. B. Griffin,
superintendent of schools, outlined the
committee’s work as follows:
“Their responsibility will be to work
with the superintendent and the princi
pal for improvement of their respective
schools. They will present the needs of
their schools through the superintend
ent to the Board of Education, or di
rectly to the Board of Education, and
will meet with their principal several
times a year and with the superintend
ent as the need arises.”
★ ★ ★
A new Citizens’ Council was organ
ized Sept. 15 in Charlotte by Dr. Med
ford Evans with about 60 joiners. Dr.
Evans called segregation “as American
as the constitution.” # # #
common problems in West Virginia as
poor education and job opportunities.
On the problem of education, he said,
“We must not forget that it was the
Protestant which has given the impetus
to public education in America . . .
Assuring that the children of West
Virginia get the best possible education
will lift our whole culture, which is
part of our problem.”
Community Action
Commission Leader
Charges Critic
With Using ‘Hearsay’
The chairman of the Mayor’s Com
mission on Human Relations, a Charles
ton organization, Sept. 13 accused a
Charleston lawyer of offering “heresay”
criticism in saying “there is a plan to
kill off the Negro economically in West
Virginia.”
L. L. Kohlbecker said the statement
of Willard Brown, a commission mem
ber and president of the local NAACP
chapter, did not represent the thinking
of the commission.
The Kohlbecker statement came at a
meeting where a several-month study
of race relations in the Charleston area
was to be made public. The study re-
Whnt They Say
Tulsa Journalist
Should Abandon
An Oklahoma editor, speaking in
West Virginia, challenged Sept. 3 what
he called “the comfortable dogma that
most Negroes are not interested in in
tegration.”
This idea, said Jenkin Lloyd Jones of
the Tulsa Tribune, “is abroad in the
South . . . but unfortunately, most Ne
groes do want integration. They may
not have wanted it 10 or 20 years ago,
but the seeds of agitation have sprout
ed, and the moral question cannot be
laughed away.”
Jones, in a speech prepared for de
livery at the 59th anniversary conven
tion of the Southern Newspaper Pub
lishers Association at White Sulphur
Springs, made a plea for abandonment
of “sacred cows” which he said hinder
effective communication on racial issues
and other questions.
He said that sacred cows—the facts
that weren’t facts but that you took on
faith lest you be accused of disloyalty
to your own kind”—helped bring about
the Civil War.
Now, Jones continued, “there is a new
generation of sacred cows abroad in the
land. And some of them resemble their
ancestors of 100 years ago—the ances
tors that fogged up the race question.”
tain legal problems before the case can
proceed. The hearing was at Lexington.
Schoolmen
State Board Favors
‘Encouragement’ Plan
To End Segregation
The State Board of Education will
continue to use an “encouragement”
approach rather than “punitive” meas
ures in its efforts to get desegregation
plans adopted in 21 districts still prac
ticing school segregation.
At a board meeting Sept. 19 in Frank
fort, Sam B. Taylor, assistant director
of the Department of Education’s bureau
of instruction, was named to personally
visit each laggard district, explain the
state’s view that desegregation should
be carried out as soon as possible and
—if possible—help the districts work
out details.
For the past few months the state
agencies have been urging that all dis
tricts develop desegregation plans, and
several districts previously without
plans had complied (SSN, September).
Representatives of the State Commis
sion on Human Rights, who had been
invited to advise the education board
on school desegregation, attended the
meeting and presented a report con
taining these suggestions:
Commission Suggestions
• When continuation of segregation is
defended by claiming that Negroes de
sire it, the state should question the
claim as contrary to the public interest.
2
due
V
port was held up one month
some unforeseen difficulties.
The study grows out of charges th*
of the 13,000 chemical jobs in tbs
Kanawha Valley only about 300 ar,
held by Negroes; that the Kanawfi;
County Board of Education is hirisj
unqualified teachers with emergenq
certificates when there is a ready sup.
ply of Negro teachers who are quai.
fied; and that West Virginia State Col.
lege graduates (Negroes) have to leavi
the state to find work.
I- /
/
‘Peaceful Persuasion’
VC
In answer to the Brown remark
Kohlbecker said:
“Such a statement only antagonize
people, is purely publicity-seeking, an:
as far as Tm concerned, the policy t
this commission is still peaceful persua.
sion. Such statements are made by H
Brown, without facts to support the*
are not in the best interests of this com.
mission.
“The commission does not intend (
proceed upon heresay evidence o
criticism made by Mr. Brown. We’r
not going to be pressured in this thin;
The commission does not think then
is any basis to what Mr. Brown said be
he will be given an opportunity to ap
pear before our commission now pre
paring a report on equal employmet
opportunities.”
Brown said he welcomed the oppioi
tunity to appear before the commissi*
on this matter. He cited as one reas*
for his charge the fact that the state
Negro population has fallen to 87,(K (
in 1960 from 114,000 in 1950.
Says People
‘Sacred Cows’
Jones put the argument that most Ne
groes don’t want integration in ft
“sacred cow” catagory. He continued:
“We know how miserable the acs
demic standards were in the so-calk
‘separate but equal’ schools . . . Ho'
can you condemn a bright and restles
Negro mind to second-rate training bt
cause of its race, while a lazy or dt
white mind has an opportunity for firs!
rate training, also because of its race
“The South is under no sentiment
illusion at what would happ>en to ft
standards in the white schools if the
were suddenly deluged by a heavy ft
flux of Negro students. The norther
cities have presented dramatic example
of what happens, and the flight to ft
suburbs is ample proof of the devast
tion.
“But strict segregation according '•
race without regard to ability, ambitft
and sincerity is hard to defend.
“We are going to have to find sol
new standards for separating hums
beings. And these separations will ha'
to include encouragement for the ah
and the energetic of any color.”
# # f
• A deadline should be set after whid
state aid to small Negro high school
with substandard ratings would be cur
tailed. Commission executive-direct
Galen Martin said all but two of &
holdout districts would be affected ft
this policy and that many desegreg*'
tion plans should result.
• Local districts should be remind
of an attorney general’s opinion h?
month that school systems reducing &
number of teachers (as is often
case when all-Negro schools are aho*
ished) “must give priority to and &
tain those teachers who have grea^
seniority without reference to race
color.”
» The state might also remind kjn
districts that emergency-teacher certft
cates cannot and will not be
where qualified non-emergency NePj
teachers are available. A
• The education department and ■
human rights commission should c .
tinue to cooperate on the matter, :
one or more members of the dep 3 ^
ment might be assigned fulltime to
effort. A
The appointment of Taylor to
holdout districts seemed to gene ;
fulfill the last request. Also, ^4
Supt. of Public Instruction ^ eI Sj
Butler agreed to seek commission. I
in determining if qualified Negro tef^l
ers are available in districts aS ^e
state permission to hire emerg I
teachers. J
The 21 holdout districts of 206 ^^|
tricts in the state were listed as
Bath, Caldwell, Casey, Fulton, G ^
Hickman, Jessamine, Letcher, M®
Montgomery, Muhlenberg, ®
Simpson, Todd, and Warren co ^
and the city districts of Bowling ^
Campbellsville, Earlington, G a ~ ■
and Lynch.
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