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V' Factual ________ 4 Souu [Tri>\T VOL. 10, NO. 5 MISSISSIPPI Governor-Elect Renews Pledge For Segregation JACKSON L t. Gov. Paul Burney Johnson will take office on Jan. 21, 1964, as Mississippi’s 54th gov ernor, pledged to “resist the in tegration of any school anywhere in Mississippi.” The son of a former governor (1940- 43) and candidate of the Mississippi Democratic party which claims no al liance with the national party leader ship, won the office in the Nov. 5 gen eral election over Rubel Phillips, Re publican nominee and first serious chal lenger of the long-dominant one-party system since the Civil War Reconstruc tion Era. Phillips, a former Democratic office-holder, turned Republican last year. Johnson won an easy victory. In complete returns late on election night gave Johnson 151,356, Phillips 86,448. Johnson’s assertion that “we can and will maintain a system of segregated schools’ will face challenge shortly af ter he succeeds Gov. Ross Barnett, who had given Mississippians that same as surance in 1960 when he took office. However, Gov. Barnett was forced by federal-court orders to witness Mis sissippi’s first public education desegre gation with the enrollment Oct. 1, 1962, of Negro James H. Meredith in the University of Mississippi and his grad uation the following June before the second Negro likewise gained federal- court-ordered admission to the Oxford institution. Expulsion of the second Negro stu dent, Cleve McDowell, from the School of Law Sept. 24, for violating a uni- versity rule against carrying concealed weapons on the campus, returned the 115-vear old university to a segregated s*atus. «’• As Johnson prepared for his inaugur- ation, Meredith awaited action on a uetition to re-enter the University of , sissippi as a student in the School of Law. Petition Refiled Also pending for action, following a C , an ^ e °f plans, is the refiled petition ® ohn Frazier, 22-year-old Greenville , e ^ ro ' f° r enrollment in the University F .them Mississippi at Hattiesburg. L razi ® r “ad announced earlier through York attorney, George B. , . ’ *kat he had decided not to seek ^mission this fall. for Frazier seek admission w erm s next year. Their petitions ver^t? en< ^ ng . be f° re the respective uni- Tn, * officials and the Board of L^arnkjg ^ ate Institutions of Higher announced in Washington s ; on . " at he had applied for admis- School° It University of Mississippi ti ext Law. The next term begins e redith s application was on the (See JOHNSON, Page 6) This Issue >,ate Reports J abai na „ florida ° f Coluinbia 1 13 P nt Ucky 9 ^iana.; « }S>uri 1 jSia I!!!!!!!!'.;;;!!!! il fcj 1 Arti des C; the South J 1131 Opportunities 6 ' Transfers 15 * 0,3U ' C filing# VlOb 030 3 Jo V “ 8, T non.® J P A»wn News V3 Objective lUNIV^n^ ,;G IAI NOVEMBER, 1963 The Rev. John J. Hicks Elected unanimously. MISSOURI School Board Elects Negro As President ST. LOUIS T he Rev. John J. Hicks, a Negro, was elected president of the St. Louis Board of Educa tion Oct. 8. He is the first member of his race to serve as the board’s president. Three Negro members are on the present board and the St. Louis public schools are now estimated to be more than 40 per cent Negro. An outspoken proponent of civil rights, the Rev. Mr. Hicks, 48 years old, was elected unanimously. He had served as vice president under Daniel L. Schlafly, whom he succeeds as presi dent. The Rev. Mr. Hicks was elected to the board in 1959 and is aligned with a reform-minded faction that now con trols the board. The Rev. Mr. Hicks, pastor of Union Memorial Methodist Church, received his bachelor of divinity degree from Gammon Theological Seminary in At lanta in 1941. He also holds a master of theology degree from the University of Southern California and an honorary doctorate from Gammon. He was pastor of Methodist churches in Atlanta, Marietta and Bamesville, Ga., before he assumed a pasorate at Los Angeles for 12 years. He came to St. Louis nine years ago. In accepting the presidency of the board, the Rev. Mr. Hicks said he would work with William Kottmeyer, acting superintendent of instruction, to bring about maximum desegregation of the public schools. He praised the work that had been done by Schlafly and said Schlafly had “lent stature to the office.” He said board members, as elected officials, “cannot be expected to be captive of (See FIRST, Page 5) 9 "' lf vMBIA NOV 1 5 ’63 LIBWVRUS Compromise RigKTsBill Approved By House Judiciary Committee WASHINGTON T he House Judiciary Com mittee broke a five-week deadlock Oct. 29 when it ap proved a compromise civil rights bill which had the blessings of the Kennedy Administration as well as of House leaders of both parties. The compromise measure, produced by intensive behind-the-scenes nego tiations which involved the President, his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and congressional leaders, was approved by a final 23-to-ll vote of the committee. The vote followed committee rejec tion, 19-to-15, of a stronger civil rights bill which had been approved in sub committee. Administration and con gressional leaders were convinced that the stronger version could not master the bipartisan support needed for pass age. The compromise measure was warm ly endorsed by President Kennedy, the Attorney General, and key Democratic and Republican spokesmen in the House, but was termed “inadequate” by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which had held out for the tougher version. Some civil rights lead ers accused the administration of a “sellout” in working for modification of the subcommittee bill. Though Judiciary Committee ap proval of the compromise measure was hailed as a “major breakthrough” for the civil rights bill, congressional ob- ‘He’s in Good Shape—Just Minus a Few Teeth!’ Crockett, Washington Star servers cautioned that it by no means assured passage of the legislation in this session. The measure still faces delays in the powerful House Rules Committee, a probably lengthy debate on the House floor and a certain filibuster in the Senate. Here is a summary of key provisions affecting school desegregation: Desegregation Suits—The administra tion’s original civil rights bill would have empowered the Attorney General to initiate and maintain school desegre gation suits in cases where individual VIRGINIA Prince Edward Negroes Ask High Court Action RICHMOND A ttorneys for Prince Edward County Negroes petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 30 to “dispose of in convenient haste” the legal issues relating to the shutting down of the county’s public schools. (Griffin v. Prince Edward School Board.) The petition was for a writ of cer tiorari for a review of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court’s decision of Aug. 12. In that ruling, the circuit judges held, by a two to one vote, that federal courts should abstain from acting in the Prince Edward case until state courts have decided the constitutional issues involved. But the plaintiffs told the Supreme Court Oct. 30: “After 12 years of litigation, it is time all issues are settled and settled with finality. For the federal courts to refuse, at this late date, to resolve this controversy amounts to federal abdication, not federal abstention.” The ultimate decision must come from federal courts anyway, the pe titioners declared, because there are federal issues involved. They continued: “In view of the protracted nature of this litigation, the fundamental im portance of its resolution to petitioners and to the country at large, it is ur gently and respectfully requested that this petition and all issues involved herein should be disposed of in such convenient haste, as will give respon se NEGROES, Page 7) plaintiffs are unable to enter litigation. The subcommittee’s version, which was retained in the compromise, would ex tend the Attorney General’s right to all public facilities, including parks, playgrounds and libraries as well as schools. The compromise bill retains the administration’s proposal to pro vide financial and technical assistance to deseg-egating school districts. Part Three—This provision, named for a clause dropped from the 1957 civil rights acts, would permit the At torney General to initiate suits to pro tect all constitutional and other legal rights of all persons. It was not men tioned in the administration’s proposals this year, but was added to the legisla tion by the subcommittee. In the final compromise version, the Attorney Gen eral is authorized to intervene as a party after an individual has filed suit alleging denial of equal protection of the law. Federal Aid—The administration re quested authority to cut off federal aid from any state or locality that discrimi nated as to race in its use. The com promise version limits the cutoff au thority to specific projects or programs, and provides authority for court review of any government decision to withhold funds. Community Relations—An adminis tration proposal for a mediation serv ice to help settle racial disputes was dropped from the compromise bill. Civil Rights Commission—The ad ministration’s proposal for a four-year extension of the commission was ex panded to make the commission a per manent agency, with additional power to investigate alleged vote frauds. Court Actions—The compromise bill includes a subcommittee proposal, not requested by the administration, that the right of appeal be granted when a federal court refuses to accept transfer to it of a civil rights case from a state court. ★ ★ ★ Sen. Humphrey Sees Full Desegregation Far in the Future Citing fall enrollment statistics com piled by Southern Education Reporting Service, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D- Minn.) told the Senate Oct. 7 that “it may be two or three generations before we will have a truly democratic public- school system.” Humphrey noted that “18 school se mesters have passed since the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools is illegal and a denial of rights guaranteed by the Constitu- (See RIGHTS, Page 16) OUTSIDE THE SOUTH Major Cities Face School-Race Problems T he major cities of Chicago, New York, Boston, Los An geles and Cleveland experienced education problems connected with de facto school segregation during the first two months of the new school year. Clashes between Negro and white students occurred in Philadelphia, In dianapolis and Oakland. A federal circuit court upheld a lower court’s refusal to order Gary, Ind., to end its neighborhood school policy, which had resulted in de facto segregation in the public schools. Chicago’s controversial school super intendent, Benjamin C. Willis, resigned in protest against school board and court rulings on student transfers, but returned to office after the board re fused to accept. New York City school officials had a key provision knocked out of their pro gram to end de facto segregation when a state judge ruled against transfers based on race. School leaders now are awaiting an appeals court decision on whether the city may transfer white pupils from neighborhood schools to end racial imbalance. Boston’s School Committee initiated an open-enrollment plan of free trans fers this year, although it denied the existence of de facto segregation in the school system. The Los Angeles school board began consideration and adoption of recom mendations by a special committee ap pointed to study de facto segregation in the city schools. * * ¥ Negro protests over the education policies of Chicago School Supt. Ben jamin C. Willis finally led to his resig nation, but the school board refused to accept and the superintendent agreed to continue. Chicago’s superintendent, whose $48,- 500 annual salary makes him the na tion’s highest-paid school administrator, has been the center of a long attack by Negro groups over the issue of de facto segregation. The 61-year-old Wil lis staunchly defended the policy of neighborhood schools and refused re quests by Negroes to permit transfers from their overcrowded schools to all- white or predominantly white schools with available space. One of Willis’s answers to overcrowd ing was to purchase mobile classrooms, to be set up on the campuses of crowded schools. The Negro sit-ins, boycotts and protest marches of the summer months finally reached their height with rock-throwing incidents and the burning of several of the mobile units. In late August, Willis publicly stated that some of the Chicago schools were racially imbalanced. He supported a resolution, passed by the Board of Education, authorizing a study of de facto segregation in the schools by a group of outside experts. The decision (See BIG CITIES, Page 15) ‘Look Away! Look Away! Look Away to Dixie Land’ Haynie, Louisville Courier-Journal