Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH, 1963—PAGE 11
WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield State College
Gets New Lease on Life
THE REGION
U. S. Continues To Press
For More Desegregation
(Continued From Page 1)
CHARLESTON
luefield State College got a
new lease on life Feb. 6 when
the State Board of Education
voted to continue it as a four-
year, degree-granting institution.
But the board instructed President L
B. Allen to institute economies outlined
in the report of a study made by an
Ohio State University professor.
This action ended for the time being
the long-standing dispute as to whether
Bluefield should be closed, merged with
nearby Concord College or converted
into a technical center.
Bluefield has been in trouble financ
ially since it was converted in 1954
from a Negro to a racially mixed col
lege. The action taken, as to calling for
strict economies after examining other
possible uses, is similar to a decision
taken about five years ago.
Feasibility
“Neither the merger nor the two-year
technical institute seems feasible,” said
Dr. Earl W. Anderson of Ohio State
University, who was employed by the
board in November to study possible
changes in Bluefield’s status.
“Rather,” said Dr. Anderson, “there
should be strong support of the grow
ing technical program in a college that
offers a strong two-year general educa
tion program and degrees in a limited
number of fields justified by substantial
enrollments in third- and fourth-year
courses.”
He suggested majors in such broad
areas as social science or humanities
rather than in more specific fields that
now have low enrollments at Bluefield.
One of the principal complaints about
the college has been its per-pupil cost
of operation, the highest among state
colleges.
Cost-Cutting
Dr. Anderson said this can be re
duced by eliminating some small classes
on alternate years or alternate semes
ters, eliminating costly programs serv
ing only a few students and increasing
teaching loads of teachers who now
have light schedules.
Dr. Anderson’s report said the most
practical alternative to the present or
ganization at Bluefield would be to
make it a community junior college.
He suggested that a special check be
made after four years to see if the col
lege can operate efficiently and eco
nomically as a four-year institution.
He noted that the demand for higher
education in West Virginia is likely to
increase, and Bluefield is an accredited
institution.
Dr. Anderson said a merger of Blue-
eld and Concord might save from $10,-
wo to $15,000 a year in administrative
eosts but would increase travel time
, expense for student and adminis-
trators.
Racial Makeups
ijy 0 ’ He said, it might be years be-
T< : the staffs and students of the two
e ® cs ar e fully biracial. Bluefield’s
Hnent still is 60 per cent Negro,
s(] , e Concord has only a few Negro
u ents an d no Negro staff members.
car ^' ere is danger of the Bluefield
Pus becoming a branch controlled
Coll Ut „ not rea lly a part of Concord
f ere e ® e ’ He said, “in view of the dif-
»ces i n backgrounds and present
e-up of the two institutions.”
e added Hiat neither college staff
e c °mmunity has its heart in the
er ger proposals.
j^derson said transforming Blue-
* ork mt ° a technical institute would
( -' 0 Urs p a Hardship on students in other
eos^ 6S actually increase per-pupil
^ a i*ning Issued
-^ e gro Exodus
b ecai ^ tfning was issued Feb. 1 that
.\’ogj. o e , ^ ac H of opportunities for
Uatog, SC ^ 1<Xd college grad-
t°oth 6St ^H"ginia is losing Negroes
states faster than whites.
^ cJ Ctm VarninS came f rom Howard W.
^est y Gi eXecu tive director of the
S * 0 A wh S * n * a Hf uman Rights Commis-
Has been surveying the ef
fects of desegregation since he took
over the two-year-old commission’s top
post
During the decade from 1950 to 1960,
he said, 22 per cent—almost one-fourth
—of the Negroes in West Virginia mov
ed to other states. At the same time,
only 7 per cent of the total population
left.
West Virginia is the only state losing
population.
Proportion Decreasing
Almost no young Negro profession
als are remaining in the state,” he said,
“The proportion of Negro wage-earners
to the total population is decreasing
sharply.”
The greatest loss of Negro jobs is in
the coal fields, where mine mechaniza
tion has caused a grave problem.
With his statement, McKinney con
firmed contentions by Negro leaders
that for the Negro high school and
college child there is little opportunity
for employment in West Virginia.
This argument grew so intense in
meetings of the Charleston Human
Rights Commission that the chairman
quit and Mayor John Shanklin had to
name a successor. Charleston is the
center of the state’s biggest industrial
complex.
What They Say
Publisher Scores
Tribunal’s Role
In Social Change
The U.S. Supreme Court has hurt it
self and set dangerous precedents by
becoming a spearhead for social change,
a leading spokesman for the conserva
tive viewpoint said in Charleston Feb. 9.
Commenting on the results of the
court’s historic 1954 desegregation opin
ion, William A. Rusher, publisher of
National Review, said, “The Supreme
Court went out to achieve a political
effect, but it is not the proper vehicle
for political effect.”
Rusher, addressing a world events
forum at West Virginia State College,
all-Negro until 1954, called civil rights
(Continued From Page 7)
number of handicapped pupils enrolled
in special education programs and re
ceiving guidance services has more than
tripled. Special attention is required
for “disadvantaged” children.
The St. Louis Board of Education
spent about $2,464,000 on its specia
programs in the last school year, or
about six per cent of the total annual
expenditures. The services include
programs for the mentally retarded as
well as for those with various physical
troubles such as defects of sight, speech
or hearing. The program for mental 1
retarded children alone requires 165
speciaUy trained teachers and costs
about $1,176,000 a year. Last year 1919
elementary pupils and 413 high schoo
students were enrolled in average daily
attendance in classes for the retarded.
To Improve Discipline
Late in February the St. Louis
schools announced that beginning in
September a new drive would be
launched to improve discipline and
raise achievement levels. For the first
time, high school guidance counselors
will start visiting eighth-grade classes.
In the St. Louis system, the eighth
grade is the last year of elementary
schooL
George E. Mowrer, director of guid
ance services, said 12 new members
would be hired to augment the present
48-member counseling staff. In ex
panding the service to the eighth grade,
the counselors will try to teach chil
dren better study habits, give them
greater incentive, and plan their high
school programs more efficiently.
The new guidance program was said
to be related to the Board of Educa
tion’s “get tough” policy, adopted last
December. The policy involves getting
West Virginia Highlights
The State Board of Education de
cided last month to retain Bluefield
State College as a four-year degree
granting institution, ending for the
present speculation as to the future
status of this troubled once-Negro in
stitution.
A prominent conservative warned
in Charleston that the use of troops
in Southern desegregation disorders
will be followed by the use of bayo
nets.
the most important domestic issue in
the country.
Congress and the President should
take the lead in civil rights, he said.
But Congress, he added, has taken no
action even though it is “dominated
by racists.”
‘Public Consciousness’
Congress reflects the diversity of the
people, Rusher said. “But any major
change is likely to be reflected in Con
gress only as it comes out of the public
consciousness.”
“There is no question that the Negro
population is going to be and should
be integrated. National Review type of
conservatives do not believe the color
of a man’s skin should have anything
to do with his rights.”
Rusher said race relations in the
South should be improved gradually
through private action and intersocial
groups rather than through federal
court orders and troops.
Using troops to desegregate schools
probably caused actual harm to the
children taken to school and the na
tion as a whole, Rusher said. “Such en
forcement of federal court orders comes
to be taken for granted,” he continued.
“The next time the bayonets may be
pointed at us.”
Liberals ‘Fuel’
Civil rights, he said, has become the
principal fuel of the liberals, whose
“great wave of thought and action had
largely spent its force” by the early
1950s.
Rusher, a Princeton and Harvard
graduate, is a New York lawyer and
has been publisher of National Review
since 1957.
West Virginia State, where he spoke,
has changed from a Negro to racially
mixed institution since 1954. Its stu
dent body is now approximately 70 per
cent white.
rid of incorrigible students and giving
additional counseling to problem stu
dents who are thought to be capable
of correction.
“The new elementary program,”
Mowrer said, “will be aimed at pre
venting problem students. If we work
it well, students will achieve better,
won’t get bored with school and will
get into much less difficulty. It should
reduce the number of dropouts and
absences when they get into high
school.”
Salvage Children
The Rev. John J. Hicks, Negro
chairman of the board’s education com
mittee, expressed the view last De
cember that every effort should be
made to salvage children by guiding
them into favorable attitudes at an
early age.
In discussing the new program,
Mowrer said that “combat teams” com
posed of a guidance counselor, a social
worker and an administrative assistant
had succeeded in recent weeks in their
efforts to cut absenteeism and tardi
ness in the city’s high schools. The
teams seek to find out why certain
students dislike school.
At Soldan High School, a formerly
all-white school now nearly solidly
Negro, it was reported that tardiness
had dropped from 400 cases a day to
less than 30.
“This results,” Mowrer said, “in less
class interruption, clearer, quieter hall
ways during class periods, and—of
paramount importance—it results in
the student being in class so that he
will not miss discussions and assign
ments.
“Students now know that they are
going to be checked upon and helped.
They know that if they try to circum
vent rules they are pretty sure of be
ing caught.”
dependents as students and Liberty
County has 22 or 23 Negroes from
Fort Stewart.
James Quigley, HEW assistant sec
retary, said that he “had a feeling” that
nothing would be done this year about
the segregated schools in Dougherty
County, Ga., (Albany), which has a
Marine Corps depot and Turner Air
Force Base. Although the school board
voted against desegregating this year,
Quigley said, the fact that it sought a
solution “indicates that while they can’t
do anything this year, there is a pos
sibility that they can next year, or the
next.”
Thirty-four South Carolina school
districts have received $29.8 million in
federal “impacted area” aid since the
plan began in 1950. Critics of the new
HEW policy to establish on-base
schools noted that the department did
not include Charleston, location of the
greatest number of federally connected
people in the state.
Fort Jackson, where HEW plans an
on-base school, has about 300 children
attending a Richland County school off
the base. The other installation sched-
Miscellaneous
Former College Site
Gets Memorial Fund
The National Park Service was given
$50,000 Feb. 11 for use in restoring the
“paymaster’s house” on the grounds of
what was once Storer College at Harp
ers Ferry.
The money was given by Mrs. Corine
Higginson Rogers of Washington for the
purpose of reaffirming “the convictions
of those Americans who, over a hun
dred years ago, well knew that our na
tion could not compromise on liberty;
that a nation cannot be half slave and
half free.”
Storer, the first Negro college estab
lished in West Virginia, was closed after
all state-owned colleges were deseg
regated in the wake of the Supreme
Court’s 1954 decision and a subsidy was
withdrawn from privately owned
Storer.
The Storer buildings now are being
used as a training center by the Na
tional Park Service and adjoin a na
tional monument that is being created
at Harpers Ferry.
Community Action
NAACP Opposes
Closing School,
Moving College
On Feb. 4 the St. Louis NAACP
urged the St. Louis Board of Educa
tion not to shut Vashon High School
and not to transfer Harris Teachers
College to the present Vashon build
ing. The Vashon school, one of the
city’s all-Negro high schools before
desegregation in 1955, is in the Mill
Creek Valley area and has lost popu
lation because of a major urban re
development project. Harris Teachers
College is in the crowded West End
section, where many Negro families
have moved in recent years.
“After examination of increased high
school enrollment trends,” the NAACP
said, “it is recommended that Vashon
High School not be closed but de
veloped as an integrated, racially bal
anced institution to serve as a stimulus
for the integrated redevelopment of the
Mill Creek area . . .
“The Education Committee recom
mends that Harris Teachers College
remain in the West End as an im
portant and very stabilizing institu
tion in the integrated community of
which it is a part To remove this
institution from the West End as this
section awaits approval of $10,000,000
in federal funds for rehabilitation aid
conservation, ostensibly to house an
elementary center which most assured
ly will be 95 per cent non-white, is to
give effect to a self-fulfilling prophesy
that an integrated community will not
endure.”
uled to have its own school, Myrtle
Beach AFB, has 400 white and some 2 1
Negro dependents attending Horry
County elementary schools.
A few years ago, the government
purchased two Beaufort County schools
near Parris Island Marine Base and
Beaufort Marine Air Station. The Ma
rine installations took over operation
of the schools and desegregated them.
Florida District
A Florida school district agreed in
February to desegregate next fall
rather than lose the federal school
funds. Okaloosa County’s school board
plans to assign 28 Negro students from
Eglin Air Force Base and Hulburt
Field to previously all-white schools
in the county system. The board also
agreed to start work on a plan for
assignment of all federally connected
students living off the bases—about
5,500 whites and 500 Negroes. The
school board members said that the
government representatives not only
threatened to cut off future funds but
also to sue for recovery of $5.5 million
granted the county in previous years.
In addition to its four impacted area
aid suits, the federal justice department
has entered the suit to re-open Prince
Edward County schools, Griffin v.
Prince Edward County School Board.
On Feb. 14, the department filed addi
tional arguments in the U.S. Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals, supplement
ing the plaintiff’s argument that the
county could not close its schools to
avoid racial desegregation.
Louisiana is the only one of the 50
states that has not signed a contract
agreement with the federal government
for its trade schools to participate in
the manpower development and train
ing program which began last Septem
ber. The state stands to lose over $1
million in federal funds. Although state
officials have not offered any explana
tion, reliable informants pointed to the
non-discrimination clause in the grants.
Aid Rejected
A Louisiana school district, St. Tam
many Parish, has rejected federal aid
and is promoting a $1.9 million bond
issue to expand its school facilities.
About 1,000 new pupils have entered
the public schools because of a gov
ernment space operation in the area.
The board returned its initial grant of
“impacted area” funds and withdrew
its application.
In Atlanta, Ga., officials have deseg
regated voluntarily a vocational school
financed largely by state and federal
funds. Smith-Hughes became the first
desegregated vocational school in
Georgia by admitting two Negro stu
dents. The change resulted from con
ferences by city, Fulton County and
state officials.
Anne Arundel County, Md., has ac
celerated its grade-a-year desegrega
tion program to include the 11th and
12th grades next year. The com
school superintendent, Dr. David S
Jenkins, recommended the move be
cause it would assure continuation of
federal “impacted area” funds. Jenkins
told the board that probably no more
than a dozen students would be in
volved if the 12th grade was desegre
gated along with the 11th.
Summer Study Only
A private college in Tennessee has
adopted a policy of accepting Negro
students for summer only, beginning
this year. The University of Chatta
nooga last fall had rejected a $47,003
grant from the National Science Foun
dation for a summer graduate science
institute because it would have re
quired admission of students without
regard to race.
Rice University trustees at Houston,
Tex., have filed suit to construe the
founder’s will so it could admit Negroes
and start charging tuition, both ex
cluded under the document signed in
1891. The trustees said they wanted to
attract scholars and funds.
Educators in the Houston area have
urged the removal of racial barriers
because, among other things, the Na
tional Aeronautics and Space Admin
istration center is being built there.
Federal grants to schools for education
and research are administered under
non-racial policies.
The government’s new policy on “im
pacted area” aid was said to have
figured in Fort Worth officials’ deci
sion not to appeal a school desegrega
tion order after losing in the U.S. Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals. “I don’t think
we would make a decision without con
sidering this aspect,” the Fort Worth
school board president, Atwood Mc
Donald, said.
MISSOURI
Suit Due Against 5 Districts