Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1962—PAGE 7
nt
ts
Is and
liocese
llment
■ig de
ls and
jptem-
5 per
r, but
• cent
by the
it and
ospec-
j race,
ard of
orders
ch dis-
igainst
m the
lermit
rt case
Parish
denied
in the
'p\ for
Legis-
low int
ouisiai
in.
ants a
for sta
opolita
Jeffei
Seven
i in tl
rairmai
te-a-la
rocesse
o atten
i privat
00 fr®
n sch®
: for tl
3e son:
lost ex
1, 1,17:
lassiqtt
[cGehe
Orlean
ood, 1
Distrif
ited Ec
Orleai
Metair
me Elf
New Orleans Schools Gain
Enrollment in September
ive,
5
(Continued From Page 6)
ment for public school districts that ex
perience sudden cost increases as a re
sult of such transfers.
Legal Action
Board Action Ends
Prospect of Court
Contempt Citations
Thirteen state education officials were
relieved of threatened civil and crim
inal contempt citations by U.S. District
Judge E. Gordon West in Baton Rouge
after the State Board of Education act
ed to end segregation in state trade
schools. (See Schoolmen.)
Judge West said the action of the
state board regarding the Sowela Vo
cational-Technical School at Lake
Charles showed “good faith and honest
effort.”
State officials who had been accused
of ignoring the court’s order to deseg
regate the trade schools included Wil
liam E. Dodd, president of the State
Board of Education; 10 other members
of the board; State Supt. of Education
Shelby M. Jackson and Rex Smelser,
director of the Sowela trade school.
The case is styled Angel et al v. State
Board of Education.
In his Sept. 19 order dismissing the
contempt proceedings, Judge West di
rected that the trade schools maintain
adequate written records on applica
tions for admittance, that the records
show reasons for refusal to admit any
student and that the records be made
available to U.S. Justice Department
agents for one year.
Ordered in 1960
The contempt proceedings, begun on
July 20 at the direction of U.S. Attor
ney General Robert Kennedy, grew out
of the May 20, 1960, court order by
Judge West directing an end to segre
gation in five Louisiana trade schools.
A sixth trade school, at Shreveport, is
covered by a similar order issued by
the U.S. District Court there in 1960
(Allen et al v. State Board of Educa
tion).
The contempt proceeding never came
to a hearing. One had been scheduled
for Sept. 20. In a series of pre-trial
conferences, representatives of the U.S.
Justice Department and the Louisiana
attorney general’s office reached a set
tlement under which the state trade
schools agreed to accept and process
applications without regard to race.
After the Sept. 19 pre-trial hearing, at
which the contempt cases were dis
missed, Board President Dodd said the
attorneys and the court “worked this
thing out and it seems like the best
nia Ft
Privai
7; Lai
: Keht
bool,'
Scho«
sh El*
lool, 2
nool, »
Metair
is a pr
Nfegroe
5360 ?
; scW
is mor
; putf
j statf
gure 1
)1 ye*
artw^
am &
id 1<*
er p u f
son ^
f of 6
urces-
effer*'
v
Missouri
(Continued From Page 5)
more elementary school pupils must be
transported outside their own districts
because of overcrowding than was the
d? 6 ^ aSt year ' Beginning in September,
1,817 pupils, representing 136 class
rooms, were transported daily in 100
busses at an estimated cost of $216,199
°r bus rental and overtime pay for
eachers supervising the transport. Last
year the program involved 3,710 pupils
74 busses.
Most of the transported pupils come
rom overcrowded schools in the cen
tra and west end sections of the city,
v ere the population is predominantly
i n < t^ r °u movem ent of Negro families
... *7 e west end has been rapid in the
s decade. Neighborhoods have be-
°me more crowded and schools that
adequate for the former white
SI ents are unable to take care of the
eater numbers of children living in
same area.
Iu many instances, children are sent
°m an all-Negro or virtually all-
, gr ° school district to an all-white
re jj°°l * n another part of the city. To
ar T • t * le overcr owding, new schools
built with funds from the
*"*>180,000 school bond issue voted
earlier this year.
;89 o' 1 Kottm,
• JefN
the r*
y traff
arocfc;
irde r
i S<&
ses^
nbu**
e 7)
ers * t _ eyer t°ld an assembly of teach-
s j x a Auditorium Sept. 4 that the
be elementary schools would not
Pma Y until the fall of 1964. The bus
nevf ram wi ^ continue at a high level
ii year.
have^K trans P° r tation problem could
cal o e » n a highly explosive and criti-
“’pj le n ?;. Kottmeyer told the teachers,
debt t of . St - B°uis owes a great
of ° principals and other officials
and a f C h°°^ s involved for their skilful
e ft handling of the problem.”
# # #
solution we could get under the cir
cumstances.”
State Attorney General Jack Gre-
million commented: “I think what we
have worked out with the court is the
best solution for all.”
★ ★ ★
Seven More Negroes Join
In Baton Rouge Lawsuit
Seven Negro students who were de
nied enrollment in the white schools
of Baton Rouge have been permitted by
the federal district court to enter the
pending desegregation case (Davis v.
East Baton Rouge Parish School Board)
as plaintiff-intervenors.
The order adding the seven, all rep
resented by parents or guardians, to the
case was signed Sept. 27 by District
Judge E. Gordon West, who previously
had ordered the East Baton Rouge Par
ish schools desegregated “with all de
liberate speed.” No time limit has been
set. The case has been in court since
1956.
The plaintiff-intervenors are pupils
who on Sept. 4 were turned away from
the East Baton Rouge junior and senior
high schools. (SSN, September.) The
pupils are Patricia Jelks, Olivia Sander-
ford, Marian Sanderford, Earl Sander-
ford, Herbert Sanderford, Derbert San
derford and Ruth F. Bookman.
The motion to intervene, submitted
by A. P. Tureaud and other attorneys
for the NAACP, charged that refusal
to enroll the children constituted racial
discrimination. The attorneys also
asked for a preliminary and/or a final
injunction granting relief to the plain
tiffs.
★ ★ ★
Court Denies Prejudice
In Teacher-Firing Case
Allegations of prejudice by Orleans
Parish school authorities were denied
by the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals in upholding the dismissal
of Allen T. Tichenor Sr., a former in
structor at the Francis W. Gregory Jun
ior High School.
Tichenor was suspended in May, 1961,
upon a communication from the Supt.
James F. Redmond, charging him with
incompetence and wilful neglect of
duty. The superintendent’s action was
affirmed by the school board and, when
Tichenor appealed to the civil district
court, it was affirmed again by Judge
Howard J. Taylor.
In his appeal to the circuit court,
Tichenor claimed the board’s action
against him was based on his support
of segregation of the public schools. The
board charged that, early in 1960,
Tichenor had refused to permit any
local school officials to enter his class
room, contending that they had been
addressed out of office by the legisla
ture.
The appellate court found that the
status of the school board, its superin
tendent and its attorney was settled by
the federal courts and that nothing in
the record of the case substantiated the
Legislative Action
accusation that the board was moti
vated by prejudice or that Tichenor
would not have been given a fair and
impartial hearing by the school board.
★ ★ ★
Desegregation Leaders
Accused of Defamation
Two desegregation leaders were in
dicted by the East Baton Rouge Parish
grand jury on charges of defaming the
district attorney and district judge.
Indicted were the Rev. B. Elton Cox
of High Point, N.C., field secretary for
the Congress of Racial Equality, and
the Rev. Arthur Jelks Sr., president of
the Baton Rouge chapter of the
NAACP. Each was charged in separate
indictments with defaming District At
torney Sargent Pitcher and Judge Fred
Blanche during an antisegregation ral
ly that followed the rejection of Negro
children, including Jelks’ daughter, by
Baton Rouge white schools (see above).
Trial was set for Oct. 10.
In the Colleges
LSU Undergraduate
Policy Criticized
Louisiana State University’s policy
pertaining to Negro undergraduates was
criticized Sept. 15 by Clarence Laws,
Southwest regional secretary of the
NAACP. In a prepared statement, he
said in part:
. . When we consider that LSU is
making available to the foreign students
skills and techniques which are admit
tedly in short supply in America, it is
not only unfair but dangerous to ex
clude Negroes from such training be
cause of race.
“In the case of LSU it is a matter of
foreigners yes, but Negroes no.
“Of the more than 400 foreign stu
dents at LSU, several hundred are in
undergraduate schools. Yet there is not
a single known Negro undergraduate in
this tax-supported institution which
Negroes, too, are helping to sustain.”
Negro graduate students have been
admitted to LSU since 1950 under a
court decision, and the LSU undergrad
uate campus at New Orleans last year
had 258 Negroes enrolled, but no Negro
undergraduates ever have been admit
ted to the main campus at Baton Rouge.
Community Action
Catholic Parents
Urged to Boycott
Catholic parents were urged to boy
cott and picket desegregated parochial
schools during mass meetings in West-
wego in Jefferson Parish, and at the
Alexander Milne playground in New
Orleans.
A crowd, estimated by Westwego
Marshal Sidney Guillot at between 2,500
and 3,000, heard a series of speakers call
for demonstrations without violence.
In New Orleans, speakers urged par
ents to withhold support from the de
segregated St. Raphael’s school and the
parish church.
★ ★ ★
DELAWARE
State Board Cancels Plan
For Consolidated School
DOVER
T he construction of a $543,000
school has been called off by
the State Board of Education be
cause the board members decided
they could not prove the new
building was not meant as a seg
regated school.
At issue was a 12-room school to re
place four schools presently serving Ne
gro pupils at Milton No. 196, Ellendale
No. 195, Lincoln No. 194, and Slaughter
Neck No. 193. The school, in consolida
tion terminology, was tentatively named
MELS.
MELS had been involved in contro
versy since 1961 when a public opinion
poll conducted by the state board
showed a majority of the residents of
the districts wanted the school built.
However, spokesmen for the NAACP
subsequently held that it was an ex
tension of segregation. A suit to that
effect was filed April 13, 1961, in the
federal district court in Wilmington by
Louis L. Redding, the Negro attorney
whose suits have brought desegregation
of public education in Delaware.
A hearing on the supplemental com
plaint filed by Redding was scheduled
for early September, but the action
taken by the state board at the special
meeting apparently meant the case was
ended. The state board vote was only
Jackson G. Ricau, excommunicated
from the Roman Catholic Church last
summer for segregationist activities,
was elected president of the South Lou
isiana Citizens Council.
Ricau formerly served as executive
president of the staunchly segregation
ist group and as editor of its monthly
publications. He succeeds Joseph E.
Viguerie.
Other officers elected at the Sept. 25
meeting include: Martin M. Gurtier II,
vice president; J. L. Shelton, secretary;
and William G. Scheurer, treasurer.
★ ★ ★
Integrationist groups staged two
meetings in Baton Rouge in the wake
of refusal to admit seven Negro stu
dents to two schools.
A hundred persons reportedly attend
ed the earlier meeting on Sept. 5. On
Sept. 18, four organizations combined
to hold a rally that reportedly attracted
over 1,000. Sponsors were the Progres
sive Voters League, the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE), the Federated
Organization for the Cause of Unlimited
Self-Development (FOCUS), and the
NAACP.
Speakers included the Rev. Arthur L.
Jelks, president of the Baton Rouge
NAACP chapter, whose daughter was
among those turned away from the
white school, and the Rev. Elton Cox
of High Point, N.C., field secretary for
CORE. Both are under indictment for
allegedly defaming state judicial officers
at the earlier meeting. (See Legal Ac
tion.)
Orleans School Budget Approved
Orleans Parish’s 1962-63 school budg
et was among the 48 approved by the
Legislative Budget Committee during
the month. Nineteen others, found to be
not in balance, were given partial ap
proval (that is, for one month at a time
until they are properly balanced) so
as not to deny teachers and other
school employes their salaries.
In the case of Orleans Parish, the ac
tion was considered significant in light
of the piecemeal financial support the
school system received in 1960 and 1961
at the hands of the state after its schools
were desegregated.
Budget committee approval on a par-
ish-by-parish basis is necessary under
terms of a 1962 legislative act.
The approved Orleans Parish budget
totals $28,470,518.35 for current opera
tions, $349,594.64 more than the pre
vious year.
According to Supt. O. Perry Walker,
the increase is necessary to cover the
cost of hiring 113 new teachers to take
care of anticipated enrollment increases
and to permit reduction in the size of
classrooms. Plans call for employing 13
new white teachers and 100 Negro
teachers including two for special serv
ices to blind pupils.
★ ★ ★
The Louisiana Joint Legislative Seg
regation Committee Sept. 28 adopted a
resolution urging use of “state author
ity to drive out every Negro from our
white public schools and to restore ed
ucational opportunities to our white
youth in our state public school system
in New Orleans.”
In response, Gov. Jimmie H. Davis
pointed to his 1960 and 1961 efforts to
preserve segregation and said: “Now
come Monday morning quarterbacks to
advocate magic solutions and pat
courses of action to solve a problem
that faces not Louisiana but a sister
state.”
Those who would solve Mississippi’s
problem by inciting the people of Lou
isiana to armed rebellion or by the
organization of a caravan of second
guessers are playing a cruel hoax upon
the people of two states at a time when
reason and not emotion should rule our
action.”
Urges ‘Watch and Wait’
Rep. Risley Triche of Assumption
Parish, the administration’s floor leader
in the House, said, “This is not the time
for hasty, emotional or irresponsible ac
tions. I think we should play the hunt
er’s game and watch and wait.”
Chairman Frank Voelker Jr. of the
State Sovereignty Commission said:
Having been through five special ses
sions of the legislature, I do not think
Mr. Garrett (Rep. John Garrett of Clai
borne Parish, chairman of the joint
committee) would issue such a call for
action now without having in mind a
positive plan which has good prospects
for success.
“I am most anxious to learn the de
tails of his program. If it is as good as
I expect it must be, I have no doubt
but that Gov. Davis would be willing to
take whatever action is necessary. I
personally stand ready to help in every
conceivable way.”
Chairman Scored
Earlier, on Sept. 19, the Joint Legis
lative Segregation Committee, meeting
in Baton Rouge, roundly denounced
Chairman William E. Dodd of the State
Board of Education “for voluntarily
submitting a plan of integration for the
trade schools of Louisiana.” (See
Schoolmen, also Legal Action.)
At that committee meeting, held in
the office of Education Supt. Shelby M.
Jackson, the superintendent said with
regard to the trade schools: “I’m not ac
quainted with the desegregation plan.”
He said it had not come before him as
superintendent or in his capacity as
secretary to the state school board.
In other action at the Sept. 19 meet
ing, the joint legislative committee
adopted a resolution praising Missis
sippi Gov. Ross Barnett’s efforts to keep
Negro James Meredith out of the Uni
versity of Mississippi. # # #
Delaware Highlights
Delaware’s State Board of Educa
tion has called off construction of a
proposed consolidated school to
serve four small Negro districts. The
board, at a special meeting, decided
it could not prove the school was
not meant to be a segregated facility,
as claimed in a federal court action.
A United States judge ordered
Negroes admitted to the previously
white school at Lincoln.
Residents from a district with a
white school complained to the State
Board of Education that Negroes in
their Little Creek District had a
choice of what school to attend, but
that whites did not. The state su
perintendent of public instruction
agreed.
Dr. Ward I. Miller, superintend
ent of schools at Wilmington, will
retire in June. Dr. Miller has led
the Wilmington schools through
quiet and nearly complete desegre
gation since the 1954 Supreme Court
decision.
3-1 to stop construction, with one
member (Harry Zutz) absent and Pres
ident J. Ohrum Small not voting.
Harold B. English, Laurel, who cast
the dissenting vote, suggested that the
state board defy the federal court and
Judge Caleb M. Wright, who had told
Delaware’s attorney general he would
not hesitate to order the MELS school
closed if he decided it was meant to be
a segregated school. English, who rep
resents Delaware’s southern section,
urged that the board go to court rather
than sign the resolution calling off con
struction.
“Let him (Judge Wright) padlock it.
It will be him, not me,” said English,
an outspoken foe of desegregation.
“If it’s padlocked, the money will be
wasted,” replied Marvel O. Watson,
Dover, a banker.
Apart from English, only Dr. Hiram
Lasher, a newly appointed member,
proposed going to court. President
Small, for instance, who presented a
detailed resume of the situation, said
that little would be gained by going to
court in a case “in which everybody is
very strong in their belief as to what
action will be forthcoming.” Small left
little doubt that he meant the state
board could not defend its case in
court.
Felt the Same
Dr. George R. Miller Jr., state super
intendent of public instruction, who
played a key role as a witness in pre
vious desegregation hearings, felt the
same.
“I don’t see how we can prove this
isn’t a segregated school, and we have
to prove its not segregated, because the
burden of proof is upon us; we’re the
defendants,” Dr. Miller said.
The board, since it received the
money from the General Assembly on
Oct. 1, 1960, has maintained MELS was
meant as a desegregated facility. How
ever, the consolidated school site is in
a district with a predominantly Negro
population.
Approximately 375 students, based on
last year’s enrollment, attend the four
small schools. Slaughter Neck, with 130,
leads the list, followed by Milton with
102, Ellendale with 87, and Lincoln with
56.
All of the schools have been plagued
by an excess enrollment, according to
Dr. H. B. King, assistant superintendent
in charge of elementary education. The
Lincoln school, for instance, struck by
fire last year, went on double sessions
in September until repairs were made.
Both Ellendale and Milton rented rooms
apart from the schools to handle the
overflow.
Slaughter Neck also is overcrowded,
according to Dr. King, but the State
Department of Public Instruction was
unsuccessful in September in securing
a suitable room to rent as a classroom.
Favorable Poll
Dr. Lasher, the other state board
member from southern Delaware, point
ed to the favorable opinion poll held in
1961, which showed the residents fa
vored the consolidated school by a 441-
19 margin.
“Let’s go to court and allow those
who favored the consolidation to pre
sent their case,” he said.
His idea found little favor.
Dr. Lasher, who was recently named
to the board to replace Ralph Grapper-
haus, Selbyville publisher, himself fi-
(See DELAWARE, Page 8)