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I SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE, 1963—PAGE 13 NORTH CAROLINA High Point WINSTON-SALEM T he High Point School Board on May 23 approved a pupil assignment plan which could bring the desegregation of all 18 city schools, Negro and white. Dr. Perry Little, Negro member of the board, voted in favor of the plan, calling it a progressive one. Approval of the plan came in the midst of a series of near-riot demon strations in downtown High Point. Ne groes are seeking desegregation of public facilities. A truce of two weeks began Monday, May 27. Crowds of hostile whites gathered. City police kept the groups separated. The pupil assignment plan was drawn strictly on a geographical basis. At present, 53 Negro students live in com munities assigned to a predominantly white school, and 100 white children reside in predominantly Negro school i [ i I, 1 t ) L n n A JJ d e P it s n o i A ie J! it i- or id al to et ro do gh ■as rot ile to e' r J' iet :ef fig fit let in ral on areas. Under the North Carolina Pupil As signment Law, however, children as signed to schools with a majority of pupils of another race may request assignment to a school of their own race. Currently, High Point has 20 Negroes attending four predominantly white schools. These students, however, re quested transfers from all-Negro schools. Assignment Plan The assignment plan reads, in part: Elementary schools: “Students in ele mentary schools shall be assigned to schools by geographic districts desig nated by the board, with the following exception: “Where the school district boundaries place the residence of a student in a district which does not include the school attended by the student, or his brothers or sisters, during the year 1962-63, the student may choose to attend the school which he, or his brothers or sisters, attended during the year 1962-63, until the course of study in school has been completed. Junior high schools: “Assignment of students shall be based upon the ele mentary school districts designated by the board of education. Students com pleting the course of study in an ele- i mentary school will be assigned to the Junior high school designated by the oard of education to serve that ele mentary school district. All other stu- ®ts residing in an elementary school trict who are eligible for assignment 0 a junior high school shall be as- nwi 40 *^ e i un i° r high school desig- by the board to serve the ele- entary school in the district where each student resides.” e feeder elementary schools for ^junior high schools were named, gh schools: “Students completing schrJa° UrSe stud y i n a junior high [ji_, 0 J'dU k e assigned to the senior educ T- °°1 designated by the board of school °w-l° Serve that i unior hi § h denk ' v respect to a H other stu- to a . 0 are e ligible for assignment first 7?° r high sch ool, the board shall to i unior high school Signer! f ac ^ student would have been an e i„ e reason of his residence in assigj, en * ary school district and shall c °mpleWl *u StUdGnt 33 though he had junior v,- i 6 course of study at such high school.” ese schools were also named. s Stay On the Main Highway’ .* Placement Plan May Desegregate All Schools N. C. Highlights A pupil assignment plan which could result in desegregation of all 18 schools in High Point was ap proved by the High Point School Board May 23. The Greensboro Board of Educa tion established a liberalized pupil assignment policy, but did not set up a geographical program as requested by Negroes. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board voted May 25 to expand its geographical assignment program which could lead to desegregation of 10 more schools in the system. Wake Forest College at Winston- Salem announced plans to honor a Negro at June commencement exer cises and that it will admit its first full-time Negro graduate student. Harry Boyte quit his high school track team at Grimsley in Greens boro in protest over what he called a segregated state track meet. Schoolmen Assignment Plan Excluding Race Set In Greensboro The Greensboro Board of Education on May 21 approved a new assignment policy which does not consider race in reassignment procedures. Parents must request reassignment for all pupils, but the transfer pro cedure has been eased. Dr. George Evans, Negro member of the board, cast the lone dissenting vote. He favored a geographic plan, advo cated by Negro groups during school board hearings earlier in the month. “Geographic assignment may not be perfect,” Dr. Evans said at the meeting, “but assignment on the application of parents is not perfect either.” Dr. Evans said Greensboro has “an opportunity to take the giant step for ward” because desegregation is coming “perhaps very soon” in schools. It would be easier for children to attend schools closest to their homes, he said. Chairman Richard Hunter supported the idea of parents seeking transfers for their children. Under the new plan, parents may get applications for transfers from the schools. The assignment request must be made within 10 days after school closes (June 11) to the school superin tendent. ‘Without Regard to Race’ “All applications for reassignment of pupils entitled to attend the Greens boro city schools will be considered and acted upon by this boa d as promptly as practicable, and all decisions of this board thereon will be made without regard to race,” the plan stated. What They Say The Citizens Coordinating Commit tee of Raleigh, in a Declaration of Principles and Intentions May 10 in connection with demonstrations against segregation in public places, had this to say on education: “We specifically urge that . . . the Raleigh School Board develop and pre sent a systematic plan for the com plete desegregation of the Raleigh public schools.” Education was placed second in the committee’s list of demands. Rated first was a request that racial bars be dropped in employment in business and in government. ★ ★ ★ John H. Wheeler, president of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank of Dur ham, the state’s only Negro banking institution, said in a commencemem address at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte: “Nine years after the Supreme Court’s decision requiring desegrega tion of the public schools, a vast ma jority of the school boards in America Copies of the new assignment policy will be given to each child to take home to his parents. (Under the old program, parents seeking transfers had to bring notarized statements as re quests.) Children entitled to be enrolled in the first grade may be registered at any school in the Greensboro school system. On the day following adoption of the school board’s resolution, the Co ordinating Council of Pro-Integration Groups in Greensboro submitted a 10- point program for desegregation of all public facilities and equal employment. The council made the following re quests dealing with education: “Direct the school board to deseg regate the school system by September, 1963. “Direct the school board to appoint five Negro teachers in September, 1963, to schools now servicing only white pupils, and to appoint one resident white guidance counselor in Septem ber, 1963, to each school now servicing Negro pupils.” It also asked that all children be as signed to schools closest to their homes. ★ ★ ★ Chari otte-Mecklenb ur g Assignment Plan Extended Meeting in a closed session, the Char lotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education on May 25 unofficially approved a plan which may add 10 schools to the pres ent total of six desegregated schools. Under the program, the system’s present limited geographical assign ment plan would be extended to 38 schools, mainly in the urban area. (Charlotte and Mecklenburg have just completed their first year as a com bined city-county school system under Dr. A. Craig Phillips as superinten dent.) During the 1962-63 school year, 444 Negroes attended schools with white students at six schools. Most of these, however, were enrolled in Bethune School, where 15 white pupils attended classes with 400 Negroes. Five additional all-Negro schools, Billingsville, Morgan, Isabella Wyche, Alexander Street and Zeb Vance, are in districts which have 200 white chil dren. (The white students, under the North Carolina Pupil Assignment Law, may apply for transfer to schools with a majority of their race.) All-white schools to be affected are Chantilly, Elizabeth, Wilmore, Villa Heights and Wesley Heights. Thirty- five Negro children live in these areas. David W. Harris, chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, said there is no longer a need to delay desegregation. D -. Phillips called the plan “very p eg essive and forward looking.” ★ ★ ★ School boards of Edenton and Chow an County were asked in a letter May 24 to desegregate schools. The Edenton chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People made the request. are operating their public schools on a racially segregated basis. “In the Southern states, our effort at compliance with the decision has pro duced little more than tokenism and a long and barren record of attempts at evasion.” ★ ★ ★ Gov. Terry Sanford, speaking at graduation exercises of Elizabeth City State College, said “There is no way to issue a proclamation that people not be prejudiced.” “The people of North Carolina have a conscience and we know we need to do more for everybody . . .,” he de clared. “Our nation is a nation to which peo ple around the world look for leader ship,” the governor continued. “We must continue our progress without strife. The times call for courage and wisdom, patience and dedication to our purpose. Restraint is the mark of civi lized man and is indeed a sign of great courage.” The NAACP contended that if Eden ton and Chowan County desegregate their schools, other systems in smaller areas would do likewise. It also threat ened a lawsuit. Negro Groups Request Durham County Action A Negro group led by Howard M. Fitts Jr. and a parents group requested that the Durham County Board of Ed ucation desegregate schools. The groups made their requests May 6 at a meeting of the board. The board did not make any state ment in regard to the requests. County schools are not desegregated although biracial classes are conducted in Dur ham city schools. Fitts said: . . Court decisions have clearly established the fact that race is no longer a basis for classification in pupil assignment in schools. In light of this, we request that the board devise a plan for the desegregation of Durham Coun ty schools during the ensuing school year.” The parents presented petitions ask ing the board to “cease operating Dur ham County schools on a racial basis and come forth with a plan to operate the schools under your jurisdiction, without regard to race as to teachers, students and other personnel.” ★ ★ ★ Negroes boycotted the East End School in Durham for two weeks in protest of the school board’s order to operate the school on a double shift. The school was partially destroyed by fire. Three Negro groups, the NAACP, CORE and the Black Muslims joined in the protest. ★ ★ ★ King Addresses 7,500 At Charlotte Commencement Dr. Martin Luther King addressed 7,500 in the Charlotte Coliseum at grad uation exercises for six Negro high schools. After speaking, Dr. King checked into the Manger Motel for the night. The Manger the day before was one of eight downtown hotels and motels to announce desegregation of their fa cilities. “God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race,” Dr. King said. “Physical death is the price some must pay to free their children from a psy chological death.” He called the deseg regation developments in Charlotte “significant.” In the Colleges Wake Forest Awards Honorary Degree To Negro Educator Wake Forest College at Winston- Salem has announced plans to award an honorary degree to a Negro and to admit its first full-time Negro student for graduate study. Dr. Kenneth R. Williams, president of the Negro Winston-Salem State College across town in Winston-Salem, was one of four men scheduled to re ceive honorary doctorate degrees at graduation ceremonies on June 3. The college said Dr. Williams would receive an honorary doctor of laws de gree. Before becoming president two years ago, Dr. Williams was chaplain and Bowman Gray professor of religion at Winston-Salem State for 25 years. Dr. Williams also was the first Negro elected to the Winston-Salem Board of Aldermen since 1900, serving in that post from 1947-51. He also has served on the city school board and holds the B.A. degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, the MA, S.T.B. and Ph.D. de grees from Boston University. Among others who were to be hon ored was Luther H. Hodges, U.S. Sec retary of commerce and former gover nor of North Carolina. Wake Forest, a Baptist college, opened its doors to Negroes for the first time two years ago. Then, a few attended summer school for credit to ward degrees at other schools. During the 1962-63 school year, Wake Forest began biracial classes for un dergraduate students. Two Negroes, Edward Reynolds of Africa and Pa tricia Ann Smith of Winston-Salem, were enrolled. In an announcement on May 29, the college said it has awarded a $1,800 graduate fellowship to Grady Jamison, 21, who received a B.S. degree from the Negro Agricultural and Technical Col lege in Greensboro. Jamison will be a research assistant in the Department of Physics at Wake Forest, working toward a master’s de gree in solid state physics. He also will receive a research stipend of $720 in addition to the fellowship. At A&T, Jamison worked for the past two years in research under a National Science Foundation grant. He is president of the A&T chapter of the American Institute of Physics. Earlier this year Wake Forest an nounced that it would accept Negroes on its football team. ★ ★ ★ Racial Clause Dropped From Phi Psi Requirements Phi Psi, a national textile profession al fraternity, voted May 11 in Raleigh to drop the words, “the white race,” from its requirement for admission. Delegates from the South joined in (See NORTH CAROLINA, Page 17) Arkansas (Continued from Page 12) court decision at Little Rock Central High School. His talk was advertised to include “The Inside Story of Little Rock.” He said he was on the wrong side in 1957 but was back “a free man” now and on the right side. He said he opposed what the Republican administration did at Little Rock in 1957 and what the Democratic administration was doing in Mississippi and Alabama. Community Action Scholarship Fund Ceases Operation The Little Rock Scholarship Fund, Inc., organized during the Little Rock school crisis of 1957, announced May 24 that it had given the last $600 of its money to six students and disbanded. Suggested by the Rev. John R. Baker, a Unitarian minister at Kensington, Md., the fund was organized for the purpose of furnishing aid to students attending Little Rock high schools “un der conditions of unusual stress.” The Rev. Charles C. Walker of Little Rock, president, said the fund had re ceived $4,743 and distributed it to 29 students during the six years of its ex istence. The final group of scholarships went to deserving students since the “unusual stress” no longer exists, the Rev. Mr. Walker said. The fund was operated by both white and Negro leaders at Little Rock and had received contributions from all over the United States. ★ ★ ★ The Presbyterian Synod of Arkansas in its 112th annual session the week of May 20 at Fort Smith reaffirmed its position against segregation, first adopted in 1954. ★ ★ ★ In North Little Rock, the NAACP Branch opened a membership drive for 500 new members on May 12 and, for the first time, sent notice of the meet ing to the white as well as the Negro newspapers. Mrs. Curry W. Williams, president of the branch since it was organized in 1948, was asked about school deseg regation. “This has been mentioned re cently,” she replied. “I don’t go out looking for trouble. Some people say I haven’t done anything over here be cause we don’t have anyone in that high school. If some parents try to get their children enrolled in the school and are denied, then I’ll help them. I’m not going to go out and look for them.” In 1957, the North Little Rock School Board was planning to desegregate at the same time as Little Rock and had assigned seven Negro students to the high school. But after National Guard troops were sent to Central High in Little Rock the day before school opened, the North Little Rock Board postponed its desegregation indefinitely. Raleigh Citizens Committee Requests Systematic Plan
