Newspaper Page Text
KAfab 12—MARCH, 1963—SOumtMN iCHOOL NEWS
ALABAMA
Mobile Negroes Move Toward School Desegregation Suit
MONTGOMERY
M obile Negroes, denied a se
ries of appeals for desegre
gation of local schools, moved to
ward their own federal suit in
February.
The action is independent of the
Justice Department’s suit filed Jan. 18
against the Mobile County School
Board, along with suits against the
school boards in Huntsville and Madi
son County (see below).
The Mobile board was first petitioned
last Nov. 15 (SSN, December) to make
a “reasonable start” toward desegrega
tion. The board denied the petition
Jan. 15 (SSN, February). J. L. LeFlore,
Mobile postal worker and Negro leader,
had presented the original position in
behalf of 27 residents who said they
had children in the school system.
On Jan. 31, LeFlore again petitioned
the board, this time in behalf of four
Negro students who want to attend all-
white Baker High School, which is
closer to their homes than the St. Elmo
school they now are attending.
On Feb. 7, the board formally denied
the request for transfer. LeFlore an
nounced that suit would be filed as
soon as it had been prepared by Mrs.
Constance Baker Motley and Jack
Greenberg, NAACP counsel in New
York.
At the end of February, LeFlore told
Southern School News the suit would
be filed in a matter of days.
In denying the four permission to
transfer, the board sent their parents
Alabama Highlights
Mobile Negroes, led by J. L. Le
Flore, moved toward a federal court
suit to compel the desegregation of
Mobile County schools, after a series
of petitions and requests for trans
fer had been turned down.
School boards in Huntsville, Mad
ison County (in which Huntsville is
located) and Mobile were given de
lays by two federal courts in an
swering Justice Department de
mands for detailed information
about the systems. The Justice De
partment had filed suit Jan. 18
against the three boards, citing the
number of government civilian and
military personnel attending schools
in the area.
The Department of Health, Edu
cation and Welfare announced that
on-base desegregated school facili
ties were contemplated for Fort
Rucker at Ozark and Fort McClel
lan at Anniston. Maxwell Air Force
Base at Montgomery also was said
to be under consideration for the
facilities.
The Alabama Supreme Court up
held Feb. 27 a Montgomery Circuit
Court decision permanently enjoin
ing the National Association of Col
ored People from doing business in
Alabama.
Schoolmen
identical letters saying in part: “The
policy of the board has long been to
consider transfers during the school
year only under emergency circum
stances, which do not exist in this
instance.”
LeFlore responded: “We regret the
unfair action of the school board with
regard to what we believe to be the
basic rights of these children to trans
fer to a school near their homes.”
The four pupils, according to LeFlore,
live in the Hillsdale Heights section in
west Mobile and are required to make
a daily round trip of 34 miles to St.
Elmo while Baker is only four miles
from their homes.
‘The Best School’
LeFlore said he hoped the contem
plated court action would insure the
right of “all deserving children (to)
pursue their school work at the best
school available.”
The four applicants and the students
involved were listed as: Roscoe Hen
derson, for his stepson, Vernon Ruffin;
Willie Jones Jr., for his son, John
Henry Jones; Algea Bolton, for his
daughter, Mae Worine Bolton; and
Mrs. Minnie M. Morris, for her son,
Lloyd Vincent Morris.
All the parents, in their individual
applications for transfer to Baker
High, cited the nearness of the school
to their homes.
Legal Action
U. S. Courts Grant
Delay to Boards
In Three Cases
U.S. District Courts in Birmingham
and Mobile Feb. 27 granted three
school boards delays in answering
U.S. Justice Department requests for
detailed information concerning the
public schools.
The boards involved were those in
Huntsville and Madison County, home
of Redstone Arsenal and related fa
cilities, and in Mobile, site of Brookley
Air Force Base and other federal in
stallations.
The Justice Department filed suit
against the boards Jan. 18 (SSN,
February) seeking desegregation of
local schools. The Justice Department’s
action cited the large number of gov
ernment military and civilian personnel
attending public schools in the areas.
U.S. District Judge Daniel A. Thomas
granted a motion by the Mobile School
Board to stay the government’s request
for information until a previous motion
of the board seeking dismissal of the
suit has been heard (see below). Judge
Thomas did not immediately set a date
for hearing the dismissal motion.
The Birmingham District Court,
which has before it the suits against
Huntsville and Madison County boards,
set March 12 for a hearing on the two
boards’ motion for dismissed of the
Justice Department’s action. Delay in
filing detailed answers to government
interrogatories was granted until
March 13.
In all three complaints, the govern
ment contends that segregated facili
ties violate the 14th Amendment and
are harmful to the morale of federally
connected families.
Two Alabama Military Bases
To Get Desegregated Schools
Two Alabama military installations
were included in plans, announced from
Washington Feb. 21, to provide federal
desegregated elementary schools on
six bases in three states.
The two are Ft. Rucker at Ozark
and Ft. McClellan at Anniston. The
announcement was made by the De
partment of Health, Education and
Welfare. A spokesman at Maxwell Air
Force Base at Montgomery said base
officials also had heard of the plan, but
not in detail.
Dale County Supt. of Education
George W. Long said on-base facilities
at Rucker would involve about 1,000
federally connected white students, but
only 18 Negroes—all now attending
segregated Dale County schools. Long
said his office has received $194,000
this year for education of children of
military personnel. The amount, he
said, represents about one-third of the
total school budget.
“They wouldn’t do it if I’d go ahead
and integrate,” Long said, “but I told
them I wouldn’t do that.”
Nine school buildings would be virtu
ally vacated if facilities are constructed
on the Rucker reservation, Long said,
adding: “With only 18 Negro students
involved, it’s a big expenditure of tax
payers’ money for a pretty small per
centage.”
The action followed the announce
ment last year that impacted area aid
might no longer be available to school
districts not providing “suitable”
schools—interpreted as meaning deseg
regated schools.
If the on-base school plan were put
in effect in Montgomery, according to
city-county Supt. of Education Walter
McKee, it would chiefly affect elemen
tary-grade children living at Maxwell
and Gunter Air Force bases in the
capital city.
Last year, the Montgomery school
system received $635,000 in impacted
area assistance, McKee said—not e-
nough, he added, to run the local
schools for a month.
End of the Parade
f SEGREGATION jj
MOW
SEGREGATION
| TOMORROW !
I SEGREGATION
I FOREVER
Vindoux, Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette
The Justice Department is the sole
plaintiff in all three suits, a fact cited
by all the boards in asking dismissal.
The boards contend that the absence
of individual complainants raises new
constitutional questions.
Asst. State Attorney General Gordon
Madison, who has been assigned to
assist in the defense against the suits,
said: “It will be our position that Con
gress has repeatedly denied the execu
tive branch the authority to initiate
school integration suits and that this
action violates the will of Congress.”
This was the conclusion of Gov.
George Wallace’s newly created Com
mittee on Constitutional Law and State
Sovereignty in a meeting following the
filing of the suits in January (SSN,
February). Wallace, Attorney General
Richmond Flowers and members of
the state’s congressional delegation of
fered similar views.
Detailed Information
The detailed information sought by
the government, requested in inter
rogatories filed Feb. 18, included: The
number of schools in the systems,
grades taught in each school, capacities
and enrollment in each grade, distance
of the schools from military bases, and
totals of Negro and white children
enrolled in each school.
Madison County and Huntsville
which is in Madison County) asked the
Birmingham court Feb. 4 for separate
trials in event the suits are not dis
missed. The city and the county boards
were joined in the Justice Department’s
action.
The boards contend that the facts
are not the same in the city and the
county school systems. As in the Mobile
suit, the government noted federal as
sistance to local schools through im-
According to the government suit,
the county operates 29 public schools;
the city, 28; and the schools are at
tended by approximately 11,000 children
of military and civilian personnel at
Redstone. Of these, according to the
government suit, 750 are Negroes—250
in county schools, 500 in city schools.
Governor Sees Victory
Gov. George C. Wallace, in an ad
dress to the Alabama Cattlemen’s Asso
ciation Feb. 13, said of the Justice De
partment suits: “We’re going to win on
the facts and the law.”
He said a firm stand by the entire
Alabama congressional delegation al
ready had forced the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare to back
away from its threat to withhold federal
funds from school districts in im
pacted areas which fail to desegregate
schools.
Alabama congressmen have said, in
effect, that if funds are withheld “we
will kill the whole impacted aid pro
gram in the country,” according to the
governor.
Attorney General Richmond Flowers
revealed that he had conferred in late
January with top legal officials from
Mississippi, Louis
iana and Virginia.
Flowers said the
feeling was unani
mous that the
“impacted area”
suits were “not
only without prec
edent as regards
the party plaintiff
but also unconsti
tutional in their
conception and
anti-democratic in
their tendencies and ultimate ramifica
tions.”
If successfully maintained, Flowers
added, “they betoken the advent of the
super-state—no longer would Congress
need to act in order to authorize any
passing federal administration to force
its will upon a state, section or sub-
FLOWERS
{Integration,
(Tsegre^ti^]
stantial segment of the population of
the nation.”
Flowers promised “all the skill and
vigor” at his command in resisting the
suits.
In his inaugural statement Jan. 14,
Flowers warned against blanket defi
ance of federal court orders, called for
law and order, but pledged to “do
battle for our Southern traditions.” His
comment, similar to a number of his
speeches over the state last fall, was
interpreted as being at odds in some
respects with Gov. Wallace’s call for
“segregation forever” (SSN, February).
The Mobile board’s Feb. 8 dismissal
motion contends that there is no war
rant of law for institution of the suit,
that the court is without jurisdiction to
entertain the suit, and that the suit
seeks to assert “supposed rights of indi
viduals” under the 14th Amendment
whereas the power to assert such rights
is vested by law only in the individuals
themselves.
★ ★ ★
State Supreme Court
Upholds Ban on NAACP
The Alabama Supreme Court upheld
Feb. 28 a Montgomery Circuit Court
injunction permanently banning the
National Association of Colored People
from doing business in Alabama.
Montgomery Circuit Judge Walter B.
Jones issued a temporary injunction
against the organization in June, 1956,
on a complaint filed by then Attorney
General John Patterson (Alabama ex-
rel Patterson vs. NAACP). Jones also
fined the NAACP $100,000 for contempt
of court for refusing to produce mem
bership lists and certain other records.
The State Supreme Court upheld the
fine and injunction, but the U.S. Su
preme Court set the fine aside in 1958
with the ruling that the organization
was private and could not be compelled
to reveal the names of its members,
agreeing with the NAACP that such
revelation would subject members to
harassment.
The State Supreme Court came back
in 1959 with another finding, noting
that the U.S. Supreme Court had not
ruled on the other records sought and
thus did not answer all the questions
raised.
The high court again, the same year,
set the fine aside. Judge Jones made
the injunction permanent Dec. 29, 1961,
after the U.S. Supreme Court, on Oct.
23, 1961, had directed Alabama courts
to hear the case on its merits or for
feit jurisdiction to the U.S. District
Court in Montgomery.
NAACP again appealed to the Ala
bama Supreme Court.
The Feb. 28 decision, written by
State Justice Pelham Merrill, said,
“It is clear there is nothing presented to
the court to review.” The court also
criticized the NAACP for its conten
tion that the state’s highest court had
delayed reviewing the lower court’s
order: “Any delay . . . was caused
wholly and exclusively” by the
NAACP, the court said. “Any experi
enced or informed attorney would have
known” that the charge of delay is
“false and without foundation.”
The suit, as originally brought by
Patterson (who was elected governor
in 1958) charged that the NAACP had
failed to qualify under Alabama law as
an out-of-state corporation; and that
its leaders sought to promote racial
strife in the state, citing the 1956
Autherine Lucy disturbances at the
University of Alabama as one example.
What They Say
Governor Contends
No Industry Lost
By State Policy
Faced with press criticism, Gov.
George C. Wallace, in an address to
the Alabama Press Association Feb. 22,
said the state’s resistance to desegre
gation has not hampered industrial de
velopment.
Wallace noted that some $72,000,000
in new and expanded industry had
been announced a few days before his
talk and that another $35,000,000 in
industrial investments was to be an
nounced later.
Of the prospects with whom he has
been in contact, Wallace said, not a
single industrialist had indicated a
reluctance to come
to Alabama be
cause of his and
the state’s oppo
sition to desegre
gation. “In fact,”
Wallace said
“they have all a-
greed wholeheart
edly.”
Wallace talked
of the economic
discrimination a-
gainst the South
which existed for 100 years, creating
poverty among whites and Negroes
alike. “Yes, they made us all poor . .
and yet they speak to us about discrim
ination . . . They feel now they must
concoct some other scheme, so they will
destroy stable social relations. ... We
are going to get our share of industrial
development that will bring a new day
for every black and white man in the
state.”
★ ★ ★
Wallace Addresses Group
Urging All-Out Resistance
Earlier in the month, Wallace gave
an impromptu talk to a group of 100
men who gathered on the Capitol steps
Feb. 9 to petition the governor “for the
right to stand up for our children, to
fight for our children and, if necessary,
to die for our children.”
Through their spokesman, James L-
Craft, who identified himself as a Mont
gomery businessman, the group said
that without such a declaration of re
sistance, “we could not in clear con
science call ourselves men.”
Wallace responded with a renewed
pledge to “use all of the authority
granted to me by the laws of Alabama
and the United States to stand up for
Alabama.”
The group called itself “Volunteers
for Alabama and Wallace.”
★ ★ ★
State Urged To Back GOP
Because of Race Issue
Tandy Little of Montgomery, firs*
Republican elected to the state legisla
ture from the capital city in this cen
tury, told a local civic club audience
that the state should go Republican m
the 1964 presidential election because
of the Kennedy administration’s rad
policies. ,
“Although we don’t like what we .{?
getting (from Washington),” Little saiO)
“we bought it” ,
A Dixiecrat-type revolt is “futil e >
Little said. “You have tried it severe
(See ALABAMA, Page 13)
Under Survey
Gains in Desegregation in ’62
Cited in Tuskegee Race Report
Tuskegee Institute’s race relations
report for 1962, released in early Feb
ruary, cited gains for desegregation in
the South dining the year but noted
the incidents at Oxford, Miss., and Al
bany, Ga.
Desegregation “clearly accelerated”
during the year, the annual report con
cluded. Cited as the outstanding ele
ment in this progress was “federal ex
ecutive leadership.” Additionally, there
was “a wholesome development of new
and already established human rela
tions councils and similar volunteer
groups.”
On the negative side, “the seeds of
future racial conflict were embedded
in the South’s continuing low economic,
educational and cultural status and the
further industrial automation which
combined to keep Negro incomes
and intensified the competition
jobs.”
lo*
for
However, the report said the 5
showed a trend toward more corn ^ ir t
ance than non-compliance with c °
orders, a broadening base of ^ ese T^p
gation action by public officials aI \ . (V
acceleration of desegregation ac
by voluntary groups.
Working against the trend to ^ ^
tually respectful race relations, ^
“the frequent failure of public o . - r
to accept the full responsibility of
offices.”
The report, which replaced ^
years ago an annual lynching £f^ r ,
was signed by Dr. Luther H.
Tuskegee Institute President.