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
