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VOL. 10, NO. 6
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L NEWS
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Objective
NASnTIRC UN
DECEMBER, 1963
ent of Negroes in Biracial Schools
O ver nine per cent of the Ne
gro public school students
in the Southern and border region
are attending elementary and
ygh schools with whites this
school year—the tenth since the
U.S. Supreme Court’s school de
cision in 1954.
A special survey conducted by
Southern School News correspondents
determined that the 17 Southern and
border states, plus the District of Co
lumbia, have 314,571 Negroes in classes
with whites. This represents 9.2 per
cent of the region’s 3,403,925 Negroes
enrolled. The region has 10,918,793
white students.
Considered separately, the South has
30,798 Negroes in biracial schools—rep
resenting 1.06 per cent of the Negro
public school enrollment of the 11 for-
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1962
nis-
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1.
1963-64 Summary
The latest information on the
status of desegregation in the public
schools and colleges of the Southern
and border states is provided in the
1963-64 edition of Southern Educa
tion Reporting Service’s Statistical
Summary, soon to be ready for mail
ing.
Developments for this school year,
the 10th since the U. S. Supreme
Court’s 1954 decision, are reported
for each of the 17 states, plus the
District of Columbia, that in 1954
had laws requiring racial segrega
tion in their public schools. Several
tables summarize information for
the region and give comparisons
with previous years.
The Summary is available at $1
a copy.
mer Confederate states. The six border
states and the District of Columbia
have 283,773 Negroes in desegregated
schools, which is 56.5 per cent of the
border area’s Negro enrollment.
The Negroes enrolled in Southern
schools account for 85 per cent of the
region’s total Negro enrollment. The
other 15 per cent attend schools in the
border states. But of the 314,571 Ne
groes in the region’s biracial schools,
only 10 per cent are from Southern
states, and the remaining 90 per cent
are in the border states.
New Desegregation
New desegregation and extension of
old plans at school opening this fall
placed an additional 49,906 Negroes in
desegregated schools. Last school year
ended with the 17 states and the Dis
trict of Columbia having 264,655 Ne
groes in schools with whites—repre
senting eight per cent of the total
Negro enrollment. When the 1962-63
school year began, the figure was 7.8
per cent.
Southern Education Reporting Serv
ice in 1960 first surveyed the number
of Negroes in biracial schools, and the
region then had six per cent of its
Negro enrollment in schools with
whites. For the 1961-62 school year,
the figure increased to 6.9 per cent.
Although only 9.2 per cent of the
region’s Negro enrollment is in schools
with whites, 43 per cent of the total
Negro enrollment is in districts that
have begun desegregation. Of these
1,453,580 Negroes in the desegregated
districts, about two per cent are actu
ally in desegregated schools.
SERS records school desegregation
developments by the number of Ne
groes in desegregated schools and by
the number of desegregated districts.
Both of these this fall showed the
sharpest increase in several years. The
Segregation-Desegregation Status
School Districts
Negroes
In Desegregated
In :
Schools
With
Enrollment
Districts
With Whites
Negroes
No
Total
& Whites
Deseg.
White
Negro
White
Negro
Alabama
114
114
4
539,996**
287,414**
106,199**
70,896**
11
.004
Arkansas
415
228
13
328,023**
112,012**
66,752
18,643
1,084
.968
Florida
67
67
16
964,241
237,871
669,375
130,667
3,650
1.53
Georgia
197
181
4
689,323
337,534
95,731
77,599
177
.052
Louisiana
67
67
2
460,589**
301,433**
68,700
79,077
1,814
.602
Mississippi
150
150
0
304,226**
291,971**
0
0
0
0
North Carolina
171
171
40
802,900*
346,746*
367,764
133,164
1,865
.538
South Carolina
108
108
1
368,496*
258,955*
3,108
9,539
10
.004
Tennessee
154
143
44
687,902*
164,940*
374,621*
119,547*
4,466
2.71
Texas
1,421
899
244
2,045,449*
326,409*
1,290,000*
186,000*
14,000*
4.29
Virginia
130
128
55
728,259*
236,386*
486,231
145,658
3,721
1.57
SOUTH
2,994
2,256
423
7,919,404
2,901,671
3,528,481
970,790
30,798
1.06
Delaware
86
86
86
79,024
18,422
68,321
13,976
10,209
55.4
Dist. of Columbia
1
1
1
19,803
117,915
19,803
117,915
99,998
84.8
Kentucky
205
166
164
620,000*
46,000*
500,000*
44,000*
25,202*
54.8
Maryland
24
23
23
540,667
160,946
535,691
160,946
77,816
48.3
Missouri
1,597
212*
203*
793,000*
95,000*
NA
90,000*
40,000*
42.1
Oklahoma
1,180
241
197
529,300*
42,916*
317,670*
34,898*
12,048
28.1
West Virginia
55
44
44
417,595*
21,055*
417,595*
21,055*
18,500*
87.9
BORDER
3,148
773
718
2,999,389
502,254
1,859,080ft
482,790
283,773
56.5
REGION
6,142
3,029
1,141
10,918,793
3,403,925
5,387,561ft
1,453,580
314,571
9.2
* Estimated. ** 1962-63.
ft Missouri not included.
t No. of Negroes in schools with whites compared to total Negro enrollment.
Southern Education Reporting Service, December, 1933
number of Negroes in biracial schools
represented the biggest increase since
SERS first began recording this in 1960.
The new desegregated districts this
fall was the largest number added in
any year since 1956, the third year
after the Supreme Court decision. The
17-state region, plus the District of
Columbia, now has 1,141 districts de
segregated in practice or policy. This
amounts to about 38 per cent of the
3,029 districts having both Negroes and
whites enrolled. The region has 3,113
districts that are uniracial—either all
Negro or all white. The 1,141 desegre
gated districts represent about 19 per
cent of the region’s total of 6,142 public
school districts.
A NEW ADMINISTRATION
Johnson Backs Civil Rights Legislation;
Passage Expected with Some Compromise
By ERWIN KNOLL
WASHINGTON
p Resident Lyndon B. Johnson
will work energetically for
n actment of the administration’s
rights program and ulti-
ately will succeed in obtaining
. Passage—though not without
compromise and considera
bly.
3 . k the consensus of political ap-
:-v ii ma ^ e m the capital in the first
-^j>^ ow mg President John F. Ken-
. W s assassination and Vice-President
J °hnso]
! nier
4^
***
' ns secession as the first South-
a century to occupy the White
address to a joint session of
e? 0n Nov - 27, President John-
"ihts ndorse ^ his predecessor’s civil
'^rrns the strongest possible
id Tt ay kig the fears of those Ne-
•-,<} kit s Northern liberals who
"’Reiu some apprehension about the
‘ilia. °t Johnson’s commitment to
c °urse.
Southerners Cool
oy iL
; ^oh 6 same token, the president’s
i; th c ^? r at least the portion dealing
nil s Q u ,, ri Shts—drew a cool response
--out U aern Democrats committed to
■^SsIatl^P^kion to new civil rights
Ouj.
tiiij hnmediate tasks are here
« Cn-Jyh,” President Johnson told
‘tigress.
J 0 memorial oration or eulogy
^CTUently honor President
fusible s memory than the earliest
■ f i ^hicL a ? sa S 6 of the civil rights bill
i e fought so long. We have
?at f enough in this country
‘ year s 3 We have talked for
th e ° r more. It is time now to
; ■ th e , nex t chapter—and to write
■■S*on ks of law ”
re< - a hed that he had worked
^4 lQftn tlle Civil Rights Acts of
?r of i, " when he was majority
e Senate, and he urged
President Johnson
‘We have talked long enough . .
Congress to act on the pending legisla
tion “so that we can move forward to
eliminate from this nation every trace
of discrimination and oppression that
is based upon race or color.”
“There could be no greater source
of strength to this nation both at home
and abroad,” he added.
‘Special Privilege Bill’
Sen. Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.),
leader of the Southern bloc in the
Senate, characterized President John
son’s address as eloquence marked
with power and grace, but noted that
while he is “as strongly in favor of a
real civil rights bill as President John
son . . . this is not a civil rights bill—
it is a special privilege bill.”
In the House of Representatives, Rep.
William M. Colmer (D-Miss.), a senior
Southerner, said he and his colleagues
“thought the emphasis he placed on
civil rights and tax proposals were all
out of proportion.”
“We were particularly concerned
over his proposal that the Congress
remain here and enact the civil rights
bill as a memorial to the late presi
dent,” Colmer added. “Our own feeling
is that Congress should pass the re
mainder of the appropriations bills and
go home.
‘Emotional Hysteria’
“Highly controversial legislation like
civil rights should not be considered
in an atmosphere charged with emo
tional hysteria. Moreover, the brutal
assassination of President Kennedy,
for whom we all mourn, has no bear
ing on the merits of these proposals.
“If they were right before his death,
they are still right. If they were wrong,
they are still wrong.”
Sen. John S. Stennis (D-Miss.)
called the president’s position on civil
rights “extreme,” and Rep. Thomas G.
Abemethy (D-Miss.) called it “most
regrettable.”
“Evaluating the speech as a whole, I
fear we are in for a considerable
amount of sectional and racial differ
ences,” Abemethy said.
Johnson Praised
Civil rights leaders, on the other
hand, were unanimous and enthusiastic
in their praise of President Johnson’s
speech to Congress, and quickly called
for legislative action to match the
president’s words.
The Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, representing more than 70 na
tional religious, civic, fraternal, labor
and civil rights organizations, called
the speech “a challenge to all Ameri
cans.” The group scheduled a meeting
for early December in Washington to
“fulfill the obligations that the presi
dent’s words and the events of the past
few days have placed inescapably upon
us all.”
The National Urban League, in a
telegram to President Johnson, praised
John F. Kennedy
His program remains.
“your inspiring reaffirmation of the
programs initiated by President Ken
nedy,” and said it was “deeply im
pressed by your stem warning to the
apostles of bigotry and hate.”
The Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, a
spokesman for the Rev. Martin Luther
King’s Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, said: “I, and a great many
Americans, now believe in Mr. John
son. I just hope the response in Con
gress will consist not only of a fine
ovation but meaningful action im
mediately.”
Even before his address to Congress,
top civil rights leaders had pledged
their support to the new president in
the civil rights field. The seven leaders
who comprise the Council for United
Civil Rights Leadership issued a state
ment Nov. 25 expressing readiness to
work with Johnson “tirelessly to
(See JOHNSON, Page 2)
Two states, South Carolina and Ala
bama, experienced their first desegre
gation at the elementary and high
school level this fall. The public col
leges in both states had begun desegre
gation earlier. Mississippi remains the
only state with complete segregation in
its public school grades one through
twelve; the state has desegregated one
college, the University of Mississippi,
although the only Negro student there
was expelled for disciplinary reasons
this fall.
Texas added 67 new desegregated
districts this fall, more than any state
in the region. Virginia desegregated 23
more districts, North Carolina, 22, and
Tennessee, 18. The Southern states ac
counted for 146 of the new desegre
gated districts added this fall, and the
other 20 occurred in the border area.
The District of Columbia had the
largest increase of Negroes in schools
with whites, with 12,249 more in bi
racial schools this year for a total of
99,998 Negroes. The District still has
some all-Negro schools, containing
17,917 students.
All Desegregated
The District of Columbia, and the
three border states of Delaware, Mary
land and West Virginia have desegre
gated all their biracial public school
districts and public colleges and uni
versities. The other border states—
Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma—
have desegregated all their public col
leges, but a few of their school districts
remain segregated.
Although no Southern state comes
near having desegregated all its public
school districts, three of them—Arkan
sas, North Carolina and Tennessee—
have opened all their colleges and uni
versities to both races in practice or
(See STATISTICS, Page 16)
In This Issue
State Reports
Alabama 3
Arkansas 6
Delaware 14
District of Columbia 9
Florida 7
Georgia 13
Kentucky 7
Louisiana 15
Maryland 8
Mississippi 10
Missouri 11
North Carolina 12
Oklahoma 16
South Carolina 4
Tennessee 2
Texas 13
Virginia 5
West Virginia 14
Special Articles
Annual Statistics 1
President Johnson 1