Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1962—PAGE 5
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MISSOURI
Kinloch Riots Focus Attention
On District’s School Problems
Devastation in Kinloch
This was a portable unit of Dunbar Elementary School in St. Louis County. It was
one of six buildings set afire during riots.
I
ST. LOUIS
F our persons were shot and
eight fires were started early
Sept. 25 during a night of violence
that erupted at Kinloch, St. Louis
County’s all-Negro municipality.
The disorder, which lasted several
days, focused attention on the in
adequacies of Kinloch school dis
trict and other shortcomings of
the community, plagued by pov
erty and an inadequate tax base.
The immediate cause of the outbreak
was dissatisfaction and resentment
among young Negroes about the fatal
shooting of a 20-year-old Negro by a
74-year-old Kinloch policeman, also
Negro. This occurred in a fight about a
traffic case summons Sept. 23. The po
lice officer, who resigned, said the
shooting was an accident.
On the night after the shooting, shot
gun blasts were fired into the Kinloch
Police Station. Most of the next night
there was related violence and police
reinforcements from St. Louis County
and surrounding municipalities, which
are largely white, were required to get
the situation under control. As white
St. Louis County patrolmen were
starting to headquarters with six per
sons they had arrested, a single shot
gun blast was fired. It wounded three
officers and a bystander.
Within three days of disorder, 21
blazes were set and this included the
one-story, five-room portable building
at the Dunbar School of the Kinloch
district. Police arrested a Negro man
who admitted setting the school fire and
six others. Kinloch Mayor Clarence Lee
called the Board of Aldermen together
to enact a 10 o’clock curfew. He also ap
pointed a special citizens commission.
Young Negroes picketed a town meet
ing.
Mrs. Ruth Porter, executive secre
tary of the Kinloch Young Women’s
Christian Association, joined church
leaders in offering emergency class
room space to Dunbar school children.
She said young people should have con
structive ways to spend their time.
Chain Reaction
We must find channels for our youth
to get rid of their pent-up emotions,”
Mrs. Porter said at the town meeting,
‘or there will continue to be a chain
reaction of events similar to those we
have witnessed recently.”
Kinloch has three schools with a
total average daily attendance of some
1,300 children. Of St. Louis County’s 26
regular school districts, Kinloch is
rated the poorest. Its assessed valuation
of $3,534 a pupil is the lowest in the
county. Its expenditure of $222 a pupil
is less than half the county average of
S447. Yet its tax rate of $3 on each
$100 of assessed valuation is one of the
county’s highest.
In June, 1962, the University of
hicago s study on school district re
organization called attenion to Kinloch’s
situation. It said that the district could
never be adequate and suggested con-
so idation with the neighboring, largely
white Berkeley school district. Such
mergers must be approved by voters.
Kinloch was incorporated 14 years
a §° as Missouri’s first all-Negro munici-
R vv? 7 r ^ le Population is now around
iOOO. An urban renewal project is un-
® r . l way at present, but three fourths
°t the city has no sewers. The 1960
census showed more than half its
ouses had no flush toilets.
Community Interest
The community has had difficulty
arousing community interest among its
own citizens, and the surrounding white
communities have shown no great in-
c mation to provide help or annex its
school district. The Kinloch high
c ool was picketed by students last
. a £,'i ary uher voters had turned down
“ ^21,000 school bond issue.
Sm'tu ■ Superintendent Sylvester L.
ith dismissed the picketers, but they
15 er ® reinstated by the school board.
Q^nth was indicted by the St. Louis
grand jury in mid-September
1 c ’ la ^S es of violating state income tax
ws. The grand jury called on Smith to
resign.
im* WaS brought out in the grand jury
_ j. l Sati°u that Smith authorized
.- ” In § $20,000 for janitorial supplies
j is . , e 1960-61 academic year, for the
v P ~ t lC * ; s *hree schools. In the same
• ar , it was reported, the wealthy Clay-
Dli SC i 10 ° 1 Strict spent $8,234 for sup-
schools ^ Addings, including eight
trUi ^ lar Siug that Kinloch school dis-
ffra , fun d s had been mismanaged, the
a jj Iury S£ dd Superintendent Smith,
egro, and some of his board mem-
Missouri Highlights
Three policemen and a bystander
were shot early Sept. 25 in a riot at
Kinloch, all-Negro municipality in
St. Louis County. A school was
burned and a number of other
buildings were set ablaze. The dis
turbance was not of racial origin,
but occurred against a background
of discontent of Negro youths with
inadequate schools and lack of com
munity facilities.
An attack on “functional illiter
acy” was envisioned at a University
of Missouri conference held in Sep
tember to discuss uses of a 13-story
warehouse building in St. Louis,
given to the university by the J. C.
Penney Co. The university will base
it extension division there. St. Louis
leaders urged an adult education
program for illiterates, many of
whom are Negroes from the rural
South.
St. Louis public schools face a
desperate financial problem in try
ing to meet increasing operating
costs from an almost constant tax
base, a special committee of the
Board of Education reported Sept.
11. Board member James E. Hurt
Jr., a Negro, headed the committee.
bers failed to account for funds drawn
for trips to conventions. Smith was re
lieved of his duties by the Kinloch
board in July, 1961, but is still drawing
his $11,500 annual salary, the grand
jury said.
St. Louis County’s schools are de
segregated, but most Negro children are
in Kinloch and three other districts.
In the Colleges
University Plans
Extension Division
Plans of the University of Missouri to
establish a four-year branch at its pres
ent Normandy Residence Center, in
suburban St. Louis county, will be aug
mented by establishment of a university
extension division in the city proper,
where most of the area’s Negroes live.
These facilities will be in addition to
the St. Louis-St. Louis Junior College
District, recently organized.
Three Texas
(Continued From Page 2)
the five Negroes at ASC, predicted that
probably 100 Negroes would apply dur
ing the fall semester. However, college
officials were quoted as saying they
had anticipated that considerably more
Negroes would apply this September,
since the plan to desegregate was an
nounced in July.
Southern Methodist University,
church-sponsored, registered Miss Paul
Elaine Jones, an honor graduate from
an Albuquerque, N.M., girls’ school, as
its first Negro undergraduate. She lives
with her parents in Dallas.
President Willie Tate of SMU said
graduate departments had accepted
Negroes since 1958, and that members
of that race will be accepted hereafter
as undergraduates. He added that “each
student so admitted will meet extremely
high standards of scholarship and
character.”
Miscellaneous
Episcopal School
Policy Is Debated
An all-Episcopal segregation dispute
arose in Austin. The Rev. Louis E.
Buck, vicar of St. James Episcopal
Church, and his wife distributed hand
bills at St. Andrews Episcopal School
urging parents to keep their children
away until racial bars are moved.
“Those who send their children to
a segregated school aid and abet the
racists and bigots,” said the hand-bills.
The six-grade elementary school has
150 students. R. W. Byram, chairman
of the board, said desegregation is “con
stantly on our minds and in our dis-
The extension division will be in a
large 13-story warehouse structure in
downtown St. Louis, given to the uni
versity last June by the J. C. Penney
Co. While the university at Columbia
has been desegregated since 1950, it is
situated in a predominantly rural area
in mid-state where employment oppor
tunities for low-income students are
limited.
At a St. Louis conference in Septem
ber, the university was urged to use
part of the building for an adult edu
cation center. Chester E. Stovall, a
Negro, St. Louis director of public wel
fare, pointed out that the last census
showed the city and county had 80,000
people with less than five years of
schooling—that is, “functional illiter
ates.” Stovall said 15,000 were unable to
read and write at all. Many are
Negroes.
“If no one does anything about this,
we’re going to pay the price,” Stovall
said. “Our economic and family con
cept of life is involved. Among other
things, I am concerned about the city’s
future tax base. We can’t let the city
become the place for the poor and
downtrodden to live.”
From 1950 to 1960, the white popula
tion of the St. Louis metropolitan area
increased by about 17 per cent while
the Negro population increased by more
than 35 per cent. During the period
many Negroes moved to St. Louis from
rural areas, including the south. Prac
tically all settled in the city. While the
city’s public schools have organized to
cope with the children, there has been
no large tax-supported program for
adults.
‘Important Breakthrough’
Charles B. Gilbert, director of the
St. Louis Adult Education Council,
called the University of Missouri’s plan
to put its extension division in the
Penney Building “a very important
break-through in education in St.
Louis.”
“The new M.U. policy is to go where
the people are,” said Gilbert. “The uni
versity has had 50 years of experience
in educating rural people. Now it is
coming into the heart of the city and
near the areas where need for adult
education is the greatest.
“The vast change in the character of
St. Louis, as in most major cities, is the
influx of untrained rural people, who
have come to the metropolis because
jobs have dried up on the farm.”
Dean Charles B. Ratchford of the
university’s extension service said
funds were being sought from private
sources to get the Penney building pro
gram under way promptly.
cussions” but he said the board had
decided to maintain a segregated opera
tion until the school gets on its feet
financially. Last year, its tuition pay
ments lagged $6,000 behind expenses.
Schoolmen
16 More Negroes
Enroll With Whites
In Dallas Schools
Sixteen additional Negro students
enrolled with white pupils in Dallas,
making 28 Negroes in desegregated
schools. This is the second year of a
court-ordered stairstep plan starting in
the first grade. Two schools have Negro
pupils for the first time. Of 18 Negroes
admitted to white classrooms in 1961-
1962, two withdrew during the year,
and four moved away.
A Negro leader in Dallas, the Rev.
Rhett James, expressed disappointment
publicly that so few Negroes are tak
ing advantage of the opportunity to
attend school with whites. He said re
ports by the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People
show 375 Dallas Negro children were
eligible to attend desegregated schools
this year, and that some parents go
considerably out of the way to deliver
their children instead to segregated
Negro schools.
“If Negroes are not interested, there
is no reason to assume that others will
be interested in desegregation,” wrote
James in The Houston Informer.
“Certainly we recognize that the pres
ent system of transferring is a drawn-
out and subjective procedure, but until
this is changed, we must abide with
Schoolmen
School Committee
Reports Increased
Tax Rate Necessary
A special committee of the St. Louis
Board of Education, headed by Negro
board member James E. Hurt Jr., re
ported Sept. 11 that increases of 30 to
35 cents in the school tax rate will have
to be sought for each of the next two
years unless more support can be ob
tained from the Missouri legislature.
The Board of Education is trying to
finance continually increasing operating
costs from an almost constant property
tax base, it was reported. The increase
in costs has averaged 6.5 per cent a
year in the last 10 years. The operating
expenses for the current school year
are estimated at $44,100,000.
In St. Louis the total assessed valua
tion of property, on which school taxes
are levied, has remained virtually un
changed in the last five years. One of
the city’s problems has been the exodus
of white citizens to the suburbs,
coupled with the replacement of the
whites with Negro in-migrants of a
lower economic status. This has caused
considerable pressure on schools and
has been a factor in rising school costs.
As the new school year started, Dep
uty Superintendent of Instruction Wil
liam Kottmeyer said that nearly 1,100
(See MISSOURI, Page 7)
it and apply for transfers in accordance
with the present setup ... It appears to
me, someone ought to get wise and
recognize the fact that desegregation
is here . .
★ ★ ★
At Houston, Asberry B. Butler Jr.,
Negro attorney, withdrew his candidacy
for the school board after learning that
Mrs. Charles E. White, a Negro member,
plans to run for another term. Butler
had announced for the office, but said
he first understood Mrs. White was not
running.
Fifty-eight Negroes are enrolled with
white students at Houston in the first
three grades of a grade-a-year deseg
regation program. Last year, 34 Negroes
attended class with white students. Six
formerly all-white schools had Negro
pupils this fall.
What they Say
Two Visitors Give
Opposite Views
Sydney Swadel (white), editor of a
newspaper in Bulawayo, South Rho
desia, commended Dallas and the U.S.
generally for the maimer in which race
problems are being met.
He observed that Dallas has gone
about desegregation “sensibly if not
completely.” Of the South generally,
Swadel said: “You people are making
progress in a . . . slow, sensible way . .
Another visitor to Dallas, Gov. Ross
Barnett of Mississippi, said he sees no
sense in racial desegregation.
“It just isn’t good business, this mix
ing of the races,” he said. “It isn’t go
ing to happen in Mississippi.”
# # #
Maryland
(Continued From Page 3)
the parents concerned would prefer
sending their children to the Parkway
school but explained that the boundary
line was drawn to provide better utili
zation of the two schools.
“The children in question would raise
the average class size at Parkway to
35,” he said, “whereas the average class
at South Frederick is 25.”
Saying that it was “not unusual in
city situations to have children close
to one school and districted into an
other,” Sensenbaugh rejected the socio
economic argument and declared that
children of “some very nice” white
families were attending the South
Frederick school and were satisfied.
The school board, he added, had
taken the matter up four times and
not changed its position. At the outset,
there were 38 children being withheld
from school, but by the last week of
September the number had dropped to
22.
Schoolmen
Biracial Teachers
Association Plans
Initial Activities
A combined white and Negro teach
ers association in Howard County had
its first executive committee meeting
in September and planned to hold its
first dinner meeting for the full mem
bership on Oct. 9. Previously the white
and Negro teachers in the county had
separate professional organizations.
The merger was achieved through the
absorption of the membership of the
all-Negro Howard County Education
Association by the previously all-white
Howard County Teachers’ Association.
Donald A. Hastings, an elementary
school principal who headed the white
organization and now is president of
the combined unit, said both groups
voted for the merger and that among
the white teachers the vote was about
5 to 1.
For the time being, all the officers are
white, with the incoming Negro mem
bers assigned to committee posts and
appointed as delegates to professional
conferences.
Covers 11 Counties
With the merger in Howard, one
teachers organization now serves all af
fected teachers in Baltimore city and
11 counties, while in the remaining 12
counties there is both a white and a
Negro teachers association.
The continuing segregation is a sub
ject of annual concern at the conven
tions of the parent body, the Maryland
State Teachers Association. At the
1961 statewide convention, a resolution
was adopted which said, in part:
“We believe that unified effort will
solve the problems facing the educa
tional profession and its members more
readily that will fragmented effort . . .
We, therefore, recommend that, in
those counties where separate local as
sociations still exist, that these associa
tions continue to proceed to desegregate
their membership in order to realize
the advantages which would accrue to
them as one unified local association.”
The Howard County teachers are the
only ones to merge since the last con
vention. Maryland teachers convene
again this October, and the resolution
committee has prepared a desegregation
resolution similar to last year’s.
# # #
Districts To Desegregate