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PAGE 6—MARCH, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi State May Compete in Biracial Playoffs
JACKSON
T he President of Mississippi
State University announced
on March 2 that the university’s
basketball team will participate in
the biracial National Collegiate
Athletic Association tournament
at East Lansing, Mich., March 15-
16.
President D. W. Colvard’s statement
indicated the second major opening in
Mississippi’s once-impregnable barrier
against biracial educational activities.
The first was James Meredith’s court-
ordered enrollment at the University
of Mississippi last Oct. 1.
Colvard said that “unless hindered
by competent authorities, I shall send
our basketball team to the NCAA com
petition.” The team has won the South
eastern Conference basketball cham
pionship three consecutive years.
Colvard stated that “in answer to a
manifestation of interest and in the
light of my better judgment, it is my
conclusion that as responsible and re
sponsive members of the academic
community and the Southeastern Con
ference we have no choice other than
to go.”
Governor Silent
Gov. Ross Barnett, who figured in
the 1962 tournament participation turn
down under an unwritten Mississippi
“law,” had no immediate comment. He
had been pressured from both sides—
for and against—to comment, but held
his silence.
The Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools has maintained surveillance
of the state’s senior educational insti
tutions as to “outside interference” with
the administrations of the colleges and
universities. The SAC “watch” was es
tablished after the governor had taken
a hand in an effort to prevent the en
rollment of Meredith.
President Colvard’s decision was an
nounced about the same hour that a
special legislative session had adjourned
a week-long assembly. Resolutions for
and against participation in the tourna
ment had been introduced but died in
committees.
Mississippi has no statute prohibiting
state teams from playing biracial
groups, but an unwritten “law” came
into existence in 1955 after the Jones
Junior College of Ellisville, Miss., had
played against a biracial football team
in the Junior Rose Bowl in California.
Team Once Recalled
It was that unwritten “law” which
in 1956 resuled in a “return home” or
der to Mississippi State University’s
championship basketball team after it
had defeated biracial Denver Univer
sity in the Evansville, Ind., invitational
tournament and was scheduled to play
the Evansville team which had a Ne
gro player.
The Board of Trustees ®f State Insti
tutions of Higher Learning which ad
ministers the senior educational insti
tutions, has no policy which would
prevent any of the colleges or uni
versities under its jurisdiction from
playing a biracial team away from
Mississippi. Under SAC policy, control
of athletic programs is vested in local
faculties.
In that connection, Colvard said “it
is certain that there is precedent for
the president of MSU to act in the mat
ter of participating in the NCAA com
petition.” Former President Ben Hilbun
ruled against participation in the past.
President Colvard’s decision was sup
ported by William Barbour of Yazoo
City, vice-president of the University
of Mississippi Alumni Association;
Owen Cooper,, also of Yazoo City, past-
president of the MSU Alumni Associa
tion, and by unanimous action of the
University of Mississippi Student Sen
ate, supported by a petition signed by
3,000 students, urging MSU participa
tion in the tournament.
Opposition Petition
An opposition petition, being circu
lated by a restaurant operator at Le-
land, was burned by a segregationist
who walked into the cafe and struck
several matches to the document.
Coach Babe McCarthy of the MSU
S trongman Assignments
Fawcett, Providence Evening Bulletin
Mississippi Highlights
President D. W. Colvard of Mis
sissippi State University announced
a decision to permit its Southeastern
Conference champion basketball
team to compete in the biracial Na
tional Collegiate Athletic Associa
tion’s playoff at Lansing, Mich.,
March 15-16.
A panel of three judges of the U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals re
fused to order the immediate enroll
ment of Negro Dewey Roosevelt
Greene of Jackson in the University
of Mississippi. The court said he had
not exhausted all “administrative
remedies.”
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to
set aside a civil contempt citation of
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
against Gov. Ross Barnett and Lt.
Gov. Paul B. Johnson for defying the
latter’s mandate for enrollment of
James Meredith in the University of
Mississippi.
The parents of 10 Negro children
filed suit March 4 in U.S. District
Court in Jackson for removal of ra
cial barriers in the Jackson public
school system.
A Mississippi Citizens Council of-
fical said that “race relations and
civil rights are misleading terms for
racial integration.” William J. Sim
mons of Jackson spoke before the
Yale Political Union at New Haven,
Conn.
An Oxford Episcopal rector said
the disorder at the University of Mis
sissippi when it was desegregated
‘shows the need of leadership by Mis
sissippi churches against racial prej
udice and violence.”
Chancellor J. D. Williams of the
University of Mississippi said the de
segregation controversy “will not be
settled on Southern university cam
puses alone and administrators must
look forward to stormy years.”
basketball team was elated. He previ
ously had expressed disappointment
when his champions were prohibited
from taking part in the NCAA tourney
and reportedly threatened to resign if
not permitted to compete this year.
“It’s great,” he said. “I’m happy we
can go. The boys deserve it. They won
the championship.”
Colvard’s decision was announced in
advance of the March 2 game with the
University of Mississippi, which MSU
won 75 to 72 to clinch the Southeastern
Conference crown. He said it was made
“freely and independently” after he was
advised that the Board of Trustees has
no policy to prevent acceptance of the
invitation.
“Whatever shortcomings it revealed
or failures in capacity or judgment,
they may not rightly be ascribed to
failure and desire to do the right thing,”
the president said. “The athletic com
mittee of MSU, representing the faculty,
alumni and students, and the athletic
director (Wade Walker) have recom
mended that our team be allowed to
complete in the NCAA playoffs.”
“By Coach McCarthy and by my
own personal knowledge of the players,
I am firmly convinced that MSU and
the state of Mississippi will have rea
son to be proud of their representation
in this national competition, that these
are splendid young men as well as
splendid athletes,” the university pres
ident said. “It is my conviction that the
well-trained young people of Missis
sippi can compete on a favorable basis,
athletically and intellectually with the
best in other parts of the country and
that our champions are entitled to the
opportunity to compete.
“I am further convinced that the
spirit of fair play on the part of all
concerned at the scene of the NCAA
playoff will transcend whatever preju
dice or bias may obtain and transmute
all participants into their essential roles
as champions competing for the crown.
“My feeling and my faith are that
the reception of our team, in recogni
tion of their conduct and spirit, will
serve to allay the concern of those who
question the wisdom of these partici
pations.
“My hope for the team is an enjoy
able time, good clean competition and
victory,” he said.
What They Say
NAACP Leader Says
Federal Government
Is Foot-Dragging
Aaron Henry of Clarksdale, state
NAACP president, charged that the
federal government “is dragging its feet
on the civil rights issue in Mississippi.”
The druggist made his statement before
the State Advisory Committee of the
United States Civil Rights Commission.
Asserting that federal money “which
subsidizes segregated state agencies is
being spent in Mississippi to perpetuate
a system which denies the Negro a
first-class citizenship,” the NAACP
state official said: “With these expendi
tures, the federal government is going
along with the state in holding Negroes
down.”
“The government is not as diligent as
it should be in seeing that its funds are
not spent to further a system totally
against its standards,” he said.
Differs With Kennedy
Taking issue with Attorney General
Robert Kennedy for advising the Civil
Rights Commission not to conduct
hearings in Mississippi at this time,
Henry said:
“The attorney general negates the
rights of 950,000 Negroes on the possi
bility that Barnett (Gov. Ross B. Bar
nett) might be offended.”
The attorney general had said such
hearings might agitate the controversy
brought on by the desegregation of the
Legal Action
Desegregation Suit Filed in Jackson
Removal of racial barriers in the
Jackson municipal public school system
is sought in a federal district court
suit filed March 4 by the parents of
10 Negro children. It was the first
public school desegregation suit filed
by individuals in Mississippi.
An earlier suit was filed by the U.S.
Justice Department to desegregate
schools in the “impacted area” of Har
rison County on the Gulf Coast for
children of military and governmental
personnel.
The suit names the Jackson Munici
pal Separate School District, its mem
bers and Supt. Kirby P. Walker.
Jack Young, Negro attorney of Jack-
son, who filed the suit on behalf of the
parents, asked Federal Dist. Judge
Harold Cox to hear a motion April 12
for a preliminary injunction.
One of the parents filing the suit is
Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secre
tary of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, on
behalf of his two children.
Fling of the suit followed a petition
filed with the school board last August
by the parents requesting it “to re
organize the entire school system into
a unitary nonracial system.” No reply
was made by the board to the parents’
request.
Jackson has 50 public schools with
about 20,000 white students and 14,000
Negroes in separate facilities.
★ ★ ★
Failure to “exhaust all administra
tive remedies” in seeking enrollment
as the second Negro in the University
of Mississippi resulted on Feb. 18 in
refusal by a three-judge panel of the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to order
the immediate admission of Dewey
Roosevelt Greene, 22-year-old Jackson
Negro.
Federal Judges Elbert Tuttle, War
ren Jones and Griffin Bell, sitting in
Atlanta, ruled that Greene “had not
satisfied the strict and rigid require
ments that first must be met for the
court to grant an injunction of its own
before the case has come on in regular
course for consideration on its merits.”
As a result, William M. Kunstler of
New York, representing the Gandhi So
ciety for Human Rights in sponsoring
Greene’s enrollment, said an appeal
will be filed before the university’s
Committee on Admissions.
Greene appealed to the Court of Ap
peals after Federal Dist. Judge S. C.
Mize at Hattiesburg, Miss., Feb. 4 de
clined to order his immediate enroll
ment.
Says Race No Factor
Registrar Robert Ellis said the 22-
year-old Navy veteran was turned
down because he was not qualified and
that “race has no bearing in this mat
ter.”
Charles Clark, special Assistant At
torney General of Mississippi handling
the case, said Greene’s rejection had
nothing to do with race. Clark said the
Negro’s scholastic record was poor and
that the Mississippi Vocational College
for Negroes where he had spent two
quarters was not accredited.
However, Attorney Kunstler asserted
that Greene, after a passing record at
high school and at Mississippi Voca
tional, was rejected “solely because of
race.” He contended that the University
of Mississippi still is as segregated as
it was when Meredith was ordered
admitted.
★ ★ ★
High Court Backs
Contempt Charges
The U.S. Supreme Court, upholding
civil contempt charges against Gov.
Ross Barnett and Lt. Gov. Paul B.
Johnson, ruled that the Justice Depart
ment and the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals had not violated the Consti
tution in connection with desegregation
of the University of Mississippi.
The decision rejected an appeal by
State Attorney General Joe T. Patter
son for a review of the actions of the
department and the court of appeals on
grounds they “disobeyed the Constitu
tion, apparently for political gain, in
pressing for James Meredith’s enroll
ment.”
Attorney General Patterson had ar
gued that the appeals court “was rush
ed headlong past the most basic doc
trines of constitutional law in the haste
of these parties to secure what was, for
Barnett and Johnson
Still in court.
the Justice Department, apparently “the
quintessence of political expediency.”
“While it is more than understandable
that every court demands compliance
with its decree, it is less than consti
tutional for that compliance to be ob
tained by the extra lawful use of armed
forces or by the assertion of a suprem
acy on the part of the federal judiciary,
which we, with the greatest possible
deference, submit it does not possess,”
Patterson contended.
An estimated 30,000 United States
troops and 500 federal marshals were
employed to enforce the appeals court
order for Meredith’s admission without
interference on the part of any official
or others.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Court of Ap
peals still has under consideration an
appeal of Gov. Barnett and Lt. Gov.
Johnson from a criminal contempt ci
tation for their personal actions in
seeking to block Meredith’s entry on
the campus at Oxford. The two state
officials have demanded a jury trial in
event their petitions for dismissal are
denied. They also contend that if a trial
is ordered it must be held in the juris
diction of the district federal court
where the alleged contempt was com
mitted.
6bb/ibtt)'e-—s
Howie, Jackson Daily keu
University of Mississippi and the fed.
eral court case against the governor for
his defiance in the matter.
In the Colleges
Chancellor Williams
Sees Stormy Years
Ahead On Campuses
“The conroversy over the integratk
of Southern state universities will no:
be settled on the university campust:
alone and the administrators of thos<
universities must look forward to
stormy years.”
So said Chancellor J. D. Williams o:
the University of Mississippi in an ad
dress Feb. 22 before the Commonwealti
Club of San Francisco, Calif. His sub
ject, “The University and Integration,'
pointed out that the mission of tht
school “is neither to integrate nor to
segregate—but to educate.”
Stating that “a state institution i- 1
very close to the people of the state,
Chancellor Williams said “in man;
ways this is good, for the ideal state
university is delicately responsive to
the varying needs of those whom i>
serves.”
“At the same time,” he added, “thi
closeness makes for effective politics-
and social pressures which are hard to
withstand.”
Says Perspective Needed
“What those who direct the course o.
these universities, and those who teac
in them, must do is keep their P 0 ;
spective with regard to this tangly
question of integration. We must ke91
our eyes firmly fixed upon the tr®i
mission of the university. Our trim,
must be teaching, research and service |
“A university does not exist for
purpose of holding the line again® 1
racial mixing. Neither is its primatf
function to lead the campaign for ®
tegration. I
“Its supreme obligation, which
lesser purpose must be allowed to suPf
ersede, is to pass on to our y° u
through teaching the knowledge -
painfully accumulated in centuries P®
to add to that knowledge through 1
search, and to use that knowledge ^
human good through service. We
meet the trials that lie before us ^
the best wisdom we can muster, ^
that best wisdom will keep us true
our real vocation. . -
“A great university is too precio
be sacrificed to the demands of the
* . O,
tremists of either the right or the
wing groups. We must make every
(See MSU, Page 7)
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