Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—DECEMBER, 1962—PAGE 13
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\egro Housing
Spread Sought
gy Committee
ST. LOUIS
p-V |-» ECA usE of the persistence of
58-Vtp residential segregation, most
57 vNeg r0 children in the St. Louis
46-V area attend substantially segre-
57- V-gated schools even though school
55-V districts are officially desegre-
58- V-gated. An organization called the
55-V g re ater St. Louis Freedom of
Residence Committee has been
working in the last few months
to obtain housing for Negro fam
ilies throughout the urban area.
In November the committee sched-
55-V uieJ a meeting to hear a panel dis-
36- V- cussion on use of “straw parties” in
37- V- its drive to promote desegregation of
55-V residential housing. The technique in
volves the purchase of a house in an
all-white area by a white person, who
then sells it immediately to a Negro.
It is a way of getting around the re
luctance of some white owners to sell
directly to Negro purchasers, but the
committee has decided against use of
the policy.
Through its chairman, the Rev. Wil
liam G. Lorenz, pastor of Grace Pres
byterian Church in St. Louis, the com
mittee arranged to meet Sunday, Nov.
18 in Fellowship Hall of Ladue Chapel,
officii another Presbyterian church in the
lat tb well-to-do St. Louis county suburb of
ge k Ladue. On Nov. 13, however, Ladue
irobla Chapel announced through its pastor,
ion c the Rev. W. Davidson McDowell, that
l I’.on: permission for holding the public meet-
moixing on its premises had been with-
publi drawn.
* C a, k* announcing the decision of Ladue
' n ™ Chapel’s ruling body, the Rev. Mr.
e ‘“McDowell said:
ustafc 1 „ TT
latior Upon action of the executive com-
imenc™ ittee of our session, the Rev. Mr.
e thos f" 2 was as ked to change the place
agata" 0 ! l ” e meeting for one reason: The
to ft C urcb sta ®> i n initially scheduling the
meeting, was under the misapprehen-
nswe:? 10n tba t the meeting was sponsored
/ a committee of the Presbytery of
sion «f 1 ' Louis . °f which the Rev. Mr. Lorenz
tuden: 15 3 member.
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Continued From Page 12
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Headed For Trial
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FLORIDA
NAACP Says School Board Plans
For Desegregation Inadequate
Missouri Highlights
The Greater St. Louis Committee
for Freedom of Residence, which
hopes to obtain housing for one Ne
gro family in each school district
of the city and county, was denied
permission in November to hold a
public meeting at a Presbyterian
church.
At the St. Louis-St. Louis County
White House Conference on Educa
tion held in St. Louis Nov. 13,
the keynote speaker said the prob
lems faced by cities in coping with
culturally deprived children — Ne
groes and others—were as complex
as any society or its schools had
faced.
This is not the case, for the com
mittee is affiliated with no religious
group. Our church has long had a pol
icy of confining our property usage to
functions and groups with some reli
gious affiliation.”
Strongly Denied
It was strongly denied by the Rev.
Mr. Lorenz that any effort had been
made to conceal the nature of the
organization when he booked the
event. He said:
“I made the arrangements for the
meeting with a staff member of the
Ladue Chapel. I identified our group
as the Freedom of Residence Commit
tee. I was told by a member of the
staff that the chapel was available to
groups of our nature as long as there
was no conflict with a previously
scheduled event.”
The Rev. Mr. Lorenz rescheduled the
committee’s meeting at his own church,
Grace Presbyterian. About 300 persons
attended Nov. 18 and heard a spirited
debate on the propriety of straw-party
buying of homes for Negroes.
Mrs. Marguerite Hofer, housing
chairman for the Pittsburgh branch
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, told the
assemblage racial tensions were not
aggravated when a Negro family
moved into a white neighborhood by
purchasing a house through a straw
party.
Several panelists strongly opposed
the practice, arguing that it would
heighten tensions and that it amount
ed to deceit and misrepresentation.
One panelists agreed with Mrs. Hofer.
One of those who took issue with
Mrs. Hofer's viewpoint was Elmer
Price, an attorney and member of the
American Civil Liberties Union. Price
said “the ends in a democratic society
do not justify the means.” Another was
Edgar E. Parent, vice president of a
real estate concern.
Later in November, when President
Kennedy issued his order against dis
crimination in federally-assisted hous
ing, the Rev. Mr. Lorenz commented
that the President’s order would make
present policy of the Real Estate Board
of Metropolitan St. Louis “as dead as
a dodo.”
Community Action
Conference Adopts
Program To Help
Slum Children
The St. Louis - St. Louis County
White House Conference on Education,
at an all-day conference attended by
more than 600 persons Nov. 13, called
for more intensive and better-coordi
nated efforts to deal with problems
caused by “culturally disadvantaged
youth” in the urban slums.
Among seven general recommenda
tions adopted by the group was one
urging that slum parents be provided
with instruction in meeting parental
responsibilities, and that educational
and cultural programs be provided for
pre-school children. The importance of
day nursery programs was cited.
The conference, which noted the
large numbers of young Negroes need
ing special attention from public
schools in St. Louis and other cities,
stressed the importance of preparing
these young people for jobs and getting
rid of racial barriers that prevent them
from getting jobs.
Dyke Brown, a vice president of the
Ford Foundation, delivered a keynote
address in which he described the dif
ficulties major American cities face in
dealing with rural in-migrants — in
cluding Negroes — who move to urban
slums and cannot find work.
Outlines Problem
“But still they come,” Brown said in
outlining the problem. “Negroes and
Puerto Ricans, Spanish-Americans and
Indians, marginal farmers and hill
billies — trying to bridge the chasm
between the rural conditions they have
MIAMI
ppearing in federal district
court for oral arguments,
NAACP attorneys in three major
school suits said desegregation
plans filed by the county school
boards were totally inadequate.
Objections were made to Judge Bryan
Simpson at Jacksonville in cases in
volving Duval, Hillsborough and Vo
lusia counties.
Judge Simpson in August called for
desegregation plans from each county
and in the Hillsborough and Duval
cases extended this to cover teaching
and administrative personnel.
In almost identical proposals, the
school boards offered to begin deseg
regation with the first grades next
September and add the first grade each
year after until desegregation is com
plete.
‘Choice’ Feature
Mrs. Constance Baker Motley and
Earl M. Johnson, plaintiffs’ attorneys,
centered their objections on a feature of
the proposed plans that would allow
pupils to attend schools of their choice
regardless of geographical district.
They called it a “built-in scheme to
preserve racial segregation.”
The stairstep plan was also objection
able, they declared, since it meant all
Negroes now attending school would
continue to be segregated.
“Integration has taken place in prac
tically every other facet of Florida civic
affairs; its restaurants, airports, bus
stations and stores,” said the plaintiffs’
brief.
“This year-by-year school desegre
gation, coming some nine years after
the Supreme Court ordered it, is not
proceeding with the ‘prompt and rea
sonable start’ called for by the courts.”
NAACP's Proposal
The NAACP filed a suggested plan of
its own. This called for an immediate
start on desegregation of all elementary
grades next year, adding junior and
senior grades the following year.
On the question of teaching and ad
ministrative personnel, the NAACP
asked that each school board be re
quired to establish a central personnel
office within 30 days.
Here, under this proposal, all profes
sional personnel would apply for all
jobs beginning with the next school
year and would be considered for any
vacancies that occur regardless of race
or color, or the racial composition of
the schools to which they are assigned.
The judge was asked also to order all
budgets, construction plans and cur
ricula prepared without racial consid
erations.
‘Freedom of Choice’
Attorneys for each of the school
boards defended their freedom of choice
provision. They pointed out that no
appellate court has yet denied freedom
of choice. If it were denied, they said,
it would constitute a violation of rights.
known and the complex conditions of
city life. Often they fail; and from their
number come the many who crowd the
unemployment offices and relief rolls,
who fill the jails and mental hospitals,
and who blight housing and recreation
facilities. They over-burden the schools
with their numbers and problems. They
threaten to bankrupt the metropolis;
and at the same time they and their
children make parts of the city almost
uninhabitable.”
In discussing the role of city public
schools in dealing with the situation,
Brown said the problems involved “are
as complex as any one society or its
educational institutions have ever
faced.”
Among other things, Brown suggest
ed that slum youths who leave school
and cannot find jobs be organized into
a “Housing Conservation Corps” —
reminiscent of the old Civilian Con
servation Corps of depression days —
to help in urban rehabilitation pro
grams.
In an editorial, the St. Louis Globe-
Democrat on Nov. 20 complimented
Brown on having called a spade a
spade.
“In a keynote address which really
sounded a key note,” the Globe-
Democrat commented in its lead edi
torial, “he spelled out with surgical
candor the over-all problem most large
American cities face and which will
never be solved until their people, ex
perts and laymen alike, admit to them
selves what they are talking about.”
Florida Highlights
Desegregation plans submitted to
federal district court by three of
Florida’s largest counties were called
“built-in schemes to preserve segre
gation” by attorneys for the NAACP.
The plaintiffs submitted plans of
their own calling for complete de
segregation in two years instead of
12. They also asked that all future
personnel employment be on a non-
racial basis and assignments made
without regard to race of the employe
or racial makeup of the schools in
volved.
Dade County is planning to assign
377 Negro pupils, now transported
to Negro schools, to white schools
nearer their homes.
The University of Miami pro
nounced desegregation a success,
with Negro students entering fully
into all phases of campus life.
While basically similar, the three
plans have slight variations in this re
spect. Duval proposes to create new
school districts, with a pupil having the
option to attend the school in his dis
trict, or one nearby.
Hillsborough and Volusia proposed to
eliminate school districts and allow each
child to attend the school nearest his
home, with a privilege of transferring
to any other of his choice.
The stairstep plan was defended as a
means of allowing school boards to ad
just to changing population patterns
caused by such factors as urban re
newal, expressway construction or the
shift to the suburbs.
Criticizes NAACP
Fred Kent, special attorney for the
Duval board, charged the NAACP with
seeking enforced integration.
“There is a difference,” he said. “The
law does not require involuntary inte
gration; it merely forbids discrimina
tion in the assignment to schools on the
basis of race or color. Our freedom of
choice plan applies equally to all chil
dren.
“Our experience indicates that 90 per
cent of the Negro children do not want
to attend a predominantly white
school.
“We are giving all pupils, white and
black, an option to apply for admission
to the school of their choice, not an
obligation to apply for admission to a
school we designate for them.”
NAACP’s Rebuttal
Under this kind of a system, Mrs.
Motley said in rebuttal, the burden of
desegregation would be placed on Ne
gro children “and what we’d have is
what we started out with—a placement
law that requires Negroes to apply in
order to attend white schools.
“It is inconsistent to give people the
right to apply to any school while you
at the same time seek a remedy for a
segregated system.”
In The Colleges
Little more than a year since the
University of Miami became desegre
gated by official policy, a survey shows
the system is working well without a
single major incident.
University administrators have no
official knowledge of the number of
Negro students this year since no racial
records are kept.
There are, however, Negroes in the
undergraduate body, living in dormi
tories and engaging in all campus ac
tivities. Others are enrolled for graduate
study and one graduate student serves
as a teaching assistant in algebra.
An “informed estimate” is that there
are 12 undergraduates and 15 to 20
graduates in this group.
Voluntary Blending’
The report indicated “a voluntary
blending at a private university which
lies as far south, geographically, as you
can get.”
It continued: “Integration came swift,
sure and clean at the University of
Miami.”
Judge Simpson took the cases under
advisement. He gave no indication
when a further or final order will be
issued.
Schoolmen
Dade Board Probes
Extensive Stepup
In Desegregation
The Dade County (Miami area)
school system is considering an ex
tensive stepup in its desegregation pro
gram next year on economic grounds.
Dr. Joe Hall, county superintendent,
told the school board that a large sum
could be saved if 377 Negroes now being
transported to all-Negro schools are as
signed to white schools nearer their
homes.
Ten schools are involved, only three
of which now have some mixed classes.
The switch, said Dr. Hall, would
eliminate five bus routes, and three or
four school buses could be retired from
the county fleet. The cost of this serv
ice now exceeds $10,000 a year.
Fast-Growing Areas
The Negro students live in rapidly-
growing areas of North Dade. They are
taken by bus to Opa-locka, several
miles away. Officials say they could be
absorbed in nearby schools whereas the
Negro schools they now attend are
overcrowded.
Dr. Hall said the money saved on
transportation could be used for new
classrooms at the jammed Negro
schools.
If the recommendation is adopted, it
will be the first assignments of Negroes
to desegregated schools without prior
application by students or their fam
ilies.
It would be new policy for the school
board which has been assigning Negroes
to white schools for three years.
Should the plan be approved, Dade
may have as many as 25 biracial schools
next year. The number of Negroes at
tending will exceed the present total
for the entire state.
★ ★ ★
Desegregated School
Now Has Only Negroes
Broward County school officials an
nounced that Rock Island Elementary
School, where desegregation was start
ed last year, is now attended only by
Negroes.
As a result, white teachers have been
transferred to other white schools and
were replaced by Negroes. Mrs. Sally
Crum, the principal who served through
the transition period was reassigned to
duties in the school administration of
fice.
This leaves Broward County with
four desegregated schools. There is
constant change in enrollment figures
at these schools also.
Facing such questions as desegre
gated housing, attendance at football
games and use of eating facilities and
rest rooms, the university had no diffi
culty. An official said they were an
swered by applying the basic principle:
If someone is accepted as a student, he
must be treated as a student—in every
way.
Dr. Henry King Stanford, UM presi
dent, commented: “Integration has
worked smoothly here.
“There have been no incidents of any
consequence. As they have been given
the opportunity to enter the university,
the Negro students have assumed the
obligations for serious study which are
incumbent upon every student.
“Negro students have got to be judged
as individuals. This is our challenge.
This means recognizing individual ac
complishments as well as shortcomings.
There must be equality right down the
line, not only in rights but in obliga
tions.”
Biracial Policy Is Reported
W orking Well at University