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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.
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tor, Montgomery Advertiser Memphis Commercial Appeal
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kansas Gazette St. Louis Post-Dispatch
DELAWARE ^ NORTH CAROLINA
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Deiaware State News. Dover Journal-Sentinel, NAfinston-Salem
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OKLAHOMA
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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
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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
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Baltimore Sun Editor, Charleston Gazette
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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.
★ ★ ★
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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
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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^
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“aid.
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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
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he said showed differences^,
brains of whites and Negro®*^