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PAGE 8—JANUARY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS SOUTH CAROLINA Hearings Begin on Darlington County Desegregation COLUMBIA reliminary motions in an 18- month-old suit aimed at de segregating the public schools of Darlington County were heard by U.S. District Judge J. Robert Martin Dec. 18. Although the case, Stanley et al v. Darlington County School District No. 1, was first filed on May 29, 1962, the hearing came unexpectedly. Judge Martin, who last August or dered South Carolina’s first—and so far only—public school desegregation in Charleston, was conducting a term of federal court in Florence, 10 miles from the Darlington County seat of Darling ton. He and Judge C. C. Wyche have worked alone against jammed and growing court dockets in the state for more than a year. During that period, South Carolina’s other two federal judgeships have been vacant—the ob jectives of a number of active candi dates. It is understood that the nomination of U. S. Rep. Robert Hemphill of South Carolina’s Fifth Congressional Circuit was in President Kennedy’s desk at the time of his assassination. State Rep. Charles Simons of Aiken is most prominently mentioned in connection with the other vacancy, primarily be cause his name was on lists submitted to the Justice Department by both S. C. senators. The Darlington case was one of four desegregation actions affected by the judicial logjam. Toward the end of the Florence term, Judge Martin remarked that he ex pected “pressure from everywhere about the first of March” and add ed, “We might as well go ahead and hear it (the Dar lington case).” The five minor defendants in the case are Theodore W. and Emily Stanley, children of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur W. Stan ley, and Whitfield MARTIN Texas (Continued From Page 7) where integration has proceeded more peacefully than in any state or large city in the South.” Political Action President’s Friend Wins Congress Race J. J. (Jake) Pickle, long-time po litical associate of President Lyndon B. Johnson, was elected Congressman from the Tenth District of Texas by a margin of 27,206 to 16,037 in a runoff with Jim Dobbs, conservative Republi can. Pickle, a Democrat, resigned as member of the Texas Employment Commission to make the race to suc ceed Homer Thornberry, who became a U.S. d is t r i c t court judge. Pickle, 49, de scribed himself as a “personal friend” of Presi dent Johnson, but added “I’m no rubber stamp.” He indicated pos sible differences with the presi- d e n t on civil- rights legislation, although promising to support “a bill to give all Americans full civil rights.” Most Negro voters apparently had supported former State Rep. Jack Rit ter Jr. in the race, but Ritter was eliminated in the first election on Nov. 9 and gave a last-minute endorsement to Pickle. ★ ★ ★ At Houston, former City Councilman Louie Welch won the mayor’s race against Bob Hervey, a political new comer. Bill Elliott, a Republican, de feated Dr. C. W. Thompson, Negro physician and Democrat, by 72,954 votes to 43,855, in one of four races for council membership. The council has white members only. Hervey ran for mayor as “a personal friend” of U.S. Attorney General Robert Ken nedy. Jr., Cordel and Forrest Sims, children of Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield Sims. Sims told a reporter his children are in the 11th, 10th and ninth grades and the Stanley youngsters are in the sev enth and fourth grades. Among the several defendants in the action are the board of trustees of the Darlington district, Area 1 Supt. G. C. Magnum and County Supt. of Educa tion Russell C. King. Reside in City All five children live in Attendance Area 1, centered in the City of Darling ton. Other attendance areas in the dis trict are centered at Hartsville and La mar. Routine motions were heard at the Dec. 18 hearing. Judge Martin asked the attorneys to file summaries of their arguments, and he promised rulings on them after Jan. 6. Such rulings could clear the way for a trial of the suit. In one motion heard, the defense asked that the names of all but the first of the plaintiffs (Theodore Whit more Stanley) be stricken from the complaint. Another defense motion asked dis missal of the suit on grounds that the federal court did not have jurisdiction. The other concerned the plaintiffs’ request, filed Dec. 7, 1962, for informa tion on Darlington County’s school en rollment and pupil-assignment pro cedures. The defense filed a motion shortly thereafter saying such infor mation was immaterial. Class Action Arguments at the hearing centered on the class-action matter brought up in the first defense motion. Darlington attorney R. Greer, speaking for the school board, contended the complaint did not properly set forth a class ac tion because it had not been joined by other persons and does not show that there are “others similarly situated.” Attorneys for the Negroes cited other cases which had been declared class actions. Darlington is primarily an agricul tural county located in the state’s northeastern Pee Dee section. Tobacco is the main crop. The city is nationally famous in racing circles as the home of the Darlington International Race way, site of the “Southern 500,” oldest major stock-car race in the country. The county’s 1960 population was 52,- 928. Its 15,723 school children—slightly more than half of whom are Negro— attend 15 white and 12 Negro schools. Negro high schools, however, outnum ber white, 4 to 3. The list of plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Stanley case include most of those who have argued other desegregation cases in the state. The group is headed by Matthew J. Perry and Lincoln C. Jen kins of Columbia and includes the NAACP’s New York staff of Jack Greenberg, Mrs. Constance Baker Mot ley and James M. Nabrit III. Legislative Action Technical Program Lauded; Attitude Of Group Pondered S.C. Highlights U.S. District Judge Robert Martin began hearings on an 18-month-old suit to desegregate the public schools of agricultural Darlington County. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee praised the progress made by the state’s new and partially desegregated technical training program as the state’s School (Segregation) Committee called for an improved program of vocational education in the public schools that could provide more students for the advanced technical progress. Segregation Committee Chairman L. Marion Gressette again came out against re-enactment of a compul sory school attendance law after a number of individuals called for such action following a census of school dropouts. A Negro woman, who had an nounced as a candidate for a Rock Hill School Board, was ruled in eligible. The election board of York County said she had filed too late. (SSN in December reported that centers at Greenville, Columbia and Pendleton had Negro students and that the one at Spartanburg was expected to follow suit.) Among the legislators praising the progress made in technical education was Rep. Joseph O. Rogers of Claren don County, vice-chariman of the S. C. School (Segregation) Committee, a body created in the 1950’s to safeguard, as far as possible, the state’s separate school systems for whites and Negroes. Later in the month (on Dec. 19), the Segregation Committee, better known as the Gressette Committee after its chairman, State Sen. L. Marion Gres sette, met and “reviewed the status of the schools of the state generally in regard to what might be neces sary” in the light of recent court orders. Such orders have recently de segregated the University of South Carolina, Clemson College and the public schools of school District 20 in Charleston County. Problems Lighten A statement released after the closed meeting said that “incident” to its pri mary mission, the committee is con cerned with the progress of public edu cation and “finds that the problems tend to diminish in intensity with the general improvement of the public schools and the advancement of the general economic level.” The statement further said that the committee had appointed a subeommit- Schoolmen tee to work with the governor and other committees concerned with edu cation to improve vocational education in the public schools. It said its purpose was to assure that “more graduates can qualify for jobs or admission to the several technical education centers for advanced train ing . . .” (The SSN article in December on technical education quoted an official of the program as saying that, although 20 Negroes are currently studying in the various desegregated centers, be tween 400 and 500 others had been turned down for lack of qualifications, along with several thousand whites.) Committee’s Course Pondered The Gressette Committee statement on vocational education caused at least one political columnist (the unsigned author of the State House column in the Columbia State) to ponder whether the committee is changing its direction. The column noted that another special committee and several special ones are working on general education problems and that the Gressette Committee was specifically created to handle segrega tion matters. In another portion of its statement, the Gressette Committee said it is stu dying additional plans to “more posi tively assure” all parents the “full freedom of choice” as to the type of schools their children would attend. It said “further recommendations to this end may be ready for submission to the General Assembly during the 1964 session.” This reference concerned the state’s tuition-grants program to finance pri vate-school education in desegregated areas—a program passed by the Gen eral Assembly after it was prepared and introduced by the Gressette Com mittee last year. No Funds as Yet The bill authorized the program but appropriated no funds. Several school districts, including Charleston, have in dicated they plan to operate under the program. An Associated Press sampling of legislative opinion indicated the funds needed would be provided, although perhaps at the expense of the local school districts rather than the state. Twenty-two lawmakers who replied to the AP questionnaire said they would vote for such funds; nine said they would not and four gave no firm answer. (There are 46 senators and 124 representatives in the S. C. General Assembly.) The strongest opposition, perhaps, came from Rep. Harris P. Smith of Pickens. “I did not support the tuitions grants bill,” he said. “My position is that it could not stand a court test and would be detrimental to the public school system . . .” Says Plan ‘Won’t Work’ Rep. Pat Lindler of Lexington said, “One hundred and seventy legislators know the tuitions grants thing won’t work in the long run.” Sen. Francis B. Nicholson of Green wood said he would vote to implement the program if an amendment is added to assure that “there shall be deduct^ from the total state funds going to tha* school district a sum representing the state per-pupil expenditure, regardless of whether that pupil was transferring from a public school or had previously attended a private school. “Otherwise, a district or county could receive grant funds for pupils who previously had enrolled in private schools and were not being counted for state allocations. And if that were per. mitted, obviously allocations for other counties and districts would be re duced.” Community Action State NAACP Lists Goals for 1964 Among its goals for 1964, the South Carolina NAACP says, are early rul ings in pending desegregation cases against school districts in four counties of the state. On federal court dockets are suits from Greenville, Clarendon, Sumter and Darlington counties. Charleston city schools underwent token desegre gation in September, 1963, and face a court order to remove all racial bar riers in September, 1964. A stepup in voter registration was emphasized by the Rev. I. DeQuincey Newman in an interview on 1964 Ne gro aims in the state. Newman is state field secretary of the NAACP. “But I don’t like the idea of deciding what is first, second and third in im portance,” he said. “All phases of the movement are important.” In The Colleges Campus Democrats Adopt Resolutions; Arouse Controversy The Young Democrats of the Uni versity of South Carolina stirred up a controversy on and off the campus in early December by adopting a wide- ranging series of resolutions in sup- . port of doctrines and issues frequently opposed in this area. Among the means suggested to g uar ) antee “the protection of civil liberties was “the right of an individual to at - tend a school, vote, or hold a job with out limitation because of sex, race, re ligion or political affiliation.” Other resolutions advocated the abolishment of the House Un-Ameri can Activities and the Senate Int^ 112 Security committees and supported a cabinet-level Department of Urban Affairs, the U.N., the Peace Corps, th<- nuclear test ban, the right of self- e termination of all peoples, academy ^ freedom for faculty members of 1113 tutions of higher learning and no discrimination in labor unions. (See S. C., Page 9) GRESSETTE The accomplishments of South Caro lina’s new technical education program, which was opened to Negro applicants almost from its inception, were praised Dec. 11 during a session of the state House Ways and Means Committee. The accolades came during the ap pearance of O. Stanley Smith, chair man of the State Technical Education Commission. Smith asked that his bud get for fiscal 1964-65 be increased by $214,000 to expand the program. Smith noted that 3,468 people had been placed in better paying (by an average of $9 per week) jobs as of September, 1963—or before the ma jority of the modem centers were opened in major South Carolina cities. This, he said, accounted for additional personal income of $1.5 million. Smith was asked about the policy of admitting Negroes. He said that, since the physical facilities for the centers are financed primarily out of local funds, there is no statewide policy in regard to Negroes and local centers are free to adopt their own admission rules. In other words, he added, the admis sion policy is based strictly on qualifi cations. He admitted to the money-bill writ ers that “several” are desegregated. This was the first public statement on this, although the policy had been previously announced. Negro Dropouts Outnumber White A statewide census to determine the number of school dropouts in South Carolina showed that more than 10,000 school-age children are not attending school. Two-thirds of them are Negroes, who constitute about 40 per cent of the state’s population. The incomplete figure, announced by the State Department of Education Dec. 4, was 10,413. It exceeds the total population of the state’s smallest coun ty, McCormick. Still to be heard from were Green ville, the state’s second most populous county, and Dillon. The delay in Greenville was due to the fact that the school district there, which includes the whole county, was undertaking an elaborate census to be used in project ing attendance figures and school hold ing power over a period of years. Economic hardship was given as the No. 1 reason for leaving school. The census was ordered by the legis lature when statistics showed South Carolina youth faring poorly in Selec tive Service mental tests and other ed ucational criteria. As the state moved to attack the dropout problem, the most recently heard proposal for a solution was the re-enactment of a compulsory-attend ance law. This step was strongly opposed by Calhoun County Sen. L. Marion Gres sette in a statement Dec. 11. Sen. Gres sette heads the S. C. School Commit tee, which is charged with maintaining segregation in the state’s schools. At the suggestion of the Gressette Com mittee, an earlier compulsory-attend ance law was taken off the state’s books in 1956. He said such a law would “greatly endanger our present school system in view of what we are facing at this time.” He said attendance was better now than when the law was in force and insisted that laws on the books are sufficient if they are enforced properly. He referred to a child-neglect law which, among other things, makes par ents over 21 responsible if they will fully and knowingly encourage a mi nor “to become and be habitually tru ant.” Sen. Gressette said he believes that persons who favor a compulsory-at tendance have not “given sufficient thought to the subject.” ★ ★ ★ York County Board of' ssioners ruled Dec. 30 tha . man, who had announce j ite for the county’s Dis board, filed too late ana ffble to run in the Jan. Maggie S. Bailey, a Ro<^ , attempted to file Uec. d she was probably too ‘ 5 filing deadline, underlaw, ;fore the election, or Dec. ^ Bailey said she had no las Day in figuring the to ^ lection board asked fl. of Attorney General 1 before ruling her inel P t was a candidate for vo tes- in 1961 and polled 18» ^ being declared niehgi ^ n , e was disappointed but ^ o the decision. She a ha ve ught it would be use o on the board an iibei a have worked for a m0 ,^. gein eB* ave policy and for enlarged ■crowded schools. a gai r -