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PAGE 8—FEBRUARY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Council Urges "Open Society’; Denounced by Governor
LITTLE ROCK
T HE ARKANSAS Council on Human
Relations, in its annual meeting
Jan. 4 at Little Rock, adopted a series
of resolutions calling for the end of
segregation in the public schools and
all other areas of society.
Gov. Orval E. Faubus objected and
an argument arose in which Faubus
said an issue might be developing that
could induce him to run for a sixth
term. He has not yet announced his
political intentions for this year.
The document approved by the coun
cil said “the time has come for the
civic, religious and business leaders of
the various communities of our state
to affirm openly and in good faith their
dedication to the fundamental principle
of equality upon which our society is
based and to support their affirmation
by vigorous leadership and resolute
action . .
Public education was the first area
in which Arkansas leaders were urged
to concentrate. The resolution said that
“by design, ‘token integration’ perpe
tuates segregation” and that “exclusion
of Negro students from any school sys
tem is educationally indefensible.” It
added that “a dual school system in
Arkansas is an economic and educa
tional waste.”
Local and state educational leaders
were urged to:
• “Abandon the administrative use
of the Arkansas Pupil Placement laws.
• “Establish a firm policy of includ
ing Negro students in all school activ
ities where Negro students are attend
ing white school with white students.
• “Initiate plans ... to end the
present dual school system based on
race.”
Commends and Deplores
The council commended the Univer
sity of Arkansas “for its early and con
tinuing acceptance of Negro students
into its academic program with access
to most of its activities and facilities,”
but it deplored “the university’s con
tinuing failure to extend equal treat
ment to Negro students in certain areas
of university life, notably housing and
intercollegiate athletics.”
In its resolution, the council com
mended communities “such as Little
Rock, Pine Bluff, Fayetteville and
others” for activities in race relations
but deplored “the activities of those
communities such as North Little Rock,
Helena, El Dorado and others whose
leaders have chosen to obstruct pro
gress in some instances even by passing
and applying local, constitutionally
doubtful laws abridging the rights of
free association and expression.
“We strongly urge that all commun
ities . . . either begin immediately or
continue progressively to work towards
the achievement of a completely ‘open
society’ in which the benefit and pros
perity of all its citizens will be assured,”
the council resolution declared.
Governor’s Statement
Two days after the council meeting,
Gov. Faubus, during an interview on
a Little Rock television program (“Ar
kansas A.M.,” KTHV), made this state
ment as quoted by the Associated
Press:
“If you’ll look into the history of that
organization, you’ll find that it was or
ganized originally as a Communist
front. Those people will bring on a
race war. They are trying to stir up
the Negro, telling him that he is being
discriminated against. That group is
dangerous.”
Faubus was quoted further by United
Press International as saying that the
council was a Communist-front organ
isation organized as the Southern Coun
cil on Human Welfare, and that he
was at Commonwealth College when
the original council was conceived.
Commonwealth, at Mena, which
Faubus attended for a short time in the
spring of 1935, was disbanded in the
late 1930s and later was declared to
have been a subversive institution.)
No Record Reported
The Arkansas Gazette reported that
there was no record of a Southern
Council on Human Welfare and listed
22 persons, most of them identified as
prominent whites and Negroes, who or
ganized the Arkansas Council in 1954.
Faubus replied that if the Gazette
and the council wanted to make a
political issue of his criticism of the
council, “that would be an inducement
for me to run. I’ve benefited more from
the mistakes of my enemies than I
ever have from the ingenuity of my
friends.”
The governor said he would “go in
my files and in the files of the com-
Arkansas Highlights
The Arkansas Council on Human
Relations, which adopted resolutions
calling for an “open society,” was
described by Gov. Orval Faubus as a
“Communist-front” organization. The
council, in a denial, called the gov
ernor’s remarks “irresponsible.”
An editorial in the student news
paper at Hendrix College, a Metho
dist institution, said students are
ready for complete desegregation and
want it by September.
Members of the University of Ar
kansas Senate, a faculty group, were
invited to express opinions on
whether university athletics should
be desegregated.
A Negro student complained to the
Arkansas Advisory Committee of the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
about segregated dormitories at the
University of Arkansas.
The Fayetteville Ministerial Asso
ciation called for desegregation of
elementary school grades there.
Federal Appeals Court upheld dis
missal of a civil-rights damage suit
brought in connection with the break
up of segregationist demonstrations
at Little Rock’s Central High School
in 1959.
The executive board of the Na
tional Baptist Convention (Negro)
at Hot Springs called for a moderate
approach to civil rights, and its atti
tudes were criticized by the president
of the Hot Springs NAACP, a mem
ber of the board.
mittees of Congress. Some of those
people (council organizers) are not so
well known but when we get through
they’ll be well known.
“They talk of bigotry. That’s the
worst bunch of bigots God ever let
the sun shine on. Basically, like all left
wingers I have known all my life, they
have the only way. Everyone else is
wrong. And if they can’t persuade
everyone to follow their thinking, they
want the billy club, the bayonet and
the court order to make everybody
get in line.” Faubus said he wanted
“these people to keep their nose out
of my business.”
Reply to Faubus
On Jan. 16, Ozell Sutton, associate
director of the council, and the Rev.
Walter B. Clancy, a Catholic priest,
went on KTHV to answer Faubus. Sut
ton is a Negro. Father Clancy, white,
teaches at St. John’s Missions Seminary
at Little Rock.
Father Clancy said, “The governor’s
remarks we categorically and unequi
vocally deny. There’s not a shred of
evidence that our organization in its
origins had any Communist front affil
iations.” He did not want to comment
on the governor’s reasons for making
his remarks but called the remarks
“irresponsible.”
As for stirring up the Negro and
telling him he is being discriminated
against, Sutton said the council did not
have to do that; that the Negro already
knows it and finds it out anew every
time he steps out of his front door. He
said the council is trying to stir up
the whites.
★ ★ ★
Advisory Group’s
Education Report
Stirs Comments
The “Report On Arkansas: Educa
tion,” issued in October by the Arkan
sas Advisory Committee to the United
States Commission on Civil Rights was
still provoking comment, pro and con,
during January.
The conclusion of the report was that
Arkansas schools are still separate and
unequal and that in the last 10 years,
no “significant progress” had been made
in eliminating the gap between white
and Negro educational opportunities.
The State Education Department has
prepared a rebuttal for Gov. Orval E.
Faubus but he had not released it in
late January. State Education Commis
sioner Arch W. Ford said Jan. 7 that
the department report would show that
there is a gap between white and
Negro schooling but that it has been
narrowed substantially in the last 10
years.
Then the Memphis Commercial Ap
peal noted that the “Report on Ar
kansas” contained school statistics for
the year 1961-62 but none for the year
1951-52 to back up its conclusions on
what has happened in the 10 years.
The Tennessee newspaper took the
position that the advisory committee
could not back up its conclusions.
Resolution Adopted
The Arkansas Teachers Association
(Negro), in a meeting Jan. 18 at Little
Rock, adopted a resolution commending
the advisory committee for its report
and referring to the “disadvantages and
inequities of the separate but equal
doctrine of Arkansas education.”
The ATA said there had been some
progress but that there could have been
much more if the State Department of
Education had exerted leadership. It
said, “The ATA has long been dis
satisfied with the ‘hands off’ policy of
the State Department of Education at
the local level. This policy gives silent
approval to the perpetuation of inequal
ities in our local school districts.”
The advisory committee issued a
statement of its own Jan. 24.
It expressed pleasure “that its 1963
report on education has been the sub
ject of extensive and continuing dis
cussion. Free exchange of ideas on mat
ters of public concern is essential to
our democratic process. . .”
The statement said:
“The response, of course, has varied.
The criticism there has been centers
around the conclusion that there has
been no significant progress in the past
decade in alleviating racial disparity
in Arkansas public schools.
“ ‘Significant’ implies a value judg
ment. The Negro children in Yell
County who still travel 110 miles a day
for their schooling must have difficulty
discovering significance in slow pro
gress which isolated state percentages
reveal. Patrons of Negro schools in Van
Buren County, Izard County, and Ar
kansas County, whose schools officially
were declared inferior in 1885, 1937,
and 1955, respectively, and which are
still inferior, would be taxed to
significant improvements. Scholars who
expected crash programs by Southern
states to equalize separate schools after
the Brown decision might not consider
significant efforts which have fallen far
short of their predictions.
“But criticism based on vocabulary t
or syntactical preference is immaterial
Linguistic quibbling should not be al
lowed to obscure the fact that the legal
obligation to Negro school children ’
deepened a decade ago, but community
response to that obligation did not. The
best evidence of this failure—un-
rebutted in all responses to the commit
tee report—is that Arkansas public
schools are still separate, and still un
equal.
“The Arkansas Advisory Committee
offers its support to any effort to allev
iate the problem by working towards
the best educational opportunity for all
children in our state.” I
★ ★ ★
University’s Policy
On Housing Discussed
A Negro sophomore at the University
of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Raymond
Carter of Little Rock, appeared before
the Arkansas Advisory Committee to
the United States Commission on Civil
Rights and described the segregated
housing at the university. The commit
tee held a public session Jan. 25 at
Little Rock to receive complaints.
Carter said the university dormitor
ies, built mostly with loans from the
federal government, were restricted to
white students, even though they had
vacant rooms. This has been the policy
since 1957, he said. From 1948 until
1957, he said, the dormitories were bi-
racial but in that year—the year of the
start of the Little Rock school crisis—
the university board decided that bi- ;
racial dormitories might be “inflamma
tory” and closed them to Negroes.
He said the university provided off-
campus housing for women Negro stu
dents but that Negro men had to find
their own. He lives in the basement
of a white family’s house eight blocks
from the campus.
He said several persons have called
on Dr. David W. Mullins, university
president, to compalin about this but
(See GOVERNOR’S, Page 9)
In the Colleges
College Paper Urges
The College Profile, official news
paper of the Student Association of
Hendrix College at Conway, called for
desegregation of the college this year.
An editorial published Jan. 13 re
sponded to the statement by Dr. Mar
shall T. Steel, college president, in a
newsletter sent to alumni in December,
that the college board was studying
the problem and probably would an
nounce a desegregation policy in the
spring.
The editorial, called “Concerning the
Integration of Hendrix,” called Dr.
Steel’s words highly cautious and said
the trustees had committed an over
sight by not ordering desegregation
earlier.
It continued:
“We do sincerely hope that when
integration comes it will be total in
tegration and not just an opening up
of our educational facilities—that is,
we sincerely hope Negroes will be al
lowed to share with us our living and
social facilities for only in this man
ner will they truly become our fellow
men. . . .
“Speaking of realizations, we know
that integrating the college could pos
sibly cause trouble off campus. But
surely our generation has not yet
grown so spineless or resourceless that
we cannot meet difficulties and find
solutions to them. We hope those who
object can find a better argument for
the prevention of integration than that
it will cause some problems. ... It is
our feeling that the majority of us . . .
desire to see the end of an injustice.
Most of us not only strive to see the
end, but also want to participate in
this ending. Give us our chance—not
in a few years, this would be intoler
able—but give us our chance next
September. We are ready.”
Hendrix is a co-educational Metho
dist college for white students. Conway
is 30 miles north of Little Rock.
Of the eight members of the South
west Conference, all but the Univer
sity of Arkansas have decided to de
segregate their athletic teams. After
the color line was broken last fall,
the university board met Nov. 22 and
adopted the following policy:
“Changes in longstanding practices
concerning integrated athletics have
been made at some of the member in
stitutions of the Southwest Conference.
This Board feels that there should be
no changes in its present policy.
Coaches will continue to be responsible
for selecting members of their teams
within the framework of University
regulations. These selections are made
after careful study of each individual,
his athletic ability, his physical condi
tion, and what he can contribute to
the team and the University.”
The board did not say what the
current policy is but it has been prac
ticing segregation, although the campus
and classes have been desegregated
since 1948. The other seven members
of the conference are in Texas.
Opinions Invited
It became known in January that
members of the University Senate, a
faculty group, had been invited by the
Senate chairman on Dec. 9 to express
their opinion on whether university
athletic teams should be desegregated.
The chairman this year is Dr. Hardy
C. Wilcoxon, professor of psychology.
Dr. Wilcoxon’s memorandum to the
Senate members said, “A policy matter
of current interest is that of integra
tion of university athletics. As you
probably know, the Board of Trustees
recently issued a statement on the sub
ject, and I have no doubt that it will
review its policy periodically. . . .
“Let me, therefore, urge you at this
time to write the chairman of the Uni
versity Senate Committee on Athletics,
giving him your views on the question
of integration of university athletics....
I am sure you will agree that the com-
Early Desegregation
Exchange Students at Philander Smith College
(From left) Acting Dean of Instruction Crawford J. Mims; Cecil Horst an ^
Suzanne Knoll of Luther College; Benjamin Diggins and Miss ..^^,5
Carter of Philander Smith; Nelson Gigstad of Luther; Miss Etta Marie '
of Philander Smith.
mittee can discharge its responsibilities
to the Senate best if it has on record
the views of a substantial number of
Senate members.”
The Northwest Arkansas Times of
Fayetteville, where the main campus
of the university is located, reported
Jan. 8 that it and the Associated Press
had polled the 10 members of the Uni
versity Board, before the board meet
ing of Nov. 22, and had found a ma
jority of them opposed to integration.
Only one member, who did not want
to be identified, favored desegregation,
the Times reported.
Before the November board meeting,
Gov. Orval E. Faubus also ha ^ 6 %e ■
on record against desegregating
university teams.
★ ★ ★ ,,
, Little
ider Smith College 0 jj e -
Methodist institution
las a student exchange^
iring the spring semeste ^
College of Decorah, 1° ^
by the American y ^
Three white students
are at Philander Snuth Lj^ts
r and three Negr ° t r,uther
lilander Smith are at