Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL, 1963—PAGE II
MISSISSIPPI
Gov. Barnett
Rejects Offer
To Pull Troops
(Continued from Page 10)
are needed to perpetuate pratical segre
gation.”
Simmons retorted that Johnston
seemingly was ready to “surrender to
integration.”
In an answering editorial in his
weekly newspaper, Johnston charged
that the citizens councils had “de
generated into a handful of leaders
who depend for their very existence
on the friction, tension and emotional
ism they can create” and that “they
appear to be making white people hate
other white people.” He referred to
Simmons as “the rajah of race.”
As to Simmons, the editorial stated:
“He doesn’t want harmony. He wants
strife, confusion and violence.”
Worked for Barnett
Johnston handled Gov. Ross Barnett’s
publicity in his 1959 campaign. The
governor is chairman of the sover
eignty commission.
After his election as director, Johns
ton said he hoped “Mississippi segre
gationists will forget past differences
and present a united front against inte
gration.”
As to working with so-called citizens
councils professionals, he said:
“I will appreciate the co-operation
of all organizations. We all share the
same attitudes and determination to
preserve our traditions, though there
are occasional differences of opinion as
to the best way to accomplish this
purpose and how to meet certain situa
tions as they arise.”
Assistance Only
He indicated he is willing to accept
assistance but not leadership from out
side the commission.
A United Press International writer
said Johnston’s election, which was
supported by Gov. Barnett, indicates
that “the citizens councils’ professional
leadership no longer wields the power
it once enjoyed under the administra
tion of Gov. Barnett.”
“But,” the UPI writer said, “the split
between Barnett and the council pro
fessionals is by no means complete.
Barnett appearing at a council function
recently praised Simmons and said the
sfate needs more men like him.”
¥ ¥ ¥
Superintendent Urges
Dedication to Children
State Supt. of Education J. M. Tubb
fbe challenge to Mississippi’s seg-
1 system “must be
solved through
the efforts of ded
icated leaders
who put the wel
fare of the chil
dren and the fu
ture of our state
and nation above
everything else.”
Addressing the
Mississippi Wom
en’s Cabinet of
Public Affairs
. March 12, Tubb
°Ur "' n the day of last resort,
the n k?-^ e must know that to abolish
4e " c sc hools would be to close
foutk • ^Pe for many ambitious
„ m this state.”
a hal? S 'n l ' e schools would bring to
herder " e w heels of industry on the
dre arn , S OUr state and destroy the
w hose We k® ve had for a great state
a^^owy would be based upon
said, re anc f a great industry,” he
“Th
^ u cati 0utcome will be determined by
° n ~~ n °t by force,” he added.
★ ★ ★
Of 1 '/ 110118 Q llcs tions Cou
Pper South States
'he Urk? 3 ' 11 ® the Jefferson Soc
Sville e M ty ° f Vir S inia at
>0* ^ Marc h 22, William J
S’cUs f Strator of the (
,“5s 0 t )t ° America, said sorr
fL'Nfng 6 Up P er South “seerr
^tisip a deliberate course
“in t , rac ial matters.”
South, we have r
t >te ; h , e said -
,>,7 , ran hly, we are puzzle
r '’’ard " par t s of the Upper
r^^t Seems to be a del
°' v, i bv c "toatism. This tende
Sotne leaders who go t
OKLAHOMA
Clearview Negro High School
Warned It May Have To Close
Withering Vines
Olbey, Chicago Defender
the motions of a token resistance which
confines itself almost hypnotically to
ground rules laid down by the opposi
tion. Such a course will obviously lead
to predetermined defeat.”
★ ★ ★
Meredith Says He May Be
‘Most Segregated Negro’
In a signed article in the March 22
issue of Look magazine, James Mere
dith said he may be “the most segre
gated Negro in the world” despite his
enrollment.
“Just having a Negro in residence
does not mean that the university has
been integrated,” he wrote. “So many
unusual a n d
unique things
have been a part
of my stay here
that I seriously
doubt that I am
in a true sense a
student of the
university.”
He said “though
no price is too
high to pay for
liberation, I am
convinced that
you can pay a price for one piece of
freedom that is greater than the bene
fits you get. I can’t fight alone.”
“Through it all,” he said, “the most
intolerable thing has been the cam
paign of ostracizing me. The ostracizers
not only don’t associate with me, but
assume the right to see that no one
else associates with me.”
Recently, Meredith purchased a new
Thunderbird Landau from an agency
in Gary, Ind. It has been registered in
his name at Jackson.
★ ★ ★
Commissioner Links
Crisis to Road Deaths
Commissioner of Safety T. B. Bird
song told United Press International
that the Ole Miss desegregation crisis
was “at least partially responsible for
an increase in traffic deaths on Mis
sissippi highways late last year.”
Birdsong said “the morale of high
way patrolmen, most of whom were
on duty at the university, was hurt by
the crisis.” The UPI story continues:
“ ‘It would be difficult,’ he said, ‘not
to take into account the effect this
had on our men and their activity.’
“Birdsong pointed out that the state’s
highway death toll ‘rose very, very
sharply’ after the Sept. 30 campus riot
which greeted Negro James Meredith.
“Since then, there have been 327
traffic deaths in Mississippi, compared
to 252 during the same period a year
earlier.
‘They Were Mad’
“Birdsong said patrolmen ‘could not
forget that U. S. marshals fired tear
gas into their backs. They were mad.
I’m sure this resulted in some inat
tention to duties.
“ ‘The whole situation affected the
morale of highway patrolmen and the
driving public.’
“Birdsong said he recently instructed
patrolmen to ‘forget other troubles
and concentrate on saving life, limb
and property.
“ ‘I believe the morale is returning
to normal,’ he said.”
“State officials claim the patrol was
preserving order until marshals cut
loose with a barrage of tear gas. Some
federal officials have charged that pa
trolmen left an unnumbered band of
marshals to fight it out alone, refusing
to co-operate with the government.”
Newspaper Editorial
Editorializing on Commissioner Bird
song’s statement, the Jackson Daily
News said:
“The 130 persons killed in the late
increase may be credited to Meredith
and they are just as dead as if they
OKLAHOMA CITY
NE OF THE 29 REMAINING Negro
high schools in Oklahoma has
been warned by state authorities
it may not be able to operate next
year.
If the school, Clearview in Okfuskee
County, is forced to close, its pupils
would have a choice of three neighbor
ing high schools to attend. Two of
them are not now biraacial.
A school board member in the small,
rural, all-Negro community said, how
ever, most of the parents affected have
indicated they would prefer to send
their children to Weleetka. Its high
school has been desegregated about five
years, he added.
Clearview was among 24 high schools
in Oklahoma whose precarious posi
tions were studied by the State Board
of Education March 5. Department
field examiners said they found evi
dence of “weakness” in attendance,
financing, policies or curriculum.
Low Attendance Average
Four of the schools were informed
they will not be accredited for 1963-64
because of low average daily attend
ance. High schools in Oklahoma must
have an average daily attendance of 40
to qualify for state equalization aid
unless they are “isolated,” that is, lo
cated at least 12 miles from another
high school.
Dr. Oliver Hodge, state superin
tendent of public instruction, said
Clearview was the only Negro school
among the 24 studied by the board. He
said he was not sure whether any of
the four ordered closed or the other 19
given warnings have biracial student
bodies. He said it is unlikely, however,
because schools with both Negro and
white students usually are not on the
border line in attendance.
Clearview, a town of 200 population,
is located about 80 miles east of Okla
homa City and lies a few miles south
of U. S. Highway 62, main route to
Fort Smith, Ark. Okemah, the county
seat, is nine miles west and north.
Attends Conferences
Members of the all-Negro school
board, struggling to keep their upper
four grades, nine through 12, in oper
ation, have driven to the capital three
or four times in the past few months
for conferences with Dr. Hodge and
other state officials.
When the board met March 15,
Ernest E. Ayres, chief examiner for
the state department of education, re
ported a check showed an average
daily attendance of 41 for Clearview
High School. A final accounting will
be made at the end of the 1962-63
school year to determine Clearview’s
fate.
“We gave them a warning,” said
Hodge, “that if you don’t qualify for
equalization aid, you won’t be able to
operate.”
He explained that for the past six
years the state board has maintained
a strict policy of not accrediting schools
that could not qualify for state aid
unless they could demonstrate another
source of revenue and an acceptable
program of instruction.
J. C. Bush, clerk of the Clearview
board, said the district does not have
sufficient local revenue to keep the
high school in operation without state
aid.
“It doesn’t look too promising,” he
acknowledged at month’s end, “but
we’re still hoping we might make it.”
Grade School To Continue
There is no question about con
tinuation of the elementary school,
which has an attendance of more than
80, Bush said.
It is not certain where the pupils
will choose to go if grades nine
through 12 are closed, Bush said. We
leetka, the first choice of most of the
parents, is only six miles from Clear
view. Although Weleetka’s high school
is desegregated, the proportion of Ne
gro students is small.
The second possibility, Okemah High
School, is not desegregated. “And,”
had been lined up against Baxter Hall
at Ole Miss (Meredith’s dormitory)
and perforated with .38 caliber hollow-
point bullets.
“These 130 dead persons and the
millions of dollars loss in economy,
property, tears and grief are to be add
ed to the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People-in
spired ‘scholarship’ for Meredith at
Ole Miss.”
Oklahoma Highlights
Clearview, one of the 29 Negro
high schools left in Oklahoma, was
warned it may not be able to operate
next year because of declining at
tendance.
Whether the Oklahoma City School
Board’s special transfer policy con
stitutes racial discrimination was
one of the issues set forth after a
pre-trial of a desegregation suit in
federal court.
Material gathered in a civil rights
committee study of school desegre
gation in Oklahoma was turned over
to a sociology professor for statisti
cal analysis.
Bush said, “I understand they’re not
ready to.”
The third alternative would be
Pharaoh, six miles east and north of
Clearview. If Clearview’s high school
folds, its pupils apparently would be
welcome at Pharaoh, Bush said, be
cause its high school also suffers from
declining average daily attendance.
Like Okemah it does not have a bi
racial student body.
Pharoah was not among the districts,
however, warned by the state board of
education about possible loss of their
Legal Action
Does a policy of allowing Negro
students to transfer out of predomi
nantly white schools to predominantly
or completely Negro schools constitute
racial discrimination?
This is one of the main issues to be
resolved in a federal court desegrega
tion suit against the Oklahoma City
Board of Education.
The issues and contentions of both
plaintiffs and defendants in Dowell v.
Board of Education were set forth in a
pre-trial order filed March 21 in the
U. S. District Court for Western Okla
homa. The order was based on a pre
trial hearing held before District Judge
Luther Bohanon March 6. No. date has
been set for the trial.
The plaintiffs, Robert Dowell and his
father, Dr. A. L. Dowell, contend the
board has been guilty of racial dis
crimination in maintaining attendance
areas and a policy of special transfers
in the Oklahoma City school system.
Pre-trial Order
The pre-trial order was drawn up
by the plaintiffs’ attorney, U. Simpson
Tate, Wewoka, and approved with one
amendment by the board’s attorney,
Walter A. Lybrand, Oklahoma City.
Plaintiffs allege that Negro pupils
meet a different set of conditions and
limitations when they seek transfers
from schools where their race is in the
minority to schools where they are in
the majority from the conditions and
limitations they face when trans
ferring from schools where they are
in the majority to schools where their
race is in the minority.
Young Dowell, a legal transfer from
the neighboring Pleasant Hill school
district, later sought a special transfer
from Douglass High School, to which
he had been assigned, to Northeast
High School. Douglass has only Negro
students and Northeast is desegregated
but predominantly white. The special
transfer was granted only after Dowell
stated he wanted to enroll in an elec
tronics course not available at Doug
lass.
The plaintiffs contend further that
the conditions and limitations they meet
in seeking transfers from Douglass to
other schools in the Oklahoma City
district are not met by white pupils
seeking transfers.
Discrimination Charged
Specifically, young Dowell, his sister,
Vivian, and two other plaintiffs, Edwina
Houston and Gary Russell, claim they
were discriminated against unlawfully
by having had to face these condi
tions when they sought transfers from
one school to another.
The defendants—the board, its mem
bers and administrative officials—offer
as their contention the same transfer
policy under attack by the Dowells.
As stipulated and agreed to by both
high schools. In fact, Bush said, the
Pharoah district, located in an oil-
producing area, has local revenue
which might enable it to keep the high
school going without state aid.
In any event, the Clearview patrons
prefer not to send their children to
Pharoah.
Lack of Courses
“Theirs is a small school like ours,”
Bush explained. “They don’t have the
courses to offer. They don’t have car
pentry or band, for example. We have
everything they have. Weleetka has
more to offer. It’s a larger school and is
well-equipped.”
Should Clearview High School
qualify for continued state aid on an
average daily attendance basis, it still
has some improvements to make to
meet State Board of Education require
ments, Bush said.
These would include improvements
in the science department and the li
brary in the classroom building. The
state board also wants Clearview to
offer an additional course. Its cur
riculum now provides for only 17 or
18 units, he said, while the state
authorities would like to see the total
increased to 22.
Closing of the Clearview high school
would throw four Negro teachers out
of work. The district also has three
teachers assigned to the elementary
grades.
parties, it is “to consider, to base upon
and to practically always grant the
applications of parents for the transfer
of their children from schools where
the children’s race is in the minority
to a school or schools solely of the
children’s race or in which the chil
dren’s race is in the majority.”
“They will contend,” the pre-trial
order continues, “that this is not racial
segregation and that it does not in
fringe the constitutional rights of any
children.”
Staff Assignments Attacked
Another plaintiffs’ contention spelled
out in the pre-trial order is that prin
cipals, teachers, clerical, administrative,
supervisory, custodial and maintenance
employes are assigned to buildings and
classrooms on the basis of race and the
race of students in the majority.
Still another is that the Douglass
attendance area has been gerrymand
ered to include a disproportionate
number of Negro high school pupils, a
“feeder” junior high school and all or
most of the elementary schools where
Negro children constitute a racial ma
jority in the attendance area.
The pre-trial order states the plain
tiffs will allege these “patterns of
racial discrimination as evidence of the
practice”:
Inequities in the transfer policy as
applied; number of segregated school
buildings with completely racially
segregated faculties, staffs, and student
bodies; number of Negro children at
tending schools with desegregated
faculties, staffs, and student bodies;
extent of racial segregation in curricu
lar and extra-curricular activities;
practice of operating racially segre
gated school buses over the same or
substantially the same routes, and that
the defendant board of education has
no plan for furtherance of desegregc
tion.
Desegregation Claimed
Besides its defense of its special
transfer policy, the board contends that
by its 1955 resolution desegregating
Oklahoma City public schools it at
tained complete desegregation. There
fore, it states, it is neither necessary
nor proper for the board to have or
now present a plan for desegregation.
The defendants state they will deny
there has been any gerrymandering in
defining school attendance areas. They
will contend they have not granted
transfers on the basis of race but race
must be taken into consideration in
making transfers “because race is al
ways there.”
“They will contend,” the defendants’
portion of the pre-trial order con
cludes, “that the evidence introduced
shows the defendants have complied
(See OKLAHOMA, Page 12)
MEREDITH
Oklahoma City Suit Attacks
Transfer as Discriminatory