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$ <?• 7 Factual y SOUTHE This be VOL 9, NO. 9 "iuWtgs: 8002-H-C9 Nnr ^0 / Objective r- the region Si tie ■at* ia. tl* isi. l(Xj U.S. Continues To Press For More Desegregation T je federal government con tinues to press for more school desegregation in the South, using court action and the ad ministration of its aid programs. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, using the threat 0 f withdrawal of federal “impacted jjea” funds, has arranged for 15 Texas and Florida districts to desegregate. HEW announced in February it would provide on-base schools at six military installations where local authorities re fuse to co-operate. The U.S. Department of Justice has Sled four suits to desegregate public schools serving large numbers of mili tary dependents. The department has joined in a fifth suit to force the re opening of Prince Edward County, Va., schools, closed since 1959. President’s Message President John F. Kennedy, in his Erst congressional message devoted exclusively to civil rights, proposed new legislation on schools last month. He asked Congress to approve federal technical and financial assistance to districts that are in the process of de segregating. And he asked elimination of the “unconstitutional and outmoded concept of ‘separate but equal’ ” from the century-old Morrill Land Grant College Act. The president said that “the Execu tive Branch will continue its efforts to fulfill the constitutional objective of an equal, non-segregated educational op portunity for all children.” Although the Department of Health, Education and Welfare announced plans to establish desegregated schools »n six military bases, some military ^pendents will continue to attend seg regated schools next year, and the dis pels will receive federal “impacted area” funds. Almost a year ago the department announced that in the fall of 1963, seg regated public schools would no longer j considered “suitable” to receive the aderal funds for educating children of Parents living or working on federal installations. HEW tried to persuade e segregated school districts to de- ^gregate, but the department said only J Texas and Florida school districts "no complied. HEW Policies Instead of withdrawing all the mili- y dependents and the federal aid j m ™ e remaining segregated districts i» Un ° military bases, HEW adopted t '_ po-icies for next year: lish , n ~ base schools will be estab- • Tu 3 * the elementary level only. schools will be established cant St mi,itar y bases having a signifi- ( member of children involved. vJ 6 children of federal personnel , he given a choice of attending a Seated on-base school, or an all- or all-Negro school off the base. , Payments would be made for chil dren m the off-base schools. • - stj, I* wi ll build new temporary reom S ° r c° nver t buildings for class- tk a . a t Fort Jackson and Myrtle n Air Force Base in South Caro- P- °rt Stewart and Robins Air Force m Borgia, and Fort McClellan Issue S1 ppi la,e Reports ^abania 5&X::::L. ^orTda ° f Cdumbi: S-gia • • ■ upland X s ** tUSuiia 6st Virgil •; r ^ iai Articles Cv glon ■ • S and the Issue ..12 .. 9 .. 9 .. 1 .. 2 .. 4- .. 5 %\ .... 7 . :13 .. 5 .. 1 .. 3 .. 2 ..15 ..11 . 1 .10 and Fort Rucker in Alabama. The cost was estimated at $2 million. Associate Commissioner of Education Arthur Harris said Mississippi was not included in the plans because of pend ing school suits there. The U.S. De partment of Justice has filed desegre gation suits against schools serving mil itary dependents at Biloxi-Gulfport, Miss.; Shreveport, La.; and Huntsville and Mobile, Ala. Civil rights organizations have at tacked some of HEW’s policies for con tinuing support to segregated schools. Both the NAACP and the Southern Regional Council compared the option of attending segregated or desegregated schools to the “salt-and-pepper” plans overruled by the federal courts for Houston, Dallas and Nashville. In Mississippi, the state NAACP president, Aaron Henry, told the state advisory committee to the U.S. Com mission on Civil Rights that the fed eral government “is dragging its feet on the civil rights issue” in the state. The Negro leader said that federal money that “subsidizes segregated state agencies is being spent in Mississippi to perpetuate a system which denies the Negro a first class citizenship.” Alabama Stand Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace said in a speech Feb. 13 that a firm stand by the Alabama congressional delegation had forced the Department of Health Education and Welfare to back away from its threat to withhold federal funds from segregated school districts in federally impacted areas. According to the governor, the Ala bama congressmen have said they will kill the entire impacted aid program if any funds are withheld. The Huntsville and Madison County, Ala., school districts, which are de fendants in one of the justice depart ment suits over impacted aid, have 11,000 children of military and civilian personnel at Redstone Arsenal. These include 750 Negroes. Fort Rucker, Ala., which is scheduled to receive one of the HEW on-base schools, has about 1,000 federally con nected white students and 18 Negroes attending segregated Dale County schools. A spokesman at Maxwell Air Force Base at Montgomery, Ala., said officials there also had heard of the HEW plan for on-base schools, but not in detail. Last year the city school system re ceived $635,000 in impacted area as sistance. Small numbers of Negro students would be involved at the two Georgia bases scheduled to receive on-base schools. Houston County, which serves Robins AFB, has eight Negro military (See U.S., Page 11) Supt. O. Perry Walker Separation by sex? LOUISIANA Plan To Divide Boys and Girls Is Under Study NEW ORLEANS P roblems of curriculum, pupil placement and personnel as signment face the Orleans Parish school board in deciding whether to revert to the former system of separate high schools for boys and girls. These problems, plus the cost of con verting 30 buildings for all-boy or all girl use, were pointed up in a special report that Supt. O. Perry Walker sub mitted to the board Feb. 12. The study was made at the direction of the board after President Matthew Sutherland noted that desegregation eventually will be extended to all 12 grades of the public school system. The report offered no recommenda tions, and the board took no action pending comprehensive study of the findings. However, the board by a 3-2 vote did order that another study be made of the feasibility of separate classes for high school hoys and girls within the same buildings. Impact of segregation by sex on the high school curriculum was surveyed in these terms: “The change to separate schools would affect course offerings in the schools. “It is obvious that homemaking courses would not be offered in the all-hoy schools. On the other hand, girls have been enrolling in certain in dustrial arts courses, notably mechani cal drawing and printing. Consequently, (See NEW ORLEANS, Page 14) DISTRICT PresidenrC&dls for Aid To Schools in Transition WASHINGTON I n his first message to Con gress devoted exclusively to civil - rights, President Kennedy on Feb. 28 proposed new legisla tion and called for an end to what he termed “the cruel disease of discrimination.” The President’s message devoted major attention to steps to strengthen voting rights, including a renewal of last year’s proposal to substitute a sixth-grade education for any state literacy requirement. In the field of education, Kennedy asked Congress to approve a program of federal technical and financial assistance to school dis tricts that are in the process of de segregating. The aid would bd provided through the Office of Education in the Depart ment of Health, Education and Welfare to assist local communities in preparing and carrying out desegregation plans. No cost estimate was submitted, but White House officials said $1 million to $2 million would be requested for the program at the outset. Kennedy also asked Congress to eliminate the “unconstitutional and outmoded concept of ‘separate but equal’ ” from the century-old Morrill Land Grant College Act. Extension of Commission He urged Congress to extend the life of the federal Civil Rights Commission, due to expire Nov. 30, for at least four years. Created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the commission has in the past been extended for two-year periods. The President said the commission “should be authorized to serve as a national civil rights clearing house providing infor mation, advice and technical as sistance to any requesting agency, private or public.” “The Negro baby born in America today,” Kennedy told Congress, “regardless of the section or state in which he is bom, has about one half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day —one third as much chance of com pleting college—one third as much chance of becoming a professional man —twice as much chance of becoming unemployed—about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 per year —life expectancy which is seven years less—and the prospect of earning only half as much. KENNEDY SOUTH CAROLINA U.S. Impact-Area Plan Attacked COLUMBIA T wo South Carolina state senators attacked the an nouncement by the U.S. Depart ment of Health, Education and Welfare that desegregated schools would be established at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base and Fort Jackson near Columbia. Sen. James P. Stevens of Horry County, which includes the resort city of Myrtle Beach, declared it was ironic that the U. S. government should say, 'an v one hand, that South Carolina’s School, are inadequate for children of on-hape .ihilitary personnel and federal ■jjmpipyes and then ask Horry school d&fey=j?s v to help them with a survey loo|fl% toward the establishment of a desegregated school on the bases. The HEW order implemented a pro- , gram announced in March, 1962, by for mer Secretary Abraham Ribicoff, de claring segregated schools “unsuitable” for federally connected students. “CHir schools in Horry are a lot bet ter than the blackboard jungles of Washington,” Sen. Stevens told the State Senate. “Horry County and its Board of Education are not in the busi ness of integrated schools. I want South Carolina and the whole world to know that. “The Board of Education has assured me that they will not render any as sistance in the survey,” the senator continued. “Integration is repulsive to me . . . and I don’t believe it will work.” He said he felt that the Myrtle Beach AFB school could obtain teachers only in the North. Reflected Feeling When Sen. Stevens had completed his remarks, during the Feb. 27 session, Calhoun County Sen. L. Marion Gres- sette, chairman of the state’s influ ential Segregation Committee, arose and said that his colleague’s com ments reflected the feeling of the committee. He said that South Carolina will not give up control of its schools to help some Washington officials, “particularly the Kennedy brothers, build up their GRESSETTE political standing. “We have no objection to the fed eral government operating schools on its own property in any manner it sees fit,” Sen. Gressette said, “but when it comes to schools in the State of South Carolina, we intend to retain the power in our own state government.” He said threats had been made to withdraw federal aid, under the im- pacted-area plan, but “we intend to keep control of our schools.” Thirty-four S. C. school districts have received $29 8 million in impacted-area aid from the federal government since the plan was inaugurated in July 1950. Excludes Charleston HEW’s program to build base schools also includes four bases in Georgia and Alabama but, significantly, say critics, not at Charleston, location of the great est number of federally connected peo ple in this state. The program is to go into effect in September. It appears, according to the interpre tation of Col. William Pratt, base com mander at Myrtle Beach, that a child of a family housed on base may enroll in as many as four different schools. He was quoted as saying that on-base (See STATE, Page 16) Deadly Mushroom ir Alley, Memphis Commercial Appeal “No American who believes in the basic truth that ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,’ can fully excuse, explain or defend the picture these statistics portray. Race discrimination hampers our economic growth by preventing the maximum development and utilization of our manpower. It hampers our world lead ership by contradicting at home the message we preach abroad. It mars the atmosphere of a united and classless society in which this Nation rose to greatness. It increases the costs of pub lic welfare, crime, delinquency and disorder. Above all, it is wrong.” Kennedy said more progress in civil rights has been made during the first two years of his administration “than in any comparable period in our his tory.” In addition to his proposals for new legislation, much of the message consisted of an enumeration of that progress. ‘Legally and Morally Right’ In the section on education, the President referred to the Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegregation de cision and said it “represented both good law and good judgment—it was both legally and morally right. “Since that time,” he added, “it has become increasingly clear that neither violence nor legalistic evasions will be tolerated as a means of thwarting court ordered desegregation, that closed schools are not an answer, and that responsible communities are able to handle the desegregation process in a calm and sensible manner. This is as it should be. . . .” Kennedy said the “shameful vio lence which accompanied but did not prevent the end of segregation at Uni versity of Mississippi was an excep tion” to a general pattern of progress in school desegregation. He cited suc cessful desegregation at other Southern state universities and in public school systems in a number of cities, as well as federal efforts to end segregation in government-sponsored or assisted ed ucation programs, including the pro gram of aid to federal-impacted school districts. “In these and other areas within its jurisdiction, the Executive Branch will continue its efforts to fulfill the con stitutional objective of an equal, non- segregated educational opportunity for all children,” the President declared. Would Speed Process Despite these efforts, however, Ken nedy said “progress toward primary and secondary school desegregation has still been too slow, often painfully so.” He said his proposals to provide tech nical and financial assistance to deseg regating school districts would be “one obvious area of federal action” to help speed the process. Reaction to the President’s message was mixed. Some advocates of govern mental civil rights actions said he did not go far enough in his request for legislative action—not including, for example, a request to grant the At torney General authority to initiate in- (See PRESIDENT, Page 10)