About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1963)
PAGE 8—JULY. 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS MISSOURI St. Louis Advisory Group Urges Maximum Desegregation Policy (Continued From Page 1) cedures or practices that caused reseg regation in schools. Chairman was the Rev. Trafford P. Maher S.J., head of the department of education at St. Louis University. The biracial commit tee included Dr. J. Owen Blache, past president of the Urban League of St. Louis, Mrs. Leslie F. Bond, chairman of the community rela tions committee, St. Louis branch, National Associa tion for the Ad- MAHER vancement of Col ored People; Harry L. Chadwell, presi dent, St. Louis Public School Patrons Alliance; Mrs. Aubrey B. Hamilton, chairman of the education committee, St. Louis League of Women Voters; Dr. William D. Hawker, executive vice president, Citizens Association for the Public Schools; Mrs. Frank Mirkay, president of the St. Louis Council of Parent- Teacher Associations; Ethan A. H. Shepley Jr., chairman of the 1961 United Fund campaign; Andrew F. Sydnor, member of the St. Louis Coun cil on Human Relations; Miss Frances H. Williams, member of the Missouri State Board of Education, and Irving A. Williamson, vice chairman of the board of managers, Page-Park YMCA, Agreed Unanimously In a letter of transmittal, Father Maher said the report represented many hours of deliberation and thorough in quiry. He said the committee had agreed to it unanimously. He said the committee realized that acceptance of any or all of its recommendations would mean “difficult problems of implementation” but he said the com mittee felt that administrative difficul ties alone should not be permitted to stand in the way. “What is badly needed now in St. Louis and the rest of the nation,” Father Maher wrote, “is creative pro cedures.” The committee’s foreword said that the school system was being blamed, in part at least, for problems it had not created and could not solve. The com mittee said that such problems as hous ing and jobs for minority groups ap plied to the metropolitan area and not to St. Louis alone. It pointed that schools were a more accessible target than housing or jobs, and therefore tended to bear the brunt of community tension. Declaring that the public schools had done an excellent job educationally, the committee emphasized its desire to add to—not detract from—the city’s high- level educational tradition. It under lined the following passage twice: “As a consequence this final report is al ways to be interpreted in terms of the best educational tradition and the soundest educational principles.” Constant Goal Urged In a general statement of platform and philosophy, the committee said the board of education ought to “restate its belief that it must keep constantly before itself the goal of integration in all decisions affecting school reorgani zation and educational practices. “The committee recommends that copies of the board’s statement should be transmitted to all professional and Nonprofessional personnel, with the thought that all continuously include integration as one of the top values for evaluation and modification of policies and procedures, whenever this is called for, and for formulations of new ones to the end that integration of the facili ties and activities of the public schools may continue the progress thus far made in an orderly fashion and in a climate of good will.” In addition to its recommendations on redistricting, transfers, desegregation of faculties and other matters, the com mittee proposed actions on more minor items of controversy such as plans for an athletic stadium and the location of new school buildings. In asking that the school board adopt the open-enroll ment concept, it said the principle in volved was that open enrollment would Missouri Highlights Comprehensive changes looking to ward a greater degree of actual de segregation in St. Louis public schools were urged by the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Board of Education. The Committee for Parents of Transported Pupils, which has been protesting segregation in the St. Louis public schools bus transport program, announced that it would organize a boycott of allegedly segre gated public school classes beginning in September. The St. Louis Board of Education voted June 4 to convert Hadley Tech nical High School to a general high school—a move warmly indorsed by Negro leaders who objected to Had ley as an all-Negro institution. Kansas City public schools, whose enrollment last fall was more than 32 per cent Negro, are working on plans for a human relations “team” of staff members to solve problems relating to desegregation. U.S. District Judge James H. Mere dith at St. Louis approved a plan for desegregation of all public schools at Charleston (Mo.) next September. tend to make the total school system a richer community resource. “It is to be clearly understood,” the committee said, “that there is only one school concept in the United States which makes sense. This concept is the neighborhood school concept. In effect, this concept declares that the children of a given neighborhood are first to be seated in their neighborhood school. “The open enrollment concept merely adds another dimension to the basic neighborhood school concept. This di mension declares that after the stu dents of a given neighborhood have been seated, students from other areas have the right to request a place in one of the vacant seats .. .” Open enrollment, redistricting to bring about desegregation of schools, and the desegregation of all faculties and the bus program have been major points in the drive made by Negro and civil rights leaders to reduce de facto segregation in the St. Louis public schools. The system has been desegre gated officially since 1955 and has been cited for planning and implementation of actions called for under the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Hundreds of Negroes Stage Demonstration Hundreds of Negroes—perhaps a thousand or more—and a scattering of white people staged a demonstration in front of the board of education build ing at 911 Locust St., in downtown St. Louis June 21. The demonstration took place on the day before the committee’s report was published. It lasted more than two and a half hours but was peaceful and orderly. The street was blocked by demonstrators at the height of the evening rush hour. Police rerouted traffic. The Rev. Frank H. Reid Jr., pastor of St. James AME Church, was chairman of the steering committee for the effort. REID Co-chairman was Dr. Jerome Wil liams, director of the out-patient clinic at Homer G. Phillips (munici pal) Hospital. Ministers of both races, Negro poli ticians and other leaders served in an usher force. They wore white sun helmets and orange arm bands. They kept the crowd under careful control. Some 200 members of the St. Louis police department were held in reserve some blocks away, in case of trouble, but there were no uniformed police at the scene. The demonstration consisted mostly of praying, the singing of hymns, and speeches. Dr. Williams said he and other demonstration leaders had con ferred beforehand with Paul F. Hanlon, professor of social psychology at St. Louis University, on techniques for avoiding disorder. “It was a very orderly demonstra tion,” commented Board President Schlafly on the following day, “al though I feel that it was unnecessary. The board of education had already given these groups a full hearing; at their request had appointed a citizens committee, and had scheduled a special meeting for today to receive the com mittee’s report, and to start immediate action.” For a week before the demonstration, it appeared that Schlafly, Mayor Ray mond R. Tucker and others might be able to persuade leaders to postpone it. However, plans for a conference fell through and demonstration leaders— representing several Negro and civil rights groups—went ahead. Community Action Committee Reveals Plan To Boycott ‘Segregated’ Classes The Committee for Parents of Trans ported Pupils announced June 14 that it would organize a boycott of “seg regated” public school classes starting in September. On June 7, the newly organized group staged a demonstration to block 12 buses at Dozier elementary Schoolmen Demonstrators Listen To Leader St. Louis ‘segregation policies’ assailed. school, in the heavily Negro St. Louis West End section. Approximately 4,850 pupils, mostly Negroes, were transported daily during the semester just ended. They were taken by bus from crowded schools in central St. Louis and the West End to receiving schools, largely all-white, in less crowded or underpopulated dis tricts of the city. In recent months, the St. Louis Board of Education has been besieged by com plaints that the transported children are segregated, for the most part, from neighborhood children attending the receiving schools. The board of educa tion and its officials have replied that its practices and policies with respect to transported children had nothing to do with race but were necessary as a matter of administrative efficiency. Further, school officials have declared that the bussing program is temporary and should be unnecessary when new schools, already authorized in a bond issue election, have been constructed. The bus transportation costs about $250,000 a year. The children are kept in classroom groups or units, a practice ; which officials have insisted was es sential to maintain class organization and avoid administrative chaos. Some 30 parents and ministers of 1 both races joined hands to block the Dozier school buses on the morning of June 7. There were about 500 pupils aboard, principally Negro fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. They were ushered from the buses and dismissed when demonstrators, bearing placards with such signs as “Don’t Treat Our Chil dren Like Prisoners,” lined up in the path of the vehicles. While committee spokesman reporter “unequivocal success” for the activity school officials said some pupils—pe 1 ' haps 30 or more—walked long distances to school after the buses scheduled to j transport them were halted. Bus drivers had been alerted in advance by school officials, and had been told to keep the vehicles motionless. A spectator, but not a participant (See MISSOURI, Page 9) Technical School Conversion Approved Without dissent, the St. Louis Board of Education gave its approval June 4 to conversion of Hadley Technical High School to a general high school. The board also approved changing the name of Hadley to Vashon High School, thus picking up the name of an all- Negro high school that is being closed in the Mill Creek Valley redevelop ment area. The new arrangement will leave St. Louis with only one vocational high school, O’Fallon Technical High School. Supt. of Instruction Philip J. Hickey told board members that the graduating of Negro and white stu- Pupils Leave Blocked Buses A boycott is in prospect. dents from the same technical school would help eliminate racial discrimina tion in hiring practices. The move was warmly endorsed by Negro leaders, who have contended that the technical and vocational pro grams offered at Hadley, a de facto segregated school, were inferior of those at O’Fallon, where apprentices for the building trades crafts are trained under AFL-CIO auspices. Conversion of Hadley Technical High School had been recommended in an interim report of the Citizens Advisory Committee headed by the Rev. Trafford P. Maher last May 1. To avoid overcrowding at O’Fallon, admission will be limited to students of average or higher than average ability. Some technical courses will be taught at an “O’Fallon Branch” at the old Hadley facility. ★ ★ ★ Kansas City Plans ‘Team’ To Help Solve Problems The Kansas City public school sys tem plans to organize a small group of staff members as a human relations “team” to assist faculty, student and parents’ groups in working out deseg regation problems, Supt. of Schools James A. Hazlett said in June. Details of the plan are expected to be ready in August, and the team will be functioning in the 1963-64 school year. In addition, Hazlett said, a larger number of Kansas City public schools are expected to have faculty members of both races. Kansas City will continue its policy of admitting transfers to schools that are not filled to capacity by neighbor hood children. Under this policy, chil dren living in a school’s attend*®^ area have a prior claim to the sen space and services, but children outside the attendance area way ^ tain transfers if space is available, if cause can be shown. ^ At present, it was estimated, a £ 4,000 of Kansas City’s 72,000 P“ school children attend schools o ^ their residence areas. Parents sponsible for transportation, related to race or school descg 1 ®^.^. are not considered valid for ^ s t ment purposes, it was reported. ^ is, a child of either race ma ^”, j s assigned to a school outside neighborhood if he has a vali unrelated to race. Negro Ratios As of last October, KansaS ^ schools were nearly 36 P er . cen j . e tb 35 at the elementary level and m0 ^oob 29 per cent in the secondary #aS Of 17 major secondary units, .^te- all-Negro and three were p>" Of 85 elementary schools, five « tfe- Negro and 34 were all-whi e. did' gro proportion of public )e SC incr easiP * dren was reported to be steadily. . ,-Vcil On June 21, the Rev - A ' j u cah 0 ? liams, chairman of the committee for the Cong- css Equality in Kansas City, nV jo\f ; that CORE would stage a demonstration at the firs of the board of education. jj^t '■)_ The Rev. Mr. Williams sal demonstration was planned pU b» on the school board, an j ese gr^?, that a balanced system ^ p<> tion is needed in the K lie schools. , js a P 3 “What we are objecting ° tern of resegregation, e
