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PAGE 2—JANUARY, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
GEORGIA
Negro Senator First in
First Negro
OKLAHOMA CITY
he Oklahoma City school
board sta+ed to a federal
court that it has abolished racial
segregation and, thus removed its
“stigma” on Negro pupils.
But a system of attendance areas for
individual schools and for special trans
fers is necessary to prevent a chaotic
condition in the district, the board
maintained.
This was the board’s answer to
charges in a federal court suit that the
board had practiced racial discrimina
tion in Oklahoma City schools despite
apparent compliance with U.S. Supreme
Court rulings.
The board’s policy of requiring pupils
to attend schools in their own attend
ance areas and granting transfers only
for valid school reasons has been under
attack in a suit by Dr. A. L. Dowell,
Negro optometrist. He filed it in behalf
of his son, Robert, in the U.S. District
Court for Western Oklahoma.
Pre-Trial Conference
'rial conference in the case,
U v. Board u,' 5duration,
20 by U.S. District Judge
ion. He gave the plaintiffs
file an amended complaint,
wished, presenting additional
' of alleged violations by the
"'l of the Supreme Court de-
for the trial, although
non’s staff indicated
\til March or April.
i Philadelphia until
the- in- Ji February, hearing
cases on a special assignment.
The Dowells originally tried to have
the school board declared guilty of un
constitutional use of its pupil placement
authority. However, a special three -
judge court ruled July 10 it lacked
jurisdiction because the issue involved
was factual rather than constitutional.
The case was reassigned to Judge Bo-
hanon. The plaintiffs filed a second
amended complaint Aug. 22, alleging
specific acts of racial discrimination.
Answering it, the school board al
leged the plaintiffs failed to plead facts
showing they were entitled to any relief
against the defendants or that a justifi
able controversy existed entitling the
plaintiffs to a declaratory judgment.
Evidence Showed
The evidence showed the defendants
have complied with all regulations of
the U.S. Supreme Court in its decisions
concerning public school desegregation,
the answer stated. None of the defend-
MACON
ESEGREGATION CAME quietly
and unobtrusively — to
Georgia’s State Capitol in Decem
ber.
State Sen.-elect Leroy Johnson, a
34-year-old Negro attorney, attended a
three-day school for new legislators in
the Senate chamber. Johnson was
elected to represent one of the sena
torial districts in Atlanta under a re
apportionment plan ordered by a fed
eral court. Negro registration is two-
to-one over white voter registration in
his district.
Johnson, the first Negro state sen
ator elected in Georgia since 1870, will
take the oath of office Jan. 14.
His appearance at the Capitol caused
no flurry. He dined with the other six
members of the Fulton County (At
lanta) senatorial delegation in a cafe
teria for state employes which is pri
vately operated. Few glances were cast
his way by the several hundred other
state workers eating lunch in the cafe
teria.
Two years ago, Negroes staged sit-
ins at various downtown eating places
in Atlanta. They sat in a cafe operat
ing in the State Capitol basement and
the business closed. Cards were printed
for state employes entitling them to
eat in the cafeteria in the State Office
Building, across the street from the
Capitol. The proprietor for a few
weeks required that all except those
high employes he knew produce the
cards; then the watch was relaxed.
The Oklahoma City school board
told a federal court that it has abol
ished racial segregation but must
keep attendance areas and a limita
tion on pupil transfers to prevent a
“chaotic condition.”
Oklahoma’s civil rights group in
dicated a report will be ready in late
January or early February on re
sults of its comprehensive survey of
school desegregation progress in the
state.
A university government professor
said Oklahoma schoolmen have en
joyed academic freedom during the
school desegregation process because
of a favorable political climate.
ants—the school board and its agents—
has unlawfully deprived any plaintiff
of any of his constitutional rights, it
declared.
The board’s chief supporting evidence
is the Aug. 1, 1955, board resolution de
segregating schools of the district.
“Thereupon, the defendant district
abolished existing attendance areas,
which provided—as required by the
now unconstitutional law of Oklahoma,
for attendance of pupils in defendant
district on the basis of a racially seg
regated school system,” the answer said.
In their place, the board said it had
adopted a system of attendance areas
established “solely on the relevant
facts” concerning the schools and the
school population surrounding each
school and solely on a school basis.
These attendance areas “were not in
any manner fixed or established on the
basis of race or color and were not in
any manner established for the purpose
or with the result of maintaining,
establishing or re-establishing a racial
ly segregated system,” the board’s an
swer said.
Adopted Policy
At the same time, it continued, the
defendant school district adopted a pol
icy requiring every pupil residing with
in an attendance area to attend the
school of that area, unless given a spe
cial transfer to a school of another
attendance area.
All of this was “lawful and neces
sary” to prevent a chaotic condition in
the schools of the defendant district,
the board contended.
The school board’s answer said that
Vivian C. Dowell, an intervening plain-
During the discussions of legislative
procedures, Johnson sat with his col
leagues, about halfway back in the
Senate chamber. He often talked with
other lawmakers and was treated with
courtesy.
After organization of the Senate,
Johnson will be entitled to appoint
pages of his own race. Their principal
duties are as messengers and all have
been white previously.
As a state senator, Johnson with his
wife and 11-year-old son also will be
eligible to attend all legislative social
functions.
Reapportionment and an end to the
county unit system brought this and
other important changes in the Geor
gia political picture in 1962. The state
is preparing to argue against a fed
eral decision knocking out the county
unit system, but few lawyers expect
the system will be reinstated.
More School Moves Seen
It is also expected that 1963 will be
a year in which Negro leaders will
push for more public school desegre
gation in Georgia. One public school
system (Atlanta) and three units of
the University System of Georgia (the
University of Georgia at Athens, and
Georgia Tech and Georgia State Col
lege in Athens) have been desegre
gated.
Vernon Jordan, field secretary of the
National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People, said: “There
will be increased emphasis on school
desegregation, employment and voter
registration.
A school desegregation suit has been
filed in Chatham County (Savannah).
Desegregation petitions have been filed
in Bibb (Macon), Muscogee (Colum
bus) and Cobb counties and with the
city systems of Marietta, Valdosta and
Way cross.
Jordan said prime targets for 1963
are Macon, Augusta and Columbus
schools. Action at the junior college
level is planned.
Desegregation moves will come in
other areas, including Rome, Bruns
wick, Valdosta, LaGrange, Moultrie
and Waycross, Jordan said. Summing
up the outlook, he commented, “I
think we are moving.”
In The Colleges
Medical School
To Enroll Negro
A spokesman for the Emory Uni
versity Medical School said the Meth
odist institution had accepted Hamil
ton Holmes, an Atlanta Negro, as a
student.
Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, an
Atlanta Negro girl, were the first
members of their race to attend the
University of Georgia in Athens.
Holmes expects to graduate from the
university this month.
Emory accepted its first Negro stu
dents last fall, but Holmes is the first
tiff, is a resident of Dependent School
District No. 45, that she is entitled to
attend the eighth grade, that the district
offers the grade she is entitled to pur
sue, and that there are no legal grounds
for transfer of Vivian C. Dowell to the
defendant (Oklahoma City) district.
Vivian is a daughter of Dr. Dowell
and sister of the original plaintiff. Dis
trict 45 is Pleasant Hill, which adjoins
the Oklahoma City school district on
the east.
The board asserted further that Rob
ert Dowell has not been a pupil in the
Oklahoma City district since trial of
the case in the three-judge court. Rath
er, it stated, he voluntarily enrolled in
a private church school during that
period.
Under Survey
Survey Results
To Be Ready Soon
Returns from a comprehensive sur
vey of Oklahoma’s school desegregation
progress are reported almost complete
and the findings should be ready by
late January or early February.
This was disclosed by Savoie Lottin-
ville, Norman, chairman of the Okla
homa Advisory Committee of the Unit
ed States Commission on Civil Rights,
(See OKLAHOMA, Page 6)
Senator-elect and colleagues.
OKLAHOMA
School Board Says Limited
Transfer Rules Necessary
Oklahoma Highlights
Legislature Since 187C
Georgia Highlights
Desegregation came to Georgia’s
State Capitol and an NAACP offi
cial announced plans to push for
further school desegregation in the
state in 1963.
Three Negro students joined pre
viously all-white Atlanta high school
athletic teams.
Hamilton Holmes, a Negro student
who helped desegregate the Univer
sity of Georgia, has been accepted as
a student by Emory University
Medial School.
accepted by the medical school.
Holmes said he also applied to the
Medical College of Georgia, a state
school at Augusta, but has not had
any official word from it.
Schoolmen
Athletic Program
In High Schools
Becomes Biracial
Education officials announced that
the color line had been crossed in ath
letics in Atlanta’s high schools.
Two Negro boys, John Henry Car
ter and Grady Davis, both are playing
regularly for the Grady High basket
ball B-team. Grady was desegregated
in 1961.
Clemsey Wood, another Negro stu
dent, is a member of the B-team at
Brown High. Brown also was desegre
gated in 1961.
All three of the Negroes are ineligi
ble for varsity competition this school
year, but are definite prospects for
the varsity next winter, according to
the Atlanta Constitution.
Sid Scarborough, athletic director t
the Atlanta public schools, said: ‘Tj
students at our schools are all ^
same. All who attend them have
right to come out for any and ;
activities of their respective schools.’
The constitution of the Georgia Hi;
School Association specifies that (
membership shall consist “only ,
white senior high schools,” but it
believed that under a kind of “get
tleman’s agreement,” any school whit
maintains a majority of white student
is still considered white.
Atlanta Catholic parochial schoo;
were desegregated last fall but at pre<
ent no Negroes play on the athlet
teams.
A lone Negro was on the swimmim
team at Marist College, a Cathol
school near Atlanta, but dropped ot
when the distance to be traveled foot
home to early morning practice be
came too trying. Other boys on tr,
swimming team had accepted the Ne,
gro, and were upset when he left tr
team, according to the Rev. Williar
Seli, S. M., Marist athletic director.
Negro educators asked the Star
Board of Education to desegregat
state vocational schools in Clarkesvil
and Americus or build a third one fe
Negroes. The state board rejected ti
request.
Gov. Ernest Vandiver said 26 nei
trade and vocational schols have bet:
constructed and of these, nine are fc
Negroes and two already have bee
completed. Vandiver said he thiii
the Negroes’ share of the new schoo'
is “appropriate.”
What They Say
Brooks Hays Says
Race Discord Has
Foreign Impact
Game Cancelled
Decatur High objected to the ap
pearance! of the Negro boys on the
Grady team and the game was can
celled, but Druid Hills High, a public
school, and St. Pius, a Catholic school,
did not object and the games were
played.
Grady Coach Harry Strickland said
the two Negro athletes were accepted
on the team “just as we have all other
boys who have come out for the
team.”
Brown B-team Coach Bert Johnston
said, “Clemsey has played in both of
our games (against two city schools,
Smith and West Fulton) and as far as
I can determine the boys on the team
have accepted him. Of course, there
has been some reaction from the spec
tators at other schools, but that’s to
be expected.
Wood said, “Yes, the boys on the
team have treated me okay, and I
think have accepted me.
“Concerning reaction, Wood said,
“When I played against West Fulton,
there were a few smart remarks. But
I’ve learned to overlook those.”
Community Action
Brooks Hays, special assistant ti
President Kennedy, said in Macon Dk
4 that a domestic problem—racial dis
harmony—vitally affects U. S. foreign
policy.
The former Arkansas congress®:
addressed members of the Maco:
Council on World Affairs. He coo-
pared the South’s recent economic In
dependence to the political independ
ence of new nations emerging fr° r
colonialism, and urged the South t-
demonstrate that two cultures, “t®
like in appearance and color could lift
together in harmony.”
Hays said America could appropri 3 -
millions of dollars to underdevelops
nations only to have its record martf-
by an insult to a visiting Negro dipk
mat.
He urged the South to examine i ! '
self, “look across the seas and be se”
sitive to the aspirations of these coU-"'
tries.” If Southerners cannot recogo^
the value of human dignity, the
important aspect of our civilized 0 "'
for the American Negro, he said,
they should be motivated to acc6
the challenge to outrun Russia.
Church Group Believes Negroe
And Whites Must Plan Togeth#
The Board of Christian Social Con
cerns of the South Georgia Methodist
Conference, meeting in Atlanta Dec.
14, went on rec
ord as saying de-
s e g r e g a tion is
neither a “dire
calamity nor a
guarantee” of
racial “together
ness.”
The board, of
which the Rev.
Allen Sanders of
Macon is chair
man, said Geor
gia’s racial prob
lems must be met with “sound
judgment and courageous Christian
witness and action.”
A statement of principles said “dis
cord and demonstrations emphasize the
need for both Negro and white to plan
together for the future of our state.”
The board said that while its state
ments are not necessarily the views of
all Methodists in the conference, “they
most often reflect the general opinion
I of the body’s leadership.”
SANDERS
The board specifically cr ih
“prayer-pressure demonstrations .
by some groups, but said “We
no right to expect any person to
cept an inferior place in our ,
munity and national life because
not white.”
★ ★ ★
, &
George D. Stewart of Atlanta^
he was resigning as secretary-t re ,
of the Georgia State Rights Coun ^
The council, headed by Augus ^
tomey Roy Harris, never did ° ^
widespread grass roots support o
hold an annual fund-raising di ^
which public officials usually
nounced desegregation. ^
This year, it is believed 'pr
council would obtain supp° r
high-ranking members of the
ing Carl Sanders administra
such a dinner should be held. ^
State Democratic officials who
in the past have their own ^ 0 t-
this year since the state P 33 ^ f ot &
ligated for a reported $50,000
expens< of two extra Democra
marie in 1962.