Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JANUARY, 1963—PAGE 7
KENTUCKY
School Official Requests
100 Per Cent Compliance
LOUISVILLE
T he state superintendent of
public instruction called for
“100 per cent” compliance with
the U.S. Supreme Court’s school-
desegregation ruling “within an
other year.”
Wendell P. Butler’s statement came
in the annual desegregation progress
report of the State Department of Edu
cation. The report cited increases in
the extent of desegregation, but said
there are still 20 school districts “which
appear to have no plan” for desegrega
tion.
Butler requested that these districts
“re-study themselves in relation to the
law and the requirements of the state
school system.” He urged that leading
citizens of the districts organize to de
termine if desegregation requirements
—including “good faith,” “practical
flexibility,” “prompt and reasonable
start” .and “all deliberate speed”—are
being met.
The superintendent said:
“The information contained in this
report is evidence that the dual system
of public education which existed in
Kentucky for 75 years is moving rap
idly toward a complete merger into
one strong system of schools for all
children.”
These eight districts were listed as
starting actual desegregation in the fall
of 1962: Ballard, Carlisle, Lyon, Mc
Cracken, Ohio and Trigg county dis
tricts, and Providence and Scottsville
city districts. (All but McCracken were
reported earlier in SSN.)
Report Statistics
The report indicated the following
breakdown among the 206 districts in
the state:
Districts
With no biracial population.... 39
With actual biracial classes .... 126
With a voluntary plan 21
With no apparent plan 20
For the current term, the report
showed 24,346 Negro pupils attending
desegregated schools with 221,402 white
pupils. This compared with 22,021 Ne
groes and 200,581 whites in desegre
gated schools a year ago.
(The new figure is also higher than
the 22,765 Negroes in desegregated
schools listed in the December issue of
Southern School News. Only a
few 1962-63 enrollment figures were
available at that time.)
For both years, the state survey esti
mated that about 50 per cent of Ken
tucky’s Negro pupils were attending
classes in desegregated schools. Overall
enrollment for 1962-63 was estimated
at 687,265, of which 482,392 were en
rolled in desegregated districts.
Highlights of Report
Other highlights from the report:
• In the seven-year period 1955-62,
the total number of schools in the state
declined from 3,716 to 3,186—a drop of
530 schools or 14 per cent. (The de
crease reflects consolidations of smaller
schools and the abandonment of many
Negro-only schools.)
• In the 1955-62 period, the number
of separate schools for Negroes only,
declined from 312 to 174—a drop of
138 or 45 per cent.
• Of the 3,186 schools in the state
this term, a total of 1,837 are in dis
tricts that have desegregated.
• The number of schools with bira
cial enrollments increased from 405 in
Kentucky Highlights
About half of Kentucky’s Negro
pupils and about a third of the white
pupils in public schools attend bi
racial classes, according to the latest
desegregation survey of the State De
partment of Education.
The top state school official, noting
that the report indicated that 20 dis
tricts still have segregation policies,
called for full compliance with the
U.S. Supreme Court desegregation
ruling within a year.
1961-62 to 467 in 1962-3—a gain of 62.
• From 1955 to 1962, the number of
professional employees increased to
26,523 from about 20,000—a gain of
about 33 per cent.
• In the 1955-62 period, the number
of Negro teachers increased from 1,279
to an estimated 1,306. This represents
an increase in numbers, but a decline
in proportion of the total from 6.4 per
cent to 4.9 per cent.
• Some 433 Negro teachers are em
ployed in desegregated schools and
about 873 in the 174 all-Negro schools.
The annual desegregation report of
the State Department of Education was
prepared under the supervision of Sam
B. Taylor, assistant director, Division of
Instructional Services. The report was
made public Dec. 18 at a meeting of the
State Board of Education at Frankfort.
Desegregation in
Kentucky
1955-56
1957-58
1959-60
1962-63
Total School Districts
. 224
216
212
206
With Biracial Enrollment
. 184
170
173
167
Desegregated In Practice Or Policy.
30
94
129
147
Schools In Desegregated Districts ...
. 826
1,736
1,658
1,837
Schools Desegregated
41
262
377
467
Enrollment In Desegregated Districts.
.97,903
362,269
477,089
482,382
Enrollment In Desegregated Schools
.16,981
144,079
181,974
245,748
White Pupils In Biracial Schools ....
.16,688
133,182
165,645
221,402
Negro Pupils In Biracial Schools ..
. 313
10,897
16,329
24,346
Teachers In Desegregated Districts
. 3,496
13,384
14,406
18,950
Teachers In Desegregated Schools ...
. 641
5,647
7,095
9,587
White Teachers In Biracial Schools .
. 639
5,475
6,808
9,154
Negro Teachers In Biracial Schools ..
2
172
287
433
* Figures From State Department of Education Survey.
WEST VIRGINIA
School Hearing Expected
CHARLESTON
J) eopening of the Raleigh
County school desegrega
tion case probably will be in
March or April, according to one
°- the lawyers.
Willard Brown, state counsel for the
Rational Association for the Advance-
ent of Colored People, said he and
Pposing counsel have been told the
will be heard in the spring. A
1 p dat e is yet to be set.
rown and Fletcher Mann of Beckley,
of t° r the Raleigh County Board
*|“Ucation, have completed their pre-
j , inference with U.S. District
j> ? e John A. Field. The case is
V County Board of
tend 16 NAAC P, a party to the suit, con-
b°ard , accorddl g to Brown, that the
of a " aS not com Pli ed with the spirit
with agreement reached in 1956
Moor t deceased Federal Judge Ben
seg r e ' fudge Moore directed that de-
. gation be carried out on a volun-
tend Brown and the NAACP con-
desg^. ere . has been very little actual
Tkg^tion in Raleigh County.
9Uoted boards lawyer, Mann, has been
too lit*] 35 ' ^yhig. “If there has been
suit M e httegration in this county to
child Jh, it is because the Negro
“Se d “is family do not want it.
ited b\]f^ a ^° n h 1 the schools is prohib-
of a ’integration is not commanded
board’s j >&rc ^ education. It is not the
°f the r Uty >, t0 seek a Peinted mixing
Texas
Both (C ° ntinued from Page
Daniel and tl
on Higher Educa
Sb fo r vS $ 83 - 7 million in
h*o y ea „ i§her education for
delude » ’t° $333 million. Tl
Nease i 5 ' 2 mUlior > for a 16
S f 0r ^teacher salaries; $
min; n ^ Icl Pated enrollm
f'& for t h e state tal
i_ d y of Houston, oi
September, 1963.
Mann declared that the 1956 court
order “has been strictly adhered to
both as to the letter and in the spirit.”
The NAACP brought a series of fed
eral court cases six years ago, but only
one went to trial. This was in Green
brier County. After two days of hear
ings the board agreed to voluntary
desegregation with the beginning of the
next semester. Greenbrier had been the
scene of racial demonstrations a year
earlier.
Similar actions against school boards
in Raleigh, Mercer, Logan, Cabell and
McDowell counties were resolved on
the basis of the Greenbrier agreement.
A voluntary plan, where Negro and
white students could go to the schools
of their choice, was put in effect.
Board Increases
Colleges’ Budgets
The State Board of Public Works has
agreed to a five per cent increase in the
budget of Bluefield State College, along
with other publicly-supported colleges
and universities. This action was taken
Dec. 28 when the board approved a
1962-63 fiscal year budget totaling
$148.4 million, which will go to the
legislature when it convenes Jan. 9.
The action also was taken in the
face of a State Board of Education de
cision to restudy possible new uses for
Bluefield, a Negro institution until it
was desegregated along with all other
state-supported colleges and universi
ties in 1954. The five per cent increase
will, if approved, be used primarily for
salary increases and new staff.
On Oct. 29 the state school board,
policy making body for nine colleges
and universities, ordered a new study
at Bluefield after voting down separate
proposals for permanent merger of the
school with Concord College and tem
porary merger with West Virginia Tech.
A survey team has been employed to
examine the feasibility of converting
Bluefield into a two-year technical and
vocational school or merging it with
Concord. Concord is in the same county
only 15 miles away.
in Spring
Sixty-seven-year-old Bluefield,
smallest of the state-supported colleges,
has been in trouble almost constantly
since 1954. Almost since it was desegre
gated the board has been concerned
with per student operating costs there,
which are the highest in the state.
Miscellaneous
Barron Appoints
Negro Director
Of Mental Health
Gov. Barron followed through on a
promise he made at the Southern Gov
ernors’ Conference in Florida last fall,
appointing Dr. Mildred Mitchell-Bate-
man to the $20,000-a-year post as state
mental health director. At the Gover
nors’ Conference he was sharply criti
cal of Gov. Barnett and his position in
the University of Mississippi situation.
Barron had said the trouble there was
impairing the racial desegregation pro
gram throughout the entire South and
border area, and might impair indus
trial development.
He said West Virginia had made ex
cellent progress with school desegrega
tion, and to give new meaning to efforts
here he said he would name Dr. Bate
man, a Negro, as fulltime mental health
director. She thus became a symbol of
West Virginia’s work in the desegrega
tion field.
But Gov. Barron said Dr. Bateman
was not being appointed simply to keep
West Virginia’s image in the field alive.
In appointing her Dec. 17, he said she
was a woman of excellent psychiatric
training and professional background.
Dr. Bateman, who had served in an
acting capacity since the death last
summer of Dr. Charles A. Zeller, will
have a salary $2,500 more than that of
the governor and members of the State
Supreme Court. Only the president of
West Virginia University—at $30,000 a
year—is higher paid.
Gov. Barron was still wrestling at
DELAWARE
Less Litigation Likely
On School-Race Issues
DOVER
T'| ela ware’s new attorney
general is unlikely to face
as much desegregation litigation
as either of his two immediate
predecessors.
Sworn into office to replace Januar
D. Bove Jr., was David P. Buckson,
42-year-old former interim governor,
who filled out an
approximate two-
week term of Gov.
J. Caleb Boggs
when the gover
nor was elected in
1960 to the United
States Senate.
While Dela
ware’s main de
segregation liti
gation was
brought to court
in 1956 under the
term of Attorney General Joseph D.
Craven, the defense of the State Board
of Education’s gradual plan fell upon
Bove, who was elected in 1958.
Bove did not seek re-election to the
four-year post at the November elec
tion, but since has been mentioned as
a possible candidate for governor in
BUCKSON
1964.
Bove won approval in 1959 of a
grade-a-year desegregation plan in the
U.S. District Court in Wilmington. The
grade-a-year plan, however, was later
rejected by the U.S. Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals in Philadelphia after
the plan had been in effect for one
school year.
Allowed Discretion
The appellate court ordered all Dela
ware schools to admit all students
without regard to race, but allowed the
lower court discretion in case of over
crowding or other unusual circum
stance. The district court, as recently
as last fall for instance, ordered Negro
pupils admitted at Rose Hill-Minqua-
dale in New Castle County and at Lin
coln in Sussex County.
Desegregation, since the court de
cision in 1959, has proceeded without
incident. Three new districts were
added when schools opened in Sep
tember, 1962.
Buckson, who will now serve as
chief legal counsel for the State Board
of Education, is a graduate of the Dick
inson College School of Law. He is a
former judge of the Court of Common
Pleas of Kent County, and served as
lieutenant-governor in 1957-60.
Buckson, a Republican, as was Bove,
was unsuccessful in a bid in 1960 to
win the GOP gubernatorial nomination,
which went to John W. Rollins, who
lost to Gov. Elbert N. Carvel, a Demo
crat.
Buckson, in platform promises, said
he would advocate legislation requir
ing all state agencies to use the legal
services of the attorney general’s office.
While the State Board of Education in
past years has followed this procedure,
most agencies, as well as school dis
tricts, have their own legal counsel.
Bove was backed up during the deseg
regation hearings in the U.S. District
Court and Court of Appeals by attor
neys representing separate districts.
The cost to the state of Delaware,
which picked up the legal tab for the
districts, was substantial. The funds for
the defense of segregation were appro
priated, however, without much argu
ment in the General Assembly.
Community Action
Milford Considers
Biracial Committee
Milford, scene of a racial outbreak
when an attempt first was made to de
segregate the schools in 1954, may soon
have a biracial committee to investigate
an attempt to settle racial problems.
Milford, subsequently desegregated
under court order in 1959 and now has
32 Negroes enrolled with 2,431 whites.
The Milford desegregation attempt in
month’s end whether to rename Dr.
S. J. Baskerville of Charleston to the
State Board of Education. Dr. Basker
ville has served for nine years and is a
Negro. Barron said he is looking around
for a Negro for the post. All other
members of the nine-member board
are white.
Barron has been a staunch supporter
of racial desegregation in the schools
and colleges and has spoken on the
subject several times.
Delaware Highlights
David P. Buckson, who was sworn
into office this month as state at
torney general, is expected to face
less desegregation litigation than his
immediate predecessors.
A biracial committee to investi
gate racial problems may be formed
in Milford, where residents resisted
the admission of Negroes to white
schools in 1954.
An attempt will be made in the
General Assembly to reduce the
number of school districts by ap
proximately one-third, with one high
school in each of 33 districts.
1954 gave rise to Bryant W. Bowles,
segregationist and president of the Na
tional Association for the Advancement
of White People. Bowles now is serving
a prison sentence for a Texas slaying.
The proposal for a biracial committee
came from Roosevelt M. Franklin, a
Wilmington Negro who is president of
the People’s Action Committee of the
NAACP.
Franklin, who lives in Delaware but
teaches in Cecil County, Md., this fall
also launched a drive for teacher de
segregation in Delaware. Franklin
charged discrimination, specifically in
the New Castle Special School District.
His charge later was substantiated in
part by The Rev. Msgr. Paul J. Tag
gart, chairman of the education com
mittee of the Human Relations Com
mittee.
Lead the Way
Franklin, at the Milford meeting
sponsored by the Peninsula Council of
Negro Women in Bethel AME Church,
urged the city to lead the way in the
establishment of such a committee as
a part of local government. He suggest
ed that such committees should be a
part of local governments in every
Delaware community, and urged Mil
ford Negroes to initiate the movement.
Franklin’s proposal was endorsed, to
a degree, by Milford Mayor Alphonso
E. Humes, who also attended the meet
ing. The meeting stemmed from alleged
racial incidents connected with the still
unsolved series of rapes in the city.
Mayor Humes said that Franklin’s
plan had a “great deal of merit” but
that he wanted to discuss the matter
with city council before he named such
a biracial committee.
Negro leaders of the community indi
cated they will form an action com
mittee to investigate racial problems.
The committee would be the first such
organization of its kind in Kent or Sus
sex, Delaware’s two lower counties.
Legislative Action
State Board Plans
To Push School
Consolidations
School consolidation, frequently
stalled in the General Assembly be
cause of the desegregation factor, will
again be pushed by the State Board of
Education.
The board decided at the December
meeting to introduce legislation to re
duce the number of districts from 87
to 33, each of which would have an
existing high school. In addition, each
district board would be empowered to
impose a tax rate of 50 cents on each
$100 assessed property valuation with
out resorting to referendum, which is
presently required.
Similar consolidation bills have
failed to make any progress in the
General Assembly. J. Ohrum Small,
the current president of the state board,
advocated a sweeping consolidation
program when he was on the board
some seven years ago, but desegrega
tion difficulties, among other reasons,
caused the General Assembly to write
it off.
With more than one-third of Dela
ware’s school districts now desegre
gated (33 of 87), the racial issue may
present less of a barrier in the current
General Assembly session. All Dela
ware school districts are under federal
court order to admit all pupils, regard
less of race.
The total state enrollment of 74,417
includes 17,073 Negroes, of which 9,460
attend schools with white pupils.
Teacher, rather than pupil desegrega
tion, is now the current racial issue.