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PAGE 16—JANUARY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
WEST VIRGINIA
State Reported to Have at Least 88 All-Negro Schools
CHARLESTON
est Virginia still has at least
88 all-Negro schools, accord
ing to the annual report Dec. 17
by the West Virginia Human
Rights Commission. The commis
sion urged the State Board of Ed
ucation to adopt a policy of elim
inating all-Negro schools in the
next five years.
The commission’s study, admittedly
incomplete, said there are 76 elemen
tary schools, two junior high schools
and 10 high schools serving Negroes
exclusively.
McDowell and Fayette counties have
23 and 18 all-Negro elementary schools
respectively. Kanawha County has two.
All-Negro high schools are located in
McDowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Jefferson,
Mingo and Wyoming counties.
At a press conference members of
the commission said buses are used to
transport Negro pupils from their
neighborhoods to segregated schools in
most of those counties. The problem
basically is not one of residential seg
regation breeding segregated schools, as
in many Northern cities, said Howard
W. McKinney, commission executive
director. He pointed out that West
Virginia has made significant progress
in desegregating its schools.
Propose Three Steps
“Why not complete the job?” he
asked. The commission suggested three
steps that it thinks the State Board
of Education should take to encourage
the closing of the remaining Negro
schools:
• Set a date of not more than five
years hence for eliminating all separate
Negro schools within the state.
• Adopt a policy of positive leader
ship for the integration of faculty and
administrative personnel.
• Adopt a policy of promoting
human relations in the schools, giving
attention to curriculum content and
assistance to teachers in dealing with
prejudices and handling interracial
activities.
The commission criticized the State
Department of Education and the West
Virginia Education Association as pro
viding only minimal leadership in seek
ing integration of Negro principals and
teachers.
Florida
(Continued From Page 9)
Petersburg, to which the girl was
assigned, was overcrowed and inade
quate.
Speaking for the state officials, Gov.
Farris Bryant said there was no sound
basis for the transfer since the child
lives across the street from the Melrose
school. State School Supt. Thomas D.
Bailey said new classrooms are being
built to relieve the overcrowding.
The Pinellas school board submitted
a statement declaring it has a policy
of desegregation and h«o assigned a
number of Negro children to white
schools. It said all assignments are
made in the best interest of the school
and the child, without regard to race
or color.
Legal Action
Panama City Board
Sued Second Time
Parents of Negro children filed a de
segregation suit in late November
against the Bay County Board of Edu
cation (Panama City). An earlier suit
against the board was filed on Oct. 15
by the U.S. Department of Justice, con
tending that morale of military person
nel in the area was damaged by segre
gated schools.
Plaintiffs in the latest action, filed
in U.S. District Court at Marianna, in
cluded the Rev. Timothy Youngblood,
president of the Panama City chapter
of the NAACP.
In a statement quoted by the Asso
ciated Press, Youngblood said “facili
ties for colored children in this area
are not equal to facilities for white
children.” He said the school board
practiced discrimination against Negro
children.
The Justice Department’s suit, still
pending, cited federal contributions of
almost $3 million to the Bay County
school system to help educate children
of military personnel.
W. Va. Highlights
The West Virginia Human Rights
Commission reported that there are
at least 88 all-Negro schools in the
state.
State School Supt. Rex M. Smith
took issue with statements by the Hu
man Rights Commission, saying, “I
think the state’s schools are moving
quite rapidly.”
Raleigh County completed a new
school districting plan that had been
asked by federal court in a revived
desegregation case.
,‘Furthermore,” the report said,
“there is an almost complete absence
of any positive program for human
relations in the
schools . . , The
education com
munity has by
and large re
mained silent as
to the significance
of the social rev
olution which is
taking place.
“The complaints
of Negroes center
around the con
tinuation of all-
Negro schools, limited integration of
faculty, absence of Negro principals in
any except all-Negro schools and lack
of employment of new Negro teachers.
“It would seem that Negro teachers
are completely bypassed by counties
with few or no Negro students despite
the need for qualified teachers.”
As its monthly meeting before the
press conference, the commission de
cided to ask the Board of Education to
meet with it to discuss its recommenda
tion.
In 1962-63, West Virginia made three
significant advances in extending
equality of opportunity to its Negro
citizens, according to the commission’s
report.
The advances listed were employ
ment of Negroes in sales jobs at retail
stores, ending of discriminatory prac
tices by a majority of the first-class
hotels and restaurants, and the growth
of local human rights comissions (now
numbering 14).
“We believe that every West Vir
ginian has a right to be proud of the
record of progress toward ending of
discrimination which has taken place,”
the report said. “However, we do not
believe that the rights guaranteed by
the Constitution were intended to be
made available to some persons only on
a gradual basis. We are not content to
measure ourselves by the conduct of
Mississippi or merely to congratulate
ourselves that the atrocities of Birm
ingham have not happened here.”
The report warned that Negroes want
freedom now and no longer listen to
voices that counsel “patience, gradua
lism or delay.”
Superintendent Takes Issue
With Commission Criticisms
State School Supt. Rex M. Smith
took issue with some of the West
Virginia Human Rights Commission’s
criticisms of the pace of school deseg
regation. And the executive secretary
of the West Virginia Education As
sociation, Phares E. Reeder, said com-
—ussion comments about the WVEA
apparently were
made without
Knowledge o f
considerable his
torical back
ground as to
teachers deseg
regation in the
state.
The comments
from Smith and
Reeder were
prompted Dec. 21
by the rights
commission’s an
nual report.
Smith said, “I think the state’s
schools are moving quite rapidly.
Certainly, at the state level, we want
equal opportunities for everyone.”
The commission’s report had said
it was “difficult to assemble data about
steps taken toward integration.” Then
it had leveled criticism at the state
educators, saying there was an almost
complete absence of positive human
relations programs in the schools.
“Insofar as we are aware,” the report
said, “the Department of Education
has given only minimal leadership for
full integration of faculty . . . We are
unaware of any position of the West
Virginia Education Association calling
for full integration of Negro teachers.”
Smith said he is opposed to “any
discrimination against any race” and
added that he has received no “indi
vidual or collective complaint from
Negroes or others as to segregation.”
Reeder said the human rights group
apparently was not aware that “the
old state association for Negro teachers
was merged with the WVEA back in
the early 1950’s, and before the 1954
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school
integration.”
Reeder added that Negro teachers
named by various county systems have
played key roles in WVEA conventions
and other activities. Such WVEA goals
as “full and more complete develop
ment of the individual” lie directly in
the human rights field, he said.
About the Human Rights Commis
sion estimate of 88 all-Negro schools
in the state, Smith said he had no
records on the subject but emphasized
that “their existence does not neces
sarily condemn the county systems. He
added
“I would guess that the majority, if
not all, of those schools are in areas of
heavy Negro population, where the
Negro chose to maintain that arrange
ment.”
Board Authority
County school systems set their own
educational programs and policies and
hire their own teachers. The State
Department of Education exercises
broad overall authority in the field of
supervision.
“At the state level we’re interested
in the boys and girls themselves, and
not in race,” Smith asserted. “The
main objective is to help everyone get
a better education.”
In that light, he added, desegregation
is incidental to the overall program of
attempting to establish the best learn
ing environment with the best quali
fied teachers and instructional mater
ials. Smith said:
“I don’t know of a single county
“in which Negroes or others cannot at
tend schools in their own neighbor
hoods or districts. It is probable that
by their own choice some youngsters
prefer to attend other schools. They
perhaps find there are environmental
situations in which they can do better
work.”
For that reason Smith would not
entirely accept a commission recom
mendation that the State Board of
Education set a deadline of not more
than five years hence for elimination
of all Negro schools.
‘Forcing Persons’
“That would be forcing on some
persons a thing they really don’t want,”
he said.
Smith believes there already exists
a general policy of positive leadership
for integration of faculty and admini
strative personnel.
“No one has ever come to me with
a complaint that he or she has been
unable to get an administrative position
in the schools because of race,” Smith
said. “If such a situation exists, I should
be happy to talk with any individual
involved.”
Human relations, Smith contended,
should be a part of the “general social
studies program” other than a separate
course.
“I sincerely believe that teachers and
school administrators now are doing
a good job of pointing up the impor
tance of human relations,” he said.
Legal Action
Raleigh County
Submits New Plan
On Districting
A new school districting plan has
been prepared and submitted to U.S.
District Court for southern West Vir
ginia, Raleigh County School Supt.
John Saunders said Dec. 27.
Federal Judge John A. Field had
requested the plan at a hearing in
Beckley in October in the school
desegregation case revived there some
months ago (Taylor v. Raliegh County
Board of Education.)
The court heard testimony for two
days before calling for a new districting
plan. Saunders said the plan was com
pleted prior to the deadline set by
the court.
The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People had
the case prepared, contending that
school desegregation in Raleigh County
has not moved as speedily as good
judgment would suggest.
The Board of Education contended
that a voluntary program of desegrega
tion has existed in the county for
several years, and the schools are open
to persons of any race who want to
attend them.
The Raleigh County desegregation
policy resulted from a federal cour
hearing in 1955 in Greenbrier County
Six Southern hold-out counties agre^
to the voluntary Greenbrier
worked out by Federal Judge Beii
Moore, now deceased.
Another desegregation suit has been
revived by the NAACP in Mercer
County. Mercer, too, had adopted the
Greenbrier plan.
Ten Years
Of School Desegregation
At a Glance
More change occurred in school desegregation
with the opening of the 1963-64 term than in any
year since 1956. The up-to-date facts and figures
for each of the 17 Southern and border states,
plus the District of Columbia, and for the region
as a whole, covering the 10 years since the U.S.
Supreme Court's 1954 decision, are in the latest
revision of our annual
Statistical Summary
The Summary, now ready for distribution, gives
the latest information available on
• Public school and college enrollments by race for
each state
• How many Negroes are in public schools and col
leges with whites
• The number of desegregated school districts
• Districts and colleges planning to desegregate
• Districts and colleges under court orders to deseg
regate
• State laws passed since 1954
• Court decisions and the status of cases still in the
courts
• The effects of desegregation on public school
teachers and college faculties
• Comparative annual statistics by state since 1954
• A chronology of major developments in school
desegregation
• Desegregation policies for trade and
special schools
• Status of desegregation for
ethnic groups
• An analysis of desegregation statistics
SPECIAL OFFER: Purchasers of the new Sum
mary for 1963-64 are entitled to obtain, for only
$1 more, a copy of "Southern Schools: Progress
and Problems," a book compiled and edited by
Southern Education Reporting Service. The
book in clothback normally sells for $4.75.
To assure prompt receipt of the new Statistical Summary,
the only source of comprehensive desegregation facts for
the 1963-64 school year, complete the coupon below end
return it with your payment to
Southern Education Reporting Service
P.O. Box 6156
Nashville, Tenn. 37212
Please send copies of the Statistical Summary at $1 each
copies of the book, “Southern Schools: Progress
and Problems” at the special price of $1 each
Payment of $ is enclosed
Send to:
SMITH