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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—AUGUST, 1963—PAGE 13
WEST VIRGINIA
NAACP Sees
Action Plan
After Meeting
CHARLESTON
A major decision on future
courses of action was sched
uled to be made this month by the
National Association of Colored
People at a mass meeting in West
Virginia’s southern-most city,
Bluefield, according to the Rev.
C. Anderson Davis, state presi
dent.
The Rev. Mr. Davis said the NAACP
may reopen its offensive in the field
of public education, particularly in the
southern coalfield counties of McDow
ell, Mercer and Raleigh.
The decision reached at the meeting
on Aug. 2, he said, probably would
take one of three courses:
• There may be demonstrations by
NAACP members and sympathizers in
various West Virginia communities.
• NAACP representatives may be
asked to meet with boards of education
on the school desegregation problem.
• Action heretofore begun in the
federal courts may be pressed.
McDowell County probably has the
greatest school segregation problem in
West Virginia, the NAACP president
asserted. McDowell is a coal mining
county on the Virginia border.
The same conditions that exist there,
he continued also are found to a lesser
Florida
(Continued From Page 11)
in a smaller county. St. Johns, of which
St, Augustine, the nation’s oldest city,
is the seat, ranks 20th in population
in the state.
Schoolmen
Dade’s Board
Has No Request
For Transfers
For the first time since the Supreme
Court desegregation ruling in 1954, the
Dade County school board had no
transfer applications involving a ques
tion of race to pass on at its July
Meeting,
„ Th e board recently announced a
completely integrated” system had
"^n achieved. As many as 3,500 Ne-
Sr°es will attend classes with whites
a about 32 schools next fall.
★ ★ ★
( Jolusia County, which is under a
y er y court order to desegregate
, ’ a PP r °ved four out of seven
PPications from Negroes to attend
hlte schools this fall.
three of the cases involved
Wader. who are covered by the
?rad ° rc * er ' ^he others were in higher
es - Two of these were approved.
-harlott
★ ★ ★
e Starts
Ability Study
feasibi] ? tte County is engaged in a
18 jT p ■ s tudy to determine whether
^boof r ° eS ^tending the Dunbar High
be a _ m nei ghboring Lee County shall
high y^Fted in the all-white Charlotte
“ txhool at Punta Gorda.
were transported to
year Utl j gr ° high school by bus last
rapg e er a special intercounty ar-
kirted ei V'. Charlotte County trans-
'-re a , w hite students from the same
^ols ^ Sarasota County to
“sa So , etion °f the new Charlotte
frobw brought up the racial
° 1 ' ^ ''dll begin classes next
l0t and\ Ut . so ^ ar °nly the white jun
Sighed 6Ill0r high students have been
stud y> school board
to _ ’ . Ainger said an alternate
»****lv k 6 l° r the Negro students
. Shothp. using portable facilities
^'hfactorv ^ 6 ^ ro s °hool would not be
“w e y ‘
Sts to e , 15u Pposed to educate the stu-
Jn ^id a * e *?ble to face the future,”
% 22 Hg school Ivtard ltoorincf
f^Per can we give
Nation by defying
Nling a y f bilU y study will include a
^egatoa P , Ublic attitudes toward a
ed high school.
school board hearing
them a
a federal
l
West Virginia Highlights
The NAACP planned a mass meet
ing to determine future courses of
action on school desegregation.
Gov. W. W. Barron suggested at
the National Governors Conference
in Miami, Fla., that other states look
to West Virginia for guidance in solv
ing their school and related civil
rights problems.
One state-maintained college, Poto
mac State, has included questions on
race and religion in entrance ap
plications, according to the director
of the State Human Rights Com
mission.
degree in neighboring Mercer and
Raleigh counties.
The NAACP brought suit in Southern
District Federal Court to begin the de
segregation of the public schools, and
the process was started without the
suits going to trial.
In pre-trial conferences, the NAACP
and boards of education agreed to a
voluntary desegregation program.
The NAACP has contended for more
than a year, however, that the spirit of
the plan has not been carried out by
school authorities in the three counties.
District Lines Criticised
According to the Rev. Mr. Davis,
district lines have been set up that ap
ply only to Negroes who, he said, must
go to schools in their districts. White
children, he charged, may attend the
school of their choice.
School authorities in the three coun
ties have denied the charge.
The NAACP already has asked that
a suit in Raleigh County be reopened,
but Federal Judge John A. Field has
not set it for trial.
The Rev. Mr. Davis also charged that
discrimination exists in all parts of the
state against Negro school teachers. He
indicated that demonstrations may fan
out into counties other than McDowell,
Mercer and Raleigh.
Negro teachers and principals have
not pushed desegregation in their re
spective counties for fear of losing
their jobs, the Negro leader contended.
He said he is sending letters to
NAACP leaders in various counties
asking them to confer with school
authorities on Negro pupil and teacher
problems.
Little Official Reaction
Such threats of organized racial action
in West Virginia have aroused little or
no official reaction in top government
circles.
Howard W. McKinney, executive
director of the State Human Rights
Commission, suggested that “demon
strations might be inevitable if there is
not proper community response to civil
rights problems.”
A spokesman for Gov. W. W. Barron
said, however, “We have no fears nor
apprehensions, although we’ll of course
watch such things closely if they de
velop.” He also made it clear that “any
one—white or Negro—will be dealt
with firmly but fairly and tactfully if
he becomes responsible for a demon
stration improperly getting out of
hand.”
The Barron spokesman said that he
knew of no area in the state where a
demonstration could be staged “for any
really sound reason—or with any signi
ficant objectives.”
McKinney said he had no reason to
anticipate any demonstration at any
specific point or time. “I’ve just heard
rumblings that they are coming,” he
declared.
Negro leaders launched boycotts of
supermarkets and a newspaper in Blue-
field during the fourth week in July,
and said there would be demonstrations
to remove other “pockets of segrega
tion” in such fields as employment and
schools.
Student Demonstration
College students demonstrated July
27 at a restaurant in Huntington as a
part of a continuing effort to open
places where Marshall University stu
dents assemble.
McKinney was asked what role
the Human Rights Commission, set up
by the 1961 Legislature as an executive
arm of the government, would play
in event of widespread demonstrations.
He said:
“I think we would have a responsi
bility to be there (at demonstrations)
as something of a third party.
“We would try to bring the people
together, to keep communications be
tween the groups involved open. I
don’t think the commission would
MARYLAND
School Officials From 9 Cities
Attend Parley At Baltimore
(Continued From Page 12)
predominantly Negro. The two new
centers will be in predominantly Negro
schools. The expansion was planned
before criticism of desegregation and
of inequalities in Negro schooling
arose.
Under Survey
More Negroes Due
To Attend Schools
With White Pupils
Additional Negroes will be attending
formerly all-white schools in almost all
the Maryland school districts which pre
viously have had some Negroes attend
ing schools with white pupils, according
to a continuing survey of desegregation
prospects by Southern School News.
At last reports no Negro transfer re
quests had been received in the three
Eastern Shore districts which are de
segregated in principle but in the past
half-dozen years have not had any
Negro applicants.
The most substantial change in terms
of policy is a decision in Wicomico
County to extend the assignment of
Negro children in white schools to an
additional three elementary schools and
the seventh and eighth grades of two
secondary schools. Between 75 and 100
Negroes are affected on the elementary
level, and about 25 in the junior-high
grades.
Located on the Eastern Shore im
mediately to the east of Dorchester
County, Wicomico until last year had
a policy of voluntary desegregation and
no Negro applicants. Its school officials
last summer inaugurated a new policy
of assigning Negro pupils in the area of
Salisbury (the county’s principal city)
to white schools nearer their homes,
giving them the opition of applying to
to remain in the Negro school if they
did not want to be transferred.
Last year, 37 out of 75 to 100 af
fected Negro pupils accepted the trans
fer to three previously all-white ele
mentary schools. This September, the
remainder of those children will have
the same option once again, as the pol
icy is extended upward to take in the
first two secondary grades and extend
ed outward from Salisbury to take in
three additional elementary schools.
Other district developments not pre
viously reported in Southern School
News include these:
• Calvert County in Southern Mary
land has approved the transfer of four
Negro students to predominantly white
Calvert Senior High School. The county
had its first Negroes in classes with
white students last year when three
entered the same school without serious
or unusual incidents.
• Washington County in Western
Maryland will open schools in Sep
tember without a fifth grade at the
North Street School in Hagerstown,
which formerly served all the county’s
Negroes with grades one through 12
The school is gradually being closed
out, with the sixth grade added last
year to the secondary grades previously
eliminated. The change this year will
shift 30 fifth-graders to a predominantly
white school. In addition, the attend
ance area of the Negro school is being
narrowed, so that another 28 Negro
pupils will go to the same school as
the fifth-graders.
either encourage or discourage a pro
test demonstration.
“But I think we would certainly rec
ognize the legitimate nature of a pro
test when all efforts to reach an un
derstanding through negotiations have
failed.”
Miscellaneous
Charleston Renews
Negro Job Drive
A new effort in Charleston, West Vir
ginia’s largest city, to find jobs for Ne
gro graduates was started July 26 by
the local NAACP branch.
¥ ¥ ¥
State Human Rights Commission Di
rector Howard W. McKinney said on
July 17 that a new survey of college
entrance applications showed questions
as to race, religion and national origin
at one state-maintained institution, Po
tomac State College.
• Worchester County’s Board of Edu
cation has appointed three biracial
committees which are planning to meet
prior to the opening of schools. The
county is one of three in Maryland
which is desegregated in principle but
has lacked Negro applicants. It is an
Eastern Shore county.
Another Eastern Shore county has
received and approved some Negro
transfers requests but sought no an
nouncement until after schools opened.
In The Colleges
School of Medicine
Accepts U. S. Negro
For First Time
The first American Negro is to enter
the John Hopkins University school
of medicine in September. He is Robert
L. Gamble, 22, of Charleston, W. Va.,
who was graduated magna cum laude
from Howard University in June. Last
year, the school had its first Negro of
any nationality, a student from Kenya.
The admission was announced in July
by the National Medical Fellowships,
Inc., an agency of the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, which said that other
scholarship recipients included two
American Negroes who would be the
first of their race in the medical schools
of Duke and Emory universities in
North Carolina and Georgia respec
tively.
The dean of the Hopkins medical
school, Dr. Thomas B. Turner, described
Gamble as an “outstanding” student
who had been selected last December
as one of 62 medical students out of
748 applicants. Dean Turner added:
“The Johns Hopkins University has
never had discriminatory restrictions
of any kind in its admissions policies
for any of its schools. Admission to the
university is based solely on the candi
date’s academic potential as judged by
various admissions committees.”
Since James Francis Nabwangu of
Kenya entered the medical school under
a five-year program and Gamble enters
as a four-year student, they will be in
the same graduating class. “We are
pleased to have them with us,” Dr.
Turner said.
Schoolmen
Apprenticeship Plan
Studied for Removal
Of Racial Exclusion
The administrative staff of the vo
cational training section of the Balti
more school system was working in
July to iron out the policies and pro
cedures that would enforce a decision
to bar from the schools any apprentice
ship program excluding Negroes.
The decision was announced by Supt.
George B. Brain, who said an appren
ticeship program either would admit
Negroes or “the school facilities will
not be available.”
Dr. Brain said he was following
President Kennedy’s executive order of
June 4 on apprenticeship programs. He
explained that previously the federal
laws and regulations on aid to ap
prenticeship programs and other vo
cational training had been so eompli-
What They Say
cated that “elimination of a course
would have jeopardized the entire ap
prenticeship program.”
The apprenticeship programs are pre
pared in co-ooperation with unions and
management to give apprentices two
evenings a week of mathematics, read
ing blueprints, applied sciences, code
interpretations and other courses relat
ed to their fields of training. William
G. Hucksoll, director of vocational edu
cation, said that in the past school
year 144 to 160 hours of school train
ing was given to some 1,200 appren
tices.
Summer Discussions
The summer is the customary time
for the vocational staff to work with
union and management representatives
to determine how many and which type
of courses are to be given in the fall
in conjunction with a variety of ap
prenticeships. This summer, the dis
cussions include establishment of ap
prenticeship requirements and a pro
cedure under which the Maryland
Department of Education is to certify
bona fide candidates.
“Any time we get knowledge that a
person otherwise qualified was turned
down because of his race,” Dr. Brain
said, “Then we will act.”
Charges of racial restrictions in ap
prenticeship programs, particularly in
the building trades, have been made
repeatedly by Baltimore and Maryland
civil-rights groups in the past several
years. The alleged barriers to Negro
entrance into the craft trades more re
cently have been under investigation
by the Baltimore Equal Opportunity
Commission and the Maryland Advisory
Committee to the United States Civil
Rights Commission.
Miscellaneous
Tutoring Program
Conducted Quietly
Of the half-dozen civil-rights groups
at work in Maryland, the one with the
quietest program of the current sum
mer has been the Baltimore branch of
the Northern Student Movement. About
75 high-school and college students in
July began a tutoring program for Ne
groes, of whom there were 100 in
terested from the outset.
Except for a small, nominally paid
staff, most of the tutors were volunteers
drawn from the ranks of students home
for the summer. Their aim was to help
advance the Negro’s cause by providing
additional educational opportunities for
Negro high school students in depressed
areas. One newspaper account quoted a
white leader as saying that their ap
proach was “conservative” and a white
coed tutor as saying, “I feel very
strongly about the race question. This
is something I can do, a beginning.”
The tutoring group set up their school
in a parish house deep in the inner
city and was intent not only on pro
viding scholastic aid but also on pro
viding Negro teen-agers in blighted
areas with fresh incentive to tackle not
only their studies but their environ
ment as well. Extracurricular projects
included dramatics, a newspaper and
neighborhood improvements. The pro
gram thus incorporated elements of an
old-style settlement house and a mod
em domestic peace corps.
Barron Cites State’s Example
Gov. W. W. Barron suggested to the
National Governors’ Conference in
Miami Beach, Fla., July 23 that other
states look to West Virginia for guid
ance in solving their school and related
civil rights problems.
“West Virginia is a prime example
of how integration can be achieved
without major difficulty,” he said, “We
have moved forward steadily and
peacefully in an atmosphere of dignity
and mutual respect.”
His observations came during a two-
hour discussion of the national civil
rights problem. He voted with the
majority on throwing the civil rights
issue to the conference executive com
mittee for study and action.
Barron later was named to the execu
tive committee for a one-year term.
The governor noted during his brief
remarks to the conference that deseg
regation at the university level had be
gun in West Virginia before the 1954
Supreme Court opinion, and desegre
gation of the public schools was carried
out “expeditiously” after 1954.
“Today, we have no nonintegrated
counties in our state,” he said. “Day
by day, more and more places of pub
lic accommodations are providing equal
service to all citizens.”
Barron pointed also to the establish
ment by his administration of a State
Human Rights Commission and an
executive order calling a halt to dis
crimination in state employment.
“This is our record,” he concluded,
“Both as govemon and as a private
citizen I am extremely proud of it. I
commend to your attention West Vir
ginia’s story of quiet and orderly pro
gress in this vital field of human en
deavor.”