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PAGE 12—AUGUST, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MARYLAND
School Officials of 9 Cities Hold Conference in Baltimore
(Continued From Page 1)
Maryland state superintendent of
schools.
Other participants were to be con
sultants from the Justice Department,
the Department of Health, Education
and Welfare, the U.S. Office of Educa
tion, the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights and the Housing and Home Fi
nance Agency. (The presence of the
latter agency reflects the opinion ex
pressed by some members of the Bal
timore school board that the continued
existence of all-white and all-Negro
schools reflects a housing rather than
an educational problem.)
Private Sessions
Scheduled as private sessions to as
sure “maximum freedom of discussion,”
the conference also was to include the
participation of representatives of the
NAACP, Urban League and Congress
of Racial Equality.
Dr. Brain said the conference was
not intended to mediate various local
disputes or to select “easy and sweeping
solutions.” He was hopeful that it
would produce “some clear-cut guide
lines.”
The agenda called for discussion of
employment, housing and other factors
related to racial distribution as well as
the role of the schools. Educational
topics were to range from the legal
responsibilities of the schools to the
cost of remedies for de facto segrega
tion.
Schoolmen
Baltimore Action
On Part-time Plan
Opposed by Negroes
After several weeks of comparative
calm in Baltimore, the school desegre
gation quarrel boiled up again at the
end of July, with one Negro leader
accusing the school administration of
“fraud” and a group of pickets dem
onstrating for two hours while the
Board of School Commissioners met
and approved Supt. George B. Brain’s
plan to reduce part-time classes.
NAACP leaders and representatives
of the parents’ group which began the
attack on school race policies (SSN,
April, May, June, July) met with the
board on July 30. The closed-door meet
ing was occasionally stormy, and the de
segregationists pressed their demand
that the board adopt a policy statement
“recognizing the educational undesir
ability of public school segregation in
fact, and unequivocally committing the
board to achieving maximum desegre
gation in the public schools.”
But their bitterest complaint against
the schools was a charge that the plan
to reduce part-time classes was itself
racially discriminatory.
Both the NAACP and the biracial
parents group had called for what they
considered an equitable distribution of
the incidence of part-time instruction,
under which two classes use the same
classroom each day, giving the children
four hours of school (morning or
afternoon) instead of the normal five
hours.
Older Areas
Overcrowding and the resultant part-
time shifts are most common in the
old residential areas of Baltimore, now
predominantly Negro-populated. The
NAACP listed the redistribution of
children on part-time as one of three
steps the Baltimore schools would have
to take by Sept. 1 to avoid litigation
and demonstrations.
In mid-July, school officials released
tentative plans to transport about 4,700
children out of overcrowded schools
to about 40 less-crowded schools and
to set up between 70 and 80 new port
able classrooms. In addition to 46 class
rooms in seven schools that were used
in the past year to house the overflow
from other schools, officials had found
88 additional rooms (some undersized)
in 34 other schools that could be made
available.
Dr. Brain said that the additional
classroom space was not “newly dis
covered” and would have been used
before this, “but we didn’t have trans
portation to take advantage of all the
opportunities last year.” The new ar
rangements are made possible by a
school board authorization in June to
lease or purchase as many buses as
needed to get children off part-time
and also to purchase up to 100 addi
tional portable classrooms.
The extent to which the arrange
ments would get the bulk of Baltimore
pupils off part-time was said to be de
pendent in large part on how well the
plans were received by the affected
Maryland Highlights
Top school officials of nine north
ern and border cities were to meet
in Baltimore Aug. 5-7 to discuss
mutual problems of de facto segrega
tion.
Baltimore acted to meet NAACP
and parental criticism of overcrowded
Negro schools with an extensive
transportation plan. A quarrel arose
and pickets demonstrated.
Assurance of faster school deseg
regation was a decisive factor in
a peaceful settlement for Cambridge.
Additional desegregation was an
nounced in three Maryland districts.
The first American Negro has been
accepted at the Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine.
Apprenticeship programs are to be
barred from Baltimore vocational
schools if racial discrimination is
found.
The experimental Baltimore pro
gram to give pre-school training to
“culturally deprived” white and Ne
gro children was to be doubled in
size in September.
Volunteers have served as summer
tutors of Negro high school students
in a Baltimore adjunct to the civil-
rights movement.
pupils and their parents. In some in
stances, the plans called for long hauls
to get children out of the inner city
into less-crowded neighborhood schools.
Principals were delegated to sound
out parents and later in July Dr. Brain
reported on a preliminary basis that
80 to 90 per cent of the parents ap
proved the arrangements.
At the same time, Dr. Brain said that
delays in getting new buses and the
portable classrooms (most of which
were to be set up in the play yards of
the overcrowded schools) would delay
the full effectiveness of the plans until
Nov. 1, although some relief would be
provided when schools opened.
By the November date, he said, all
pupils could be off part-time who ac
cepted the arrangements for them. Any
part-time classes remaining would be
Community Action
Cambridge
The agreement to end demonstra
tions in racially riven Cambridge,
signed in the offices of U.S. Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy on July 23,
turned to a significant extent on the
“firm assurances” that school desegre
gation would be accelerated in Sep
tember.
The other points to which white
Cambridge leaders agreed, in return
for an indefinite cessation of Negro
demonstrations, previously had been
conceded at one time or another by
Cambridge officials during the disturb
ances that kept the Maryland National
Guard on emergency duty from June
14 onward, except for one brief with
drawal.
The peace settlement was signed on
the white side by three Cambridge city
officials, the Maryland attorney general
and an aide to Gov. Millard Tawes.
The four-page agreement was signed
at noon on July 23 after negotiations
in Washington had run from 3 p.m.
until midnight the previous day. The
section affecting schools said:
“Firm assurances were received to
day that desegregation of the first four
grades in the Dorchester County school
system will be accomplished by the
opening of the school year, September,
1963 [upper grades previously had been
desegregated], and the applications for
admission to any grade in any school
within the Dorchester County school
system are now ready to be received
and processed without regard to race,
creed or color.”
Meeting Held
The firm assurances resulted from
a meeting that morning of the Dor
chester County Board of Education at
which it was agreed to add the first
four grades to those previously deseg
regated under a descending stairstep
plan. The Cambridge schools are not
under the jurisdiction of city officials
but are part of a county system. The
school action came abruptly; county
and state school officials the previous
week had denied to press representa-
by “parental choice rather than the
failure of the school system.”
Last year, more than 11,000 children
were sharing classrooms on a part-
time basis, which means that relief
required moving out 5,500.
Mrs. Juanita Jackson Mitchell, sec
retary of the legal redress committee
of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP,
charged after the meeting that the
school administration was “pulling a
fraud on the school board.” She said
“the indisputable conclusion is that
there has been a deliberate perpetua
tion of school segregation by adminis
trative action.”
Miss June Shagaloff, special assistant
for education in the NAACP’s national
(New York) office, added that segre
gation in Baltimore schools is “not just
a question of schools reflecting neigh
borhood patterns, but a question of to
what extent administrative practices
have taken advantage of basic neigh
borhood patterns to maintain segrega
tion.”
The next day, as pickets marched
and sang outside the school administra
tion building, Mrs. Mitchell distributed
a statement attacking the part-time
plan and charging:
Children in Early School Admissions Project
The size will be doubled.
Charges Made
“The plan in some instances calls
for transferring children from over
crowded Negro schools to other Negro
schools, bypassing underutilized white
schools. Second, the plan calls for port
able units at Negro schools although
there are more than 134 empty class
rooms at white schools that are not
being used to relieve overcrowding.”
(She said she had got the number 134
from Dr. Brain.)
Inside the board meeting, Dr. Brain
was closely questioned on this charge
by J. Percy Bond, one of the board’s
two Negro members. Dr. Brain said in
fact “about 135” empty classrooms
would be used to receive pupils trans
ported from overcrowded schools on
part-time schedules.
Dr. Brain said flatly that all vacant
classrooms were to be used, and that
schools throughout the city were being
limited to one room for activities like
music, art or speech to “share the bur
den” of reducing part-time classes.
He challenged Mrs. Mitchell to find
any additional vacant classrooms.
The board, which approved the gen
eral scheme for reducing part-time
classes at its June 19 meeting, heard
the cost at the July 31 session. Buying
and renting buses is expected to cost
$251,000, while 82 portable classrooms
will cost $820,000 and site preparation,
furniture, equipment and supplies will
add another $305,000, for a total of
$1,376,000.
‘Just The Beginning’
Outside the meeting, about 25 dem
onstrators paraded. Mrs. Mitchell and
Miss Shagaloff led the protest and
joined the line. Mrs. Mitchell warned
“this is just the beginning” and said
other demonstrations would be held.
The pickets, who included several
children and clergymen, carried signs
proclaiming “No Transportation For
Segregation,” “80% of Baltimore’s
Schools Are Jim Crow” and “Baltimore,
Birmingham and Bigotry—3 of a Kind.”
According to a news article in the
Pact Speeds Schools
tives that changes were under way.
The agreement also came after Mrs.
Gloria Richardson, chairman of the
Cambridge Nonviolent Action Com
mittee, had declined a request to meet
on July 17 with a county school com
mittee to discuss desegregation plans.
This was a factor in the impression that
Cambridge Negroes were more con
cerned with other points in their pro
gram, notably the desegregation of
places of public accommodation.
However, Gov. Tawes said July 19 in
a television address on the Cambride
situation, “Steps have been taken to
desegregate the remaining four grades,
a move that will completely integrate
the entire school system of Dorchester
County.”
Dorchester County schools had been
desegregated under a grade-a-year
plan from the 12th grade downward
to the fifth. The agreement reached in
Washington by white and Negro spokes
man was to add the first four grades
to the plan, making all grades of white
schools open to Negro transfers.
Last year was the first since the de
segregation started that Negro transfer
requests were received. The five ap
plications were approved, but three of
the Negroes withdrew from a white
high school in Cambridge after the first
two weeks. Three additional transfers
had been approved this summer prior
to the Washington settlement.
‘Without Prejudice’
On July 2, the Maryland Board of
Education had taken up a request by
Mrs. Richardson on behalf of her group
to hear the Negro demand for faster
desegregation. The state board said it
turned down the request for a hearing
“without prejudice” on the ground that
Mrs. Richardson first would have to
appear before her local county school
board to provide a basis for appeal. It
subsequently developed that the board
had made it evident to county school
officials that the board was holding the
case open in anticipation of local action.
Mrs. Richardson did not thereupon
seek out a local school board hearing,
and the school issue was not in the news
during the period of acute hostilities
between the withdrawal of the Mary
land Guard on July 8 and its reinser
tion to restore order on July 12. But on
July 15 Mrs. Richardson said that the
Negroes’ five-point program remained
the same and under the heading of
schools included both “complete deseg
regation” and the revision of school bus
routes to take Negro children to schools
nearer their homes.
In the same interview, Mrs. Richard
son said a hearing before the state
board had been scheduled for August
and that she would not accept the in
vitation to meet with the local school
desegregation committee on July 17. “I
don’t see that anything can be ac
complished outside the state hearing,”
she was reported as saying.
Not Normally At Issue
On the local county level, no school
desegregation issue formally was before
the Dorchester County Board of Edu
cation up to the time of the peace
agreement, since no transfer applica
tions had been denied, no parental
complaints had been filed, and the Cam
bridge Nonviolent Action Committee
had not appeared before the board with
its program.
The only public occasion on which
the issue was joined was in June when
representatives of the Maryland Com
mission on Interracial Problems and
Relations met with the county school
superintendent and the president of the
county school board and pleaded to no
apparent avail for accelerated deseg
regation. (SSN, July.)
Nevertheless, county school officials
in late June had reactivated the bi
racial citizens advisory committee that
had helped to set the original grade-a-
year plan in 1955. The advisory group
had held its second meeting just a week
prior to the July 23 action that opened
all grades to Negro transfers. Under
county policy there is no cutoff date
for transfer requests. Following the
agreement the Cambridge Nonviolent
Action Committee called upon Negro
parents to request transfers for their
children. The committee also was spon
soring a summer tutoring service for
Negro pupils.
Sun by Adam Clymer, who made a
study of the racial composition in the
sending and receiving schools, the ex
tent of racial desegregation would be
increased by the plans.
Clymer reported that the plans called
for transporting about 1,350 children
from predominantly Negro schools to
schools which last year had from 90
to 100 per cent white enrollments. Con
versely, 455 children from predomi
nantly white schools were to be trans
ported to predominantly Negro schools
and another 140 offered transfers to
these same schools.
Clymer also found that about 1,100
pupils would be transported from one
predominantly Negro school to another,
while an additional 200 would be en
couraged to transfer to the same, less
crowded schools.
As To Promotions
Dr. Brain also produced a lengthy
answer to complaints by the Interde
nominational Ministers Alliance that
Negroes were discriminated against in
promotions (SSN, June). He insisted
that promotions were made fairly, and
added “No person should be assigned
to a position merely to demonstrate a
tolerant and democratic attitude.
At Dr. Brain’s suggestion, the board
voted to hire Dr. Willard S. Elsbree o
Teachers College, Columbia University,
as a consultant to review the systems
promotion policies and the ministers
charges. (The board had offered to see
an outside study when the ministers
appeared, but the clergymen reject
the idea.)
★ ★ ★
larly School Project
V> Be Twice as Large
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xmsored by the Baltimore P u
bools and financed in part by
ord Foundation, is to be doub
ze this September. ^
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>ecial needs of four- and five-> e ^
d “culturally deprived” children. ^
roject is to be conducted at
bools for 120 children instea
sst year’s two schools and 60 c 1 w
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iges of a limited home envir ° _j c h-
in be overcome by preschoo e
lent. Since the term “ cult ^g„ in
rived” refers mainly to c
ie blighted inner-city areas, m0 et
•e occupied in Baltimore for ar ^ C 'i'
irt by Negroes, the term has p ^ose
r reference to Negro chil ren
ck of motivation and
•ound makes schooling diffin -g.
When Baltimore’s school deseis,^
on policies were challenged m .
:e Early School Admissions by
as one of the programs c Jf .
ihool Board President LU * wef e
; evidence that city sc °° ngqiial
aking every effort to prov^ ^ t
lucational opportunities res ultii^
he educational problems
om rapid urbanization °t ^
ith children from areas o ei „
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The program was inaugura 0 n e
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fSee SCHOOL, Page W