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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1962—PAGE 3
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N egroes entered white schools
for the first time in five
Maryland counties this fall, leav
ing only three out of 23 biracial
school districts without some
actual desegregation.
No disturbances accompanied the
break with the past in racially sensitive
portions of the Eastern Shore and
Southern Maryland.
In one county, more than half of the
affected Negroes shunned assignment
to white schools, and in another county
three Negro girls transferred back to
an all-Negro school after two weeks of
alleged “silent treatment” in a white
school.
The largest group involved in the
new instances of desegregation was in
the Salisbury area of Wicomico County,
where 40 Negro pupils entered three
formerly all-white elementary schools.
They are the largest number to be
assimilated so far on the Eastern
Shore, apart from Cecil County at the
head of Chesapeake Bay.
County Supt. Royd A. Mahaffey re
ported in mid-September that he had
not received a single protest and that
he was “proud of the community,”
which previously had desegregated res
taurants, movies and some motels with
out incidents.
Less Than Expected
At that, the desegregation in Wi
comico was less extensive than antici
pated. To get desegregation started, as
well as to relieve overcrowding at the
Negro school in the Salisbury area,
school officials had assigned about 100
Negro children to five white schools in
their vicinities. At least 25 formally re
quested before September to go instead
to the Negro school, and another 35 on
opening day went to the Negro school
rather than to their assigned schools.
Two of the five schools received no
Negroes.
Since the Wicomico School Board in
making its original assignments had
specified that “if a student does not
wish to accept this assignment, he may
go to the school in which he was en
rolled during 1961-62 upon a properly
approved application for transfer,” the
Negro children who had gone to the
Negro school without proper authori
zation were required in September to
go through the transfer process.
Reasons Given
Mahaffey said that some of the
reasons parents gave for not sending
their children to their assigned white
schools were “going back to same
school,” “rather not have children in
tegrated at this time,” “better off in
old school” and “doing OK there.”
Desegregation of Cambridge High
School in Dorchester County lasted a
little less than two weeks as Donna
Richardson, Barbara Chester and Bar
bara Stewart—the first Negroes ever to
enter the school—asked to be trans
ferred back to the one Negro high
school in the county. At the same time,
a Negro boy and girl remained in the
otherwise all-white North Dorchester
High School in the same county and
were reported to be making out all
right.
County Supt. James G. Busick was
reported to have asked the three Negro
llth-graders at the Cambridge school
to stay at least until the end of the
first marking period and attributed
their urge to leave as “a desire to be
with their classmates.” He said he had
heard of no incidents or abuse at the
school, which has close to 700 white
students.
The girls themselves gave the “silent
treatment” as their reason for leaving,
according to a dispatch in the Baltimore
Sun from its county correspondent,
Mrs. Ruth van D. Todd, who had
talked several times with the girls be
fore their decision to withdraw.
The girls said they could not stand
having nobody speak to them in the
classrooms, halls or on the school
grounds. It was known by some in the
first few days that the girls were being
avoided, but it is not known whether
anyone planned it.
Daughter of Leader
The Richardson girl is the daughter
of Mrs. Gloria Richardson, a leader in
the desegregation movement in Cam
bridge. As co-chairman of the Cam
bridge Nonviolent Action Committee,
Mrs. Richardson is identified with
earlier demonstrations and “freedom
rides” to desegregate restaurants in
Cambridge, which proved unpopular
among segments of the white residents
of the tidewater county.
Dorchester County began a volun
tary grade-a-year desegregation plan
in 1956 which started with the 12th
grade and this fall extended downward
to the sixth grade. This was the first
Maryland Highlights
The entrance of Negroes to white
schools for the first time in five
Maryland counties occasioned no
disturbances in September but pro
duced some hitches.
In a previously unannounced de
segregation move, Washington Coun
ty acted to close out the sixth grade
of its one Negro school just prior to
opening day.
The white and Negro teachers as
sociations in Howard County merged
in September, leaving 12 counties
with segregated professional organ
izations.
“Integration in reverse” has taken
place at the formerly all-Negro state
teachers college at Bowie, Md.
In the Colleges
Bowie Has ‘Integration in
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Integration in reverse” has come to
the formerly all-Negro state teachers
college at Bowie, Md.
The descriptive phrase is that of Dr.
William E. Henry, president of Bowie,
who expresses pleasure and satisfaction
that his college almost overnight has
been taken up by residents of mush
rooming Washington suburban housing
developments.
Its future a question mark since
Negroes began showing a preference for
he desegregated white teachers col-
eges in Maryland, the once-segregated
owie College this fall has an influx of
new students, a larger staff, its first
evening program and a doubled enroll
ment in its demonstration elementary
school.
Serves New Suburb
The changes at Bowie are attributable
uirectly to new suburban communities
nearby, notably a vast Levittown un-
er construction 10 minutes drive
away on the former stud farm of the
ate William Woodward. With a planned
community of 20,000 persons growing
j me rate of 60 completed dwellings a
ay, Bowie is beginning to attract not
°my additional college students but
a so pupils for its campus school, where
Prospective teachers get their practical
framing.
With an all-Negro enrollment of 360
wV+ year ’ college this fall has 25
* students and next fall expects
' Applications for next semester al
ready are coming in,” Dr. Henry says.
White students also are enrolled in
the four evening courses being offered
for the first time. In the demonstration
school, which last year had 125 Negro
children, 100 of the 257 pupils this fall
are white, and Dr. Henry says he has
received applications through 1967. The
school has a white principal and two
out of seven teachers are white.
Impetus for the new interest in Bowie
among white residents of the area is
the Committee for Higher Education for
Bel Air, the latter being the name of
the Levitt development (taken from the
name of the Woodward estate once so
famous in horse racing circles).
Dr. Henry explains that the commit
tee during the summer sponsored an
open house at the college on one oc
casion and an art exhibit at another,
drawing 1,500 visitors to the campus.
The committee also urged, he says, the
start of evening classes to serve those
who work by day.
Not Surprised
Asked if the changes surprised him,
Dr. Henry replied in the negative: “I
anticipated it. We have a good school
here with qualified teachers and the
courses people want to take. Our fac
ulty is integrated, and we are closer to
the new population growth than the
University of Maryland is. I foresaw
the development, and it now enables
us to screen our students more rigidly,
upgrade our standards and in general
strengthen our position in the com
munity.”
Lunchtime Visitors on Bowie Campus
Students of Charlotte B. Robinson Elementary School at state teachers college talk
with the college president, Dr. William Henry (left), and school principal Wayne
Herman.
year in which transfer requests were
made, in response to what an NAACP
official has described as a door-to-door
campaign by students, Mrs. Richard
son’s group and local NAACP mem
bers.
The two Negroes who remain in the
North Dorchester High School among
552 white students are Larry Pinkett,
an llth-grader who has made the foot
ball team, and Iva Camper, a 10th-
grade girl.
Other Counties
The other three counties having
actual desegregation for the first time
were Caroline and Kent on the Eastern
Shore and Calvert County in southern
Maryland.
Caroline and Kent each had a Negro
girl in a formerly all-white high school,
while Calvert had two girls and a boy
in a new high school which opened
for the first time in September. Reports
from all three counties in late Septem
ber were that the Negro students were
in attendance with no suggestion of
trouble.
Entire Grade Reassigned
A previously unannounced desegre
gation move took place with the open
ing of schools in Washington County
in western Maryland. The sixth grade
of the one remaining all-Negro school
was closed out and the 31 pupils were
reassigned to a predominantly white
school.
Of the 380-odd Negro school chil
dren in the county, 180 remain in the
first five grades of the Negro school
and the remaining majority are in
classes with white children. The county
Reverse’
This past June a state commission on
higher education recommended that the
three formerly all-white state teachers
colleges be converted as soon as prac
ticable to full-scale liberals arts cen
ters but cited “uncertainties” as to the
future of Bowie and Coppin (the other
Negro teachers college).
The Baltimore Sun suggested in an
editorial that “the next time experts
take a look, Bowie may be found to be
serving a community function as fresh
and stimulating as the housing that
surrounds it.”
Coppin State Accredited
Coppin State Teachers College in the
meantime has become fully accredited
for the training of elementary teachers,
and President Parlett L. Moore reports
that Coppin, too, has “definite indication
of new interest.”
The full-time day enrollment has
risen somewhat, an evening program
offered for the first time has drawn 56
students, and the campus laboratory
school has five times as many applicants
as places. The day enrollment of 367
includes only one white student, but
the evening program has five, and some
of the demonstration school pupils also
are white.
“It is beginning to look,” Dr. Moore
says, “as though the college is going to
serve the community. We are very
happy about it. The turnout for the
first evening offering is most encourag
ing, and we hope to expand the pro-
I gram.”
has a white enrollment of more than
19,000.
Interviewed by telephone, County
Supt. William M. Brish explained that
the move had been decided upon when
space in the other school became avail
able just before schools opened.
‘We had said in our policy statement
that integration would proceed as
space became available,” Brish said,
“and the latest move was in keeping
with that policy. We have no desegre
gation problem except space. We in
tend to close out the North Street
(Negro) school altogether, and I hope
we can proceed a grade a year.”
Once in Single School
The North Street school in the
county seat of Hagerstown formerly
served all the Negro children in Wash
ington County. In 1955, the Negro chil
dren living outside of Hagerstown were
reassigned to white schools in their
residential areas. In 1956, grades nine
through 12 were closed out and Negro
high school pupils were assigned to two
predominantly white high schools in
Hagerstown. Subsequently the seventh
and eighth grades also were eliminated,
and the North Street school became an
elementary unit serving a nearby Negro
residential area. Now that limited func
tion is being narrowed.
Frederick County in central Mary
land proceeded in September with its
move to shift about 300 additional
Negroes from the segregated to the de
segregated category, leaving only 57 out
of 1,300 Negro pupils in a uniracial
school situation.
The key to the move was reassigning
the last of the Negro secondary stu
dents from the formerly all-Negro Lin
coln School and using it along with a
nearby white elementary unit as a com
bined and biracial elementary school,
called the South Frederick Elementary
School. The former white portion has
grades one and two. while Lincoln, re
furbished and renamed, had grades
three to six. The combined enrollment
is 60 to 62 per cent white.
Redistricting Required
Creation of the combined elementary
school required redistricting which re
sulted in some pupils, both white and
Negro, being shifted from schools they
formerly had attended.
The shift was not appreciated by one
group of white parents who live close
to the Parkway Elementary School but
had their children assigned to South
Frederick Elementary. They refused to
send their children to the more distant
school and wrote letters of protest to
the State Superintendent of Schools
and the Governor.
The protesting group did not base
their objections to the South Frederick
school on racial grounds. They claimed
that “a very impractical boundary” had
been drawn that barred their children
from a school within visual distance
while other children “from miles away”
were brought to the school by bus.
Their letter of protest said in part:
“The School Board will not give a
motive but it appears quite obvious
that the line was drawn so as to ex
clude people of lower socio-economic
status. We feel we are being discrimi
nated against and segregated, not be
cause of race, but because of class. We
feel that our children have equal rights
to an education as well as the children
of doctors and Fort Detrick scientists.
| The redistricting line also excludes
Virginia
(Continued From Page 2)
Arlington team’s Negro players desig
nated on the official program as “Col.”
Patrick Henry officials apologized and
blamed a clerical error. They said their
coaches who previously had scouted
Washington-Lee probably marked
“Col.” by the Negro players simply for
identification purposes and that they
never intended for the designation to
appear in the programs.
In the Colleges
State Colleges
Enroll Slightly
Fewer Negroes
Slightly fewer full-time Negro stu
dents are enrolled in predominantly
white public colleges in Virginia this
year as compared with last year.
The figure this year is around 45 or
50, as against 56 in the 1961-62 session.
The University of Virginia, which
listed 22 last year, reports that the
exact figure this year is not available,
but that the number is between 25 and
30.
The Medical College of Virginia,
which had 25 Negroes last year, re
ports 10 so far this year. The schools of
X-ray technology and physical therapy
will be enrolling additional students
during the year, and it is possible some
Negroes may be included.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute has
two Negroes this year, as against three
in 1961-62.
Richmond Professional Institute lists
seven Negroes this year, one more than
last year. In addition, there are about
15 Negroes in the evening school.
Total enrollments of the institutions
in question are: University of Virginia,
5,225; Medical College of Virginia,
1,199; Virginia Polytechnic Institute,
5,637; Richmond Professional Institute,
2,542 in the day school and 2,582 in the
evening school.
Community Action
Prince Edward
Private Schools
Open For Whites
Approximately 1,300 white children of
Prince Edward County returned to
their private segregated school system
Sept. 4.
For the fourth consecutive year, no
school bells rang for the county’s Negro
children. The exact number of Negroes
not receiving formal education is un
known, but a survey conducted last
year revealed that 1,266 Negro children
were not in school. A total of 289 other
Negro children were attending classes
outside the county.
The American Friends Society (a
Quaker-related group) and the Virginia
Teachers Association (Negro) are each
providing education outside the county
for some Negro children this year.
About 130 students were being served
through these programs, according to
figures announced in mid-September.
Some other Negro families have made
private arrangements for education of
their children outside the county.
Drive for Scholarships
Meanwhile, the Prince Edward
School Foundation launched a drive
for $130,000 for scholarships for stu
dents attending its seven private
schools. Last year the foundation gave
$136,725 in scholarships.
The full tuition of $265 for high
school and $240 for elementary pupils
was paid last year by 376 families, rep
resenting 493 children. A total of 371
families with 744 children received
partial scholarships, and 32 families
with 71 children were on full scholar
ships. # # #
Negroes who have attended Parkway
the past few years. We tried to include
them in our protest group but it seems
that they are happy to be going to the
other school which has more colored
pupils.”
Queried on behalf of Southern
School News, County Supt. James A.
Sensenbaugh said that he could see why
(See MARYLAND, Page 5)