Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965, May 01, 1963, Image 2

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    PAGE 2—MAY, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ALABAMA
Kennedy’s Meeting With Wallace
Fails As Each Sticks to Position
Alabama Highlights
MONTGOMERY
. S. Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy and Gov. George C.
Wallace met at the state capitol
for 80 minutes April 24 in an ap
parent bid by Kennedy to get
Wallace to modify his position
against any and all desegregation
orders.
Except for Kennedy’s admission that
last December’s aerial reconnaissance
of the University of Alabama campus
(SSN, February) was a mistake,
neither man gave an inch.
After the conference, Wallace re
affirmed all his pledges—which include
“segregation forever,” the determina
tion to “stand in the school house door”
and go to jail if necessary to thwart
federal court desegregation orders.
Kennedy, for his part, said court or
ders would be enforced, although he
expressed the hope that this could be
done without troops or other federal
enforcement action.
“My stand has not changed,” Wal
lace said after the meeting. “In my
opinion, he did not change in this re
gard either.”
Kennedy agreed that he had not
changed the governor’s views, but ex-
prossed the hope that “no outside forces
of any kind, the federal government or
any other, will interfere.” He said he
would like to see political, business and
school leaders assume the responsibility
for complying with court decisions
without violence. Failing this, “we will
do whatever is necessary to enforce the
orders of the court.”
Visit Called Pleasant
Both men described the visit as
pleasant.
Kennedy said Wallace had “made it
quite clear that he is against violence.”
Asked at a press conference the night
before the confrontation whether he
had asked for the conference with Wal
lace as a “conciliatory gesture on racial
matters,” Kennedy said he would not
compromise his responsibility as at
torney general to uphold the law. “I
think,” he added, “that if Gov. Wal
lace were the attorney general, he
would do what Fm doing.”
As for the use of troops in Alabama,
he said: “I am hopeful that such mat
ters are settled peacefully and in ac
cordance with the law.”
Political Aspects
Asked whether the Democratic party
could “politically afford” another Ox
ford, he replied: “I don’t think that
was an issue in the slightest. We would
have done the same thing even if it
meant losing 50 states.” He said he
would not change what he had done at
the University of Mississippi or “what
I might do in the future.”
Reminded that Gov. Wallace had re
peatedly promised to go to jail if nec
essary to preserve segregation through
his promise of personal intervention,
Kennedy said: “I hope Gov. Wallace
will not go to jail.”
He accepted responsibility for the
use of supersonic Voodoo reconnais
sance planes in photographing the
University of Alabama campus last
December, but said it was “the first
and last time” such missions would be
ordered by the Justice Department. “I
don’t think it was such a good idea,”
he added.
Kennedy reportedly commented to
other federal officials about his visit in
Montgomery: “It’s like a foreign
country. There’s no communication.
What do you do?”
After talking with both Kennedy and
Wallace after the meeting between the
two, Montgomery Advertiser Editor-
In-Chief Grover C. Hall Jr. concluded,
in two editorials:
“No warmth or altered viewpoints
Not Getting Through
ceiEAHS... OXFDCD?
Kennedy, Arkansas Democrat
U.S. Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy met with Alabama Gov.
George C. Wallace in an apparent
effort to induce Wallace to modify
his declared intention to resist de
segregation orders in the state.
The U.S. District Court in Mobile
denied a request by Negro plaintiffs
to force the school board to submit
an immediate plan for ending segre
gation. The plaintiffs were given 30
days to file additional briefs and the
school board 15 days more to answer
the briefs.
A desegregation case filed by
Huntsville parents is pending in
Birmingham District Court; another,
filed by Negro parents in Tuskegee,
is pending in Montgomery District
Court. Separate actions by the Jus
tice Department against school
boards in Mobile and Madison coun
ties also await court action.
A sign-carrying desegregationist
from Baltimore was shot to death as
he walked along a highway near
Gadsden.
were generated . . . They remain ad
versaries.
“Wallace . . . He means to resist the
impending federal thrusts as he prom
ised to.
“Kennedy evidently expects the Tus
caloosa drama (see Legal Action) to
unfold in June, rather than next Sep
tember.
“Kennedy knows that his brother
cannot carry Mississippi and Alabama
next year. To that they are reconciled.
“The deepest concern of Kennedy is
that Wallace will force the President
to march the United States Army onto
the university campus and quarter it
there as baby-sitters to the colored
students . . .
“His trip didn’t do any harm, it
didn’t do any good . . .
. . They met in suspicion and hos
tility, they parted in suspicion and
hostility—each profoundly convinced,
and perhaps correctly, that the other is
politically opportunistic.
“Kennedy did, by his mere physical
presence, lay a predicate favorable to
himself. Whatever comes, and you can
almost hear it rounding the bend, he
Miscellaneous
The day after former Lt. Gov. Albert
Boutwell was elected Mayor of Bir
mingham (SSN, April), the Rev. Mar
tin Luther King Jr. declared the city
the prime target for desegregation ac
tivities of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference.
A series of demonstrations followed
his April 3 declaration—most of them
directed at desegregating downtown
variety store lunch counters.
By the end of April, police had ar
rested more than 400 Negroes, including
King. He spent eight days in jail be
fore making bond on charges of parad
ing without a permit. On April 26, he
and 10 other ministers were sentenced
to five days in jail and fined $50 each
for defying Circuit Judge W. A Jen
kins’ injunction against racial demon
strations. Jack Greenberg of New York,
attorney for the defendants, said the
case would be appealed all the way to
the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
Judge Jenkins ordered the ministers
to begin serving their sentences May
16.
Aside from the lunch counters, which
were the focal point of the demonstra
tions in April, Dr. King listed mini
mum demands which included the
establishment of a biracial commission
with power to institute plans for
peaceful desegregation in the schools.
Two School Suits
Two school suits are already pending
in Birmingham U.S. District Court.
The demonstrations were widely re
garded as undercutting the “moderate”
leadership expected of Boutwell, who
beat veteran city official Eugene (Bull)
Connor April 2 for the mayor’s job
under a new mayor-council form of
government.
Boutwell and the new nine-member
council took office April 15, but the
incumbents—Connor, along with Corn-
can say he went to Wallace and tried
to talk reason.”
On the whole, Kennedy’s visit to
Montgomery was peaceful. At a Mont
gomery television station where he
spoke by prearrangement April 24, two
pickets were present and a highway
patrol officer pointedly refused to shake
hands with him. There were a few
jeers but they were drowned out by
cheers, mostly from teenagers.
At the capitol, shortly before his
arrival at 9 a.m. April 25, 17 pickets
carrying pro-segregation and anti-
Semitic signs were arrested and hauled
off to jail when they refused to dis
perse. At least two resisted forcefully.
All were charged with parading with
out a permit.
Their bonds were made by retired
Adm. John G. Crommelin, reported
leader of the demonstration, who has
run repeatedly for many offices, from
mayor of Montgomery to U.S. Senate,
on a largely anti-Semitic platform.
Crommelin was present at the demon
stration and read from the Bill of
Rights during the arrest of the demon
strators. Also present was Bobby
Shelton, Grand Dragon of the Alabama
Ku Klu Klan.
Aside from these incidents, Kennedy
was received either with cold disdain
or the warm curiosity and hospitality
accorded any celebrity. His manner was
friendly and cordial to all bystanders
with whom he shook hands.
Confers with Judges
His conference with Wallace was ar
ranged through Ed Reid, executive di
rector of the Alabama League of Mu
nicipalities, a friend of both the gover
nor and the President. While in Mont
gomery, Kennedy conferred with Judge
Richard T. Rives of the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals; U.S. District Judge
Frank M. Johnson of Montgomery;
district attorneys and assistants from
Montgomery, Birmingham, Mobile and
Jackson, Miss.; and other federal em
ployes. ,
Following Kennedy’s swing through
the Deep South, New York Times re
porter Claude Sitton wrote: “. . .
Sources close to Mr. Kennedy said he
had come away from his conference
with Gov. Wallace convinced that fed
eral troops would be necessary to en
force any court desegregation orders
in Alabama.”
missioners Arthur Hanes and J. T.
Waggoner—refused to move out. Bout
well and the councilmen instituted
legal action to oust them.
On April 23, Circuit Judge J. Edgar
Bowron ruled that the newly elected
mayor and council were entitled to
take office April 15 under terms of a
changeover approved by voters last
fall. Commissioners Connor, Hanes and
Waggoner contend that under state law
they are entitled to remain in office
until their current terms expire in
1965.
Judge Bowron found that the three
were illegally usurping the offices and
were exercising functions of govern
ment not invested in them. The com
missioners appealed to the State Su
preme Court.
King’s Move Questioned
King’s demonstrations, coming on the
heels of the election of a man re
garded as a racial “moderate,” were
criticized by the Rev. Albert S. Foley,
Jesuit priest and chairman of the Ala
bama Advisory Committee of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights. Speaking
before a Negro civic club in Birming
ham April 4, Father Foley blamed
King for harmful effects on race rela
tions in Birmingham.
“They were about to secure volun
tary desegregation of downtown facili
ties,” Father Foley said. ‘Negro leaders
have told me they are suspicous of the
motives of (the Rev. Fred) Shuttles-
worth and King coming into the city
to stir people up, hold mass meetings,
raise money, then move elsewhere.
The budget of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference is about $200,-
000 .. .
“King is no longer the gallant, suc
cessful leader. He has had one failure
after another: Montgomery, Albany,
now Birmingham.
Birmingham Becomes
Seventeen were taken to jail.
Legal Action
Three Negroes Sue
For Enrollment
In State University
Three Negroes filed suit in Birming
ham April 15 to gain admission to the
University of Alabama.
The three—Vivian J. Malone, 20, Mo
bile; Sandy English, 21, Birmingham,
and Jimmy A. Hood, 20, East Gadsden
—contended they applied for enrollment
at the university in February and were
denied admittance “solely because of
race.”
The university is under a permanent
injunction to admit qualified Negroes,
dating from a 1955 Birmingham federal
court order. Under the order (Lucy v.
Adams), Miss Autherine Lucy was ad
mitted to the campus in February,
1956. After three days of classes, she
was driven from the campus by a se
ries of riots, and later was expelled
for accusing university officials of con
spiring with the mob. Her expulsion
was upheld by the same court which
had directed her admission.
All three plaintiffs are presently en
rolled in Negro colleges. The suit (Ma
lone v. Mate) attempts to stop Dean of
Admissions Hubert Mate “from refus
ing to consider the applications of Ne
gro residents of Alabama to the uni
versity . . . upon the same terms and
conditions applicable to white appli
cants.”
Alabama President Frank Rose an
nounced late in 1962 (SSN, December
that registration for the February tec
was closed. Applications on whit:
processing was not completed would :<
held, he said, for a later semester des
ignated. by the applicants. At that time
according to Rose, no Negro among tb
number who had applied for admissk
had completed the required admissk
procedure.
Miss Malone attends Alabama A&J
at Huntsville; Miss English, Speke
College, Atlanta; and Hood, Clark Col
lege, Atlanta.
Admissions Director Mate said fit
office had not received a complete:
application from any Negro student
Applicant Hood said in Atlanta tk
he believed desegregation of the uni
versity could be accomplished peace
fully. “I don’t think Alabama is in &
same predicament that Mississippi is.'
Hood was reported as saying. “I thiol
the people in Alabama are more intel
lectually stable and more willing to
accept it. I think it isn’t the people we
should worry about, but the state ad
ministration.” Hood has asked to ente
the university in June, the two other;
in September. A hearing is set for
May 7 before District Judge H. E
Grooms.
Also Pending
Also pending, presumably, are tie
applications of two young Negro scien
tists who have sought to enter tie
University of Alabama Center *
Huntsville. They are Dave M. Me-
Glathery, 26, a mathematician with the
National Aeronautics and Space Ad
ministration at the Marshall Spa*
Flight Center at Huntsville; and Mar-
(See KENNEDY, Page 3)
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“Nothing fails like failure. He hasn’t
been able to deliver what he had prom
ised he’d deliver. If he’s really bent on
leadership, he has a lot to learn. I
don’t see how he can improve Bir
mingham any more than he improved
Albany.
“King intends to get himself arrested
so he will have another series of invita
tions to speak at churches in New York
and Chicago and raise more money. All
this is at the expense of Birmingham
and Alabama and our image before
the nation.”
Father Foley is head of the Depart
ment of Sociology at Spring Hill Col
lege, near Mobile. A Catholic institu
tion, it was desegregated several years
ago.
★ ★ ★
Sign-Bearing Marcher
Shot to Death on U.S. 11
William L. Moore, a Baltimore man
carrying desegregation signs, was
found shot to death on U.S. 11 near
Gadsden, Ala., the night of April 23.
Moore, 35, was walking from Chat
tanooga, Tenn., through Birmingham
to Jackson, Miss., where he intended
to deliver a message to Gov. Ross Bar
nett about his feelings.
He had been shot through the head
with what appeared to be a .22 rifle.
Gov. George Wallace,, calling the shoot
ing a “dastardly act,” offered a $1,000
reward for arrest and conviction of the
killer. President Kennedy denounced
the killing as outrageous.
A rural storekeeper, Floyd L. Simp
son, 40, was charged with first-degree
murder in a warrant sworn out April
29 by Sheriff Dewey Colvard following
an investigation which included a bal
listic examination of two bullets taken
from Moore’s body and a .22 calibre
rifle.
William L. Moore
Killed on roadside.