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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1963—PAGE 3
VIRGINIA
Negroes in
To Formal
RICHMOND
F our years without formal edu
cation ended for Prince Ed
ward County Negroes on Sept.
16 with the opening of schools
operated by the Prince Edward
Free School Association.
The association, created through the
co-operation of the federal, state and
local governments, began classes in
four former public school buildings.
Enrollment had exceeded 1,500 by the
end of the month.
It had been known that two white
children would attend the temporary
11-month schools, but two more
showed up on opening day. They were
Brenda Abernathy, 15, and her brother,
George, 8, children of Mr. and Mrs. J.
D. Abernathy of the Green Bay com
munity.
The Abernathy family moved to
Prince Edward County in June. They
live on a 63-acre farm about 15 miles
from Farmville, the county seat. They
moved to Prince Edward from Ports
mouth, Va., where the children at
tended desegregated schools. Three
other Abernathy children have finished
school.
White Children Attend
The other white children attending
classes with more than 1,500 Negroes
are Richard Moss, 17, son of Dr. and
Mrs. C. G. Gordon Moss, and Letitia
Tew, 7, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.
E. Tew. Dr. Moss is dean of Longwood
College, a state-supported institution
which primarily educates girls to be
school teachers. Tew is a tobacco
farmer.
Speaking at the opening session of
the new school system, Supt. Neil V.
Sullivan told the gathering:
‘This is our finest hour, but success
i depends on many things—my own
leadership, the ability of our teachers
to improvise, and above all on you
students.”
Citing the problem of dropouts, Dr.
Sullivan told the Negro youngsters:
“You were all lockouts, not dropouts.
You can now lead the way with 100
per cent attendance. Let’s hope that no
American child ever has to be idle as
far as education is concerned.”
Sees Settlement
Dr. Sullivan, who is on a year’s leave
from the East Williston, Long Island,
Y., school system, said he was con-
ndent public schools in Prince Edward
would be reopened in the fall of 1964.
ue said he had “been advised by
competent lawyers” that the Prince
WB< 1 case would be settled by then.
- asides speaking to the children, Dr.
ullivan led them in the singing of
America the Beautiful,” “Sweet Hour
Ihee” yer ” and “ My Fahh L °° ks Up t0
,A e opening assembly was held in
e R- R. Moton High School, the
ormer Negro public high school. Other
ools being used by the association
, °ugh lease from the county school
ar a, are the Mary E. Branch Schools
W° S i and ^ an d the Worsham School
°mham was formerly a white school.
f ortn e f° ur school buildings and 20
rent >!f Public-school buses are being
m °nth ^ assoc ' a ^ on f°r $2,800 a
Th
a s e s °bool system is being operated
^ n ° n -gradel one, with pupils able
Hal , ^ ress according to their individ
ual lp bes. Most of the teachers are
"'hit es 6S ’ kut there also are some
I
Vt
★ ★ ★
. 3 °0 White Children
,te nd Private School
t vSt r0Ximatel Y 1 ’ 300 Pr * * nce Edward
Vato Y white children returned to pri-
Ed\v ar j g L egate d cesses of the Prince
School Foundation,
and pa,*” R u estion which the school
'*'heth er r ° ns Wante d answered was
would s late-local tuition grants
'hen =ti- t ’ a * n become available to chil-
Wh etl en( hng the school.
1^59 “ e private system opened in
were available, but
^ c hinonH St - r ' Ct ' "ludge Oren R. Lewis of
' ; uuld n 0) . ruled that the grants
'°Ug as he used in Prince Edward as
■l^ined 1 e Public schools there re-
hubli c s 'j ° se b. In 1962 he ruled that
1)01 rera °°l s hr Prince Edward could
Stained Q closed while schools re-
-0n a Pen elsewhere in the state.
A^Uit n 1963, the U.S. Fourth
Lg ° Ur t °f Appeals overruled
he '"v* 5 ’ Primarily on the ground
s °uld have deferred acting
Prince Edward Return
Schools After 4 Years
Trustees of Prince Edward Free School Association
Dr. Robert P. Daniel, Dr. Fred C. Cole, Dr. F. G. D. Ribble, Dr. Thomas H. Hender
son, Colgate W. Darden Jr., Dr. Earl H. McClenney.
Virginia Highlights
Prince Edward County Negro chil
dren began their first formal school
ing since 1959 as more than 1,500
Negroes and four whites attended
classes of the new Free School As
sociation.
Surry County’s only white public
school remained closed as counsel
for seven Negroes who had been as
signed to the school sought unsuc
cessfully a court order to force the
school to reopen.
Twenty-three school districts were
scheduled to begin public school de
segregation for the first time, bring
ing to 55 (out of a state total of
130) the number of districts with
biracial classes.
in the case until the state courts had
considered the constitutional issues in
volved. The appeals court’s action pre
sumably validated tuition grants for
Prince Edward.
On Sept. 16, attorneys for Negro
plaintiffs in the case (Griffin v. Board
of Supervisors of Prince Edward
County), asked the Circuit Court to
stay its order pending an appeal to the
U.S. Supreme Court, but the circuit
judges turned down the request by the
same 2-to-l vote that they had over
ruled Judge Lewis.
The Negro lawyers than asked the
U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 20 to stay
the circuit tribunal’s order. The at
torneys said they planned to appeal
formally the whole case by Oct. 15 but
that meanwhile they wanted to pre
vent payment of tuition grants in
Prince Edward.
On Sept. 30 Associate Justice William
J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States
Supreme Court granted the stay asked
by Negro plaintiffs. The effect of this
was to reinstate—at least for the time
being—the district court’s ban on tuition
grants in Prince Edward.
So as the month of September ended,
parents of white children attending the
private segregated school system faced
the prospect of having to pay the tuition
costs out of their own pockets. Their
hope was that before the end of the
current school year the Circuit Court’s
decision upholding tuition grants might
somehow be reinstated.
★ ★ ★
The Prince Edward Board of Super
visors on Sept. 3 repealed the 1960
ordinance which allowed county citi
zens tax credit for money contributed
to the private school system.
The action was taken on advice of
counsel. The Fourth Circuit Court,
Legal Action
while generally upholding the county’s
position in the Griffin case, had de
clared that the tax credit system “ap
pears to be an indirect method of
channeling public funds to the [private
school] foundation.”
Schoolmen
23 More Districts
Are Desegregated
Twenty-four additional school dis
tricts were slated to begin racial de
segregation in public schools this fall.
This brings the total number of de
segregated districts to 55, out of the
state total of 130 (34 independent cities
and 96 counties).
It is estimated that 2,700 Negroes are
in schools with whites The total state
public school enrollment is estimated
by the State Department of Education
at 964,645 (728,259 white and 236,386
Negro). The vast majority of white
children in the state are in desegre
gated districts, as desegregation has oc
curred in all large centers of popula
tion.
★ ★ ★
More than half the white students of
Powhatan County are attending classes
this year in the private segregated
Huguenot Academy.
The academy expanded from four
grades last year to 12 this year after a
federal court ordered desegregation of
the county’s white public school. It has
an enrollment this year of about 550,
while about 430 whites remained in
the public school, along with 60 Ne
groes.
★ ★ ★
Most of the 2,700 Negro students of
Booker T. Washington High School,
Norfolk, marched to the school admin
istration building Sept. 19 to protest
what they said were overcrowded con
ditions, bad lighting, poor cafeteria,
facilities and a generally rundown
physical condition of the school build
ing.
The march was organized by the
Student Council of the all-Negro
school.
★ ★ ★
The Fairfax Comity Education As
sociation began accepting Negro teach
ers as members in September. Simul
taneously, the all-Negro Fairfax
Teachers’ Association dissolved.
The Fairfax association is the sec
ond in the state to admit Negro mem
bers, the other being the association of
adjoining Arlington County. When the
Arlington group admitted Negroes in
1961, it was expelled from the Virginia
Education Association, but in 1962 the
by-laws of the state group were
amended to permit locals to accept Ne
groes. However, Negroes still are not
admitted to individual membership in
the state organization.
★ ★ ★
A Dinwiddie County white man,
whose son had been assigned to a de
segregated school, was convicted Sept.
6 on a trespassing charge when he
attempted to enroll the youth in the
county’s all-white high school.
Jake Ball, a locksmith, tried unsuc
cessfully for three days to enroll his
son Bobby in the eighth grade at Din
widdie High School. He was arrested
on a warrant sworn out by Supt. G. M.
Hodge, and in Dinwiddie County Court
he was given a choice between a $10
fine and 30 days in jail. He paid the
fine.
Bobby had been assigned by the
State Pupil Placement Board to the
Midway High School, which was de
segregated when seven Negroes en
rolled there in September.
In the Colleges
At Least One-Third
Of White Colleges
Accept Negroes
At least six of the 18 predominantly
white public institutions of higher
learning in Virginia have Negroes en
rolled this fall.
The University of Virginia at Char
lottesville reported enrollment of about
25 Negro Americans in a student body
of approximately 5,800. In addition, the
university has “probably 50 non-whites
from other countries,” an official said.
The Medical College of Virginia in
Richmond reported eight Negroes
among 1,218 students. Included are two
in medicine, two in physical therapy,
one in pharmacy and three in dietetic
internship.
Richmond Professional Institute has
11 Negroes among 5,530 students. Other
Negroes are attending night classes at
the school.
The College of William and Mary at
Williamsburg has one Negro under
graduate in a student body of ap
proximately 2,700. There also are two
in the evening college. Seven Negroes
did graduate work at W&M during the
summer of 1963 and six during the
summer of 1962.
Old Dominion College, with an en
rollment of 3,200 in the day school and
3,000 in the evening, reported that it
has Negro students in both day and
night classes but that it cannot say
how many because records are not
kept by race.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute at
Blacksburg also has Negro students.
Among private institutions, Eastern
Mennonite College at Harrisonburg re
ported nine Negroes among 608 stu
dents.
Emory and Henry College, a Meth
odist-related institution, reported that
while it had no Negroes in the 837-
member student body, two applicants
had met the requirements and had
been accepted but did not enroll.
Virginia Union University, a private
Negro institution in Richmond, reported
that it had three white students among
the total enrollment of 1,151.
Miscellaneous
Alabamians Tour
Private Schools
Four prominent Alabamians visited
three of Virginia’s private school sys
tems in mid-September.
The visitors toured the facilities of
the Prince Edward County School
Foundation, the Huguenot Academy in
Powhatan County and Rock Hill
Academy in Charlottesville. It was un
derstood here that the Alabamians
were seeking information that might
be helpful in the operation of a seg
regated school in Tuskegee.
Members of the visiting group were
MacDonald Gallion, former Alabama
attorney general and a possible candi
date for governor in the next state
election; John F. Segrest, a Tuskegee
businessman who heads the school
foundation there; state Rep. Andrew
Cooper, and Mayor Howard Ruther
ford of Tuskegee.
Negroes Sue To Reopen Surry County School
Federal District Judge John D. Butz-
ner, Jr., of Richmond on Oct. 2 turned
down Negro attorneys’ petition for an
order re-opening Surry County’s only
white public school. (Pettaway v. Surry
County School Board.)
Judge Butzer said the issues pre
sented in the Surry case were not signi
ficantly different from those in the
Prince Edward case. In the latter case,
the U. S. Fourth Circuit Court of Ap
peals has said that federal courts should
abstain from acting until constitutional
questions are decided by state courts.
The suit seeking opening of the
Surry school was filed in District Court
at Richmond Sept. 3 and was argued
on Sept. 25.
The county school board Aug. 24 de
cided not to open the school this year,
after nearly all the county’s white chil
dren had signed up for private segre
gated school but were turned down.
Injunction Sought
In their petition to the district court,
the Negro plaintiffs asked for injunc
tions which would prevent:
• State and local school officials
from processing tuition-grant applica
tions from Surry County.
• The county board of supervisors
from refusing to appropriate school
funds for 1963-64 in an amount at least
equal to that provided for this purpose
last year.
• The school board from enrolling
any child on the basis of race.
The plaintiffs argued that the white
school was closed to avoid desegrega
tion and that the school board and the
supervisors actively assisted in the
establishment of the private school
foundation.
The defendants replied that “there
was not a scintilla of evidence of dis
crimination.”
Began Sept. 3
The private school system began op
eration Sept. 3 with 431 pupils. This
was just 50 days after the foundation
had obtained its charter from the state.
The county’s Negro public schools
opened Sept. 5 for approximately 1,200
pupils.
The white private classes are meeting
in two former public-school buildings
which were declared surplus several
years ago, and in two churches. The
22 teachers were drawn from the white
school faculty.
Tuition for the private schools is
$375 for elementary pupils and $380
for high-school students. These fees
are $125 higher in each case than the
state-local tuition grants available in
Surry.
★ ★ ★
Other Developments
During Past Month
In other legal developments:
• Federal District Judge John D.
Butzner Jr. on Sept. 11 ordered the
admission of 15 more Negroes to pre
dominantly white schools in the city of
Hopewell. (Gilliam v. Hopewell School
Board.) Twelve Negroes already were
attending former white Hopewell
schools as the result of Pupil Place
ment Board assignments.
In taking the action, Judge Butzner
threw out the state board’s rule that
applications for transfers must be
made by May 31. He said this rule
cannot be applied in localities operating
under federal court desegregation or
ders. (The board had turned down the
applications of some of the 15 Negro
children because the May 31 deadline
had not been met.) On Sept. 18, the
Hopewell School Board and the Place
ment Board appealed Judge Butzner’s
ruling.
On Sept. 9, the Placement Board, for
the first time in its history, assigned
white children to a Negro school. It
assigned five Hopewell white children
to the city’s Negro high school on the
ground that they lived in the geogra
phical district served by that school.
However, the children refused to at
tend the Negro school.
• The Fourth Circuit Court of Ap
peals, sitting in Baltimore Sept. 24,
heard Negro attorneys contend that
Arlington County still practices dis
crimination in the assignment of chil
dren to schools. The Negroes were
seeking reversal of an order of the
Eastern District Court of Virginia
which on March 1, 1962, ruled that
Arlington “was not improperly contin
uing discriminatory attendance areas.”
(Thompson v. Arlington County School
Board.)
Frank L. Ball, counsel for the school
board, said 281 Negroes are attending
23 desegregated schools in the county.
“I can honestly say that our school
system is completely integrated—teach
ers, scholars and employment,” he told
the court.
James M. Nabrit ni, attorney for the
NAACP, said, “I admit a lot of progress
has been made, but it is an overstate
ment to say it is complete.” He said
90 per cent of the Negro students in
the county still are in all-Negro
schools, that there are only three white
teachers in Negro schools and that only
one Negro is teaching white pupils.
• The King George County School
Board on Sept. 23 submitted a desegre
gation plan to Federal District Court
at Richmond. (Belton v. King George
County School Board.) The plan pro
vides that children will continue in the
schools they are attending unless they
apply for transfers. In considering
transfer applications, the board will
take into account, among other things,
the distance the applicants live from
the schools and accessibility through
bus routes. Henry L. Marsh III, coun
sel for Negro plaintiffs, said he would
file objections to the plan.
• A desegregation suit against the
Fairfax County School Board was ar
gued in the Federal District Court at
Alexandria Sept. 12 and taken under
advisement by Judge Oren R. Lewis.