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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JULY, 1963—PAGE 5
ALABAMA
Gov. Wallace, Ordered by Guard,
permits Negroes to Register
tes.
ind
as-
the
ark
(Continued From Page 1)
u are going to stand in the door and
that you are not going to carry out the
orders of the court and you are going to
resist us from doing so. Is that so?”
Wallace replied: “I stand according
to my statement.”
Three times more, Katzenbach asked
Wallace to get out of the door. Wallace
stood erect and mute. He did not re
spond even when Katzenbach said that
(he two Negro students “will register
today, go to school tomorrow, and go
to school this summer.”
When Wallace said nothing, Katzen
bach said “very well,” and retired from
the scene. Marshals escorted the two
students to their dormitories and Jus
tice Department spokesmen said, at
this point, they considered the students
enrolled.
The governor remained in the audi
torium, even as the order went our fed
eralizing the Alabama National Guard,
some 16,000 to 17,000 men in all. Wal
lace waited for the troops to arrive, as
they did at 3:17 p.m., dressed in green
denims and green helmets, with rifles
slung on their shoulders — bayonets
fixed but sheathed.
In command was Brig. Gen. Henry
C. Graham of Birmingham, former
state adjutant general. With four en
listed men, he approached the door,
where Wallace had once again sta
tioned himself.
Graham saluted Wallace; Wallace re
turned the salute. “It is my sad duty,”
Graham said, “to ask you to step aside.”
Wallace asked whether he might make
a brief statement. Graham said that he
might.
‘Bitter Pill’
It was at this point that Wallace said
he knew it was a “bitter pill” for
Guardsmen—men he had summoned
from Tuscaloosa as a precautionary
measure—to be forced to desegregate
the university. He called on the people
°f Mabama to remain calm, adding that
the preservation of peace “will help me
in this fight.” The state must “have no
'iolence today or any other day,” he
said.
Hie governor then retired from the
scene and returned by car to Mont
gomery; the National Guard airplanes
nod his party took to Tuscaloosa
■id been federalized.
After the Negroes were registered,
hood said: “This is our first and last
aews conference. We are very happy
0Ur registration has taken place with-
°'A incident. We hope to get down to
purpose—study.”
®ss Malone expressed a similar hope,
Adding that study “is all we want to
do here.”
Shortly thereafter, they went to a
book store to buy their text
iles.
Hood’s first class—he is a psy-
Tj 0,0 Sy major—he said: “I think the
ersity of Alabama should be a
•i 6 to Hie nation. I think the faculty,
■°osa the people of Tusca-
® re to be commended. I am grate-
diouirt gratified. All of the universities
Wall no * e the situation here.”
hme ? Was Picketed in New York
as he appeared on “Meet The
s$L During the interview, he re
sell?" ^ hitentions to “stand in the
*as B 0Use door.” Elaborate protection
v ided by New York police.
'^11;
5 %
ace Makes No Move
8t Huntsville Entry
W 11 *'
tig the C j decided not to attempt block-
! **>1 27 ac “ n * ss i°n of David M. McGlath-
*-4iter 1 ad the university’s Huntsville
days later. McGlathery’s
^ New Addition
Wallace and Katzenbach
The hall was brief.
admission was ordered by the univer
sity board of trustees, and the district
court injunction against Wallace’s in
terfering applied to the Huntsville man
as well as to Hood and Miss Malone.
In a telegram to Dr. Frank Rose, uni
versity president, Wallace said June 12:
“At 3:30 p.m. yesterday (June 11)
President Kennedy, with the use of
armed federal troops, assumed control
of the campus of the University of Ala
bama, which includes the campus at
Huntsville.
“Due to this illegal and unwarranted
military occupation, I will not be pres
ent on the Huntsville campus tomorrow
(June 13). However, we will continue
relentlessly our fight against forced in
tegration of the University of Ala
bama.”
Campus Reaction
Both Miss Malone and Hood said they
had been well received by most stu
dents. Some, however, coldly ignored
them in public. Dormitory mates of
Miss Malone described her as “soft-
spoken, unassuming and gracious.” One
coed said she acted just like any other
transfer student.
Once, as U.S. marshals followed, a
group of white students hissed Hood,
but most seemed to pay little attention.
One white student directed Hood to
his classroom after he had made a
wrong turn. Two white coeds escorted
Miss Malone to her first class.
By the end of June, the vast force—
about 3,000 state and local officers and
National Guardsmen—had been re
duced to an estimated 300 Guardsmen
and perhaps 100 state officers. Some
What They Say
13,000 of those federalized June 11—of
whom only about 2,000 were actually
on duty in Tuscaloosa at the peak de
ployment—were released from duty
June 16.
Other forces were phased out, but
with warnings by Wallace, in a tele
gram to President Kennedy June 17,
that protection of the students was a
federal responsibility.
Exchange of Telegrams
“You have created the situation ex
isting in Tuscaloosa,” Wallace wired in
answer to the President’s wire calling
on the governor to take all necessary
steps to permit release of the federal
ized Guard. Kennedy said the troopers
would remain federalized until there
was assurance that state and local offi
cials could maintain order.
In his reply, Wallace said:
“I can and will guarantee that there
will be no sustained violence in . . .
Alabama. But with our limited re
sources, physical and financial, Alabama
cannot insure absolutely the personal
safety of individual students.
“You cannot usurp the powers re
served to . . . Alabama and then place
the burdens therefor on my shoul
ders. . . .
“Therefore, the defederalization of
the Guard is a matter that you have
to determine for yourself. I will not be
intimidated by your calculated attempt
to pass to me the responsibility for the
duration of duty of the National Guard.
Surely you realize that a continuous
cause of the tension in Alabama is the
presence of three Negro students on the
campuses of the university and I sug
gest that you immediately secure their
removal.”
Advanced Mathematics
McGlathery, the student enrolled at
the Huntsville Center, registered and
attended his first classes without inci
dent. A mathematician employed by the
National Aeronautics and Space Ad
ministration’s Space Flight Center at
Huntsville, he is taking an advanced
course in mathematics.
A few state troopers and federal
marshals, along with newsmen and a
handful of the curious, were on hand
when he enrolled.
U. S. Court In junction
Handed Down on June 5
The court injunction which confront
ed Wallace when he made his stand at
the university door June 11 was hand
ed down June 5 by U.S. District Judge
Seybourn Lynne of Birmingham. It en
joined Wallace and others from “pre
venting, blocking or interfering with,
by physically interposing his person or
that of any other person under his di
rection and control the entry” of the
Negro students.
In his order (Malone v. Mate), Lynne
Alabama Highlights
Gov. George C. Wallace stood in a
doorway when two Negroes arrived
to enroll at the University of Ala
bama, although a U.S. court injunc
tion and a presidential proclamation
had ordered him not to intervene.
The governor turned back three fed
eral officials accompanying the stu
dents on the morning of June 11, but
yielded to federalized National
Guardsmen in the afternoon and the
Negroes were registered.
Enrollment of Vivian J. Malone
and James A. Hood came without dis
orders. Gov. Wallace had pleaded for
Alabamians to stay away from the
campus, which was ringed by state
officers and the National Guard. Two
days later, another Negro, David M.
cited the 1955 permanent injunction of
Judge H. H. Grooms (Lucy v. Adams)
opening the university to all qualified
students. Miss Autherine Lucy attend
ed classes three days in February, 1956,
before she was driven from the Tusca
loosa campus by riots. She was later
expelled—and Judge Grooms upheld
the expulsion—for accusing university
officials of conspiring in the mob action.
No other Negro until now had been
enrolled at the university, although the
injunction remained in force.
Personal Pronoun
In the opinion accompanying the June
5 order, Judge Lynne added an un
usual appeal:
“May it be forgiven if this court
makes use of the personal pronoun for
the first time in a written opinion. I
love the people of Alabama. I know that
many of both races are troubled and,
like Jonah of old, are ‘angry even unto
death’ as the result of distortions of
affairs in this state, practiced in the
name of commercialism.
“My prayer is that all of our people,
in keeping with our finest traditions,
will join in the resolution that law and
order will be maintained, both in Tus
caloosa and in Huntsville.”
Dave M. McGlathery
At Huntsville Center.
tftle, Nashville Tennessean
Wallace Will Continue Resistance
Gov. George Wallace, who stood in
the University of Alabama door June
11, said June 28 that he would also
resist desegregation in the high schools.
“At the moment,” Wallace said,
“there is no court order telling us to
admit Negroes to our high schools.
Whenever the time comes I will take
appropriate action in keeping with the
dignity of our state. I can assure you it
will be a forceful stand, whatever I do.”
Asked if he planned to “stand in the
schoolhouse door” again, Wallace did
not give a direct answer, saying only
that he would continue to flight “tamp
ering with the school system.”
School suits are pending seeking de
segregation in Birmingham, Mobile,
Huntsville and Madison County and
Macon County.
★ ★ ★
State Sen. Vaughan Hill Robison of
Montgomery said of any future school
door stands: “His (Wallace’s) promise
was to stand in the schoolhouse door
and I feel he has done this. He said
his purpose was to raise constitutional
questions—not create violence. These
questions will probably be settled by
the time the next public school term
commences.”
Other state senators and representa
tives offered similar views—that Wal
lace has carried out his campaign
promises and raised the constitutional
questions, and that physical interven
tion is not required in future resistance.
Most politicians supported Wallace’s
stand at the university, but other citi
zens and groups denounced it—though
many dissenters agreed after the con
frontation that Wallace had carried it
off with “dignity however futile it
might have been.
‘Traveled a Great Distance’
Lt. Gov. James B. Allen warned be
fore the confrontation that disobedience
of federal court orders can only lead
the state down
a “blind alley.”
Afterward, h e
praised Wallace
for having “trav
eled a great dis
tance from inaug
uration to June
11.”
The Wallace
who “waved the
bloody battle flag
and rattled the
ALLtN sabers” in his in-
aguration speech (SSN, February) was
far different, Allen said, from the Wal
lace who on June 11 “raised constitu
tional questions ... in the best tradi
tions of the South.”
Between inauguration and the univer
sity confrontation, Allen said, Wallace
“matured as a statesman.” Allen added:
“I preferred the Tuscaloosa way, the
University of Alabama way, and the
George Wallace way . . . to the Mis
sissippi way, the Oxford way and the
Ross Barnett way of last fall.”
On the eve of the confrontation, Ala
bama’s entire congressional delegation—
eight congressmen and both senators—
issued a brief statement: “We share in
Alabama’s struggles for the principles
of constitutional government and join
with the people of Alabama in their
call for law and order at the univer
sity.”
Individually, some of the members
were more definite in their support of
Wallace’s position.
Methodist Bishop Nolan B. Harman,
who presides over the North Alabama
Conference of his church, said before
the confrontation that Wallace’s de
fiance was a “moral mistake and in the
long run a political blunder.”
The university’s board of trustees,
while acquiescing in the court order,
approved of Wallace’s presence on the
campus. His being there, the trustees
said before the door scene, would help
preserve law and order.
More than 200 residents of Tusca
loosa—judges, newspaper officials, pro
fessional and business men—took an op
posite view. They implored Wallace not
to carry out his promise.
McGlathery, was admitted to the Uni
versity of Alabama Center in Hunts
ville.
U.S. District Judge Daniel H.
Thomas of Mobile ordered the Mobile
County School Board to present a de
segregation plan for the 1964-65
school year by Nov. 14. Negro plain
tiffs, who had asked for immediate
desegregation, appealed to the U.S.
Fifth Circuit of Appeals.
A three-judge panel of the U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard
arguments on the question of whether
Birmingham schools should be re
quired to begin desegregation in
September. U.S. District Judge Sey
bourn Lynne had refused May 28 to
enter an immediate order.
Thus, for the first time since Miss
Lucy’s brief attendance in 1956, Ala
bama’s solid front of school segregation
was broken.
Gov. Wallace said publicly that he
was in contempt of Lynne’s order:
“The Justice Department should have
cited me for contempt and tried me in
court. I wanted to test some questions
in the court and that is why I defied
the marshals.
“But they didn’t go into the cotuts
because that wasn’t fast enough for
them. They brought in the Army in
stead. I resent this action because it is
a threat to the liberty and freedom of
the people of this country.”
Legal Action
Court Tells Mobile
To Present Plan
For 1964-65 Term
U.S. District Judge Daniel H. Thomas
of Mobile ordered the Mobile County
School Board June 24 to present a de
segregation plan for the 1964-65 school
term.
In so doing, he denied a request for
an injunction requiring immediate de
segregation of the combined city-
county schools. Plaintiffs in the suit
filed March 28 (Davis et al v. Mobile
County Board of School Commissioners
et al—SSN, April) filed notice of ap
peal, challenging the delay. The U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was to
hear the appeal July 8.
Thomas set Nov. 14 for a hearing on
the suit, by which time the school
board, he directed, should present its
desegregation plan.
In a brief filed June 10, the school
board said “it is not practicable as an
administrative matter to submit a plan
for desegregating the schools of Mobile
County for the 1963-64 terms.” Attor
neys for the board argued that esti
mated enrollments already had been
set up for individual schools, teachers
had been allotted and individual assign
ments were under way.
Plea for More Time
“Wholesale reshuffling,” the board
said, would result in “chaotic condi
tions jeopardizing the education of all
the pupils, were it to be required on a
hurried or ‘crash’ basis.”
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals had refused May 24 (SSN, June)
to order the board to submit a plan of
desegregation within 30 days, but the
appellate court did say that district
courts should make “prompt and rea
sonable starts.”
In his seven-page June 24 opinion,
Judge Thomas said:
“Mobile is perhaps the most desegre
gated city in the South, with no un
fortunate incidents.
“The schools of Mobile County are,
and have been since the end of World
(See WALLACE, Page 6)
One More Nail
Howie M Jackson Daily News