About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1963)
. PAGE 4—MAY, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS i VIRGINIA Remedial Instruction Plan Asked For Prince Edward Negroes RICHMOND he National Association for the Advancement of Colored People asked the federal govern ment to operate a remedial in struction program for Negro chil dren of Prince Edward County. “The time has now come for the federal government to commit its full resources in behalf of the single most deprived group of children in the United States—the Negro children of Prince Edward County, Virginia,” the NAACP declared in a statement April 10. “The closing of public schools of the county in 1959 was a calloused act of entrenched bigotry, inflicting incal culable harm on defenseless young sters.” On April 11, Edwin O. Guthman, public information officer of the De partment of Justice, told the Lynch burg News in a telephone interview that President Kennedy had ordered federal officials to conduct a survey of the educational needs of Prince Ed ward County. He added: “Since Feb. 28, at the direction of the President, the Office of Education, in consultation with the Department of Justice, has been making an intensive study to determine what kind of reme dial training program would be possible and appropriate for the children of Prince Edward County. “As a preliminary step, the Office of Education has made extensive and de tailed arrangements for a survey of educational needs of the county. This will serve as a basis for a final deter mination of what kind of educational programs, including remedial reading programs, can be instituted.” The NAACP’s statement of April 10 was released at a press conference in Richmond by Dr. John A. Morsell of New York, the association’s assistant executive secretary. He said the request for the federal training program was made in antici pation of an order from the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals directing that the county’s schools be reopened in September. The Statement The statement said in part: “Whatever the outcome [of the court case], there is no question as to the problem faced by the Negro children who have been deprived of schooling for three and a half years. There were some 1,700 of them in 1959. Over the years, between 300 and 400 have re ceived formal schooling outside the county largely through the efforts of the Virginia Teachers Association and the American Friends Service Com mittee. In summer 1961 and 1962, spe cial crash remedial instruction pro grams were undertaken by the Virginia Teachers Association, some 450 children benefiting thereby in each of the two programs. “For approximately two and a half years, community morale programs were undertaken half-daily five days a week in 12 community centers, with much of the financing provided by the NAACP directly or through the Prince Edward County Christian Asso ciation, which the NAACP sponsored. “These activities are the sum total of organized instruction experience available to 1,700 American children since June, 1959, in the richest country in the world.” A remedial instruction program should begin this summer and should continue “for some time thereafter,” the NAACP said, adding that only the federal government could or should bear the burden of providing this aid. Four hundred Prince Edward Ne groes signed a petition asking Presi dent Kennedy to take the necessary action to inaugurate the remedial pro gram, the statement said. Speaking to a rally of about 200 Ne groes in Farmville April 10, Dr. Mor sell said the remedied program would be open to white children. “Despite the propaganda you hear . . . the white children have been cheated, too,” he said. “They have not gotten the educa tion they need, either.” On April 17, 84 students from Hamp ton Institute and Virginia Union Uni versity (both Negro colleges) canvassed Prince Edward County Negro homes to determine the extent of need for the proposed remedial education pro gram. After finishing their survey work, some of the students conducted brief sit-ins at several eating places in Farm ville, the county seat. The sit-ins were the first in Prince Edward. Virginia Highlights The NAACP asked the federal government to inaugurate a remedial training program for Prince Ed ward County’s Negro children, and a federal official revealed that a study of the situation was being made at President Kennedy’s direction. Some Negro teachers may be teaching white children in Arling ton County this summer under a policy adopted by the school board. Fredericksburg’s school board a- dopted a desegregation plan, and Negro attorneys attacked both the Fredericksburg and Roanoke plans. One private college voted to admit students without regard to race, and another set up a committee to study the matter. State Senator Urges School Reopening Speaking at Longwood College in Farmville April 16, State Sen. Armi- stead Boothe of Alexandria said Vir ginians should re open Prince Ed ward schools and that he would not want to see a presidential com mission do the job. He suggested that the General Assembly could appropriate funds for public schools in the county. “This would be illegal,” he said, “but I’d rather do something illegal to open schools than do something illegal to shut them.” He said the state should live up to its responsibilities in Prince Edward and beat “Jack and Bobby Kennedy to the draw.” But he added that if the state doesn’t accept its responsibilities in all fields, the federal government will step in every time. The Farmville Herald, whose editors have been closely associated with the county’s fight to preserve segregation, commented on Sen. Boothe’s speech in part as follows: “It is shocking to hear an intelligent public official suggest an admitted il legal act by the General Assembly of Virginia. We are also concerned over the spurious governmental philosophy held by this liberal leader. To deal in illegality is foreign to the fundamental beliefs and stand of the people of Prince Edward County . . . “The people of Prince Edward stand upon fundamental constitutional prin ciples and legal procedures. To date, after eight years of litigation, no court has determined the stand of this county to be illegal, regardless of the insinua tion of Sen. Boothe to the contrary.” Schoolmen The Arlington County School Board April 1 adopted a policy that could lead to the first instance in Virginia of Ne groes teaching white children in the public schools. The board directed the school ad ministration to employ teachers for this year’s summer school solely on the basis of qualifications, with race not to be a factor. Three days later the board took an other action that could lead to the first full school desegregation in a Vir ginia community. It voted to dose the county’s only all-Negro senior high school beginning in the 1964-65 school year, and to assign the children to the three predominantly white schools. The school involved, Hoffman-Bos- ton, is a combined junior-senior high school. It has an enrollment of 227 in the senior high school and about 300 in the junior high. Forty Negro teach ers are employed there. The board said these teachers would be “protected” in the shutdown, but it did not spell out the details. School officials said it is uncertain whether the dosing of Hoffman-Bos- I ton’s senior section will be accom- The Prince Edward School Board on April 2 presented to the Board of Su pervisors alternative school budgets for the 1963-64 year. One budget, totaling $824,700, was predicated on operation of schools for all children. The other, for $471,900, was based on the assumption that only 1,600 Negroes and possibly a few whites would attend the schools if reopened, the theory being that most white children would continue attend ing the private segregated school sys tem. Similar budgets were submitted last year, and the supervisors did not adopt either. Legal Action Grade-a-Year Plan Filed With Court By Fredericksburg A grade-a-year desegregation plan was filed by the Fredericksburg School Board in the United States District Court at Richmond April 2. Several Negro students began attend ing formerly all-white schools in Fred ericksburg last fall, but the city had no formal desegregation plan. The plan submitted to the court was adopted April 1 by a 4-1 vote of the school board. It contains a clause per mitting students to transfer from one school to another “for good cause” after assignments are made according to geographical zones. On April 12 attorneys for a group of Fredericksburg Negroes asked Dis trict Judge John D. Butzner Jr., to reject the board’s plan. They said the plan was “inadequate and invalid un der the due process and equal protec tion clauses of the Fourteenth Amend ment.” ★ ★ ★ Negroes Ask Court Outlaw Roanoke Plan The attorney for Negro plaintiffs in Roanoke’s school case asked the federal District Court for Western Virginia to throw out Roanoke’s desegregation plan because, among other things, he said there has been no effort to reassign teachers and other professional person nel on a nonracial basis. Attorney James M. Nabrit III of New York found fault with the five-year period which would be required for full desegregation in Roanoke, with the “ambiguous assignment powers given school officials, with the failure to de fine attendance areas and with the system by which pupils in the racial minority in a school may transfer to another school. plished in one step or on a grade-a- year basis. The Northern Virginia Sun said in an article April 8 that while strong community support has been demon strated for the closing of the senior high section of Hoffman-Boston, some teachers and staff members there want the school to remain in operation. The teachers and staff members were quoted as saying there are advantages to a small school that would be lost by the shutdown, and that all that is wrong with Hoffman-Boston is that the facilities are inadequate. These facili ties could be made adequate by the expenditure of money for improve ments, they contended. ★ ★ ★ The Educational Policies Commission of the Virginia Education Association released a report April 23 urging en actment of compulsory school attend ance laws by local governing bodies in the state. Less than half of the state’s counties and cities have adopted such laws since the General Assembly repealed the statewide statute several years ago. Negroes May Teach Whites First Time In Arlington Southern School News Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by Southern newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate, unbiased information to school administrators, public officials and interested lay citizens on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme Court opinion of May 17, 1954, declaring compulsory segregation in the public schools unconstitu. tional. SERS is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor anti-segregation, but simply reports the facts as it finds them, state-by-state. Published monthly by Southern Education Reporting Service at 1109 19th Ave., S., Nashville, Tennessee. Second class postage paid at Nashville, Tennessee. OFFICERS Bert Struby Chairman Thomas R. Waring Vice Chairman Reed Sarratt Executive Director Tom Flake, Director of Publications Jim Leeson, Director of Information and Research BOARD OF DIRECTORS Frank R. Ahlgren, Editor, The Commer- Reed Sarratt, Executive Director, cial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn. Southern Education Reporting Serv^ Luther H. Foster, President, Tuskegee , ! ce c • . L i rj.. t, , , . T , .... . ., John Seigenthaler, Editor, Nashv e Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Ala. Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn. Alexander Heard, Chancellor, Vander- Don Shoemaker. Editor, Miami Herald, bilt University, Nashville, Tenn. Miami, Fla. ~ A w v . . . r ... Bert Struby, General Manager, Macon C. A. McKmght, Editor, Charlotte Ob- Telegraph and News, Macon, Ga. server, Charlotte, N.C. Thomas R. Waring, Editor, The News Charles Moss, Executive Editor, Nash- and Courier, Charleston, S.C. ville Banner, Nashville, Tenn. Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of Felix C. Robb, President George Pea- Stephen J. WrigM," President, Fisk Uni- body College, Nashville, Tenn. versityi Nashville, Tenn. CORRESPONDENTS ALABAMA MISSISSIPPI William H. McDonald, Assistant Edi- Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau, tor, Montgomery Advertiser Memphis Commercial Appeal ARKANSAS MISSOURI William T. Shelton, City Editor, Ar- William K. Wyant Jr., Staff Writer, kansas Gazette St. Louis Post-Dispatch DELAWARE ^ NORTH CAROLINA James E. Miller, Manaqing Editor, Lulx Overbea, Staff Writer, The Deiaware State News. Dover Journal-Sentinel, NAfinston-Salem DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OKLAHOMA Erwin Knoll, Washington Bureau, Leonard Jackson, Staff Writer, Olda- Newhouse Newspapers homa City Oklahoman-Times FLORIDA SOUTH CAROLINA Bert Collier, Editorial Writer, Miami William E. Rone Jr., City Editor, The Herald State, Columbia GEORGIA TENNESSEE Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The Macon ken Morrell, Staff Writer, Nashville News Banner KENTUCKY TEXAS James S. Pope Jr., Sunday Staff, Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bu- Louisville Courier-Journal reau, Dallas News LOUISIANA VIRGINIA Patrick E. McCauley, Editorial Overton Jones, Associate Editor, Writer, New Orleans Times-Picayune Richmond Times-Dispatch MARYLAND WEST VIRGINIA Edgar L. Jones, Editorial Writer, Thomas F. Stafford, Assistant to the Baltimore Sun Editor, Charleston Gazette SUBSCRIPTION RATES One year (12 issues), $2. Groups: five or more copies to different addressees, $1.75 each per year; five or more copies to one addressee, $1.50 each per year. Single copies, any issue, 20 cents each. Ten or more copies, any one issue, 15 cents each. MAIL ADDRESS P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 12, Tennessee. I 1 th* etl Cc ka ap th. ra< 1 sisl at rec I of rna Re’ ma me 1 am chi !at< 1 vill dis firr hac be not Rei per sail not not T stui 11 The Mel cen coll T 'll the beci Mai Mai and that for B that reas app “Th thoi behi tact you Hearing Scheduled In Prince George Case Federal District Judge John D. Butz ner Jr., of Richmond, set 11 a.m. May 10 for a pre-trial hearing in the case in which the United States Department of Justice is attempting to force deseg regation of schools in Prince George County. The Justice Department filed the suit in September, 1962, contending that Negro children of military personnel at Ft. Lee were being required to at tend segregated schools. Attorneys for the county school board on April 26 filed a routine mo tion for summary judgment in the board’s favor. In The Colleges Randolph-Macon Authorizes Study Of Admission Policy The board of trustees of Randolph- Macon College, Ashland, on April 26 authorized a year-long study of the college’s admission policies after more than 100 students urged adoption of a policy that would enable Negroes to enroll in the institution. The action of the students was disclosed in the April 5 issue of the student newspaper. A letter, originated by six students at the all-male college and sent to President J. Earl Moreland, said, in part: “Our request, therefore, is that you as responsible leaders and policy makers of our college let it be known to the friends of Randolph-Macon Col lege and to the public in general that all applications from qualified Negro students will be processed and con sidered on the same basis as those re ceived from applicants of our own ra« “When this is done, we feel Randolph-Macon College will truly « assuming the role of leadership that should occupy in this important aspe? of human relations.” Randolph-Macon, a Methodist tos® tution, has a current enrollment of A college spokesman said no NefFr formally have sought admission to school. ★ ★ ★ ave that take ave Wi M »itl ser\ Met arg *etj ReU Chu The board of trustees of Mary win College, a Presbyterian voted April 20 to adopt a study mission’s recommendation that 5 fied applicants for admission he sidered “without regard to r ac creed.” ^- Dr. Samuel Reid Spencer Jr, dent, said the action would n0 j. enrollment for the coming year, ^ missions selections already have tot Mtl Si Shu Uti completed. ^ Mary Baldwin, located at o $ is the oldest woman’s college Southern Presbyterian ^ en ° W MA&' : It has an enrollment of 508 ^ from 32 states and seven foreign tries. ★ ★ ★ for^ 5 “aid. J* Tl J Dr. Henry Edward Garrett, ^ head of the Columbia Universi chology department and n0 'fy ir git i professor at the University ° 1oF told the student body at state- ^ l ed Longwood College April Negro and white children we uftjr. into school willy-nilly, whi e 'y would not get a good #(■ their education would be P one or two grades.” , . Dr. Garrett, a native County in Virginia’s Southsa. 0 pg? belt,” said the physiology, P _ history and society of Negr inherent differences b®tw foes He cited several . s . c i en " JLf 'tii Ui \ * fS he said showed differences^, brains of whites and Negro®*^
