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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER. 1962—PAGE 19
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 15)
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Southern Manifesto in 1956 and once
commented that he thought Gov. Fau-
bus had handled the Little Rock sit
uation in the wrong way in 1957, has
let the years slip by without getting
ffl uch into the record on his views.
Criticizes Supreme Court
Occasionally in the past, he has criti
cized the U. S. Supreme Court for its
Brown decision in 1954, and that is the
point he chose to use in his campaign
this year. In several speeches he said
that he thought the court “usurped the
powers of the legislative branch” with
the 1954 decision.
A lawyer and a former law teacher,
Fulbright said he thought that the sep-
arate-but-equal ruling had been in
effect for 90 years and actually had
become the law of the land. Thus he
thought the court was acting “without
right” when it reversed that ruling in
1954.
Jones, who has aligned himself with
the far right wing of the Republican
Party, espoused the view that the
amendment never was ratified proper
ly and so that it was an illegal basis
for the 1954 court decision. He called
for presidential action for a new con
stitutional amendment to clear up the
situation surrounding the 14th Amend
ment.
StOB
ins- Schoolmen
tior.
mgh Roles of Negroes
In School Affairs
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Get Discussion
Whether desegregation in the Little
Rock high schools goes beyond mere
class attendance was called into ques
tion during October.
On the basis of several comments by
school officials, apparently it is only
beginning to do so in this the fifth
year of desegregation (not counting
1958-59 when the high schools were
closed) at Little Rock.
During the trouble at the University
of Mississippi in the first week of
October, a United Press International
reporter talked to a Negro boy who is
a orator at Central High and a trumpet
player. The boy told him that he had
been advised not to try out for the
entral High band so instead he play§
with the Philander Smith College band,
inlander Smith is a Methodist college
tor Negroes at Little Rock.
The reporter added that Negro stu
dents at Central High did not partici-
• a e in extra-curricular activities or
end school athletic events, but that
m>? aS not true at HaU Hi S h School.
Hi h qU ° ted Terrel l E - Powell, Hall
lent P /' nc 'P a l an< f former superinten-
> mat the six Negro students there
, ° ng to C ^ U * 3S an d attend the football
satnes.
bran ton Queries Parsons
W A little later, on Oct. 15, Supt. Floyd
by i,, a . rsons said he had been asked
1 ey A. Branton, attorney for the
Negro students in
the desegregated
schools, whether
they could join
the student clubs
and school bands.
Parsons said
only that the
board would dis
cuss this later.
A board mem
ber, state Rep.
J. H. Cottrell Jr.,
said the board
-Mcy did not have a
fiftiber t j a * ma *ter, and another
M e „’ r ed Lamb, said he thought
i? enter ° ,^ uden fs should be allowed
■Hcker jr * , sc ^°°l activities. Everett
I ^-^unent °° ard President, declined
31116 *^e November issue of
! **t . ^agazine with an article
^ ritte a bv n —Five Years Later”
■ ‘ tl tervj evv era d Walker on the basis
sprj n s and information obtained
8 and summer.
j Girl ’ s Experience
the state of
I >- '^g the dle c lassrooms 1
> Evans !, X M rienCeS of Jacc
at Hail u N t gro gir1 ’ in th
j 4 hoo > year Hlgh Scho °l in the
■dM, ^as^turi A a student > she r
by th d0Wn by th<
, Y. r Z the national Beta
1 servio S ^ by the Kac
Ead com nd P ® P club) ‘
, Pal ’s offie j everal trips
° ne to the ,
r ^id ’ he stor y said.
6 Wa s accepted 1
Science Club but allegedly was left
out of or snubbed on the club’s field
trips.
Walker’s article irritated the high
school principals. Jess W. Matthews of
Central High said it was “slanted” but
nothing “to get excited about.” Powell
said he stood by his description of the
last three years as years of normal ed
ucation and said that in the current
school year, the Negro students “be
long to several clubs out here. They
have been refused admission to no
club they applied to this year.”
Official Awareness
Walker’s article said Little Rock
school officials were aware of this
problem and indicated that a change
was coming about. He quoted Super
intendent Parsons:
“This question of activities is the
most difficult and perhaps the one on
which we are most vulnerable. We’ve
made progress, although ‘tremendous
strides’ would be an exaggeration.”
He mentioned: Negro parents belong
to the PTA’s of the desegregated
schools; Negro parents attend the teas
put on by girls in the home economics
classes; in one of the junior high
schools, a Negro girl was elected to
represent her home room on the stu
dent council; the Negro students could
attend the school athletic events last
year; and the Negro students got
reduced-rate tickets the same as white
students for desegregated concerts in
the city auditorium.
★ ★ ★
The Little Rock school board reas
signed two Negro students from deseg
regated junior high schools to Dunbar
Junior High School for Negroes at a
meeting Oct. 30. The board said both the
students and their parents had request
ed the changes.
One boy was transferred out of East
Side Junior High, leaving 17 Negro stu
dents there among 431 whites, and one
girl was transferred out of Southwest
Junior High, leaving one Negro there
among 1,075 whites.
★ ★ ★
Demonstrations Follow
Mississippi Violence
A slight flurry of anti-Negro demon
strations took place at Little Rock Cen
tral High School while the Ole Miss
violence was in the headlines during
the first week of October.
At the first of the week, as many
as 100 white students would gather
in front of the school before classes
in the morning, to wave Confederate
emblems and jeer at the Negro stu
dents.
One morning they ran a Confederate
flag up the school flag pole but it was
quickly taken down. The school ban
ned the use of flags or insignia except
those of school organizations, and by
the end of the week the demonstrators
had dwindled to only a few each morn
ing.
A Negro boy in the 12th grade at
Central was interviewed that week by
a United Press International reporter
and said that coldness and tenseness
had returned to the Central hallways
although he thought it would be tem
porary.
“I could feel icicle stares instead of
warmth as I walked to classes this
week,” he said. “I also heard the word
‘nigger’ more frequently, but I didn’t
know or stop to find out if it was
directed at me. But I think this’ll die
down in the next few days as soon
as the trouble down there in Missis
sippi stops.”
Before that week there had been
practically no trouble in the school, he
said. He said he was cursed once in
a while but that most of the students
seemed indifferent toward the Negroes.
★ ★ ★
Mrs. Sara Murphy, 38, wife of a law
yer, has filed for the Little Rock school
board position held by Everett Tucker,
Jr., and Dr. John A. Harrel Jr., 40, a
pediatrician, for the position occupied
by B. Frank Mackey. Tucker and
Mackey still have not said whether
they will ask re-election. The election
will be held Dec. 4.
Miscellaneous
Central’s Original
Negro Students
All in Colleges
Troops in Mississippi on the fifth
anniversary of troops in Little Rock
brought on a lot of looking back.
KENTUCKY
Oldham County Changes Policy;
Negroes Drop Plans for Lawsuit
LOUISVILLE
SCHOOL DESEGREGATION Suit
being drawn up against the
Oldham County Board of Edu
cation was dropped after the
superintendent said Negro pupils
next year will be accepted at any
public school where they apply.
The suit was being prepared by a
Louisville attorney, James A. Crumlin,
an NAACP leader, on behalf of a group
of Negro parents who complained that
they had tried unsuccessfully to have
their children transferred from an all-
Negro school at Pewee Valley to Crest-
wood Elementary School.
Oldham Superintendent Alton Ross
said he disapproved the transfer re
quest because it was made after the
school year began. He said the Negroes
would be accepted next fall, but as
serted that this would not represent
any change of policy by the school
board. Ross said Negroes have attended
two of the county’s white elementary
schools in recent years, and that the
policy is to accept them wherever they
apply.
The Oldham system has been listed
by the State Department of Education
as desegregated since 1956 but Negro
enrollment in white elementary schools
has been slight. Negro high-school stu
dents are sent by bus at county expense
to the state-operated Lincoln Institute
at Simpsonville. Ross said the Negroes
attend Lincoln Institute by preference.
Negro leaders expected that the cur
rent clarification of the Oldham board’s
policy would result in significantly
higher Negro attendance at white
schools next fall.
Kentucky Highlights
A group of Negro parents dropped
plans for suing the Oldham County
Board of Education after the super
intendent said that Negro pupils
would be accepted at all public
schools in the system next fall.
In suburban Louisville, 77 resi
dents sought to have the Jefferson
County Board of Education close an
all-Negro school and absorb its 87
pupils in desegregated schools.
One of the last four colleges in
the state still having racial barriers
to admission was expected to ap
prove a committee recommendation
that the barriers be eliminated.
Jefferson County Asked
To Close Negro School
The Jefferson County Board of Edu
cation was asked by a group of 77 Jef-
fersontown residents to close the Alex-
ander- Ingram School, an all-Negro
elementary school with 87 pupils.
The board decided at its Oct. 22
meeting to have the school inspected.
The complaining residents said the
building was poorly ventilated and
heated, and lacked adequate lunchroom
and recreational facilities.
Alexander-Ingram is one of two
“colored” schools remaining in the sys
tem from the segregated setup that ex
isted prior to 1956. The other is the
Forest School outside Anchorage. (A
third school, Newburg, is also all-Negro
because no white pupils live in its dis
trict, officials said.)
The Jefferson County system, which
embraces suburban Louisville includ
ing such fringe communities as Jef-
fersontown, is the largest public-school
district in Kentucky.
School Superintendent Richard Van
Hoose said the system has tried “to
integrate these
schools as fast as
possible, but in a
way that wouldn’t
bring undue hard
ship on any
group.” Van Hoose
said the closing of
Alexander-Ingram
could lead to
double shifts or
high pupil-teach
er ratios at white
schools.
In the Colleges
Asbury Committee
Recommends Ending
All Racial Barriers
The Board of Trustees of Asbury
College will act in January on a rec
ommendation that all racial barriers to
admission be dropped.
The recommendation is from the
board’s executive committee, which
took the action at its regular fall meet
ing on Oct. 2. Approval of the recom
mendation is expected to be routine.
Asbury, a privately controlled col
lege at Wilmore, has an enrollment of
about 1,000, both men and women.
The college has had a limited deseg
regation plan in effect, under which
some Negroes from foreign countries
and some married American Negroes
(See KENTUCKY, Page 20)
VAN HOOSE
Virginia
(Continued From Page 4)
Thomas J. Michie. This brings to 16 thi
number of Negroes in eight desegre
gated Lynchburg schools.
★ ★ ★
Federal District Judge Oren R. Lewi
on Oct. 11 entered the formal decrei
stating that Prince Edward Count/
schools cannot be closed while publi
schools are operated elsewhere in Vir
ginia. However, he said he would post
pone the entry of such further order
as may be necessary “to require ful
compliance with this decree” to giv
time for an appeal. (Allen v. Prince Ed
ward County School Board.)
On Oct. 17 S. W. Tucker, a Richmond
At Little Rock, both the Associated
Press and United Press International
bureaus got the idea of running down
the nine Negro students who entered
Central High when it was desegregated
in 1957. Here is what they are doing
now:
Ernest Green, who was the first Ne
gro to be graduated from Central, in
1958, was graduated from Michigan
State University in 1962 and is still
there doing graduate work.
Terrance Roberts is a junior at the
Universitv of Southern California at
Los Angeles.
Jefferson Thomas also is a junior
at UCLA.
Melba Pattillo, is a junior at San
Francisco State College.
Carlotta Walls, after two years at
Michigan State, is now a junior at the
University of Colorado.
Minnijean Brown, who was expelled
from Central in the spring of 1958 and
finished high school at a private school
in New York City, now attends South
ern Illinois University at Carbondale,
Ill.
Thelma Mothershed also attends
Southern Illinois.
Gloria Ray is a sophomore at the
Illinois Institute of Technology.
Elizabeth Eckford is a senior at Cen
tral State College at Wilberforce, Ohio,
a Negro college.
All of them are being financed by
the NAACP, said L. C. Bates, field
representative. “We couldn’t afford to
let the original nine go backward,” he
said.
Bates said one of the girls suffered
permanent nerve damage from her ex
perience with the mob on the first
morning at Central High but that the
others have only bad memories.
# # #
attorney, filed notice that he would ap
peal the case on behalf of the Negro
plaintiffs. Earlier, he had said that in
his appeal he would seek “to develop
the thought that whatever federal
power is available to accomplish the re
opening of schools in Prince Edward,
the court shouldn’t hesitate to use it.”
The latest developments seem to
make it certain that public schools in
Prince Edward will not open before
February, at the earliest, even if the
Negro plaintiffs prevail in the courts.
★ ★ ★
A suit seeking desegregation of
schools in the city of Hopewell was filed
in United States District Court at Rich
mond Oct. 17 (Gilliam v. Hopewell
School Board.)
Nine Negro children are seeking ad
mittance to white schools. Hopewell has
no school desegregation at present.
★ ★ ★
Prince George County officials on Oct.
8 challenged the right of the U. S. De
partment of Justice to institute a de
segregation suit against the county.
(United States of America v. Prince
George County School Board.)
The challenge was in a dismissal mo
tion filed in Federal District Court at
Richmond. The state, through the at
torney general, filed a similar dismissal
motion.
The Justice Department had filed a
desegregation suit Sept. 17 in behalf of
children of Negro military and civilian
personnel at Ft. Lee, located in Prince
George. The Justice Department con
tends that the children are being dis
criminated against by being required by
Prince George authorities to attend
segregated schools.
Motions of Dismissal
In the motions of dismissal filed Oct.
8, the contentions are made that the
Justice Department has not shown con
gressional authority to institute a deseg
regation suit, and also that any rights
claimed should be asserted by individ
uals allegedly discriminated against and
not by the government agency. Still an
other contention is that the suit is in
valid because it does not name the
Virginia Pupil Placement Board as a
defendant.
The Prince George County board of
supervisors voted Oct. 8 to build two
new schools for Negro children. The su
pervisors approved $48,600 in local
funds for the two schools. The federal
government is slated to put up an addi
tional $194,169 in “impact area” funds to
help finance the construction.
During the discussion of the school
construction proposal, board Chairman
J. Lee Thacker said that the county had
had “nothing but trouble and confusion”
since entering a 20-year contract with
the federal government in 1951 to edu
cate the Ft. Lee children. Several board
members said they had “been assured”
that no desegregation attempts would
be made by service personnel if the
county entered the agreement.
Schoolmen
VEA Assembly
Votes To Permit
Negro Members
The Virginia Education Association’s
annual assembly voted 591-550 to per
mit its local chapters to accept Negro
members.
The action reversed a policy that last
year caused the ouster of the Arlington
chapter when it admitted Negro teach
ers as members. The change also fore
stalled possible ouster of the Fairfax
chapter, since that group had indicated
it might accept Negroes.
The VEA itself will remain segre
gated. Negroes who join local chapters
will not be eligible for membership in
the state organization.
The assembly’s action, taken in Rich
mond Nov. 1, reversed a study commit
tee’s recommendation, which called for
continued segregation of local chapters.
Generally, delegates from urban areas
voted for the change, while delegates
from rural sections voted against it.
The Virginia Teachers Association
(Negro), meeting in Richmond sep
arately but simultaneously with the
VEA, adopted resolutions calling for
the reopening of Prince Edward Coun
ty’s public schools, urging more and
better schools for Negroes, and criti
cizing the Civil War Centennial pro
gram.
As to the centennial, the Negro edu
cators said:
“We still note, with some concern, the
large amounts of money spent in cele
brating the Civil War Centennial while
our leaders of the future suffer from
the ills of crowded classrooms, double
shifts, and low salaried instructors.
Can we continue to revere a past which
offers little, as depicted, for the im
provement of the future while we as a
nation are faced with grave local, state,
national and international crises?”