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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1963—PAGE 15
LOUISIANA
Negro Enrollment With Whites Is Tripled
N
NEW ORLEANS
egro enrollment in formerly
all-white elementary schools
tripled
in comparison with the
previous year as the Orleans
parish public schools settled into
their first year of operation with
s ingle non-racial attendance zones
for the first and second grades.
Enrollment of 14 Negro pupils at the
Benjamin Franklin High School (for
superior students) and one white stu
dent at a formerly all-Negro elementary
school brought a total of 11,001 white
and 1,800 Negro pupils into desegre
gated schools in Louisiana’s largest city.
(See accompanying table)
In Baton Rouge, the state capital, the
four high schools that accepted 28
Negro seniors early in September
showed normal increases in total en
rollment.
The school year began in both cities
without racial incidents at the desegre
gated schools. But later in the month,
Negro teen-agers, presumably includ
ing high school students, participated
in anti-discrimination demonstrations
at New Orleans City Hall. Eighty were
charged in juvenile court with disturb
ing the peace, resisting arrest and re
fusing to move on when ordered to do
so by police. They were released in
custody of their parents.
The other Louisiana communities
experienced similar occurrences.
In New Orleans, total school enroll
ment stood at 95,186 on Sept. 9, or
2,986 more than were registered on the
comparable date last year. Of the total,
58,077 pupils were Negro and 37,109
were white.
361 Negroes Enrolled
Twenty-six formerly all-white ele
mentary schools registered 347 Negro
children; one specialized high school,
formerly for whites only, enrolled 14
Negroes, and one Negro elementary
school reported one white pupil among
its 1,440 students. Last year 107 Negro
pupils attended 20 desegregated schools
with 7,522 white pupils.
Of the 361 Negro pupils in formerly
white schools this year, 16 are in the
fourth grade, 13 in the third, 125 in
the second and the remainder in the
first.
One additional white elementary
school, Gentilly Terrace, was scheduled
last year to receive a Negro pupil but
he did not report for classes nor did
any Negroes seek admission there this
year.
Louisiana Highlights
Negro registration in desegregated
Orleans Parish public schools rose
to 1,800, counting one formerly all-
Negro elementary school that en
rolled a single white student.
Four previously all-white Baton
Rouge high schools, where 28 Negro
pupils and 5,280 white pupils began
the new school year, reported normal
increases in enrollment.
Nicholls State College at Thibo-
daux accepted seven Negro freshmen
under court order, bringing to six the
number of state-supported colleges
and universities now desegregated in
Louisiana.
Ten candidates qualified to seek
the Democratic nomination for gov
ernor in a campaign with racial over
tones.
Negro high school students partici
pated in demonstrations in four Lou
isiana communities.
four Negroes.) The total enrollment in
the four schools was 5,280.
Later in the month Lindsey told the
parish PTA council that exemplary
conduct of Baton Rouge citizens during
the desegregation crisis helped pre
serve the public school system. He
praised members of the school board
and the principals of the four high
schools that received the Negro pupils.
Orleans Parochial Schools
Enrollment Increases
In the parochial schools of the
Archdiocese of New Orleans, covering
10 civil parishes and part of an 11th,
total registration rose to 74,283, com
pared with 73,399 recorded on Sept.
30, 1962.
This is the second year of desegrega
tion in the parochial schools, but dio-
cesean officials would not say how
many schools enrolled both white and
Negro pupils this year or how many
Community Action
Negroes were attending formerly all-
white Catholic schools.
There was known to be some in
crease in both, however.
On Sept. 18, Archbishop John Patrick
Cody announced that the parochial
school at Buras, damaged Aug. 27 by
a gasoline explosion, would be reopened
about the third week of October.
It was Our Lady of Good Harbor
School No. 2, located in the Mississippi
River village of Bums in Plaquemines
Parish, which experienced a complete
withdrawal of pupils last fall after the
school was desegregated. It has been
the target of gunfire on two occasions
during the year.
The school, with a capacity of 450
had a peak enrollment of 362 prior to
the scheduled desegregation last fall.
Thirty-eight white pupils reported on
opening day last year when five Negro
children registered and the number
dwindled to zero within the next week.
The school remained open all year
but no students attended.
Hammond Demonstrations
The first month of the new school
year passed calmly and on the trad
itional segregated basis in most other
communities of Louisiana. In Hammond,
however, 290 Negro pupils of the
Greenville Park High School cut classes
Sept. 5 to stage anti-segregation demon
strations and were suspended on Sept.
6. (See Community Action.)
In Shreveport on Sept. 23, Negro
high school pupils engaged in a bottle
throwing melee with city police at the
Booker T. Washington High School.
An ensuing march was dispersed by
tear gas. Sixteen Negro teenagers were
arrested and five were injured, none
seriously.
Biracial Classes Begin
At New Federal School
The first desegregated classes in
Central Louisiana began Sept. 9 at a
new school built and operated by the
federal government on the England Air
Force Base near Alexandria.
Enrollment totaled 253, but Richard
R. Crowder, supervisor and principal
of the new school, declined to say how
many were Negroes.
James M. Quigley, assistant secretary
of Health, Education and Welfare, pre
viously had told the Alexandria Daily
Town Talk in an interview that “about
a half a dozen or so” Negro children
were expected to attend.
The England Air Base school, built
at a cost of $239,932, is one of eight
schools erected by the federal depart
ment at military posts near communi
ties that have refused to desegregate
their public schools. Total cost of the
construction program was expected to
be $4,298,100 and the eight schools
were expected to house 4,620 children
of military personnel living on the
bases.
The school at England Air Base is
housed in a new 11-classroom structure,
has a faculty of 12 teachers and is
directed by a school board of 10 officers
and enlisted men. Its textbooks and
equipment are equivalent to those used
in other schools of Rapides Parish.
Crowder emphasized the importance
of meeting state standards so that the
pupils may transfer to other schools
in the state. The school offers instruc
tions in grades one through six. It has
a designed capacity of 330 pupils.
Board Bans Textbooks
With ‘Integrated’ Pictures
In Northeast Louisiana, at Bastrop,
the Morehouse Parish School Board
decided to end purchase of textbooks
produced by Macmillan Publishing Co.
on grounds the company had said that
in the future its texts would include
“integrated illustrations.”
The school board, said Supt. Ted
Wright, interpreted this to mean the
illustrations would show Negroes and
whites together.
Board members said Macmillan text
books presently in use would be kept
because they are not considered “of
fensive” by the board.
The board said it hoped its action
would result in the Macmillan company
being removed from the state’s ap
proved list of textbook publishers.
Baton Rouge Picket Halted
Police moved him on.
In the Colleges
Louisiana’s Sixth
Public-Supported
College Desegregates
The sixth of Louisiana’s 10 public-
supported formerly white colleges was
desegregated Sept. 17.
Francis T. Nicholls State College at
Thibodaux, acting under orders of the
U.S. District Court at New Orleans,
registered seven Negro freshmen. (See
Legal Action.)
The four male and three female Ne
gro students began classes Sept. 18
without incident. Vernon F. Galliano,
president of the state institution, said
there were no student demonstrations
or disciplinary problems attendant upon
the Negro registration and that none
was expected.
The college, located in the Teche
bayou country of south central Louisi
ana, last year enrolled 1,236 students.
College registration figures were not
all reported at the end of the month.
However, preliminary figures from
(See LOUISIANA, Page 19)
Negro Students Demonstrate in Four Cities
Enrollment in the 27 formerly a
white schools as of Sept. 9 totaled a
even 11,000, down from 11,563 as of th
comparable date last year. Some of th
decline, however, represented a shift c
Pupils to newly opened nearby school
In Baton Rouge, school enrollmer
* s of Sept. 25 was about 57,000. Schoc
u Pt. Lloyd Lindsey said when all re
are * n total is expected to b
• ’ o0 to 1,700 more than last year. Be
will be about 1,000 fewer tha
n 'cipated. Negroes constitute 39 pe
cent of the total.
Lindsey said the first month of school
Proceeded without incident.
hi'>vi lr0 'I ments * n f° ur desegregated
o schools as of Sept. 7 were Baton
„ ^gh, 1,547 (including 14 Ne-
cluHi Robert E. Lee High, 931 (in-
Rlgh^i ^° Ur Negroes); Glen Oaks
and t (including six Negroes);
strouma High, 1,673 (including
Hundreds of Negro high school stu
dents participated in demonstrations in
four Louisiana communities during
September.
In New Orleans, as many as 8,000 by
police estimate participated in a march
on City Hall on the night of Sept. 30
to present grievances to city officials.
Negro leaders estimated the turnout at
10,000.
After an orderly march to the civic
center, leaders of the demonstration
read a list of demands including faster
desegregation of the public schools.
Said the Rev. Avery Alexander, presi
dent of the Consumers’ League of
Greater New Orleans “we will not be
satisfied with token integration.”
Mayor Victor Schiro and the city
council were not at the City Hall to
receive the demands. They said city
business is conducted during regularly
scheduled hours and that they will not
deal with crowds designed to intimi
date.
The New Orleans demonstrations be
gan Sept. 19 when about 150 Negro
youths marched in orderly fashion and
sang on the sidewalks in front of the
City Hall and State Supreme Court
building at the Civic Center. The next
afternoon, another gathering appeared
in front of the city offices.
After police sought unsuccessfully to
enforce a limit of numbers of pickets,
the students were loaded into cars and
taken away. Twenty-one adults and 62
juveniles, all Negroes, were booked for
disturbing the peace and refusing to
move on. Eight pickets were left at the
scene.
Some demonstrations continued and
on Sept. 25, 23 Negroes and one white
person were arrested on similar charges.
Meanwhile, Schiro denied charges by
Negro leaders that he had reneged on
promises to them.
First Negro Pupil and His Father
Al Gayarre School in New Orleans.
Shreveport Incidents
In Shreveport, Negro students clashed
with police in several days of outbursts
that began with a “Birmingham memo
rial” rally at a Negro church Sept. 22,
held despite the denial of a parade per
mit by Commissioner of Safety George
D’Artois.
The following day, students continued
the demonstration, from 50 to 80 of
them starting a march down Milam
street from the Booker T. Washington
High School. Police dispersed the march
with tear gas.
Commissioner D’Artois led police to
the school where they were jeered and
booed. The students retreated into the
school. As police moved to enter the
building, they were pelted with pop
bottles and other objects.
Order was restored when police with
drew at the urging of Principal R. H.
Brown.
Fifteen Negro teenagers and one
adult were arrested. Five teenagers
were injured, none seriously, in the
melee.
Still another outburst flared up the
next day, as 200 pupils of the J. S.
Clarke Junior High School congregated.
Rocks were thrown at passing cars,
police and the assistant principal. Two
Negro policemen at the scene fired
shots over the heads of the crowd to
break up the milling throng on the
schoolground.
The school faculty again restored
order after police agreed to withdrew
a couple of blocks away at the request
of Caddo Parish School Supt. W. C.
Johns.
Protest at Hammond
At Hammond, earlier in the month,
200 students of the Greenville Park
High School cut classes to parade to city
hall, demanding an end to segregation.
Suspended for a week by Principal
Manley Youngblood, the pupils picketed
the school next day protesting their
suspension.
Representatives of the Congress of
Racial Equality were in Hammond but
denied having any part in the demon
stration. They identified Herbert Brown
Jr., a senior, as the leader and organizer
of the march.
On Sept. 10, Mayor John C. Morrison
agreed to formation of a 16-member
biracial committee in return for an end
to demonstration. The Hammond Com
mission Council on Sept. 17 adopted a
resolution setting up the group to be
known as the committee on human re
lations and named eight white and
eight Negro leaders to it.
On Sept. 11, a group calling itself the
Association for the Preservation of Con
stitutional Government was formed to
oppose the establishment of a biracial
committee and on Sept. 19 proposed the
recall of Mayor Morrison for his role
in proposing it.
“We will try to stop the biracial com
mittee,” said APGG President T. J.
Sledge, “because we feel we shouldn’t
bargain. Actually we have nothing to
give them.”
In Plaquemines, the little river city
near Baton Rouge, where racial demon
strations have been going on inter
mittently since July, Negro students
staged a schoolground demonstration
in protest against the dismissal of a
lunchroom worker who was arrested in
one of the previous demonstrations.
Some 500 students of the Iberville High
School boycotted the 18-cent noon meal
in the school lunchroom.
Meanwhile, proceedings continued in
both state and federal courts to decide
whether the Congress of Racial Equal
ity should be permitted to conduct pro
test demonstrations in Plaquemines.
Students Run from Tear Gas
At Shreveport’s Booker T. Washington High School.