Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8—NOVEMBER, 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MISSOURI
U. S. Judge Orders More Negroes
Admitted to Charleston School
ST. LOUIS
U nited States District Judge
James H. Meredith at Cape
Girardeau issued a temporary in
junction on Oct. 8, ordering the
school district of Charleston, in
Mississippi County, to admit sev
en Negro students to the Charles
ton High School. The county is in
the southeast Missouri “Bootheel”
area.
Judge Meredith set Jan. 14 as the
date for trial of a suit calling for
desegregation of all schools at Charles
ton, a river town that has about 6,000
people, including 2,000 Negroes. The
suit was brought against the Board
of Education by parents. The petition
ers are represented by Clyde S. Cahill
Jr., Negro attorney of St. Louis.
Cahill, who heads the legal redress
committee of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple in Missouri, said following Judge
Meredith’s order that the Negro stu
dents had been admitted and that
about 30 Negroes were now attending
the high school.
The Charleston schools were partly
desegregated in 1955, but only at the
11th and 12th grade levels. Three of
the seven Negro students ordered ad
mitted by Judge Meredith are ninth
and tenth graders.
Offer Services
Shortly after the suit was filed Aug.
25, (SSN, September) the Missouri
Commission on Human Rights, a state
agency, offered its services. However,
Winston Cook of St. Louis, commission
chairman, said the offer had not been
accepted. Charleston was the scene in
August and early September of a series
of anti-segregation demonstrations.
Most of the demonstrators were Negro
youths.
A Negro demonstrator was reported
to have been struck, but not badly
hurt, by a white youth Aug. 22 in a
demonstration at a restaurant adjoin
ing a bus station. On one occasion in
mid-August 19 demonstrators were ar
rested. A week later 11 were arrested.
On Aug. 28, 21 persons, 19 of them
Negroes, were convicted on charges re
sulting from desegregation activities at
Charleston. Most of the 21 had been in
jail for 10 days or more.
Commission Chairman Cook pointed
out that the state agency’s jurisdiction
was limited to matters arising under
the Missouri Fair Employment Prac
tices Act. The commission has no pow
ers, he said, in regard to school deseg
regation and public accommodations
matters. The commission has sought to
play the role of mediator or conciliator,
where possible.
Rejects Request
In a television interview at Columbia,
Mo., Aug. 26, Governor John M. Dalton
predicted that Charleston’s race trou
bles would be settled in a satisfactory
manner. He had turned down a request
from the Charleston chapter of the
NAACP to call a special session of the
legislature for enactment of a public
accommodations law.
Governor Dalton said in the interview
that the problem in the Charleston
situation was to “keep the radicals
from coming in and upsetting it.” He
said Missouri had been fortunate in
handling the race problem thus far,
and his goal was to keep the state
from “having a black eye.”
Negro residents of Charleston met
with the Charleston City Council and
asked that an eight-point program
called “Operation Freedom, Now,” be
put into effect. The points included de
segregation of schools, barber shops,
restaurants, theaters and recreational
facilities.
Criticizes Dalton
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an
editorial Aug. 29 commended the Mis
souri Human Rights Commission for
offering its services in Charleston and
criticized Governor Dalton for his
statement about radicals, the editorial
said:
“Charleston’s school situation is up
set not because of radicals but because
the Charleston authorities have not
fully integrated their schools. That is
why parents of Negro students have
filed suit in United States district court
here. There is nothing radical about
demanding a legal right; indeed, it is
radical to oppose it. And the way to
keep ‘radicals’ out of Charleston is to
give them no excuse for entry.
“All Charleston has to do is to inte-
Missouri Highlights
U.S. District Judge James H. Mere
dith issued a temporary injunction
Oct. 8 ordering seven more Negro
students admitted to Charleston High
School in Mississippi County. In ad
dition, Judge Meredith set Jan. 14
as the trial date for a suit calling
for desegregation of all schools at
Charleston.
The St. Louis-St. Louis County
White House Conference on Educa
tion will hold a one-day conference
Nov. 13 on “The Education of Cul
turally Disadvantaged Youth.”
In early October, 15 social agencies
started an investigation to determine
whether they could provide assistance
to St. Louis County’s all-Negro munic
ipality of Kinloch, where a school
was burned Sept. 24 in a riot.
grate its schools adequately, peaceably,
in accordance with the law and, we
would hope, with the Governor’s en
couragement. Thus Missouri can avoid
a self-inflicted black eye.”
Governor Dalton also has been both
praised and chided for taking what
some Missourians regarded as a pro-
Southern viewpoint in the desegrega
tion controversy at the University of
Mississippi.
Attorney Cahill said the Charleston
desegregation suit, first of its kind to
be brought in Missouri since the 1954
United States Supreme Court ruling,
was unrelated to the Charleston dem
onstrations at places of public accom
modation. He said it was expected that
similar action would be taken before
Jan. 1 against the Hayti-Wardell school
district in Pemiscot County, also in
southeast Missouri.
Community Action
Conference Urges
More Education
For Slum Children
“The Education of Culturally Disad
vantaged Youth” will be the subject
of a one-day meeting of the St. Louis-
St. Louis County White House Con
ference on Education in St. Louis Nov.
13. In preparation, the conference pub
lished a 124-page booklet calling atten
tion to what is being done in the St.
Louis area for slum children, chiefly
Negroes, and urging further action.
The conference said that the St.
Louis central city, non-white popula
tion showed a gain of nearly 40 per
cent from 1950 to 1960. The city showed
a net loss of population in the decade,
with many white residents moving to
the suburbs, but even so the number
of school-age persons increased.
During the 10 years, the white popu
lation of the central city decreased by
168,344 while the non-white population
gained by 61,574. The number of chil
dren between the ages of 5 and 17
increased, meanwhile, from 133,000 in
1950 to approximately 149,000 in 1960—
up more than 12 per cent.
The White House study said it was
important that most of the changes
marked by housing and neighborhood
within the city took place in sections
deteriorating. The pattern was that
white families vacated an older, de
teriorating neighborhood and were re
placed by non-white families, which
moved from even less desirable neigh
borhoods or from outside the city.
Successful Living
“Culturally disadvantaged youth,”
the study said, “designates children and
young people not equipped by upbring
ing and early environment with reac
tions, habits and’ attitudes compatible
with successful living in society.
“Whatever their native capacities,
only exceptionally will such young peo
ple become well-adjusted adults, use
ful members of society, contributors to
their communities.”
Discussing St. Louis projects aimed
at helping the culturally disadvantaged
youth in school, the study mentions
among others the work being done in
the Banneker Elementary District of
the St. Louis public schools and another
city public school activity, the Great
Cities Program. The latter is partly
financed by the Ford Foundation, and
involves the 16-20 age bracket.
National Attention
The Banneker District, of which
Samuel Shepard Jr., a Negro, is direc
tor, has won national attention by its
success in upgrading the achievement
of Negro slum children since 1957.
Shepard tries to show children and
parents that education is the way to a
better job and a better life.
In a series of programs attended by
parents and eighth graders in October,
Shepard introduced an innovation. He
had organized two teams each with
nine St. Louis Negroes who hold well-
paying, responsible jobs in the com
munity. These teams alternated in mak
ing personal appearance at the Ban
neker schools.
The team members are persons em
ployed at such concerns as McDonnell
(See MISSOURI, Page 9)
Louisiana
onlv 18 per cent of the parish’s 29,521
eligible voters went to the polls.
Among the projects to be undertaken
with funds obtained through the issue
will be a $2,450,000 senior high school,
a $1,110,000 junior high school, a $520,-
000 elementary school and a $1,560,000
combination 12-year school for white
students. For Negro pupils, there will
be two new junior high schools totaling
$2,453,000, three new elementary schools
totaling $1,030,000, a $200 000 school for
exceptional children, $410,000 for expan
sion of three existing schools and a
$300,000 stadium for the Booker T.
Washington High School.
Only one of the 73 precincts failed to
return a majority in favor. Predomi
nantly Negro Precincts 39 and 40 voted
heavily for the issue.
(Continued From Page 5)
Community Action
★ ★ ★
School Book Supply Brings
Complaint in Baton Rouge
In Baton Rouge, an NAACP repre
sentative complained that Negro chil
dren had not, as of Oct. 18, received
the required school books which the
state has been supplying its school chil
dren since the days of Gov. Huey P.
Long. He said that unless they receive
the proper school supplies p omptly
they would seek to enroll in the near
est white schools.
The Rev. Arthur Jelks Sr., president
of the Baton Rouge chapter of the
NAACP, wrote to the East Baton Rouge
Parish school board that he has been
receiving constant reports about this
matter.
“How much longer,” he a'ked, “do
our children have to be neglected
proper material so that they might be
exposed to an education or knowledge
as the white children?”
“We are requesting that the Negro
children be given the opportunity to
transfer from those classrooms where
proper up-to-date books are not sup
plied to the nearest white school at the
beginning of the next school semester,”
he said.
‘Mass Attempt’
“We are compelled to make a mass
attempt to enroll these children in the
schools where the state is providing
up-to-date books at the beginning of
the next semester.
“Our children need an education as
the white. Seemingly we do not have no
other recourse. A reply is requested on
or before the last date of November,
1962.”
Parish School Supt. Lloyd Lindsay
said the letter would be answered after
it was taken up with the school board.
★ ★ ★
A meeting of Parents and Friends of
Catholic Children, scheduled for Oct.
24, was called off when only six per
sons showed up at the appointed time.
Scheduled speakers were to have
been Leander Perez, president of the
Plaquemines Parish Council, and Rep.
John F. Rau, state legislator from Jef
ferson Parish.
Colleges Desegregate in Nine States
(Continued From Page 1)
these desegregated schools had 724 Ne
groes. Negro enrollment was up in one
of the schools, Louisiana State Univer
sity at New Orleans, but was expected
to be down slightly at the Louisiana
State University main campus at Baton
Rouge, Southeastern Louisiana College
at Hammond, the University of South
west Louisiana at Lafayette, and Mc-
Neese State College at Lake Charles.
Baptist Colleges
Another Baptist college in North
Carolina, Gardner-Webb, was reported
to be desegregated. A report at the state
convention of Negro Baptists said that
Wake Forest and Mars Hill had two
Negro students each and that Gardner-
Webb and Meredith colleges were de
segregated in policy. The state conven
tion of white Baptists operates seven
colleges in North Carolina.
Catawba College of Salisbury, N. C.,
which is controlled by the Evangelical
and Reformed Church, has admitted a
Negro for a foreign language course not
offered at the nearby Negro college
where he is enrolled as a regular stu
dent. Catawba officials said this did not
mean a change in the college’s regular
admission policy.
Christian Brothers College at Mem
phis, a Roman Catholic institution, has
enrolled three Negro freshmen among
its 728 undergraduates. The college has
had a desegregation policy since 1959
and in 1960 one student was a Negro.
In Texas, Hill Junior College was re
opened at Hillsboro with 185 students
after being closed for several years, and
although it had an announced policy of
accepting Negroes, none applied. Clar
endon College has a desegregation po
licy, but also had no Negro applicants.
Weatherford, another junior college,
enrolled four Negro girls among ap
proximately 325 students.
A spokesman at Arlington State Col
lege said Negro enrollment at the Texas
school exceeded the “five or six” orig
inally estimated to attend the school for
the first time this fall. San Jacinto
College near Houston, which had prev
iously announced its desegregation po
licy, had five Negroes enrolled. All five
of these Texas schools are tax-sup-
ported.
A Negro girl attended classes for one
day at the newly opened Patrick Henry
College at Martinsville, Va., the first
classroom desegregation to occur in
Southside Virginia. The student then
left the branch of the University of Vir
ginia because classes she wanted were
filled, and she returned to the all-Ne
gro Virginia State College.
West Virginia Baptists, at their state
convention, condemned racial barriers
in state educational institutions. The
president of a Baptist school, Alderson-
Broaddus College at Philippi, said four
Negro students were enrolled there.
A Negro applied by mail on Oct. 24
for admission to the University of Ala
bama. The school still is under injunc
tion to admit Negroes, dating from the
Autherine Lucy case of 1956. The Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. said other Ne
groes would apply.
The constitutional amendments pro
posed in Georgia and Arkansas con
cerned the freedom of public school
students to attend schools with their
own race. Amendment 51 in Arkansas
read, “No child shall ever be denied his
or her right to a free public education
to which he or she is otherwise entitled
under the Constitution of this State, by
reason of his or her refusal to attend
school with a student or student of an
other or different race when he or she
shall prove to the satisfaction of his or
her school board that to do so would
be inimical to his or her welfare.”
The Georgia amendment apparently
passed but the Arkansas one appeared
to have been killed.
Louisiana voters had to decide on 48
constitutional amendments, including
four bearing directly on school segrega
tion. One, which passed, enables the
legislature to submit amendments to the
education article of the constitution at
special elections. The voters rejected
the amendment to create the Louisiana
Financial Assistance Commission and to
provide money for student grants to
attend private nonsectarian schools.
Approval was given an amendment to
change the state constitution to make it
read “No appropriation of public funds
shall be made to any private or non
sectarian school” instead of “No public
funds shall be used for support of any
private or non-sectarian school.”
The fourth amendment on schools,
which also passed, was drafted to sep
arate the financing and remove any ad
ministrative relation between the public
schools and the pupil assistance system.
# # #
New Orleans Group
Urges Nonpolitical
Control of Board
n
e:
si
li
Declaring that the administration of
Gov. Jimmie H. Davis is maneuvering
to gain control of the Orleans Parish
School Board, a local organization
called Citizens for Public Schools urged
appointment of “an outstanding citizen
of unquestionable integrity” to fill an
unexpired term on the board and elec
tion of two more members without ties
to political cliques or extremists
groups.
Dr. Robert C. Lancaster, chairman of
the citizens committee, said his organi
zation favored no particular candidate
in the Nov. 6 school board election but
“stands for complete nonpolitical con
trol of the Orleans Parish School
Board.”
Dr. Lancaster said the group has in
formation that the city administration
which is close to Gov. Davis politically,
“has aligned itself openly with can
didates supported by an extremist
group.” He did not name names. But
Rayon A. Stevens and James L. Earhart
were endorsed by the Citizens Counci'
of Greater New Orleans.
The Citizens for Public Schools
spokesman also indicated the long de
lay in filling the unexpired term of
Emile A. Wagner Jr., is one part of the
effort by the governor to gain control
of the Orleans Parish board. Wagner
resigned from the five-man board i".
August rather than participate in the
formulation of a desegregation pro
gram. However, Gov. Davis has not ye!
accepted the resignation or acted to
name a successor. (See Political Activ
ity.)
★ ★ ★
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State NAACP Conference
Urges More Desegregation
More desegregation in the public
schools of Louisiana was called for b)
the state conference of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, meeting in New Or
leans Oct. 28.
The organization specifically cited the
parishes of Caddo, Ouachita, Rapides
Winn and Claiborne as possible loca
tions for efforts in that direction.
A. M. Trudeau Jr. of New Orleaa;
was elected state president to succeec
J. N. Blankenship of Saline. Other ne*
officers elected include Miss Arnett
Pierce of Monroe, first vice presided
Ellis Howard of Greenburg, second vi«
president; Murrell Conzaque of Alexan
dria, third vice president; Mrs. Marietta
Brown of Lake Charles, secretary; a* 1
Lawrence H. Conley of Lake Chark
treasurer.
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What They Say
President Urged
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To Let Congress
Soci
Settle Race Issue
w,
ay
In an open letter to the Preside”
Louisiana’s Secretary of State Wade ^
Martin urged that the race ' ssue ^
settled by law through the Cong
rather than with “bullets and bay 0 ®
and tear gas” as in Oxford, Ml
“Need you be reminded,’
of
wrote, “that the destruction t- ^
American’s property, the changing^
his environment, the destruction 0 ^
culture and that of his community’,
no less acceptable to him when i®P°^
by the federal Supreme Court- ^
President, the attorney general o
NAACP than when imposed or t
ened by outside enemies. .^d
“So, whether you are right ° r
about the ultimate effects of c0 >£
integration, these innumerable , p
Americans, who believe it is ® 0
the nation and bad for them, 1/11 ^
all of you almost as quickly aS ^
would fight outside invaders 0
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knnjfl
assista
Negro
was f,
25. Ori
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yea
country.” ru ,
Said Martin, “Whether you ar ■„
or wrong, each side should cons' ^,
sincerity of the other and g° s
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★ ★ ★
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Mrs. B. J. Gaillot Jr., e ™ oX %sS :
. . . , — r>-+V,r>llC C-l* ,.
wit
cated from the Roman Catholic^ ^ jr
1 hai
, ' Mis soi
for her advocacy of resistant ' uggls
segregation of the parochial s ^
New Orleans, sought to app e . pjjO*
terdiction against her via a
CV >ntr °
»7?stu
School
call to the Vatican. . iv to
She said she had hoped to ta ^ ,v>
secretary of Pope John XAt
told she must take the matter ;
>d
Xty.; 1
the bishop of her diocese.