Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH, 1963—PAGE 5
-
OKLAHOMA
Langston Gets
federal Loan
On Dormitories
OKLAHOMA CITY
L angston University, once on
shaky legs, has bounced back
strong
and is sponsoring pro
grams
that should assure a con
tinuing flow of Negro students
through its doors.
pr, William H. Hale, president, in
February announced approval of a $1,-
119,000 loan by the U. S. Housing and
Home Finance
HALE
Agency --„ T1 L e
money will be
used, he said, to
help pay for a
10-year $1,350,000
building project
under way at Ok
lahoma’s only all-
I Negro institution
of higher learning.
Construction is
to begin this sum
mer on two 104-
person dormitories (one each for men
and women), 12 faculty apartments, a
student union building and a cafeteria.
Just two years ago, during the last
session of the Oklahoma legislature,
friends of Langston felt it necessary to
organize a campaign to save the school.
Declining enrollments after desegrega
tion of the state’s white colleges and
universities led to agitation for con
verting Langston into a junior college
or otherwise changing its status.
Rushed to Defense
w e£
Langston supporters rushed to its
defense with the plea that the Logan
County institution offered the only hope
for a college education for many young
Negroes from low-income families. The
legislature responded with a resolution
declaring its intent that Langston re
main a part of the Oklahoma system of
higher education.
Recalling this last month, Hale said,
I've gone on as if the state wanted the
mstitution. Since then, I’ve heard very
little of this kind of talk.”
The Negro educator said Langston is
gaining strength. This was indicated, he
a *d, by a first-semester enrollment this
>ear of 704 students, Langston’s largest
jn 12 years, despite inadequate facilities,
y comparison, Langston’s enrollment
uring the first semester of 1961-62 was
“5, he said.
The problem now to be alleviated
I help of the federal loan is “not
“ y to take care of the increase but to
J cc °mmodate the students we now
**;” Hale said.
^ e stated that many of the stu
dents
lilefcl
1 free
•oil re P resen ting the increased en-
ent would not have atentded col-
?e if it had not been for Langston.
ion*
le If
ui?
me*
entilf
ofk
ildr^
eetfr
r-oUf"
‘Social Mobility’
"We’
. re an agency of social mobility
®°nunented. “We take youngsters
in fo aUte ^ cultural background ar
res Pect' years develop them into sel
go ■ , In § ruen and women who ce
0 careers that are productive ai
satisfying.”
ton’ s Lt Stimate d 70 per cent of Lang:
kahlies Cn * ^ res h man class came fro
not _ S w hose annual income wou
sch 00 i X !' ee ^ $5,000. At most othi
be a hi’ , e speculated, 15 per cent wou!
0n e of ,? gure * or tkis type 81X111
Ungsto . new Programs initiated
ilajs n is aimed at the freshm;
, **
’beinl
tif
"W
*hich f, eterrrune d ways and means
Siid en ,„ 6 cou fd rapidly improve the
Role ^ ,® te llectually and cultural!
by to < ' >Ur job is to take them a
The re f up ^ or a cultural lack.”
a Fresh 1 was Ike launching last f
^'Orn. g: x an development Study Pi
Ml stu .. grou P s —one each in scien
es, language arts, health a
'^s (oot U f at i° n > co-curricular act
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mathematics—m
i i matnematics—r
J* these at their goals and
. denartmen+o
‘MinjTj^ departments can help
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r °Sress ‘Encourag
pro ^css so :
I T ° heln •
Sgsto n P “nplement
Vo , pla ns
. N'f
lan g
les
P^'l
ls a workshop
(or ‘SUage arts te
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,V * w klah °ma.
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Vthe r ’ Vj Wale ex Plain
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Oklahoma Highlights
A federal housing loan to help
build dormitories at Langston Uni
versity marked the growing strength
of the once-shaky Negro college.
The school is offering programs to
maintain young Negroes’ interest in
education.
A Negro community leader ex
pressed fear pupils of his race may
be getting too much cultural school
ing, not enough reading, writing and
arithmetic fundamentals to prepare
them for the world of work.
is the high rate of Negro dropouts
from high school. He said Negro com
munities that, before desegregation,
used to have 35 to 40 Negro graduates
a year may now have no more than
two.
“We recognize, however,” Hale said,
“that high school may be too late to
work on this problem.”
A “career day” was launched last
year on the Langston campus. Princi
pals of desegregated schools were in
vited but few responded. This year, on
March 30, the program is to be re
peated, with all sixth-grade students
in Negro schools being invited.
Last Chance
The occasion is viewed as the Negro
teacher’s crucial, last-chance contact
with the group. The pupils will be mov
ing into the high school, and “that’s
where the mortality is high,” Hale
pointed out.
“If we could show these youngsters
at the sixth-grade level what college is
like, we might help them over this
rough part in their lives,” the Negro
educator observed.
“Any Negro teacher who thinks seri
ously about the problem will tell you
how crucial it is. The time will come,
if the (dropout) trend is not reversed,
when a whole segment of the popula
tion will be uneducated.”
Community Action
League Official
Criticizes Negro
School Programs
Negro schools may be short-changing
their pupils by too much emphasis on
the so-called cultural gap, an Oklahoma
leader of that race believes.
Herbert L. Tyson, director of the
Urban League of Oklahoma City, ex
pressed fear the schools might be too
overloaded to pro
vide young Neg
roes the hard-core
type of instruction
they need to meet
the changing
world of work.
Tyson, a former
Little Rock teach
er and Urban
League official,
took over the
Oklahoma City
post last year. He
commented on the Negro schools’ di
lemma in discussing the over-all prob
lem of opening “ordinary, middle-class
jobs” to members of his race. He said
this is the number one task of the
Oklahoma City Urban League.
The Negro IBM programmer, engi
neer, draftsman or accountant is no
longer a rarity, Tyson pointed out. But
few Negroes have been able to get
the every-day, non-skilled kind of jobs
by which the bulk of the white popula
tion makes its living, he observed.
Opposing Viewpoint
His remark about too much emphasis
on closing the cultural gap between
Negroes and whites offered an op
posing viewpoint to that expressed by
educators at Oklahoma’s Langston Uni
versity (see above).
“Most of our schools, especially the
Negro ones, have tried to bridge the
gap between the experiences Negro
children receive at home and what they
find in the community at large,” Tyson
said. “They teach the social graces and
stress literary and cultural interests,
trying to do everything for the children.
“The schools might be overloaded in
terms of providing the type of instruc
tion the children need to meet the
changing world of work.”
The “whole child” concept of teach
ing, Tyson went on, contrasts with the
approach used in the white community.
White pupils have extra-curricular
clubs and side trips to develop their
cultural interests. They are also moti
vated in the home.
“But the Negro schools have to pro
vide these things because the children
TYSON
KENTUCKY
District Court Delays Ruling
In Suit Contesting Transfers
LOUISVILLE
decision on a Kentucky
school desegregation case
in federal court was deferred un
til the U.S. Supreme Court rules
on two Tennessee cases. All three
cases involve desegregation plans
that provide for optional transfers
of students.
The Kentucky case, Walker v. Rich
mond Board of Education, seeks ele
mentary-school desegregation in a city
system where the high school is already
desegregated.
The Richmond school board, however,
maintains that Negro pupils are also
eligible for admission to white ele
mentary schools but that none have
applied. Richmond has an attendance-
zone system that provides a policy of
complete desegregation.
Negroes bringing suit insist that op
tional transfers cause the plan to fail.
They say the plan went into effect in
September, 1962, and that Richmond
still has three all-white elementary
schools and one all-Negro elementary
school.
J. Earl Dearing, Louisville lawyer
epresenting the Negro interests, at a
U.S. District Court hearing at Frank
fort on Feb. 19,
brought out that:
• White stu
dents can transfer
from a predomi
nantly Negro
school, but Ne
groes cannot.
• Negro stu
dents can transfer
from a predomi
nantly white
school, but white
students cannot.
Judge H. Church Ford postponed a
ruling in the case until the Supreme
Court passes on questions having a di
rect bearing. The Tennessee cases con-
Kentucky Highlights
A Supreme Court ruling on op
tional pupil-transfer features in two
Tennessee desegregation plans will
be awaited before a decision is ren
dered in the Richmond, Ky., deseg
regation suit.
The school board of Kentucky’s
capital, Frankfort, came up with a
new desegregation plan, but it was
criticized by Negro leaders and ques
tioned by a federal judge.
A U.S. District Court judge re
fused to dismiss a portion of a suit
that asked for faculty desegregation.
The Maysville Board of Education
said its school system will complete
its desegregation program next Sep
tember.
tabling this issue are Maxwell v.
County Board of Education (Davidson
County), and Goss v. Board of Edu
cation of Knoxville. The Supreme Court
has agreed to review pupil-transfer
provisions in plans in both cases. A
decision is expected by June.
Dearing said that since the transfers
are predicated on race, they are uncon
stitutional. He said that in a small dis
trict such as Richmond, the inevitable
result of such a transfer plan is a single
all-Negro school.
★ ★ ★
Frankfort Board Submits
New Desegregation Plan
A new desegregation plan submitted
by the Frankfort Board of Education
was criticised by Negro leaders and
questioned by U.S. District Judge H.
Church Ford in a hearing at Frankfort
Feb. 18.
What They Sr*v
NAACP Lawyer Criticizes Past
Two National Administrations
A NAACP legal specialist from New
York criticized both the Kennedy and
Eisenhower administrations on their
handling of school-desegregation issues,
but found something good to say about
both presidents too.
Mrs. Constance Baker Motley, a Ne
gro who received her law degree at
Columbia University, told a joint meet
ing of the Louisville NAACP and the
Kentucky Civil Liberties Union ob
serving the 100th anniversary of the
Emancipation Proclamation:
“I thought many times that Mr. Ken
nedy did not move fast enough in the
Meredith case. He waited until the 13th
hour to send help into Mississippi.” But
she credited Kennedy with “doing a
great deal in bringing law suits in the
area of voting.”
Eisenhower, she declared, “never
once said he thought the Supreme
Court decision was right.” But she
get no incentive from the home.”
Another problem lies in the instruc
tional materials provided in Negro
schools, Tyson said. They contain no
images with which the Negro children
can identify, he pointed out.
“Rarely do you see in the textbooks
pictures of Negroes who have suc
ceeded or anything about the contri
bution of Negroes to the American way
of life, particularly in the early devel
opment of the country. The Negro child
has to grow up before he realizes these
things. They should be included in the
textbooks, not in supplementary ma
terials.”
Tyson taught business and art courses
in the North Little Rock Negro high
school four and one-half years before
he turned to Urban League work. He
was the professional Urban League
representative in Little Rock during
and after the school desegregation
crises.
“If we’re going to utilize the poten
tial of Negroes, we’re going to have to
open up common jobs to them,” he
said. “With the present unskilled jobs
most Negroes have, they’ll be auto
mated out of existence. If we can’t find
a way to utilize them, we’ll create a
problem for the whole community.”
said the Eisenhower administration did
much for civil rights by filling “the
federal benches in the deep South with
able judges, who, because they were
Republicans and had no ties to state
political machines, have carried the
burden of the desegregation era.”
Mrs. Motley estimated that the
NAACP has spent about $60,000 on its
legal assistance to James Meredith, first
known Negro to enter the University
of Mississippi. She said the NAACP
entered the case only after Meredith
wrote about his plans and asked for
legal assistance if needed. She thus de
nied what she called a widespread be
lief that the NAACP selected and
groomed Meredith “like a race horse
for the Kentucky Derby.”
★ ★ ★
Gov. Bert T. Combs, honored in the
North for his civil-rights record, said
that America’s last battle for civil rights
may come in the North.
Combs told about 700 persons at an
awards meeting of the Chicago Con
ference for Brotherhood that he re
ferred to subtle
forms of denial of
rights, more diffi
cult to eliminate
than resistance to
law.
“I refer to the
hidden agree
ments that bar the
minority citizen
from housing out
side the ghetto;
the employment
practices that oft
en hold him in menial status . . . the
overburdened neighborhood schools
which deprive him of an adequate
education.”
Combs was cited for providing “op
portunities for all of Kentucky’s citi
zens regardless of race, creed and col
or.” Specifically mentioned were the
Kentucky Commission on Human
Rights, sponsorship of governors’ con
ferences on human rights, and a merit
system for state employees forbidding
racial discrimination.
/$-// $0
COMBS
The judge said, however, that he will
keep an open mind and render a de
cision after attorneys have filed their
briefs in the case
(Mack v. Frank
fort Board of Ed
ucation; S S N ,
February and
previous).
The suit, filed
on behalf of 26
Negro children,
seeks complete
desegregation of
students and per
sonnel.
Frankfort High
School was desegregated in 1956; first-
grade desegregation, affecting one
school, started last fall, and the school
board previously had announced a plan
for additional grade-a-year desegrega
tion.
The new plan just submitted, the
board said, would speed desegregation
by opening grades one through four
to Negroes next fall and grades five
through eight in the fall of 1964. Some
district lines would be changed and
pupils would have some options and
transfer privileges.
Took Exception
Judge Ford took particular exception
to a provision that would let pupils de
cide whether they want to attend the
now all-white Second Street Element
ary School or the all-Negro Mayo-
Underwood School. The judge asked
if any white children would attend
Mayo-Underwood.
F. D. Wilkinson, Frankfort school
superintendent, said some white pupils
now pass Mayo-Underwood on their
way to Second Street, but that he
couldn’t say definitely whether they
would choose to attend school there.
“I doubt it,” Judge Ford said.
School officials also explained tenta
tive plans for a new school, which
would be desegregated, but said con
struction must await study of how ur
ban-renewal plans will affect school
population.
The judge gave school board at
torney Ben B. Fowler two weeks to file
a brief. J. Earl Dearing of Louisville,
representing the Negroes, will have two
weeks thereafter.
Before the hearing, the new desegre
gation plan was called “a sham and
disgrace to our capital city,” by the
Rev. Edgar Mack, spokesman for the
group that brought the suit. He said
the plan “is a feeble attempt to cloak
and continue segregation now and for
ever.”
★ ★ ★
A motion asking that the part of a
suit seeking faculty desegregation be
dismissed was overruled in U.S. District
Court at Bowling Green on Feb. 9.
The suit, Lawrence v. Bowling Green
Board of Education, was filed Jan. 9
and asks desegregation of students and
school personnel including teachers
(SSN, February).
Judge Mac Swinford rejected the de
fense’s dismissal motion and set the
trial date for April 8.
Schoolmen
City To Finish
Plan Next Fall
The Maysville Board of Education
announced Feb. 13 that all schools in
the city will be desegregated next Sep
tember, completing a desegregation
program that began in 1956 at the
Maysville High School.
According to the announcement, the
current Negro elementary school, Fee,
will become Maysville Junior High
School. The Fee principal, O. W. Whyte,
a Negro, will become junior-high prin
cipal.
Earle E. Jones, Maysville school sup
erintendent, said there will be “no
watering” of the Supreme Court de
segregation ruling by manipulating at
tendance zones.
Partial desegregation of some ele
mentary schools in the city started in
September, 1962.