About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1963)
PAGE 10—JUNE, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Tennessee MARYLAND (Continued from Page 9) the court to order desegregation of fac ulties and other personnel, but Judge Boyd rejected that plea on March 29. He said this question should be decided after pupil desegregation is “accom plished or well under way.” Community Action Nashville Mayor Names Commission On Human Relations Mayor Beverly Briley of Nashville’s new metropolitan government named a 26-member Commission on Human Re lations during May, a month marked by a series of demonstrations by Negro students seeking complete desegrega tion of downtown facilities and better job opportunities. Some of the demonstrations resulted in street fighting between Negro marchers and young white persons. There were several arrests by police j who stepped in to stop the demonstra tions as they neared the riot stage. Several persons involved in the dem onstrations were reported to have suf fered minor injuries. During one of the marches early in the month, an estimated 700 Negro school children stayed away from classes to join in the demonstration, which also was described as support f@r Negroes in Birmingham. Halt Called Negro demonstrators called a halt to the marches on May 14 after a student leader said Mayor Briley “is doing as much as any mayor in the South can do.” John Lewis, Fisk University student and chairman of the Student Non-Vio lent Co-ordinating Committee, said a decision on future marches would de pend on negotiations with the mayor’s interim biracial committee. At a press conference on May 13, Gov. Frank G. Clement said he did not intend to allow the demonstrations to “get to the point where the federal gov ernment sends in troops.” “Without reference to any other lo cality or state,” Clement declared, “as long as I am governor I do not intend to let the situation get to the point where the federal government sends in troops. I think you know that I believe law and order should be upheld in Tennessee regardless of what issue arises. I further believe that law and o _ der should be enforced by Tennes seans.” Clement ordered National Guard tanks to Clinton in 1956 to quell riot ing during the desegregation of Clinton High School. Mayor Disappointed Mayor Briley expressed disappoint ment that the demonstrations had con tinued despite his efforts to form a permanent commission on human rela tions. But he declared: “Black or white, the law will be en forced by whatever means I have at my disposal. This violence must stop.” Chairman Edward Shea of Briley’s interim committee called for an end of the “flagrant and unwarranted riots” and said he would disband the com mittee if the demonstrations continued. The Nashville Christian Leadership Council board of directors also ap pealed to Lewis to postpone further marches, it was reported. After a 90-minute session with Briley on May 14, Lewis announced the dem onstration scheduled that day had been suspended. ‘There are definite signs we are moving into the beloved community and will get there,” Lewis said. “In or der to show our faith, to purge our selves of our own sins, we have called off the demonstrations for the night,” he added. A few days later, Briley began an nouncing the names of those who would serve on the permanent human relations commission. Nine of the 26 members are Negroes. Briley said he expected the commit tee to start work immediately “as in dividuals, quietly and without fanfare.” He said he did not want to arouse “extremists on either side.” The committee held its first ses sion on May 24 and was reported to be in agree ment with the mayor on the se lection of a 27th member who would serve as chairman. On May 27, Briley appointed James O. Bass, an attorney, to the chairmanship. Those named to the committee in- Former White School Graduates First Negro BALTIMORE T he first Negro was scheduled to be graduated in June from a formerly all-white high school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, as several Maryland school districts reported further desegregation moves. Patricia Bryant, who last fall trans ferred to Chestertown High School in Kent County as a senior, was the first in Kent County to take advantage of the voluntary desegregation transfer policy which had been in effect six years. Except for Cecil County at the head of Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore has had only four Negroes at the senior high level in predominantly white schools. Cecil County announced its intention to close its only Negro high school at the end of the coming school year. The Negro movement to white schools be gan in Cecil in 1955. Its enrollment of Negro pupils is less than 7 per cent of its total, while on the Eastern Shore proper (eight coun ties) the percentages run from 24 to 45. Other Developments Other developments in a partial sur vey of district plans for the coming school year are these: The Howard County Board of Edu cation took the last step in its deseg regation program in May with the an nouncement that next September all school age Negro children may attend grades one through 12 in the schools closest to their residences. Grades one through 11 previously had been desegregated. Located west of Baltimore and hav ing a 15 per cent Negro enrollment, Howard desegregated the first five grades in 1956 and has extended the program since that time at a grade-a- year pace. Under the plan 113 of the county’s some 1,300 Negro pupils have been enrolled at 10 formerly white schools. County School Supt. John E. Ying- ling said, “This plan has worked very well and has been accepted by the staff, the pupils and the people of Howard County.” The Howard school board also de cided in May that beginning with the 1964-65 school year, children who wish elude some of Nashville’s most promi nent business leaders as well as min isters, educators and civic leaders. ★ ★ ★ About 35 white business and civic leaders on May 16 organized a com mittee which they said would seek “prompt and orderly desegregation of all public facilities” in Knoxville. Meeting at the invitation of Mayor John Duncan, the group named an ex ecutive committee including Duncan, former Mayor George Dempster, Robert E. Chap man, Dr. Charles Trentham, E. B. Copeland, John P. Hart. Hugh W. Sanford Jr. and W. B. Neill. All of the ex ecutive commit tee members are businessmen ex cept the mayor and Dr. Trentham, who is pastor of First Baptist Church. The group adopted this statement of action: “Believing in the equal rights of all people and what is morally right is economically sound—and in observing the law of the land—we pledge our selves to work peacefully for the prompt and orderly desegregation of all public facilities.” A spokesman said the group’s efforts would be directed toward desegregat ing theaters, motels, hotels, restaurants and other privately-owned businesses. Most public facilities already are de segregated. Dr. James Colston, president of the predominantly Negro Knoxville Col lege, had this comment on the action: “Here in Knoxville we have been in a position to sit down and talk about our problems. We can go in and talk with the mayor, the chamber of com merce and the merchants.” “It looks like we’re going to have an all-American city,” said the Rev. James F. Reese, pastor of a Presbyterian church on the college campus. The Knoxville News-Sentinel earlier in the week called editorially for full desegregation of such facilities. DUNCAN to transfer to desegregated schools will be permitted to do so by registering at their schools on specific dates rath er than applying to the board of edu cation. • The first year of desegregation has gone smoothly for Calvert County in Southern Maryland, according to Mau rice A. Dunkle, county school super intendent. The first three Negroes ap plied for admission to a white school last year and all three were accepted at a new school last fall. “The two girls in grade 10 and the one boy in grade 11 have been making better than average progress,” Supt. Dunkle reported. “There have been no serious or unusual incidents resulting from these transfers.” Additional transfer requests have been received for the coming school year but have yet to be acted on. Cal vert is the only Maryland county to have more Negro than white public school pupils (as of last October, 2,457 Negro, 2,287 white). • Plans in Carroll County to have all Negro first-graders attend the de segregated white schools closest to their homes next fall eliminating the first grade at the Negro school, will affect about 36 beginning Negro pupils, ac cording to Samuel M. Jenness, county school superintendent. All the schools the children will enter, with one ex ception, previously have had some Ne groes enrolled. Supt. Jenness anticipates that the Negro school will be closed out a grade each year and the children absorbed in formerly white schools along with any additional Negroes who apply. Under a voluntary transfer program in effect since 1955, 85 of the county’s 514 Negro pupils have enrolled in predominantly white schools. Community Action Desegregation Pace Issue In Cambridge Negro Demonstration School desegregation has been one of the stated issues in Cambridge, Md., where Negro demonstrators vowed to “fill the jail” in a situation described by the press as Maryland’s “Little Bir mingham.” Eight weeks of demonstrations, which resulted in the arrests of 79 Negro par ticipants on trespassing and disorderly conduct charges, ended in a truce on May 18 when Chief Judge W. Laird Henry Jr. of the Dorchester County Circuit Court obtained an agreement among white community leaders to help bring about the Negro goals. Under the direction of Mrs. Gloria H. Richardson, head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, Negroes in the Eastern Shore community (pop ulation 12,000, of whom 4,000 are Ne groes) have sought equal job oppor tunities, public housing, faster school desegregation and more access to pub lic accommodations and recreation fa cilities. The Negro group at one point sought to have at least 50 Negroes assigned this fall to Cambridge High School. Under terms of the truce, however, the request was more general and seeks to have all pupils assigned to the schools closest to their homes and a revision of bus routes. In a new demonstration on May 27, ' Aider Survey Maryland Highlights The first Negro was scheduled to be graduated in June from a former ly all-white school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, as several Maryland counties reported further desegrega tion moves. School desegregation has been one of the stated issues in Negro dem onstrations in Cambridge, an Eastern Shore city. Bowie State Teachers College, un til last fall an all-Negro institution, was expected to graduate its first white student in June. Gains of two to five years in achievement levels have been re corded at an all-Negro elementary school in Baltimore among some pu pils given a special enrichment pro gram in reading. A comparative study by Johns Hopkins University of the employ ment records of white and Negro graduates of trade schools in Balti more has found that Negroes obtain fewer jobs and earn less money. 12 Negro high school students were ar rested while picketing the board of education in a return to the demand that 50 Negroes be assigned to the high school. Cambridge is the county seat of Dor chester County and the schools in volved are operated by the county. Under the county’s policy, a grade-a- year desegregation program from the 12th grade downward began in the fall of 1956 and reached the sixth grade last fall. Three Negro girls, including Mrs. Richardson’s daughter, Donna, were ad mitted to the white high school in Cambridge last fall but left after two weeks. They said they had been given the “silent treatment.” Two other Ne groes were admitted to the North Dor chester High School and have remained there throughout the school year. Expected to Return In answer to a query on behalf of Southern School News, James G. Bu- sick, the county school superintendent, said he expects the Negroes at North Dorchester High to return next fall and that he also expects “to receive other transfers for many of our schools.” The county sets no transfer request dead line and honors applications for the designated grades (next fall, 5 through 12) whenever school space and staff permit. In its first public statement, the com mittee established by Judge Henry re viewed the developments in race relations in Cambridge over the past several years. Commenting on the fact that senior high school grades were open to Negro transfers by the fall of 1958, and junior high grades by 1961, the committee said: “The lack of applicants is not a fault of the program nor is it in any way the result of insincerity on the part of the school administration in attempting to implement the program.” The Maryland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People honored Mrs. Richard son, her daughter Donna and her mother, Mrs. Mabel St. Clair Booth, at its 23rd annual conference held in Bal timore on May 25. The three were cited for their “courageous leadership in go ing to jail to arouse all citizens to eliminate racial prejudices currently practiced” in Cambridge. Among the NAACP resolutions was one urging the Maryland Board of Ed ucation to enforce its policy of equality of education. In the Colleges First White Student To Be Graduated At Bowie College The first white student was expected to be graduated in June from the State Teachers College at Bowie, until last fall an all-Negro institution with an uncertain future. The graduate is Sylvia Kaufman Shelton, a candidate for a post-bacca laureate certificate and one of approxi mately 40 white students who have enrolled at Bowie which has an enroll ment of 366. Most of the other white students are freshmen. In the demonstration elementary school on the campus, 98 white stu dents were among an enrollment of 257. An article in May in the Baltimore Sun quoted the president of the col lege, Dr. William E. Henry, as saying that white interest continues to mount and as estimating that in 10 years the enrollment of the college will be 80 per cent white and that the institution will more than double its present size. ★ ★ ★ Baltimore School Report Still In Preparation A report that had been described as critical of racial policies in the Balti more public schools had not been made public by the end of May. (SSN, April and May) In preparation for a year, the report is the work of a predominantly white group of parents believed to have de veloped data indicating that school policies affecting transfers, transporta tion and district boundaries tend to perpetuate racial segregation. Melvin J. Sykes, a spokesman for the group, said on May 23 that the group had held “forthright and fruitful meetings with a subcommittee of the Baltimore Board of School Commis sioners. The subcommittee is headed bj Dr. William D. McElroy, a professor ot biology at Johns Hopkins University who in March raised the question 0 whether districting and transportation policies were promoting segregation. Sykes said that the school staff ha turned over a large amount of date “ the McElroy committee which had, turn, discussed it with his group- group’s report was being revised, Sy explained, in the light of the inform 3 ^ tion not previously available. It is ** ported that the group intends to P emphasis on the way the city’s dom-of-choice” policy works in ac practice. _ “We do not believe the School has been deliberately trying to tain segregation,” Eykes told the timore Evening Sun, “but some of policies have had that result. Study Reveals Whites Better Paid Results of a comparative study of the employment records of white and Ne gro graduates of vocational-technical high schools in Baltimore showed that Negroes obtain fewer jobs and earn less money. The study, released in May, was pre pared by the Department of Social Relations at Johns Hopkins University for the Baltimore Equal Opportunity Commission. Records of earnings and employment were obtained from the Social Security Administration for nine graduating classes (1956 to 1960) from Mer- genthaler Vocational-Technical High School, which is predominantly white, and Carver Vocation-Technical High School, which is all-Negro. For com parative purposes, data was used only for those boys and girls who took trade courses given at both schools and who worked enough either before or after graduation to have a Social Security record. As presented by Dr. Bernard Leven- son, the project director, the report showed in part: “During the first year or two after graduation from high school, the Negro females earned the equivalent of about $11 a week; the Negro males earned about twice that much; the white males earned about $38 per week, while the white females earned more than $40. “In percentages, the female Negro graduate can expect to earn 25-30 per cent of her white counterpart; the Ne gro male can expect to earn about 62 per cent of his counterpart. In spite of considerable fluctuations in both ab solute and relative figures, in no class and for no period did either male or female Negroes equal comparable earn ings for whites.” . th c Most of the girls included study were those who had 0 s ness education courses in P re P aI ea d- for office work. The boys school had studied a variety 0 ^ from carpentry to television re *\L re e' The study revealed that abou ^ fourths of both the boys and g* the white school tend to e of workers, whereas only about a 1 a#- the Carver male graduates are ly employed and a fourth of females. . , em pW, “Extreme differences m dent s 01 ment and earnings of the st ^r the two schools would sugg e a ge”' ential treatment by employm re poi' cies, unions or employers, “Italic* stated, “or that the vocational 8 ^ anH rVlanpment programs
