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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—DECEMBER, 1962—PAGE II
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I
ARKANSAS
Incumbent Little Rock Board President Is
LITTLE ROCK
F ive candidates including a
Negro wound up running for
two positions on the Little Rock
School Board in the Dec. 4 school
election.
Everett Tucker Jr., 50, school board
president, waited until two days be
fore the filing deadline to announce
Nov. 11 that he would ask for another
jjy-ee-year term. Mrs. Sara Murphy, 38,
already had filed for his position.
For the other position, three doctors
filed: Dr. John A. Harrel Jr., 40, a
pediatrician; Dr. Louis E. Tolbert Jr.,
37 an internist; and Dr. M. A. Jackson,
36 a Negro general practitioner.
Final returns for the election put
Tucker ahead with 7,645 votes, followed
by Harrel with 6,521; Mrs. Murphy,
4,989; Jackson, 3,926; and Tolbert, 2,-
284.
Tucker and Mrs. Murphy represent
approximately the same segment of
the community, the “open schools” or
“moderate” group. Mrs. Murphy work
ed with the women’s organizations for
Tucker in the bitter school board recall
election of May 1959. She said she had
no desire to run against Tucker but
had been led by him to believe that
he was not going to run again. They
campaigned on their plans for such
things as curriculum changes, a build
ing program and improving the gen
eral school program.
Incumbent Not Running
For the other position, the incum
bent, B. Frank Mackey, was not run
ning because he has been elected
sheriff of Pulaski County. Dr. Harrel,
out of the same part of the community
as Tucker and Mrs. Murphy, and Dr.
Jackson were the first in the race. Dr.
Tolbert filed on the last day, Nov. 13.
He is a native of Georgia who moved
to Little Rock in 1959 after the school
crisis was over.
The Women’s Emergency Committee
for Public Schools of Little Rock en
dorsed a candidate in each contest, Mrs.
Murphy and Dr. Harrel. In the past
the Women’s Committee has endorsed
Tucker but on those occasions he was
opposed by outright segregationists.
The Women’s Committee, now a
powerful force in local voting, was
organized in September, 1958, as the
Women’s Committee for Open Schools
—to oppose the successful attempt by
£°v. Faubus to close the Little Rock
*gh schools that year—and continued
m J^stence later with a changed name.
Three of the candidates, Tucker, Mrs.
,.FPhy Dr. Harrel, said that they
id not consider race an issue in the
campaign, that this was in the hands
me federal courts.
“Eternal Issue’
«J? r ' I° lbert sa D that any candidat
on es not clearly state his positio
, 13 e temal issue should not be con
aered seriously by the voters.” H
“,, state d his position:
r _ P er sonal conviction is that seg
cour^ n ,~| 0 * ? be races is the desirabl
tarv /7 u tside forces—including mili
Do«;ki I V® at * on —have made this im
ka- le - J 1 m obvious that most Ar
keen lbe same as there ha
mtejaJ}L, hea . d , Iong rush to com P le t
v ate lif °?’ , eitber m public or in pri
th e ni M’ ^ nt>1 m y objective to clos
Sate tK llC scb P°h now nor to segre
what u, 6 ” again - I am not critical c
past fo 6 ^ c1k>o1 Board has done in th
do fp'T ,Y ears bi these circumstance:
do® of 6 , , al both races deserve free
PossibleP. 1Ce in hus question if at a:
did not°f^ er mterview, he said that h
the Tj ftl a Z or , hmther desegregation i
hr t ik schools.
l9 58 wt,; u rt a PP rov ed of Act 7 o
deseg r „_ P P rov fdes that a pupil in
attend ^ ac school does not have t
r ®gated j? articl d a r class that is deseg
°f ehoipp ? Said lbis law gives freedor
Literat, ° 00111 wllltes and Negroes.
*as aJTf supporting Dr. Tolber
° Vet the • ° Ul during the campaig:
£»yl 0r , ^nature of Dr. Malcolm G
Citizens n er President of the Capits
*as acW 0UncU - Dr ' Ta y lor said h
m g as an individual. The litera
° r the m-P 1 ,? reference to race excep
entton of Act 7 of 1958.
hr.
Jack:
Negro’s Stand
Jfpe y, PJJ s statement on the rt
!- at deseir^„ 1 ls a matter of recc
111016 than gatlon has been nothi
has npf 1 ex Pression of token!
. ° a tiv e t Progressed as anticipaf
''!° u ld Se e due process, of law.’
of u tic m . e 11131 “ view of 1
dipn.f lluatlon ’ for the sa
tb 6 f ° r survf^ 1 ! 7 ? nd lbe inherent c
sK 6 capabilitip 3 ’ ) he 10131 utilization
S Si s 01 all people must a
j At a Pr A rious ly considered.”
^ 0r H!ghTk tin , g al Pulask i Heigi
Sc hool, with all five ca
Arkansas Highlights
A Negro doctor was among five
candidates for the Little Rock School
Board, running against two white
doctors.
Eleven Arkansas school districts
were reminded by the federal gov
ernment that nonsegregated schools
must be furnished for children living
on federal installations. The State
Education Department said only
three districts were affected and that
they already had complied.
A speaker at the annual Arkansas
NAACP convention criticized the
white leadership of the South for
what he called ‘slick maneuvers” to
avoid desegregation.
The Arkansas Council on Human
Relations protested the Little Rock
Chamber of Commerce paying trib
ute to honor students of white high
schools without reference to the Ne
gro high school.
A Negro candidate placed second
in a race for the Little Rock Board
of Directors, running behind one
white man and ahead of another.
Proposed Amendment 51, favored
by Gov. Orval E. Faubus, to guaran
tee segregated education for those
who decline to attend desegregated
schools, was defeated by 16,000 votes
in the general election Nov. 6.
didates present, Dr. Jackson was asked
if he thought Little Rock was ready to
have a Negro on the school board,
whether the other members would
work with him if he were elected and
whether desegregation at Little Rock
had been slow or fast.
He said he did believe that Little
Rock was ready for a Negro on the
board and that relations on the board
would be harmonious. He thought de
segregation had been a bit slow and
that more of it could be tolerated with
out upheaval.
He also said, “I think and I suspect
some of you think there should be rep
resentatives of all segments on the
school board. Little Rock should be
aware that this is an opportunity to
help Little Rock project a better image
to the rest of the world and more im
portantly a better image for ourselves
and our own gratification.”
★ ★ ★
At Hot Springs, E. S. Stevenson, Ne
gro manager of the Pythia Hotel and
Bath House, filed for the school board
against Houston A. Brian, the incum
bent. Stevenson is the founder of the
Hot Springs Civic League and has been
its president for 15 years.
★ ★ ★
In Jefferson County (Pine Bluff is
the county seat), Jeffroe Fair and Ma-
leda Thomas, both Negroes, were the
only candidates for a position on the
board of Jefferson County School Dis
trict No. 6, a rural district
★ ★ ★
U.S. Warns School Districts
Of Antisegregation Rule
Arkansas school authorities and 11
school districts received letters in No
vember from the federal government
reminding them of the policy that seg
regated schools will not be acceptable
as a basis for receiving federal aid for
educating children living on federal in
stallations beginning in 1963.
The state Education Department said
that only three Arkansas school dis-
ricts were in a position to be affected
by the new policy and that all three of
them already had met its requirements.
William H. Moore, director of the
division of school plant services of the
education department, said that the
only federal installations that have
school-age children in Arkansas are the
Little Rock and Blytheville Air Force
Bases and the Pine Bluff Arsenal.
He said Gosnell School District, serv
ing the Blytheville Air Force Base, and
the Pulaski County (rural) School Dis
trict serving the Little Rock Air Force
Base, had already admitted the Negro
children from the bases to desegregated
schools.
He said there are no Negro children
living on the Pine Bluff Arsenal. White
children from the arsenal attend the
segregated schools of the White Hall
School District.
The 11 school districts which received
the letter, with their current enroll
ment by race, and the amount of
money they received under Public Law
874 in the 1961-62 school year follow:
District White Negro Received
Pulaski County
(rural)
13,827
3,708
$452,340
White Hall
2,339
88
72,169
Gosnell
1,318
44
138,575
Camden
1,363
1,559
none
Little Rock
16,880
6,466
90,504
Texarkana
4,203
2,074
67,316
Harmony Grove
455
315
none
Pine Bluff
5,115
3,561
26,962
Blytheville
3,605
2,408
40,893
Walnut Ridge
1,437
4
7,998
Rogers
2,784
0
6,652
★
★ it
Biracial School Resists
Upgrading in Athletics
In the Arkansas High School Athletic
Association, the schools are grouped for
competition according to their enroll
ment. One of the schools about to pass
from the AA classification into the
AAA classification, the highest, is Fay
etteville High School.
Fayetteville does not want to make
the change for several reasons, one of
which is that its football squad is de
segregated and has been for several
years. Harry Vandergriff, assistant
superintendent at Fayetteville, said it
was his understanding that when a bi
racial team plays a uniracial team, the
uniracial team can object to the Negro
participation and that the biracial team
then must play the game without its
Negro members or forfeit.
“We don’t feel that we could do that,”
he said.
This year, the Fayetteville squad has
one Negro player, Robert Wilkes, a 15-
year-old sophomore end, who is 6 feet
1 inch tall and weighs 180 pounds. None
of the high schools currently in the
AAA have desegregated teams.
Community Action
Greenberg Accuses
White Schoolmen
Of ‘Slick Maneuvers’
Jack Greenberg of New York, direc
tor-counsel of the Legal Defense and
Educational Fund of the NAACP, told
the Arkansas Conference of Branches
of the NAACP that the white South
used “slick maneuvers” to avoid deseg
regation.
DELAWARE
Bias Against Negro Teachers Is
DOVER
he chairman of the education
committee of the Human Re
lations Commission says discrimi
nation obviously exists against
Negro teachers in the Delaware
public school system.
The Rev. Msgr. Paul J. Taggart,
Wilmington, told the commission in
Dover on Nov. 8 that practically no Ne
groes are employed as teachers in pre
dominantly white schools in Delaware.
Msgr. Taggart, who formerly served
as pastor at Holy Cross in Dover, sug
gested studying the matter with the
Wilmington Board of Education, which
hires Negro teachers.
Other Negro teachers are employed
at Newark, also in New Castle County,
for instance, but the number is not
believed to be large.
Drive Opened
A drive for teacher desegregation was
opened in September by Roosevelt M.
Franklin, a Delaware resident who
teaches in Maryland’s Cecil County and
heads the Peoples Action Committee
of the NAACP.
Franklin made a protest to the New
Castle Special School District, which
he said turned away two qualified Ne
gro applicants.
Wilmington, he said, “can’t be ex
pected to absorb all the good Negro
teachers.”
Msgr. Taggart urged the 19 of 28
commission members present to deal
with the problem.
“I think we can perceive that there
is no discrimination in employment,”
the clergyman said.
No action was taken by the commis
sion, which did map plans to have a
newly drawn-up equal accommodations
bill presented to the General Assembly
which convenes in January.
HB 422, which dealt with equal ac
commodations, failed to come up for
vote at the last session.
Schoolmen
Pupil Population
Hits New High;
Fewer Districts
Delaware’s pupil population, both
white and Negro, has reached an all-
time high, while the number of school
districts has reached an all-time low.
According to statistics compiled by
Dr. John Parres, Director of Research
and Publications for the State Depart
ment of Public Instruction, the 91,490
enrollment includes 74,417 whites and
17,073 Negroes, a new high total for
each.
Conversely, the number of school dis
tricts has decreased to 87, compared
with 92 during the last school year.
At the same time, the number of dis
tricts actually desegregated rose from
30 to 33. While all Delaware districts
are under federal court order to admit
pupils of all races, many still remain
all-white or all-Negro, some because
of geographical location.
In School with Whites
But more than one-sixth (11,684) of
Delaware’s Negro pupils are in school
with whites (61,045) in 93 schools.
Three new school districts (Frederica,
Lincoln, Laurel) were added to the de
segregated roles. Three Negroes were
admitted at Frederica, 20 entered Lin
coln, and 19 were enrolled at Laurel.
One former all-Negro high school,
William Henry in Kent County, re
mained on the desegregated list, as two
Delaware Highlights
The Human Relations Commission
has been requested by the chairman
of its education committee to study
teacher desegregation. Discrimina
tion obviously exists, the Commission
was told by the Rev. Msgr. Paul J.
Taggart.
Enrollment in Delaware schools,
both white and Negro, reached an
all-time high, but the number of
school districts decreased from 92
to 87. Three more districts were
desegregated, bringing the total to
33.
Dover will ask the General Assem
bly for $898,725 for a building pro
gram at elementary schools, includ
ing $199,390 for expansion at its
all-Negro school.
African students do not under
stand the Meredith situation, accord
ing to a spokesman for the United'
States Information Agency.
white pupils enrolled along with 719
Negroes. One white student, whose
name has not been made public, en
rolled at the school in September, 1961.
Neither of the other county Negro
high schools, Jason in Sussex and Red
ding in New Castle, has white students.
★ ★ ★
Dover Building Program
Includes Negro School
An $898,725 building program that
the Dover Special School District will
present to the 122nd General Assembly
which convenes in January will include
$199,390 for expansion of a Negro ele
mentary school.
Re-elected
Speaking during the organization’s
annual meeting Nov. 17-18 at St. John
AME Church in Pine Bluff, Greenberg
said delay and confusion are caused by
pupil placement laws, gerrymandering
of school attendance areas and dissem
bling by school boards. He contended
that these things come from school
board members who usually are the
outstanding white leaders in their com
munities.
After accusing most white schoolmen
of untruthfulness so far as desegrega
tion is concerned, Greenberg declared:
“In their use of pupil assignment
laws, they can’t bring themselves to say
their decisions are ultimately based on
race. They have to deal under the table
and say it is something else. The real
moral and legal problem is that these
people, who are supposed to be leading
us in the Cold War, lie to little chil
dren. They don’t come right out and
say, ‘I don’t like your race so you can’t
go to school.’ That’s an attitude you can
admire. They go about it in a more
slick way. That’s the real moral rot at
the heart of America.”
Current Also Speaks
About 350 persons heard Greenberg
and Gloster B. Current of New York,
national director of the NAACP
branches, at the Nov. 18 session of the
convention. Current dismissed the Ar
kansas congressional delegation as “a
bunch of segregationists” and urged
the Negroes to quit voting the straight
Democratic ticket.
In an earlier session the NAACP
pledged its legal and financial support
to a suit to be filed for the desegrega
tion of the Pine Bluff schools, including
the teachers and administrative staff.
The Pine Bluff Branch had asked for
this support.
Other resolutions agreed to assist
Negroes who try to enter the Arkansas
Vocational Training School at Pine
Bluff, a state institution now for whites
only; called for an end to discrimina
tion in public housing and urban re
newal; called for an end to segregation
in hospitals supported partly by federal
money and in the state dental society;
and urged a halt to alleged police bru
tality toward Negroes.
William M. Dove, 56, a steel finisher,
who is president of the Pine Bluff
Branch, declined to say when a deseg
regation suit would be filed against
Pine Bluff. He said it is up to the
school board.
George Howard Jr., Pine Bluff law-
(See ARKANSAS, Page 12)
Charged
Six rooms, under the proposal, will
be added to the Booker T. Washington
school, located in west Dover near a
large Negro population center. An ad
ditional 12 rooms are requested for the
two white elementary schools in the
Dover district.
Dover, which has six schools, with
all but Booker T. Washington desegre
gated, has an enrollment of 3,420, in
cluding 652 Negro pupils.
The vast majority of the Negroes
(492) attend Booker T. Washington.
What They Say
USIA Official Says
Africans Puzzled
By Race Situation
African students find it difficult to
understand racial situations in America,
including the James Meredith case at
the University of Mississippi, the Wil
mington branch of the NAACP was told
by an official of the United States In
formation Agency.
Dr. Margaret J. Butcher, director of
the English teaching program of the
USIA at Casablanca, Morocco, said stu
dents in Africa do not know how a
state could defy the federal government.
Dr. Butcher, pointing out that the
students do not understand the ins and
outs of the democratic process, was the
featured speaker on a program that
also included the executive secretary
of the Delaware Human Relations Com
mission.
Mrs. Hallie Shaffer, serving as spokes
man for the Human Relations Com
mission, told the formation, objectives
and powers of the commission, which
was created during the last session of
the General Assembly.