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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—AUGUST, 1963—PAGE 17
TEXAS
Court Orders Longview, Bryan
To Start Desegregation This Fall
AUSTIN
F ederal judges ordered deseg
regation to start in the first
grade this fall at Longview and
Bryan, both of East Texas.
U.S. Dist. Judge Joe Sheehy rejected
a proposal by Longview’s board of
trustees to begin the change in Sep
tember, 1964, on a stairstep basis, and
ordered it to begin this fall. (Adams
v. Matthews, SSN, July and previous)
Judge Sheehy said his order will be
entered in August, to require that at
least the first grade be desegregated
next month and other grades on a
grade-a-year pattern. W. J. Durham of
Dallas, attorney for plaintiffs Robert L.
Adams Jr., Yvonne Adams and Thomas
Liese, complained that the judge’s rul
ing does not help his clients, who are
junior and senior high school students.
Longview has about 7,800 public
school students, including 28 per cent
Neeroes.
U.S. Judge Joe Ingraham, sitting at
Houston, ordered desegregatiton to
commence in September at Bryan,
about 100 miles northwest of Houston.
It has about 4,800 white and 1,400 Ne
gro students.
Nearby districts in each case also
plan to abandon segregation this fall.
Tyler ISD, 39 miles from Longview, is
desegregating by board action in Sep
tember. (See Schoolmen)
A&M Consolidated ISD is desegre
gating by federal court order entered
in September 1962, effective this fall.
(Washington v. Reidel, SSN, October,
1962)
The Texas Supreme Court turned
down an attempted appeal by George
town Independent School District.
(Kreger v. Board of Trustees, George
town ISD, SSN, July and previous)
This left in effect an intermediate
court order against the district spend
ing any of its new bond issue for
building segregated facilities. A U.S.
district court also has ordered grade-
3 -year desegregation to start at
Georgetown in 1964.
Schoolmen
Desegregation
Moves Quietly
Into ‘Hard-Core’
Desegregation moved during July
'nto the “hard-core” area of racial
s ® timen t in East Texas, where most
0 the state’s Negroes live. The changes
came without apparent difficulty.
Desegregation plans were announced
° begin in September for Tyler, in
, °, eas t Texas; Beaumont and Port
Arthur —
districts.
Southeast Texas, and other
b '
it
' I
j. by board action, Marshall pub-
S( L sc h°ols were ordered to begin de-
yea/* 011 * n ^ e Pt em ber, 1964. Last
, s district adjoining Louisiana
0 ‘ e d 3,970 white pupils and 3,970
“' e groes.
garte 6r S k° ar d ordered the kinder-
next n an d first grade desegregated
stairst m ° nth ’. an< d other grades on a
h a , basis afterward. The district
Ooo d'tXW Negroes among its 16,-
students.
*hite^ e + aUmont ’ ratio is about 9,500
9,50o S !° d-850 Negroes; Port Arthur,
Plan d' V i tes 4,875 Negroes. Both
in g , a - year desegregation start
le s fall in the lower grades.
n °Uno(ST Sation d° r this fall was an-
tricts- r> three Northeast Texas dis-
whit* y^nviHe, Hunt County, 4,000
A. 9 ®° I ^ e S ro pupils; Denison,
Ifsgroe ■ County ’ 4,200 white and 600
8?5 ’ an< l Decatur, Wise County,
In So 1 ^ and 35 Negroes,
it , I’ ex as, Gonzales annoimced
grade ^segregation in the 12th
Per y e continue downward a grade
"’hite _ ’ .“y board order. It has 1,750
Other ^ ^ Negr ° pU P ils -
'^greir *, as districts to be listed as
** a r a l° r the first time this fall,
^ho°j - °f action voluntarily by
Sha Uow=t ‘. 3 ’ delude New Deal and
r Dastla!?,) Lubbock County, Ranger
,i v C °unty, Goliad hr Go’liad
.Marlh d Bertram -
* s operated through the
We , The community 41
W6S t Of T _ 1
1> 'an'
Shreveport, La., has for
r ( v v Lid.j Ildo 1UI
•; c >tizen s • d - a biracial committee
'' r H Ln e i,,j eViewin g community prob-
,Cr K dln | raCe relations/"
°ple « ' Is. Walker said Marshall
° Utl ce rnen ? taking calmly” the an-
°f Prospective school de-
Texas Highlights
Federal courts ordered desegrega
tion in September at Longview and
Bryan public schools which, coupled
with voluntary action, raised the
total of desegregated Texas districts
to 224.
Desegregation was ordered to be
gin this fall in the East Texas “hard
core” area of segregation senti
ment—Beaumont, Port Arthur, Tyler,
Greenville, Denison, Decatur, and
Gonzales. Other districts also plan
ned initial desegregation when the
fall term opens.
Marshall, an East Texas commun
ity with approximately equal num
bers of white and Negro citizens,
announced that voluntary desegre
gation will start in September, 1964.
Boards at Houston and Dallas
dropped the “brother-sister” attend
ance rule which reduced desegrega
tion.
A Negro assistant administrator
was named at Houston, the first for
his race in that city. The city also
ordered a vocational high school de
segregated this fall.
Public schools in El Paso and
Odessa, West Texas, are using Ne
groes to teach non-Negro students.
Gov. John Connally reported that
more than half of all Negro pupils
in Texas will be in biracial school
districts by next month.
Six Negroes enrolled at Texa s
A&M College.
segregation, confident that the school
board is making “the best decisions for
our community and our children.”
The Marshall school board said it
will announce “in the near future” a
desegregation plan, starting in 1964,
modeled on that which Dallas put into
effect in 1961. Few Negroes have ap
plied for enrollment in desegregated
first and second grade classes at Dallas.
At Denison, an NAACP leader
charged the school board’s grade-a-
year plan is too slow. The Rev. C. H.
Turner said Negro pupils and teachers
should be assigned at all grade levels
on a non-discriminatory basis starting
immediately.
Hitchcock ISD in Galveston County
still pondered whether to join this fall
the desegregation movement which
covers most of the schools in that area.
It appointed a 12-member committee
composed equally of whites and Ne
groes to study the problem. The school
system has about 1,500 pupils, about
one-third of them Negroes.
Boards at Houston and Dallas an
noimced they will drop this fall the
so-called “brother-sister” rule which
Negro patrons have criticized. It re
quires all children in a family to at
tend segregated schools under the
grade-a-year desegregation system,
when any of the children had
enrolled originally in an all-Negro
school. The same rule applies to white
Political Action
pupils. Houston this fall will open its
first four grades on a biracial basis.
About 60 Negroes attended previous
ly all-white schools in Houston last
year, and a committee of Negroes re
ported that 44 others plan to seek
admission to desegregated schools there
this September.
★ ★ ★
First Negro Named
To High School Post
Ollie B. Harris, named as administra
tive assistant for curriculum to Supt.
John W. McFarland of Houston, became
the first Negro to be named to a high
school post in Texas. Mrs. Charles E.
White, Negro member of the Houston
school board, complained that the ac
tion was discriminatory—that the po
sition was created especially for a
Negro.
Harris has been principal of a Negro
elementary school in Houston. His new
job will pay $12,143 annually, a raise
of more than
$2,500 from his
former position.
Both he and his
wife, a supervisor,
have been em
ployed by the
Houston schools
for 16 years.
The 40-year-old
Harris told re
porters, “I see the
job as a challenge.
It’s something
new and I feel I have the vitality to
approach it. I think once the Negro
public gets to know the position a little
better they will accept it more gra
ciously.”
The administrative assistant will help
form the district’s curriculum for all
grades, edit instructional material, or
ganize in-service training for teachers,
and assist the superintendent in text
book selection.
★ ★ ★
The Houston school board ordered
vocational education courses at San
Jacinto High School desegregated
starting in September, for any instruc
tion not available to Negroes in the
city’s five all-Negro high schools.
★ ★ ★
A newspaper called attention to
the all-white restrictions on Dallas Vo
cational Schools, operated by the Dallas
Independent School District to furnish
some job-type skill to youngsters who
are planning to quit school before
graduation.
Last year, 364 teenage white youths
learned to be supermarket checkers,
home appliance repairmen, welders,
lathe operators, shoe repairmen, dry
cleaning plant workers, service station
attendants, auto repairmen and furni
ture repairmen.
“We can’t turn them out fast
enough,” said Principal Troy Bond con
cerning calls by employers for the
school’s trainees.
This is part of Dallas’ answer to the
problem of school dropouts. A Dallas
News reporter, Dennis Hoover, said
Pickets Outside Houston Board Meeting
They called “created” fob discriminatory.
that 50 per cent of the district’s Negro
pupils quit before graduating from high
school, compared to 22 per cent of the
white students.
Although 21 per cent of the school
district’s scholastic population is Ne
gro, they represented only five per cent
of the 2,000 taking vocational training
in Dallas last year.
One argument by school officials for
keeping the special vocational depart
ment for whites only is that most of
the calls by employers are for jobs to
be filled by white youngsters.
Clarence Laws, Dallas regional at
torney for the National Association for
Advancement of Colored People, said
legal aid will be given this fall to any
Negro student seeking to enroll in
Dallas Vocational School or Crozier
Technical High. He said training
offered to whites in these two is su
perior to the vocational education
available to Negroes through the Dallas
school system.
What They Say
Connally Cites
‘Tremendous’
Biracial Gains
Gov. John Connally told Texans in a
statewide telecast late in July that
“tremendous strides” have been made
in desegregation in the state, includ
ing public education.
He reported that more than 200 public
school districts “have taken steps toward
desegregation. Fifty-three per cent of
the Negro school
children in Texas
now live in dis
tricts which have
programs of de
segregation ac
tually in opera
tion. More dis
tricts are deseg
regating every
week.”
Sixteen of 21
senior colleges
and universities
in Texas are desegregated, said Con
nally; as have 26 of 33 tax-supported
CONNALLY
Biracial Housing Drive Urged
A. Maceo Smith, Federal Housing
Administration official from Dallas, said
Negroes need to consider greater de
segregation of housing.
“The schools are beginning to get
ahead of us (on desegregation),” Smith,
a Negro, told a meeting of United
Political Organization, a Negro action
group, meeting at Austin.
Smith said more Negroes should ap
ply to purchase homes in all-white
neighborhoods, which have been re
possessed by federal lending agencies.
“More of you should go,” he said.
“Moving into these areas is something
we should concern ourselves with. We
should avoid the evil of self-segrega
tion.”
Gov. John Connally and state and
national Democratic party leaders, also
were on the program.
The governor indirectly turned down
a plea by Negro leaders to issue a
proclamation for all state-licensed
business places, as well as tax sup
ported establishments, to abandon all
segregation practices. This was done
by Gov. Bert Combs of Kentucky.
Connally said Texas law gives him no
authority to prescribe which customers
a private firm shall serve.
Labor Chief Accused
Connally meanwhile accused Roy
Evans, secretary treasurer of the Texas
State AFL-CIO, with “irresponsible
actions . . . encouraging racial dem
onstrations in Texas at a time when
all citizens of good will are striving
(for peaceful desegregation) . . .”
“Evans and his AFL-CIO propagan
dists have now chosen to attempt to
influence this issue for purely person
al selfish gain. Should any racial un
rest or crisis now develop in Texas,
the officials of Texas State AFL-CIO
must take full credit.”
Evans suggested the demonstrations,
mainly to benefit Latin-Americans, in a
civil rights discussion meeting called
by President Hank Brown of the Texas
State AFL-CIO. An 18-member civil
rights committee was set up by the
labor group.
It outlined a program including non
discrimination in all employment, a
state collective bargaining law, a $1.25
per hour minimum wage act. Connal
ly ignored a request for an early
special session of the Legislature to
consider these proposals.
Other racial news in Texas politics
included:
• J. Phillip Crawford, 34, became the
first Negro ever appointed assistant
attorney general of Texas, by approval
of Attorney General Waggoner Carr. He
was an Austin lawyer, and an honor
graduate of the University of Texas law
school.
• In Galveston County, the NAACP
petitioned for 10 per cent of all county
government jobs to be given to Ne
groes, as well as removal of remaining
vestiges of segregatiton in tax-sup-
ported agencies.
• At Waco, Negro Realtor Van Pell
Evans, 52, indicated that he will run
for county commissioner, the first
member of his race to seek this politi
cal office in McLennan County in mod
em times.
junior colleges; “and others are pre
pared to do so.”
Connally gave his civil-rights report
before going to the National Governors
Conference at Miami Beach.
The governor reported further that
75 per cent of Texas’ restaurants serve
all citizens regardless of race, as do 80
per cent of all hotels in the state and
80 per cent of all theaters.
Connally took issue with President
Kennedy on proposed legislation to de
segregate all “public accommodations.”
The governor said;
“These provisions could carry poten
tial danger to the people of this state
. . . They would be laws which in my
judgment strike at the very founda
tion of one of our most cherished free
doms—the right to own and manage
private property ... I cannot accept
or support the proposition of violating
one person’s rights to bestow privi
leges on another person, regardless of
the color or race of either . . .”
Reception of Connally’s statement on
civil rights was said to be generally
favorable among Texans, judged by
responses to the Governor’s office.
The Houston Informer, a Negro
newspaper, gave a brief summary of
his remarks under a headline “Gov.
Opposes J.F.K.” Several Negroes were
among those publicly praising Connal
ly’s statement.
In the Colleges
6 Negroes Sign
For Texas A&M
Summer Session
Six Negroes, including two women,
were among 2,536 students registered
for Texas A&M College’s summer
session.
Two of the Negroes are graduate stu
dents and four are undergraduates.
The former all-male college started
admitting both Negroes and women
this summer. Women students have
been enrolled for summer school in
the past, but the new policy will per
mit them to attend also during the
regular term.
A survey by The Dallas News and
Texas Education Agency showed that
16 of the state’s 21 tax-supported senior
colleges have admitted all races alike
as have 26 of its 33 junior colleges. Five
other junior colleges were reported
willing to accept students on a non-
discriminatory basis, on application.
The survey indicated that private in
stitutions of higher learning also are
generally desegregated in Texas.
★ ★ ★
The name of a Negro, which hit
headlines seven years ago over an at
tempt to desegregate the University of
Alabama, made news in a different di
rection this summer. The former Au-
therine Lucy, now the wife of Baptist
Minister Hugh L. Foster of Silsbee,
gave birth to twins—a boy and a girl
—in a Houston hospital. Silsbee is near
Beaumont.
Mrs. Foster is now a housewife. She
was expelled from the University of
Alabama in 1963 on grounds that she
publicly charged, without proof, that
university authorities had conspired to
(See TEXAS, Page 18)