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PAGE 14—JULY, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
OKLAHOMA
Three Schools
Desegregated
By Legislature
OKLAHOMA CITY
ESEGREGATION OF THREE state
schools for mentally retarded
persons has been quietly ordered
by the Oklahoma legislature.
The action came during the closing
days of the session early in June and
escaped general notice.
A section ordering admission of pu
pils to the schools without regard to
race, creed or color was inserted to
ward the end of a bill (SB 175) ap
propriating monies for capital outlay
for various state agencies.
This was done by a Senate-House
conference committee, and the measure
was passed the last day of the session,
June 14. Gov. Henry Bellmon signed
the bill June 25.
The desegregation feature was spot
ted the same day by L. E. Rader, di
rector of the Department of public
welfare. The department officially took
over operation of the schools July 1
from the mental health department as
part of a move by the legislature and
the governor to free $11.5 million in
earmarked welfare funds.
The institutions affected are state
schools for mentally retarded persons
at Enid and Pauls Valley and Hissom
Memorial Center, under construction
near Sand Springs. The latter com
munity, located near Tulsa, is one of
the few in Oklahoma still maintaining
segregated schools. The Hissom center
is expected to be completed in Janu
ary, 1964.
Immediate Certification
The new law requires the mental
health board to certify “immediately”
to the Oklahoma Public Welfare Com
mission the name, age, sex, diagnosis
and county of residence of each men
tally retarded child in the Taft State
Hospital. This is the institution that
cares for Negro mental patients and
mentally retarded persons.
Under the law the welfare commis
sion must admit to the other three in
stitutions by July 1, 1964, the mentally
retarded Negroes now at Taft found to
be eligible for such transfer.
Rader said this means about 50 re
tarded Negro children at Taft will have
to be taken care of in the three schools
within a year. It also means the wel
fare department will consider Negro
children along with whites for admis
sion to the schools.
Six years ago the Oklahoma School
for the Deaf at Sulphur was desegre
gated after the filing of a federal court
suit (Bailey v. Hodge) by the parents
of a 10-year-old Negro girl from Ok
lahoma City. (SSN, August, 1957.)
★ ★ ★
Human Rights Commission
Bill Signed Into Law
Before adjourning, the Oklahoma
legislature also passed a bill creating
a human rights commission and it was
signed into law by Gov. Bellmon.
Oklahoma Highlights
Desegregation of three state
schools for the mentally retarded was
ordered by the Oklahoma legislature
in a bill appropriating capital outlay
funds for various state agencies.
The Oklahoma City Board of Educa
tion proceeded with plans to build a
new junior high school for Negro
pupils although a legal attack on its
student transfer policy was still at
issue.
The new Oklahoma City Commun
ity Relations Committee, created to
avert racial disputes, organized and
indicated educational problems will
be among these it will study.
A national Baptist group said Ne
groes should be given better oppor
tunities but that racial desegregation
is morally wrong.
Authored by State Sen. Fred Harris,
Lawton Democrat, it provided for nine
members to be appointed to three-year
terms by the governor.
The law placed the state officially on
record for the first time as opposed
to racial discrimination. (SSN, June.)
Since it forbids discrimination in
any agency or department of the state,
the law was viewed as a possible ve
hicle for Negro teachers to protest loss
of their jobs when school districts de
segregate.
What They Say
Group Of Baptists
Says ‘Integration’
Is ‘Morally Wrong’
The American Baptist Association
has declared that Negroes should be
given better opportunities but that
“integration of the races” is morally
wrong.
The statement, made in a memoran
dum to President Kennedy, was
adopted by delegates to the associa
tion’s national convention in Oklahoma
City June 20.
It was drafted by Dr. Albert Gamer,
president of the Florida Baptist Insti
tute and Seminary in Lakeland, Fla.
“Our sentiments are that the Negro
should be afforded greater opportuni
ties for achievement and encouraged to
win respect for himself in public life,”
the statement read. “We have deep
moral and religious convictions, how
ever, that integration of the races is
morally wrong and should be resisted.”
Legislators Criticize
Civil Rights Proposals
Delegates to the Southern Regional
Conference of the Council of State
Governments in Oklahoma City criti
cized President Kennedy’s proposed
civil rights program.
Among those who issued verbal at
tacks on the program were Marion H.
Crank, speaker of the Arkansas House
of Representatives; and Mississippi
legislators Clarence B. Newman and
Frank E. Shanahan Jr.
Shanahan also asserted that racial
(See OKLAHOMA, Page 15)
Schoolmen
Oklahoma City Plans New School
For Negroes; Transfers Attacked
The fate of Oklahoma City’s pupil
transfer policy is still in doubt but the
board of education is going ahead with
plans to build a new junior high school
in the Negro residential section.
The board let a $1,753,000 contract
June 25 for construction of Franklin
Junior High at Northeast 13th and
Missouri streets.
Scheduled for completion by Sep
tember, 1964, Franklin will provide a
second junior high, along with Moon,
to feed Douglass High School. Both
Moon and Douglass have only Negroes
in attendance.
The new junior high not only will
take some of the pupil load off Moon
but will also allow elimination of the
ninth grade at Douglass.
Moon had 1,350 students in 1962-63,
which was near capacity. But Douglass
was seriously overcrowded, with a
pupil membership of about 1,600 to
1,700, including 600 to 700 in the ninth
grade.
It is expected the two Negro junior
highs, when Franklin is completed, will
have a combined enrollment of about
2,000 pupils. An effort will be made
to divide this equally between the two
schools. This will leave about 1,000 for
Douglass.
School board officials are not giving,
at least openly, any particular consid
eration to the effect on these plans of
a possible court overthrow of the spe
cial transfer policy.
The policy provides that a student
may transfer from a school in which
his race is in the minority to one in
which it has a majority.
In a pending U. S. District Court
suit (Dowell v. Board of Education)
the Oklahoma City school district is
accused of administering the policy in
a way discriminatory to Negroes. The
plaintiffs say Negro students cannot get
transfers to desegregated schools ex
cept to obtain courses not available at
all-Negro schools. They assert the same
is not true of white pupils seeking
transfers.
Regarding the possibility of whole
sale Negro transfers across town
should the legal attack on the policy
be upheld, an administrative source
said chaos would result and the board
could not afford the cost of the trans
portation that would be required.
NORTH CAROLINA
Burlington Approves 4-Year Plan
(Continued From Page 13)
city’s lone desegregated school. Gil
lespie Park enrolled 38 Negroes last
year.
Three Negroes who completed the
ninth grade at Gillespie in 1963 have
been assigned to Smith High School,
opening for the first time in September.
Requests for reassignment are six to
Aycock School, six to Brooks School,
27 to Gillespie Park, seven to Grimsley
High School, 31 to Hunter School, 20
to Jackson, 17 to Joyner, 26 to Page
High.
Also 10 to Kiser Junior High School,
six to Lindley Elementary School, one
to Lindley Junior High School, five to
Murphy High School, one to Porter
School, three to Proximity School and
four to Smith High.
Most of the children seeking trans
fers live near the schools to which
they applied, P. J. Weaver, school su
perintendent, said.
After the school board acts, dissatis
fied parents may appeal the decision.
First grade assignments already made
are to the following schools:
Joyner, Central, Mclver and Porter,
one each; Hunter, 5; Lindley, 9, Mur-
phev, 4, and Gillespie Park, 16.
This is the laregst number of Negroes
to seek transfers since Greensboro
first admitted Negroes to two previous
ly white schools six years ago.
★ ★ ★
Two Negro children requested trans
fers to white school June 7 in Guil
ford County. This county (except
Greensboro and High Point, both
cities) has no desegregation. The Negro
children asked reassignment from the
Negro Rena Bullock School to the
white Sedgefield School.
“This marks the first time in recent
years that the county schools have re
ceived such a request,” Supt. E. P.
Pearce said. The county is likely to act
in July.
Pearce also noted that 17 Negro
children have applied for reassign
ment from the county system to two
white schools, Archer and Smith High,
in the Greensboro city system.
★ ★ ★
County, City Schools
Form One System
A new school system, the City-
County School Board of Winston-
Salem and Forsyth County, was bom
July 1, the result of a merger of the
Winston-Salem city and Forsyth
County systems.
Racially, the new system stands as
follows:
• Three Negroes are members of the
combined school boards, Alderman Carl
H. Russell and Attorney Richard C. Er
win of the city and Dr. Lillian B. Lewis
of the county. The new board has 12
members, to be eventually reduced to
eight,
• Two elementary schools, Easton
with 19 and North with one, both of
the city, were desegregated during the
past school year. The city-county ad
ministered Industrial Education Center
was desegregated. No county schools
were desegregated.
• There were no requests from the
old county school system by Negroes
to attend a white school although it
was announced that the new system
would operate on a geographical sys
tem. County Negroes attend the con
solidated Carver School with grades
1-12.
• Mr. and Mrs. Harold L. Kennedy,
both attorneys, filed requests for the
transfer of their three sons from Negro
schools to the white Brunson School.
Twin sons Harold and Harvey, in an
accelerated sixth grade class at Diggs
School, and Michael, enrolled in first
grade at Fairview School, are the
children involved.
• North Elementary School appar
ently will become a Negro school with
possibly a few whites enrolled. During
the past school year, North opened
with 240 white students. Enrollment
was dropped to 180 when a Negro girl
was enrolled. When 390 Negro children
were transferred from two overcrowd
ed Negro schools, Carver Crest and
Kimberley Park, 167 of 180 white chil
dren assigned asked for transfers to
Lowrance School. As a result, the
white principal from last year was as
signed to Lowrance, and a Negro was
named principal.
The new school board must act on
these and the Kennedy requests for
transfers as well as the routine re
quests.
• Two Negro children were en
rolled in the special summer program
for academically and artistically tal
ented children at Dalton Junior High
School. They were Bobbietta Dobson
and Linda Vick, both ninth graders.
In the past two years, a separate pro
gram had been operated at Anderson
Junior High School for Negro chil
dren. The minimum required did not
enroll at Anderson this summer. The
two girls were then accepted at Dalton.
Marvin Ward, now superintendent of
the consolidated system, said, “The ad
mission of these girls was an effort to
take care of an existing problem . . .
We were not thinking in terms of de
segregating this summer program . . .
We’ll take the matter under study and
decide how the program will operate
toward the end of the next school
year.”
★ ★ ★
The extension of the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school sysem’s geo
graphical assignment system will mean
the attendance of Negroes at six pre
viously all white schools, it was
announced by the Charlotte-Mecklen-
burg Board of Education.
Four schools will be desegregated
on the basis of geographical assign
ment. They are elementary schools,
Elizabeth, one; Villa Heights, two; Wil-
more, four, and Seversville, eight. Orig
inally, 78 Negro children were eligible
to attend 12 schools, but only 15 chose
to transfer.
Two junior high schools, Sedgefield
and Alexander Graham, will be de
segregated on a promotional level, with
sixth graders moving up from two de
segregated elementary schools, Sedge
field and Derita.
Under the new assignment program,
82 white children were assigned to
Negro schools, but all of them chose
to return to their present white schools.
Only Bethune School will continue as
the Negro school with white students
enrolled.
Six schools, including Bethune, op
erated on an interracial basis last year.
The lone Negro at Myers Park High
School was graduated in June.
★ ★ ★
The Chapel Hill Board of Education
reassigned 77 Negroes from Negro
schools to predominantly white schools,
rejected 19 requests by Negroes for
transfers to white schools, and heard
criticism of its policies from the May
or’s Committee on Integration. Chapel
Hill dropped its geographical assign
ment policy and boundaries June 7.
The transfers were made June 15.
In making reassignments Dr. How
ard Thompson, superintendent of
schools, announced a policy based on
these points:
Legal Action
• There will be no geographical as
signments.
• Residential location of the school
population, availability of classroom
space, and the maintaining of equality
in size of classes will be the basic
factors.
• Double shift classes will be avoid-
ed.
• Dr. Thompson will assign first
graders on an individual basis.
• Most students were assigned to
the schools they attended last year.
Dr. Thompson used these points as
reasons for refusing to transfer 19 Ne
gro students to predominantly white
schools. The students have the right
to appeal to the school board at its
next meeting in July.
Race was not involved in the trans
fers, he said.
Miscellaneous
Governor’s School
Opens With 400
The Governor’s School opened Mon
day, June 10, on the campus of Salem
College with a desegregated student
body, faculty and governing board.
Gov. Terry Sanford, who requested
the founding of the school, spent a
half-day with the young people and
spoke at the formal opening.
A student body of 400, including 30
Negroes, selected from rising juniors
and seniors in North Carolina high
schools, is studying free of charge in
one of the following areas: English,
social science, natural science, mathe
matics, foreign languages, drama,
dance, art, choral music and instru
mental music.
This school is serving as a work
shop to promote an eight-week summer
program for gifted and talented high
school students. It is a three-year ex
periment financed by $225,000 from the
Carnegie Corporation of New York and
$225,000 from foundations and indus
tries in Winston-Salem.
★ ★ ★
Education, not demonstration will
pave the road to first class citizenship
for Negroes, Gov. Terry Sanford told
Negro leaders of North Carolina in Ra
leigh June 25.
This meeting was called with the
idea of preventing violence in various
anti-segregation movements in the
state.
Durham Pupil Assignment Plan
Faces July Federal Court Test
Judge Edwin M. Stanley of the U.S.
Middle District Court will hold a hear
ing July 11 on the new pupil assign
ment plan set up by the Durham City
Board of Education.
This action is part of the ruling Oct.
12, 1962 by the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals (Wheeler v. Durham City
Board of Education and Spaulding v.
Durham City Board of Education) that
Durham was applying the North Caro
lina Pupil Placement Law in “an un
constitutional manner.” The school
board was ordered to submit a suitable
plan to end “existing discrimination.”
Negro plaintiffs in the case will file
several objections to the Durham plan.
They claim that it provides only for
desegregation of elementary schools
and seeks delay in desegregation of
junior and senior high schools.
The city plan does include the pro
motion of two elementary Negro school
graduates to two predominantly white
high schools. The board assigned
graduates of Walltown and Crest Street
schools, both Negro, to predominantly
white Carr Junior High School. In the
past these students had been assigned
to the Negro Whitted High School.
The Durham school board apparently
is awaiting Judge Stanley’s ruling be
fore taking action on 115 reassignment
requests made since school closed.
These include 38 requests by Negroes
to attend predominantly white schools.
The Durham Interim Committee is
keeping watch on the progress of de
segregation in schools through its edu
cation committee headed by Asa T.
Spaulding.
★ ★ ★
A suit filed by parents of eight Negro
children against the High Point City
Board of Education will be heard Oct.
25 by the U.S. Middle District Court
in Greensboro.
The case (Gilmore et al v. Hig^ 1
Point City Board of Education) w^s
filed March 13, 1963. Judge Richard
son Preyer will hold a pre-trial con
ference Oct. 17.
A class action, the suit seeks f 1 ^
desegregation of High Point schools in
assignment of students, teachers 311
other personnel. .
Attorney D. P. Whitley reported »
the High Point school board June
the status of the case. . t
Since the suit was filed, High
has set up a new pupil ass *® nE ^j 1 j S
program on a geographical basis,
program assigns some Negroes to w ^
schools and some whites to Nes 1 ”
schools. a
No Negro requested transfer fr°
Negro to a white school this ye 3 *'
school closed, the board reported.
★ ★ ★
U.S. Judge John D. Larkins Jr- ^
fused to grant a preliminary injun j
against the Greene County sc ^
board to discontinue “the opera i ^
a dual, segregated school sys
Greene County.” „ _, j, t>.
In the suit (Farmer and
Greene County School Roar 0 ^i\is
boys, Obedian Farmer and e
Edwards, are seeking transfers
white Greene Central High
★ ★ ★ yS
fudge Edwin M. Stanley of the _
ddle District Court will hold J 16
al conference in Asheboro,
a case in which a Negro is ’i.
enroll in the white Trmlt ;A t#°
e case will be heard wi*U\
„£+— +v,o rvrp-trial hearing