About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1963)
PAGE 18—JULY, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS MARYLAND Board Hears Three-Pronged Attack on Racial Policies BALTIMORE three-pronged attack on ra cial policies in Baltimore pub lic schools was faced by the city school board in June, nine years to the week after the board’s ac tion calling for prompt compliance with the 1954 Supreme Court decision. Eli Frank Jr., president of the Balti more Board of School Commissioners, was reported to be visibly shaken by the charges of discrimination as he said, “We may have been fooling ourselves, but we have always thought all our policies were nondiscriminatory.” The attacks came from: • A national representative of the National Association for the Advance ment of Colored People who gave the school board until Sept. 1 to take steps leading to the elimination of de facto segregation. • A biracial group of Baltimore par ents who presented the board with a lengthy report setting forth charges that districting, transfer and transpor tation policies were discriminatory in practice and promoted racial segrega tion. • A second group, largely Negro, that attacked with local NAACP back ing the assignment of white administra tive personnel to predominantly Negro schools. Nine Demands Presented The NAACP representative, Miss June Shagaloff, who is special assistant for education in the organization’s national (New York) office, said her presence in Baltimore meant that the drive for “full integration” of schools in the North and West was being ex tended to at least two border cities, Baltimore and St. Louis. Warning of litigation and demonstrations if the school board was not responsive, Miss Shagaloff presented nine demands which she called “respectful but urgent demands—not recommendations but demands.” On three of the demands Miss Shaga loff said action should be taken by Sept. 1. As recorded by Adam Clymer of the Baltimore Sun, who had Miss Shagaloff repeat her demands from the notes she used in addressing the school board. These were: • “Adopt a policy statement recog nizing the educational undesirability of public school segregation in fact, and unequivocally committing the board to achieving maximum desegregation in the public schools.” • “Take all necessary steps to change the administrative practices which con tribute to the maintenance of segrega tion, including school districting, school utilization and school transfers.” • “Take all necessary steps to dis tribute part-time classes on an equit able, nondiscriminatory basis through out the school system.” The school board could take more time on the six remaining demands, Miss Shagaloff said. “We are not so unreasonable as to expect the total re organization of the school system by September,” she explained. The others • “Formulate and implement a long- range, complete citywide plan to achieve maximum desegregation of ele mentary and secondary schools.” • “See that site selection and dis tricting for all new schools is guided by the cardinal principle of integra tion, together with other administrative considerations, to prevent the creation of new segregated schools whenever possible.” • “Regularly review all administra tive practices affecting the assignment of pupils to schools, changes in school enrollments and changes in racial resi dential patterns in order to assure maximum desegregation now and in the future.” • “Establish a central office, assigned • “Take immediate steps to raise educational standards of those schools which by virtue of extensively seg regated housing cannot be desegregat ed, including the assignment of reg ularly licensed teachers, a stable teach ing staff, a crash remedial program in basic reading skills, smaller classroom size and other essential services.” • “Take necessary steps to reassign teachers to assure the placement of Negro teachers and administrators throughout the system on a nondis criminatory basis.” Demands Presented to Baltimore Board June Shagaloff and Juanita Jackson Mitchell (standing) represent NAACP. In foreground are (left) Dr. William D. McElroy, chairman of the board’s ad hoc desegregation committee, and (right, back of head) Eli Frank Jr., school board president. parents contend that in each instance the system tends to work to the dis advantage of or discriminate against Negroes and to perpetuate segregation. Citing recent decisions in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere on the obli gation of school officials to promote integration, the parents recommended, in part: • “That the [school] board recognize and rectify the present discriminatory aspects of its enrollment, transfer, dis tricting, transportation, part-time and school construction programs.” • “That the board recognize and adopt a policy declaring the educational undesirability in Balitmore of public schools which are racially homogeneous or nearly so, whether or not such homogenity is de facto.” Maryland Highlights The Baltimore school board has undertaken a re-examination of its desegregation policies in response to demands by the NAACP and a bi racial parents group that de facto segregation be eliminated. Racial criticism of administrative appointments has stirred disagree ment among Baltimore school board members. • “That the board, in all its decisions as to school policies and programs which affect the racial distribution of the pupils and staff in the city schools, consider the effect of its decisions upon such distribution, and encourage poli cies and programs the effect of which will be to achieve actual integration of pupils and staffs in schools throughout the city.” the responsibility for providing all of the data necessary to assure the at tainment of these objectives.” Miss Shagaloff was introduced to the board by Juanita Jackson Mitchell, long-time Maryland NAACP attorney and official, who put her emphasis on what she described as the board’s “failure to promote on the basis of merit rather than race.” Her remarks reflected criticism in the Negro com munity of some recent white appoint ments as principals or vice-principals of Negro or nearly all-Negro schools at the alleged expense of qualified Negro administrators. The issue had become a prominent one in the Balti more Afro-American, with several well-known Negroes writing to say that school officials deliberately passed over Negro personnel. Long-Awaited Report Presented to Board The NAACP charges and demands somewhat overshadowed the scheduled main event of the school board’s June 6 meeting, which was the presentation of the long-awaited citizens’ report on desegregation (SSN, April, May, June). In preparation for nearly a year, the 38-page report, with another 18 pages of appendices and maps, was under taken initially by a few white parents, was signed in its final form by 28 white and Negro parents, and was sponsored by, but not endorsed by, Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc., a pri vate agency devoted to the promotion of stable biracial neighborhoods. Asked whether the NAACP had spoken for the parents’ group or vice versa, Edward L. Holmgren, director of Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc., said the two groups were “not organically related.” He explained that the parents had sought a hearing at the June 6 school board meeting and had not known that the NAACP also would speak until they read it in the Afro two days prior to the meeting. The NAACP, he said, had used their research and endorsed their recommendations. • “That the board direct a com prehensive survey of all inequalities of educational opportunity within the city school system ...” Detailed Analysis Entitled “Eight Years of Desegrega tion in the Baltimore Public Schools: Fact and Law,” the parents’ report is a detailed analysis of Baltimore’s “free- choice” desegregation program in terms of how district lines are drawn around overcrowed schools, the administration of transfer rights from one school to another, the transportation of pupils out of overcrowded schools to other schools and the extent of part-time schooling because of double shifts. The • “That the board immediately for mulate and adopt methods for dis tributing equitably the incidence of part-time instruction until such in struction can be completely eliminated from the city school system.” • “That the entire program of the Department of Education be subject to continuing review as to its effect upon patterns of racial distribution in the schools ...” A. tight curfew was imposed by National Guardsmen at the height of racial disturbances in Cambridge, where the pace of school desegrega tion has been one of the subjects of Negro agitation. Mergers of white and Negro teachers associations have been an nounced in two Maryland counties. Further desegregation steps have been made the subject of study in Harford County, which has com pleted its transition program. • “That a school human relations department be established on the staff level to implement the recommenda tions of this report ...” • “That the board direct the staff to keep, tabulate, and make convenient ly available to the public, meaningful statistics in regard to matters dealt with in this report ...” • “That the board and the school administration enlist such cooperation from other agencies in the community as may be necessary to eliminate in equalities of educational opportunity in the city school system.” Spokesman for the parents group was Melvin J. Sykes, a Baltimore attorney whose legal arguments as to why it was Community Action Cambridge Disorders Bring Guard Curfew National Guardsmen imposed a strict curfew in the Eastern Shore city of Cambridge at the height of June de monstrations which included a demand for faster school desegregation. Gov. J. Millard Tawes sent the troops into Cambridge on June 14 after racial hostilities had erupted into rioting, a shooting, arson and brick-throwing, in cluding attacks on the residence of Mrs. Helen Waters, only Negro member of the county school board. Mrs. Waters had been told by an anonymous caller on June 11, after the school board proved unresponsive to Negro desegregation appeals, that “you and Mr. Cornish will be next.” Charles Cornish is the only Negro member of the Cambridge City Council, which also had not satisfied Negro calls for equal job opportunities, full school deseg regation, and equal access to housing, restaurants and places of recreation and amusement. A brick was thrown through a window of Mrs. Waters’ home one night and a shed burned down the following night. I The final three nights of Negro de monstrations prior to the arrival of troops had been touched off, after an uneasy period of truce, by the break down of white-Negro negotiations and the commitment of two youthful de monstrators to reform schools as de linquents after their repeated arrests. The negotiations had been attempted by, among others, a delegation of the Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations. president of the Dorchester County Board of Education, and James G. Busick, the county school superinten dent, and made two proposals. The first was that the county’s grade- a-year desegregation program, which now extends downward from the 12th to the fifth grade, be accelerated to include the first four grades by Sep tember. The second was that “the pre sent program of desegregation, which exists only on paper, be implemented so that Negro children will actually be attending all the public schools of Dorchester County.” The commission’s report continued: “Both these requests were flatly re fused by Mr. Busik, who was spokes man for the school board. Despite re peated pleas of the commission for a more flexible approach to the problem in view of heightened tensions in Cam bridge, Mr. Busik remained adamant in his position and referred to a pre pared statement which says: ‘There isn’t even a remote possibility of any deviation by the Board of Education.’ ” Stand Called ‘Intransigent’ Meetings Held Three members of the state inter racial agency along with its director had a meeting with some Cambridge restaurant owners without success and also with school officials, without suc cess. According to a June 11 press release of the commission, its delega tion met with Reynolds Carpenter, The statement concluded, “It is the opinion of the commission that Mr. Busik took an intransigent stand and came to the conference with a closed mind as indicated in his prepared state ment, in which he said, ‘ . . . from a personal standpoint, I would not even consider recommending any changes to the Board of Education.’ ” For his part, Busick has maintained steadily that the county has an orderly desegregation plan under which all Negro requests to transfer to the desig nated grades have been honored. The county had a few such requests last year and is receiving more this year (SSN, June). Busick expressed belief that the schools simply were caught up in a “pyschological state” affecting all facets Demonstrators and Trooper at Cambridge Disorders on the Eastern Shore. of racial relations in Cambridge, the county seat, which has 12,600 inhabi tants, about 30 per cent of them Neg roes. By June 30, after troops had been in Cambridge for more than two weeks, city officials had fashioned a desegrega tion program in response to business discontent with curfew restrictions and to persuasive pressure from two direc tions: Gov. Tawes’ office in Annapolis and Robert Kennedy’s office in Wash ington. Agreement among the mayor, city council and Negro leaders on pro- a school-board duty to eliminate de facto segregation gave the parents’ re port the tone of a legal brief. The report presented on June 6 was in fact the second version of the par ents’ report. The first version, never officially released, was entitled “Seven Years of Desegregation in the Balti more Public Schools” and was present ed by Holmgren and Sykes to School Board President Eli Frank Jr. and School Supt. George B. Brain on March 27. Two replies to the parents’ “seven- year” report were prepared and re leased at the June 6 meeting. One was Dr. Brain’s report to the school board on desegregation procedures and pro gress. The other was the report of an ad hoc committee of the school board which Frank had named to study and comment on the parents’ report. Between March 27 and June 6, how ever, the parents in conferences with school officials and the ad hoc com mittee obtained data not previously available and which, along with ad ditional legal research, led them to prepare a second or “eight-year” ver sion of their report. The public version of Dr. Brain’s re ply was a relatively brief description of procedures and criteria for imple- (See BALTIMORE, Page 19) posals dealing with public aCCO ™*^ im' tions, housing and jobs appca minent. Jid The tentative settlement pac a not include further schoo , w , e ve r ' tion. County Supt Busick, coUpt y’s reported on June 28 that sC ho° biracial advisory committee arS . desegregation, dormant for ^ tb e had been reactivated to re-e jtfaO" desegregation program. Also, land Board of Education aie et ' r'omhridee situation at
