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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—DECEMBER, 1962—PAGE 15
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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Negro Students Make Up 83.4 Per Cent of Enrollment
WASHINGTON
S chool officials for the Dis
trict of Columbia reported
Nov. 2 that the annual “peak en
rollment” count showed a total
22 141 white students and 110,759
Negroes attending public elemen
tary and secondary schools in the
nation’s capital. The enrollment
for D.C. Teachers College was 139
white students and 1,336 Negroes.
The new figures placed the percent
age of Negro enrollment at 83.4, an in
crease of 1.9 per cent over last year.
In releasing the new enrollment data,
School Superintendent Carl F. Hansen
held the Washington housing situation
responsible for the continuing increase
in Negro enrollment.
“The Negro population is remaining
fairly restricted to the District’s bound
ary lines while the white population
has more flexibility and is moving be
yond these lines,” Hansen said.
“This situation increases the amount
of de facto segregation. The Negroes
coming into the area must come to
downtown neighborhoods for available
private housing,” he said.
The superintendent said it should not
be assumed that “the children we are
getting will be more difficult to educate.
We should be showing the advantages
of integrated education in better
achievement scores.
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‘Catching Up’
“We have to expect that there is an
equalization process taking place—that
the Negroes are catching up, that all
children educated together in an inte
grated system are making gains at a
rapid rate,” the superintendent said.
Hansen said that these gains “will be
offset, of course, by the in-migration of
children who have not experienced ur
ban living.”
The new “peak enrollment” figures
represent a net increase of 7,375 Negro
students over a year ago and a decrease
of 1,482 white students. District ele
mentary schools, with a total enroll
ment of 86.147, showed a gain of 3.272
Negroes and a loss of 858 white stu
dents. Junior hish schools, with a total
enrollment of 28,640, showed a gain of
2.282 Negroes and a loss of 508 whites.
Senior high schools, with 14,339 stu
dents, showed a gain of 1.281 Negroes
^d a gain of 85 white students.
Negroes constitute 53.9 per cent of
the total D.C. population. Final 1960
census data for the capital, released
last month, indicated that the high
Proportion of Negro school enrollment
ls due largely to these factors:
• The average white resident of
Washington is 13.2 years older than the
average Negro (median white age 40.2;
median Negro age 27).
• There are nine per cent more
s mgle white persons (35 per cent of the
white males and 31 per cent of white
females
are unmarried, as against 26
?f r . T cent °f Negro males and 22 per cent
of Negro females).
^hool Officials
^arn Against
Blind Optimism'
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ence & . rev ' ew °f eight years’ experi-
hatin SC N°°1 desegregation in the
C ar , *L S ca Pital, School Superintendent
ants Hansen and two of his assist-
opti^ f as f month against “blind
gen„- 1Sm . about progress towards
In Ume integration.
DesgJf 1 dd-page article titled “From
tion” egadon t0 Integration in Educa
te ’ n the winter issue of
Han sen rn °f °f Intergroup Relations,
dents t and two assistant superinten-
Grego>-, rene Hypps and Francis A.
“Bef ’ Wr ° te:
ga kd 'tv, 6 a ^bool system is desegre-
Hihd nn) ere . fends to be considerable
hJatica]? lrm ® m fhat the legal fact auto-
fusi° n wijl give birth to the spiritual
Little^ if ac nieving physical unity . . .
°Pen Lu an , y ’ Planning goes beyond the
Nans^oo door -”
^iritua? t,*°J d a re P°rter that by
Co nsei ou ~_™ s ' on ” be meant “the loss of
55 bis eon 6SS a b° u t race.” He gave this
^aation- 06 ^ dle goa ^ integrated
Some n
> in t&f plan . an interracial
, good *i? lr homes with a feeling of
086 that l yre d °in§- It’ s when we
"'bose com When we i us t invite those
* a b e s note tu ny We en i°y and no one
bi the . * some are Negroes.”
' Vr ° te that ’? r ^ lc ^ e > the school officials
^‘hzens shn, e fj b , ers ’ Parents, pupils and
^.differenn d be formed of practi-
ac <hev etri ^ es in cultural background,
^°° frc„. and ingrained attitudes.
e^Uently those most open
hearted (before desegregation) became
the least open minded and much disil
lusionment results,” the educators de
clared.
They listed these among the prob
lems school planners must cope with:
• The illusion of a decline in aca
demic standards. This occurs when the
low scholastic averages of inadequate
Negro schools are merged with high
levels of achievement in previously all-
white schools. Though there is no
actual decline of quality in any school,
the officials said, statistics appear to
indicate such a decline.
• Social and behavioral changes.
Emotions rose in the initial period
after desegregation, the officials wrote.
Social events in some schools were
curtailed. They said this was due more
to faculty fears and the protests of a
few parents than to “prevailing com
munity sentiment or racial hostility on
the part of the pupils.” They added
that “the rise in juvenile delinquency,
unwed motherhood and venereal disease
rates among youth cannot be attributed
to public school desegregation” but to
the “casual factors of poor housing,
lack of employment opportunities, low
health standards and inadequate in
comes.
• Culturally deprived pupils. This
problem, one which most large North
ern cities face, is especially acute in
Washington because it is “the railway
terminal for the South,” the educators
wrote. They said the imbalance these
pupils inflict on the school system must
be met by enrichment programs and
special classes.
• A dwindling supply of white
school personnel. Since 1954, the ar
ticle said, the District school system
has lost 272 white employes and gained
1,236 Negroes.
y. '<& " m
Racial Disorders
Erupt After Annual
Thanksgiving Game
Widespread disorders erupted after
the annual Thanksgiving Day high
school football championship game at
the D.C. Stadium. The fighting between
fans of predominantlv-Negro Eastern
High School (the public school cham
pionship team) and supporters of pre-
dominantly-white St. Johns College
High School (the Catholic school
D. C. Highlights
New “peak enrollment” figures for
D. C. public schools showed that
Negro students now constitute 83.4
per cent of enrollments. School Su
perintendent Carl F. Hansen said
segregated housing patterns account
for the large concentration of Negro
students in the city’s schools.
In a review of eight years’ experi
ence with school desegregation, D.C.
educators warned against “blind op
timism” about progress from legal
desegregation toward actual integra
tion.
Widespread disorders after the an
nual high school championship foot
ball game led to 40 injuries.
Fighting between supporters of a
predominantly Negro public school
team and a predominantly white
Catholic school team made for the
most serious race-related incident
since schools were desegregated.
this kind of thing again. It’s not good
for the city, not good for sports, not
good for the schools.”
The Rt. Rev. Msgr. John S. Spence,
director of education for the Archdio
cese of Washington, announced on Nov.
23, the day after the game, that there
would be a moratorium on contests
between Catholic and public school
teams. District School Superintendent
Carl F. Hansen said, “We’ll certainly
go along with this idea and hope that
we can lift the moratorium at the
earliest possible date.”
Negro Leaders’ Statement
athletics such as championship foot
ball games.”
Dr. Jackson said he was urging the
NAACP “to continue to press for rights
but at the same time to seek to de
velop a sense of responsibility, espe
cially on the part of that element of
our own people that caused so much
trouble.”
A biracial committee of 10 civic
leaders, headed by former national
youth fitness director Shane MacCar-
thy, was appointed Nov. 29 to study
the disorders and make recommenda
tions to the city and the school system.
champions) led to at least 40 injured
and constituted the most serious racial
incident since District schools were de
segregated eight years ago. Police made
14 arrests.
Scattered fighting broke out among
some of the 50,000 spectators after the
game, which had seen some blows ex
changed among players on the field.
About 100 police officers spent an hour
quieting the disturbances inside and
outside the stadium. Officials said the
violence began when spectators from
the Eastern side of the stadium surged
across the field as the game ended.
Eastern had lost the game, 20-to-7.
The mob that rushed across the field
wielded lead pipes, chair legs, broken
bottles and knives. During the disor
ders, a white girl was knifed, three
teaching brothers at St. John’s were
beaten by Negroes, and a 15-year-old
St. John’s freshman had three teeth
knocked out and his jaw broken in two
places in a beating by Negroes. Police
men also reported being attacked.
President Walter N. Tobriner of the
D.C. Board of Commissioners said after
the game, “As far as I’m concerned
there won’t be a game of that kind
next year. I don’t think we can stand
Negro community leaders signed a
statement saying they were “disturbed
by the irresponsible behavior exhibited
by some of the persons attending” the
game.
“In this instance, as in so many
things of life, a few persons led a
crowd to animal-like behavior,” the
Negro leaders said. “It is clear that ac
tion must be taken to avoid repeated
incidents such as these.”
The Negro leaders called for explor
atory action before the game is dis
continued. They said youths are often
subject to emotional reactions, but that
other aspects of the “fracas reflect omi
nous overtones” of the denial of full
citizenship rights to Negroes.
Hansen and Msgr. Spence urged the
community to bear in mind that 90 per
cent of the spectators were well be
haved. They also agreed that “evidence
is mounting” that the real instigators
of the fighting were non-students in
their 20’; who are “fringe supporters”
of the teams.
“These are persons,” Hansen said,
“who have hostility because of their
lack of success in school and in em
ployment, who have none of the moral
standards which the average citizen
serves, who attach themselves to win
ning ball teams.”
Hansen asked all school officials and
high school student leaders to give
thought to steps that might be taken
to prevent recurrence of violence at
future sports events.
The Rev. Dr. E. Franklin Jackson,
pastor of the John Wesley AME Zion
Church and head of the D.C. Branch
of the NAACP, said from his pulpit
Nov. 25 that he would use his influ
ence “to see to it that the few people
who were rowdy and irresponsible
would not hurt the entire community
by depriving it of inter-scholastic
Two Educators See
Need in Future
For Negro Colleges
Racial desegregation ultimately will
come to all Southern colleges, includ
ing Negro schools, two Negro educators
predicted Nov. 12. But they insisted
that the enrollment of white students
at institutions now predominantly Ne
gro will not mean the end of these
Negro colleges.
Rufus B. Atwood, president of Ken
tucky State College in Frankfort, and
Felton G. Clark, president of Southern
University at Baton Rouge, La., agreed
that if the Negro colleges are good,
“they will be kept.”
The educators made their comments
at the annual meeting of the Associa
tion of State Universities and Land
Grant Colleges here. They said deseg
regation of border state and even Deep
South colleges is already more preva
lent than is generally realized, and
predicted that such desegregation will
be common in such states as Missis
sippi.
Atwood said his own college, Ken
tucky State, has about 90 white stu
dents in its enrollment of 868. “We are
working in Kentucky to have all the
colleges serve all the people,” he said.
75 Per Cent White
He said the student body at West
Virginia State College, which was all-
Negro in the early 1950’s, is now 75
per cent white, and that Lincoln Uni
versity in Jefferson City, Mo., estab
lished as a Negro land grant college, is
now about one-third white.
Clark, who said Southern University
(See D. C., Page 16)
255,367 Negroes Attending Schools with Whites
(Continued From Page 1)
increase of any border state in the
lumber of Negroes enrolled with whites
this year. The state enrolled 2,392 more
Negroes with whites, making 62,121
Negroes in biracial schools. Delaware
was next, with 920 more for a total of
9,460 Negroes in biracial schools. Ken
tucky added 707 Negroes in desegre
gated schools, for a total of 22,765, but it
should be noted that the state’s figures
for the current year were available for
only very few districts.
All the Southern states with desegre
gated schools increased the number of
Negroes in schools with whites for the
fall term. Texas added 2,700, the larg
est increase of any state in the region,
and it now has an estimated 6,700 Ne
groes in schools with whites. New de
segregation put almost 700 more Ne
groes in biracial schools in each of
three states: North Carolina added 698
for a total of 901; Virginia, 694 for a
total of 1,230; and Tennessee, 650 for a
total of 1,817. Florida now has 1,168
Negroes in desegregated schools, hav
ing added 520 this fall. Increases in the
other states and their totals were: Ar
kansas, 99 and 250; Georgia, 36 and 44;
and Louisiana, 95 and 107.
More Districts
The region has more desegregated
school districts now than it did last
school year. And fewer of these are
desegregated only in policy and do not
have any Negroes in biracial schools.
In November, 1961, the region had 897
districts desegregated, with 104 deseg
regated only in principle. The survey
last May reported 912 desegregated, 99
of them by policy only. This fall 972 are
desegregated, 94 in policy only. About
85 per cent of these districts have de
segregated voluntarily.
Consolidations caused the total of
school districts to drop in six states.
Missouri lost 59; Oklahoma, 52; Texas,
22; Delaware, five; Kentucky, three;
and Arkansas, one.
Almost half of the new desegregated
districts were gained in Texas, which
added 25 to make 174 districts that have
admitted Negroes to schools with
whites. A number of these districts had
desegregated in previous years but had
not been recorded until this school
year.
The number of desegregated districts
added in other states were: Arkansas,
two; Florida, five; Kentucky, nine;
North Carolina, five; Tennessee, eight;
and Virginia, eleven.
The District of Columbia and three
border states have over ,half of their
Negro enrollment in desegregated
schools. The District leads with 79 per
cent, followed by West Virginia with
61 per cent, Delaware with 55 per cent
and Kentucky with 53 per cent.
Teaching Staffs
Public school remain segregated in
Alabama, Mississippi and South Caro
lina, as well as in six states that have
begun desegregation of their student
bodies: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, North Carolina, and Vir
ginia. Desegregation suits in Florida
have resulted in federal court orders
for Duval and Volusia counties to de
segregate their teaching staffs.
Teacher desegregation has been initi
ated in the District of Columbia and
eight other states—Delaware, Kentucky,
Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ten
nessee, Texas and West Virginia. In
Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and West
Virginia, a sizeable number of Negro
teachers lost their jobs in the change
to biracial schools.
The region has 521,381 teachers and,
except for Maryland, where a racial
breakdown was not available, 390,489
teachers are white and 104,836 are
Negro.
College Desegregation
New colleges and universities have
opened in the Southern and border
region during the past year but the
number of desegregated schools re
main over half of the total. The region
has 292 institutions of higher learning,
and 165 have policies admitting both
races as students. Last year the region
had 285 colleges and universities, 152
of them desegregated.
Of the 240 all-white or predominant
ly white institutions of higher learn
ing, 150 will admit Negroes. Fifteen of
the 52 all-Negro or predominantly Ne
gro institutions will admit whites. The
region has had one more Negro institu
tion and six more white ones open in
the last year.
Of these 165 desegregated colleges
and universities, 140 acted voluntarily,
and the other 25 complied with court
orders. The exact number of white and
Negro students involved in college-
level desegregation is unknown since
most of the border states no longer
report enrollment by race. But about
24,000 Negroes are believed to be at
tending public colleges with whites.
About 7,000 of these Negro college stu
dents are informerly all-white schools,
and approximately 17,000 are in form
erly all-Negro institutions now at
tended by some whites.
Enrollment in the all-white or pre
dominantly white institutions of higher
learning totals 694,691. The all-Negro
or predominantly Negro schools have
71,037 students enrolled.
Nine states and the District of Co
lumbia have some degree of faculty
desegregation at the college level. The
states where a public college faculty
has both races are Delaware, Kentucky,
Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West
Virginia. In several instances, the de
segregation involved white faculty
members at Negro institutions.
Special Schools
Nine states and the District of Co
lumbia have established desegregation
policies or admitted Negroes to public
trade schools and to special schools for
the blind, deaf, dumb, orphan, excep
tional, retarded, or delinquent children.
The states are Delaware, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Okla
homa, Tennessee, Texas and West Vir
ginia.
Eleven states in the region have sep
arate schools or have had school de
segregation involving such ethnic
groups as Moors, Turks, and Indians.
Developments concerning these groups
are reported in the summary for Ar
kansas, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and
Virginia.
The new Statistical Summary listed
293 court cases filed in state and fed
eral courts on school segregation, de
segregation and related issues. Every
state in the region has had litigation
on the school issue.
Laws Passed
Legislatures of 16 states have adopted
379 laws and resolutions to prevent,
restrict or control school desegregation.
Most of the legislation has been added
to the statute books since 1954, al
though a few laws were enacted in an
ticipation of the U. S. Supreme Court’s
1954 decision. Oklahoma has passed
legislation to encourage desegregation.
The Missouri and West Virginia legis
latures removed racial designations
from their school laws, recognizing de
segregation as an accomplished fact.
Louisiana has passed 97 laws on the
subject, twice as many as any other
state in the region. Virginia, Georgia
and Arkansas follow, with over 40
laws each.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisi
ana, North Carolina and Virginia have
adopted tuition grant laws. Legislatures
in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisi
ana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Vir
ginia set up pupil placement plans.
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina
and Virginia legislators have approved
interposition resolutions.
Local option provisions for closing
schools are on the law books in Ala
bama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi,
North Carolina and Texas. Compulsory
school attendance laws have been
amended or repealed in Alabama, Ar
kansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Ala
bama, Florida, Louisiana and Virginia
have laws to encourage or facilitate
private schools.