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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY. 1963—PAGE 19
WEST VIRGINIA
i Governor Says
4 State is Model
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CHARLESTON
G ov. W. W. Barron declared
here Jan. 4 that West Vir
ginia “stands as a prime example
of the harmony that can be
achieved” when racial desegrega
tion is handled in an atmosphere
of mutual respect.
His comment came at an Emancipa
tion Proclamation dinner held at the
First Baptist Church. He covered the
entire field of human relations, but the
progress in this state, he noted, started
from the successful effort to desegre
gate the public schools and colleges.
West Virginia has had more success
than any other Southern and border
state with its school desegregation pro
gram, he went on.
“If we believe in equality of oppor
tunity, nothing else will suffice,” said
Barron. “We cannot live in isolation,
denying other people a chance as good
as our own.”
He called Negro gains particularly
noteworthy because “we believe firmly
in the principle that all men are bom
free and each is deserving in his own
right, of an opportunity equal to that
of any other person.”
Wilkins Speaks
Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, was an
other speaker, saying West Virginia has
a distinguished record on civil rights.
However, he went on, the record is far
from perfect.
“Your university (West Virginia) de
segregated long before the Supreme
Court decision,” he said. “West Virginia
got rid of this foolishness before the
others did.
“Then, too, I never cease quoting one
of your judges who said that if his order
about desegregation was disobeyed, he
would put people in jail until their
feet stuck out the windows.”
Wilkins had reference to a circuit
judge at Fairmont who threatened to
put demonstrators in his county jail if
they continued to parade in front of the
public schools and create a public dis
turbance. This was in 1955, and the
statement ended all resistance there.
Another who spoke at the Emancipa-
ion Proclamation dinner was former
? v - C^il Underwood of Huntington,
o also praised the progress West
lr gmia has made in the school deseg-
re gatio n field.
legislative Action
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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
U. S. Moves for Biracial Schools
West Virginia Highlights
Gov. W. W. Barron told an Eman
cipation Proclamation anniversary
audience in Charleston that West
Virginia “stands as a prime example
of the harmony that can be achieved”
when a state takes a progressive
stand on school desegregation.”
The chairman of the House of Del
egates education committee suggest
ed that perhaps troubled Bluefield
State College should be turned into
a two-year training school for “late
blooming” high school graduates.
A human rights commission sur
vey indicated that a dearth of jobs
rather than an excess of racial dis
crimination lies at the bottom of the
problem Negro high school graduates
have in trying to get jobs in the
Kanawha Valley.
vocational training might be less in
clined to drop from their high school
classes.
About Bluefield, he said, “Maybe it
could be used that way. Perhaps we
should also have two-year courses at
one college in each of several other
parts of the state—possibly including
one at Fairmont.”
Wilson is athletic director at Fair
mont State College.
Community Action
Commission Reports
Negroes Confronted
With Job Scarcity
A dearth of job rather than an excess
of racial discrimination faces Kanawha
County Negro and white high-school
graduates, the Mayor’s Commission on
Human Relations was told Jan. 9.
In a special report compiled after six
months of study, the findings, based
upon interviews with 93 high-school
graduates of the 1959-61 period, were:
• Negro applicants for jobs feel dis
crimination exists but the commission’s
study neither proves nor disproves this.
The sampling was too small to be con
clusive.
• The Negro needs more convincing
assurance that employment opportuni
ties exist before he will adopt a more
positive attitude toward job prepara-
as any other student to make the
squad.”
Coach Bill Hildebrand of the football
team said:
“We have not been recruiting Negro
athletes because it has been my under
standing that we were not to actively
recruit them. It is now my understand
ing that we definitely are. Therefore,
our football staff will avail itself of
all top athletes who meet the high
standards of Wake Forest College.”
Wake Forest is a private college sup
ported by Baptists of North Carolina.
The school currently has two Negro
undergraduate students enrolled plus
a number of graduate students. One
undergraduate lives on campus. The
other commutes.
C. P. Erickson, athletic director of
the University of North Carolina, said,
“When we recruit we look for good
students, good athletes and good cam
pus citizens. We have never given any
consideration to anything else. All
colors are eligible.”
Football Coach Earle Edwards of
North Carolina State in Raleigh said,
“We don’t have any plans to recruit
Negro athletes.”
Three years ago North Carolina State
played a Negro, Irwin Holmes of Dur
ham, with its varsity tennis team.
Holmes was co-captain. He won two
varsity letters.
Football Coach Bill Murray of Duke
had no comment except to say that the
university’s teams had played against
Negroes in a number of sports without
incident.
★ ★ ★
A crisis hit the Charlotte Commu
nity College Systems Jan. 9 when it
was discovered that hands were run
ning short. The system was rescued
Jan. 21 when the Mecklenburg Board
of County Commissioners allotted
$15,000 to be matched by the state of
North Carolina.
The community college system in-
(Continued from Page 18)
way in approximately 120 districts. Ad
ditional inquiries are scheduled for the
coming months.
“Negotiating efforts failed, however,
in Prince George County, Va., which
educates children of defense personnel
stationed at nearby Fort Lee, and we
filed suit. Four similar suits were filed
last week regarding segregation in
Huntsville and Mobile, Ala.; Gulfport
and Biloxi, Miss.; and Bossier Parish,
La.
“In another kind of school case, also
in Louisiana, the Department brought
a contempt action against state educa
tion officials for failing to desegregate a
state trade school, as had been ordered
by a Federal court in a private suit.
When the State Board of Education
passed a formal resolution stating there
would be no discrimination as to race,
the Department agreed to dismissal of
the case, but withheld the right to in
spect school records.
“The Department also took action in
Prince Edward County, Va.—the only
county in the nation where there are
no public schools. They have been
closed since fall, 1959, in order to avoid
court desegregation orders. That nearly
1,500 of the 1,800 school-age Negro
children in the county should have had
tion and application in business and
industry.
Negro leaders in Charleston, particu
larly those associated with the NAACP,
have long complained that one of the
weaknesses in the school desegregation
program was that it offered nothing for
the Negro after high school. He could
prepare, they said, but jobs were not
open to him.
Three Report Turndowns
Miles Stanley, state president of the
AFL-CIO who headed the commission’s
fact-finding committee, said three Ne
gro youths claimed they had been de
nied jobs because of their race. Two
cited department stores and the other
a drive-in restaurant. White youths
were later hired, they said.
The hiring problem has been a spe
cial area of concern since the commis
sion, first in West Virginia, was created
four years ago. Negro leaders contend
that it lies at the base of the school
eludes the growing Charlotte Com
munity College, operated for whites,
and the Mecklinburg College, run for
Negroes.
Both colleges are housed in new
plants although Negroes tried unsuc
cessfully to halt the building of Meck
lenburg. (Wynn v. Charlotte Commu
nity College System Trustees, filed in
1961.) Charlotte College, which has
been recommended to become a four-
year branch of the University of North
Carolina, has Negro students enrolled.
Charlotte College has been success
ful in attracting students. It needed the
$30,000 to take care of additional fac
ulty members, mostly part-time, to
teach added sections of classes. Meck
lenburg is suffering from lack of sup
port from the Negro population. The
school suffered a drop in enrollment,
and its budget was cut. Negroes also
complain of the inconvenient location
of the school, away from the mass of
Negro population.
Funds are split 70-30 between the
two schools, with Charlotte College
getting the larger share.
Human Relations
Group Condemns
‘Dismal Record*
North Carolina should take dubious
pride in the slow rate of school deseg
regation in the state, the Committee
on Human Relations reported Wednes
day, Jan. 30 at the annual meeting of
the North Carolina Council of Church
es in Winston Salem.
The committee made education the
No. 1 issue in its report, titled “Racial
Patterns in North Carolina, Analysis
and Appraisal,” and signed by its co-
chairmen, W. R. Grigg and H. Shelton
Smith.
Comparing desegregation in North
Carolina schools to desegregation in
other states, the report noted that in
no education in more than three years
is a disgrace to our country. Last
month, we asked the Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit, as a friend of
the court, to order the schools opened
promptly without racial segregation.”
House Republicans
Challenge Democrats
To Keep Pledges
A group of House Republicans intro
duced an omnibus civil rights bill Jan.
31 and challenged Democrats to carry
out 1960 campaign pledges and pass it.
The bill, embodying GOP campaign
pledges, would permanently establish
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
empower the attorney general to ini
tiate school desegregation suits, and
provide technical assistance to commu
nities trying to desegregate schools. The
package also includes voting rights and
equal employment provisions.
The bill, embodying, for the most
part, provisions previously sponsored
by the Eisenhower and Kennedy ad
ministrations, was sponsored by nine
of the 14 Republican members of the
House Judiciary Committee. Similar
legislation was introduced on the Sen
ate side of the Capitol.
Indications are that the administra
tion will seek only one civil rights bill
this year: to speed court action in vot
ing cases. Administration spokesmen
have been stressing the amount of
progress in civil rights they believe
possible by executive action without
new legislation.
Negro Educators
Discuss Training
Some 50 educators from 21 Negro
colleges and universities met at Howard
University Jan. 10 and 11 under aus
pices of the Department of Labor to
discuss career training and opportuni
ties for Negro students.
Arthur A. Chapin, special assistant to
the secretary of labor, said the confer
ence was the first of a series planned
by the department.
“The conference came about as a re-
North Carolina only 901 of 339,841 Ne
groes in public schools were in mixed
classes.
The report stated:
“That amounted to less than one
third of one per cent of the total Negro
public school population in the state.
Actually only three of the 14 states
now in process of integration had few
er Negroes enrolled in mixed classes.
“Has North Carolina really acted in
good faith with the Supreme Court’s
admonition to desegregate ‘with all
deliberate speed?’ Obviously not. Our
state has the dubious credit of being
the father of the Pupil Placement de
vice, and certainly that device has been
employed with remarkable effective- 1
ness in holding to the minimum Negro
admissions to our public schools.
“Meanwhile, our Negro fellow citi
zens have been forced to engage in
expensive and agonizing litigation in
order to breach the wall of segregation
at all. In Durham, for example, two
suits dragged on for years, and only
recently resulted in a decision favor
able to the plaintiffs.
“We in North Carolina claim to be a
progressive state, but our dismal rec
ord in this important field of human
justice seriously damages that claim.
After more than seven years, we still
content ourselves with what is called
‘token integration.’ But are we aware
that token integration implies merely
token civic morality? Token obedience
to the supreme law of the land does
not meet the demand of the Christian
conscience.”
The report also challenged church
colleges to integrate. It said:
“Church coleges are especially called
to renounce racial discrimination, and
yet many of them still practice racial
exclusiveness. To be sure, the secular
law does not compel them to integrate,
hut the law of love in the ethic of
Jesus lays a far more serious obliga
tion upon them than does the law of
the state.” We therefore beseech these
segregated colleges to abolish their
racial walls and open their doors to all
qualified persons.”
| suit of feeling in the Department of
Labor that equal opportunity was only
a part of the problem facing the non
white jobseeker,” Chapin said. “We
hope to point out that in the future the
Negro may be denied a job not because
of discrimination but because he may
not be trained in the right skills.”
Chapin said the greatest manpower
demand for Negroes, and whites as
well, is in science and technology, as
well as in the professions.
“This is the first time college execu-
| tives have been given an opportunity
to view occupational needs from the
vantage point of government and in
dustry,” he said. “We hope the institu
tions will gear their curriculums to
these needs.”
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson
told the educators that “the most tragic
mistake that a young Negro can make
today is to decide that there is no basis
for faith in the opportunity which the
future will offer to him.” He predicted
unprecedented opportunities for Negro
youth—“at the top of the ladder, not
on the bottom rungs alone.”
Conference participants reported that
recruiters for government, commerce
and industry are visiting the campuses
of Negro institutions with increasing
frequency. Howard University received
four times as many recruiters in 1961-
62 as in the previous year; Morgan
State College in Baltimore has had a
five-fold increase in industrial recruit
ment over the past two years; and an
“enormous increase” has taken place at
Fisk University in Nashville.
While noting these gains, the educa
tors said they must he accompanied by
efforts to step up the caliber of training
at the Negro institutions. President
Jerome Hampton of the Hampton (Va.)
Institute commented: “We must return
to our campuses in a mood of urgency
and raise the standards of our pro
grams.”
District To Teach
History of Negro
A special school curriculum subcom
mittee has prepared a study outline in
American Negro history to be used
starting next fall in fifth, eighth and
eleventh grade American history
classes of the District school system.
The project was prompted by com
plaints that Negro history has been
neglected in study materials. More than
80 per cent of the District’s public
school students are Negroes.
“In most high school texts you’ll find
only two or three references to the
Negro, usually in regard to the slave
era or the Reconstruction debacle,” said
B. H. Nelson, history professor at D.C.
Teachers College and co-chairman of
the special curriculum subcommittee.
The other co-chairman, Joseph E.
Penn, told reporters Jan. 15 that the
new program should inspire pride of
heritage among the city’s Negro stu
dents, encourage them to make their
own constructive contributions to so
ciety and “give white students a differ
ent image of the American Negro.”
Nelson said the study guide “will
show that the Negro has always been
a part of the mainstream of American
society, although in the past he wasn’t
considered so.”
The program will cover Negro con
tributions to the nation’s political, mili
tary, industrial and cultural efforts.
★ ★ ★
District School Supt. Carl F. Hansen
announced Jan. 10 that he would tell
private business schools in Washington
that they have a “moral obligation” to
accept eligible students regardless of
race. Hansen’s plan was endorsed by
the Board of Education.
The board is charged under law with
approving public and private facilities
for veterans’ training. Negro veterans
have been denied admission to some
private business schools in the Capital.
Boise L. Bristor, who handles vet
erans’ services for the public school
system, said that under federal law ac
ceptance of a veteran is “wholly within
the discretion of the (private business)
school ” “Therefore,” he told a school
board committee, “the Veterans Ad
ministration is without legal authority
to require a school to adopt a policy of
non-segregation.”
Hansen said the school system “feels
that a school, regardless of whether it
is public or private, has a moral obliga
tion to the veterans to make its facili
ties available to those who choose to
enroll.”
(See WEST VIRGINIA. Page 20)
NORTH CAROLINA
Good Neighbor Council Established
(Continued from Page 15)