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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH, 1964—PAGE 15 Louisiana (Continued From Page 14) hildren who could be assigned to three c , r schools in adjacent attendance °‘ nes . Census figures, Lindsey said, z ? oVf that 397 Negro pupils in grades e through six now live in the Du- ® c q z one but only 175 white pupils in ™ same grade level live in the area. If approved by the board, the pupils urrently attending Dufrocq would be transferred to other schools next fall. \ similar change would be effected the following year at the Baton Rouge junior High School. Desegregation began in East Baton Rouge Parish, site of the state’s capital, in September, 1963, when 28 Negro 12th grade pupils were assigned to four formerly all-white high schools. Under the court-approved plan, the next low est grade will be desegregated each ensuing year. ★ ★ ★ St. Tammany Parish was commended Feb. 22 for its efforts to meet the ex panding educational needs of its grow ing population, “without federal aid.” \ A. Larsen, manager of industrial relations for the Boeing Company, which is engaged in missile-making ac tivities in the Gulf Coast area, wrote the letter of commendation to School Supt. William Pitcher. Noting that several hundred families recently have moved into the parish, with more to follow, Larsen wrote: “We are aware of the demands that have been and will be imposed on the parish in providing teaching staffs and school facilities. Citizens of St. Tam many are to be commended for passage of the recent $1.9 million bond issue, the addition of nearly 40 teachers and the construction of new buildings from Slidell to Covington. It is significant that this has been done without federal j aid.” St. Tammany Parish last year with drew its application for federal aid to impacted areas after several school sys tems in Louisiana and neighboring states were served with law suits seek ing to desegregate schools where such aid is granted. ★ ★ ★ William J. Dodd, who will assume office as state superintendent of educa tion in May, recently discussed his . plans for improving education in Louis- ■ana. Among them he emphasized job retraining and noted the availability of federal funds to encourage and support , ^oh state programs. Louisiana is the only state in the nation which has not moved to partici pate in this program, reputedly because of federal requirements that the state programs be conducted on a biracial j oasis. Political Acti c ^cKeithen Elected Governor; Republican Gets Sizeable Vote Prim 11 ^ LIcKeithen, whose Democrat: , ary victory in January reste "•as ^ on the “Negro bloc vote” issu v e lected governor of Louisian . on 3 jn the most spirited genen elect •ion of this century. Racial played . IT nunor P ar t i n the campaignin sta, 1 ret ums from 2,135 of tl *50.300P r ecincts gave McKeithe 283(501 Charlton Lyons, Republica: "j-i '® n< t Thomas S. Williams, State f * p arty, 5,485. ^ the best showing for a Re has ^ canf -hdate since 1896. Louisian Price p aa d a Republican goveme Seilo eaons truction when William Pi The R(T eId office from 1873 to 1877. I on ^ -year-old Lyons, a Shrevepo: 5i°r e Won 38 per cent of the vot triply a ,u ^euhling the percentage an Public! V, e number received by Re Francis Grevemberg in 1960 Stuck to Platforms Aa C i a i » ■oriuai t 1881168 w ere treated only PJestiof, er? P s or in response to dire '!then S j reporters. Both M ^tenienf . Lyons hued closely to t •• Viliam m ^eLr platforms. v rr d- s °t the States’ Rights Pari 5 federal ore the election, filed si j'drig t district court at Baton Rouj on ,5 a Postponement of the ele that he had been di ■ a f a fnst by state officials, o n=>.- f anned that only nine I T’t hirn IS J 1 eterks of court had no1 anrt° f t ^ e time and place f ., ^ge p S6 ^bng the voting machim V.m ere ,, '.Jordon West refused the election, but grant 3el on * hearing for March 6. !> So ifr Standin g tradition of Dem f ^hti 6s ^ty was cracked in sor two Republicans, Tayl I OKLAHOMA Negro School Patrons Reject De-Annexation OKLAHOMA CITY atrons of an all-Negro school in Oklahoma County have rejected a move to de-annex from a predominantly white district. The action in an official election Feb. 25 to determine sentiment may result at Choctaw by children of a group of disgruntled Negroes. The vote climaxed several months of controversy between the group and the Choctaw district board of education over alleged unequal facilities at the Dunjee School. The protesting Negro patrons had indicated earlier they would send their youngsters to the white school if the de-annexation effort failed. They have been circulating petitions asking that Dunjee be de-annexed from Choctaw and annexed to the Oklahoma City school system. ‘Vote of Confidence’ The vote was 293 to 89 in favor of remaining in the Choctaw district. Choctaw school board members took this as a vote of confidence and an nounced a previously scheduled $115,- 000 bond issue election will be held March 24. This is the date of the annual school board election. The bond election was to have been held in February. It was postponed because $45,000 to $50,000 of the bond- issue money is to be used for improve ments at Dunjee. The situation was complicated also by a fire that de stroyed the Dunjee school’s cafeteria and kitchen Dec. 8, a loss of $110,000 in building and equipment. The de-annexation move began in August when 14 Dunjee patrons ap plied to Raymond Harvey, county school superintendent, for a petition to be circulated asking for the change. The leaders were Antone Bridgett, for merly a custodian at Dunjee, and C. L. Sloss, former coach and brick masonry teacher. Both work in the Oklahoma City school system now. Want School Fixed They appeared before the Choctaw school board demanding that Dunjee facilities and curriculum be improved or that the school be de-annexed. Spe cifically they called for the addition of more trade classes and the remodel ing of the junior high and elementary buildings. Bridgett said at the time his group was “not necessarily as interested in getting out of the Choctaw district as getting the (Dunjee) school fixed up.” “If necessary, we will enroll our children in the Choctaw schools,” he said. This would mean admitting Negro students to all-white schools for the first time. At present all Negroes in the district attend Dunjee, which has a combined grade school and high school enrollment of 1,100. The district’s total enrollment is 3,725. Early in September the school board issued a formal desegregation policy statement. It contained a slight altera tion of the attendance boundaries be tween Dunjee and Choctaw and pro vided for free transfer during the 1963-64 school year for reasons of minority race and subject matter not offered in the home school. For 1964-65 the policy will be per mitting free transfer “without regard O’Hearn and Morley Hudson, won seats in the state House of Representatives in Caddo Parish, and at least three Republicans won seats on parish police juries (county governing bodies). Seventy-one Republicans and six States’ Rights candidates had contested for offices in various parts of the state. Community Action CORE Formulates National Plans Strategy planners of the Congress of Racial Equality met in New Orleans Feb. 14 to plan CORE’s nationwide program. “In the North we are concerned with de facto segregation in schools and housing.” said James Farmer, national director, at a press conference. “In the South, we are concerned with voter registration, public accommodations and jobs.” Voter registration efforts will be ac celerated in the months ahead, Farmer said, adding that the need is great in Louisiana. He said one voter registra tion drive would be in Plaquemines Parish, where Leander Perez Sr., arch segregationist wields great political in fluence. Oklahoma Highlights A move to de-annex a Negro school from a predominantly white district in Oklahoma County because of al leged unequal facilities was rejected. A federal judge suggested that the Oklahoma City school board call in an outside expert for a study to help determine its desegregation plan. Regents of the University of Okla homa voted to approve off-campus housing only when the landlord agrees in writing to accept students without regard to race. A human relations specialist said the schools will be a place to start the healing process that will follow the nation’s struggle over civil rights. to race or color between schools as long as facilities will provide.” But 13 Negro children eligible to attend all-white Choctaw schools en rolled instead at Dunjee. The board has repeatedly denied in adequacies exist at Dunjee. It said $200,000 has been spent at the school in the past two years. Land has been purchased for a new high school and auto mechanics was added to the cur riculum in the fall. Legal Action Judge Suggests Outside Study In Oklahoma City A federal judge has called for a study by an outside expert to help determine what Oklahoma City’s school desegregation plan should be. U.S. District Judge Luther Bohanon made the suggestion at the end of a hearing Feb. 28 on a permanent de segregation plan submitted by the Ok lahoma City Board of Education. The plan was attacked during the hearing by a Negro attorney on grounds it tends to perpetuate racial segregation in the schools and, there fore, is unconstitutional. He asked the board on what legal authority it bases its neighborhood- school principle of pupil assignment. Order Last Summer The hearing was called to determine whether the plan, “Policy Statements Regarding School Integration,” com plies with the law and with an order handed down by Bohannon last sum mer. He ordered the Oklahoma City pub lic school system to desegregate pupils and teachers and told the board to file a comprehen sive desegregation plan. His decree, issued July 11, was based on a suit brought by an Ok lahoma Negro op tometrist (Dowell v. Board of Edu cation) charging racial discrimina tion by the school board in its pu pil transfer policy. The board submitted a temporary plan Aug. 6 in which it announced transfers would no longer be based on race. It adopted the permanent plan Jan. 14 and filed it in court six days later. After a two-and-a-half-hour hear ing, Judge Bohanon said he would neither approve or disapprove the plan at this time. Asks Investigation He said he would like for the school board to have a “disinterested, non. prejudiced investigation by an expert in that field (school desegregation) who could tell us what would be the proper thing to do.” He said, if the board didn’t want to pay for it, he would see if the plaintiffs, Dr. A. L. Dowell and his son, Robert, would, and, if they did not, the court would find somebody else willing to pay the cost of the survey. Bohanon explained later to a South ern School News correspondent: “I want the survey to help the whole program. I want what is done to be right and proper, with the idea of continuing integration. I want more information as to what the board should say and as to what good-faith integration under all circumstances should amount to.” In the policy statements that made up its permanent plan the board de clared its intention to adhere to the neighborhood-school concept. It said the race of residents would have no bearing on establishment of attend ance area boundaries. But it said pu pils will be assigned so as to utilize all facilities as efficiently as possible. Attorney Charges This was reiterated by the superin tendent, Dr. Jack Parker, at the Feb. 28 hearing in questioning by U. Simp son Tate, Wewoka, attorney for the Dowells. It led Tate to suggest at one point school officials are putting more em phasis on removing inequities from buildings than on eliminating racial segregation among pupils as required by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions. At the outset Tate charged the “com munity plan of zoning schools” has two frailties. First, he said, there is nothing in Oklahoma law to authorize the board to make such a plan beyond a section giving it the right to designate schools for pupils to attend and to draw boundaries. Second, he said, the plan contributes to the maintenance of the status quo and tends to perpetuate racial segrega tion and, therefore, is unconstitutional. Parker Testimony Parker testified that for the 1963-64 school year 46 white elementary pupils have been transferred out of attend ance areas of all-Negro schools to other areas. Questioned closely by Tate, the superintendent said his staff made certain as far as it could that the reasons given were not based on race but were those authorized under the new transfer policy. It permits transfers to obtain a more appropriate educational program, to make it possible for two or more mem bers of the same family to attend the same school, to allow a pupil to com plete the highest grade offered in a school he has been attending and for other “valid, good-faith reasons.” Tate asked the superintendent, “What brought the board to conclude it should operate (the schools) on a strictly neighborhood basis? There’s nothing in the law I can find that authorizes it.” Parker replied that the neighbor hood-school plan is administratively the most practical way of assigning pupils and has been followed for many years. Attendance Areas Tate dwelt at length on an arrange ment of attendance areas that he said, in effect, keeps Douglass High segre gated for Negroes, with Moon Junior High and various elementary schools serving as “feeder” units. He said that, as a result, a Negro pupil starting in one of the elementary schools is des tined to “go through a segregated school system.” Parker replied that attendance areas on the east side as elsewhere were established to assure efficient use of all the units administratively and no racial implications were involved. The Negro attorney asked the super intendent if he feels his and the board’s duty is no more than to stop overt acts of racial segregation or if there is an “affirmative” duty to eliminate the practice of racial segregation. Said Parker: “I do understand that segregation is unlawful, that all of our own policies and practices should be such that segregation is not practiced.” Children Transported The hearing brought out reports that some white parents have entered co operative arrangements to transport their children out of predominantly Negro school areas to other areas. School officials said this has been done without arrangement with the board of education. Jimmy Stewart, former Oklahoma City branch president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, testified Negro chil dren in Oklahoma City have been lim ited in cultural opportunities. He said this has caused Negro job applicants to lag behind whites in placement ex aminations at government agencies and private industry. He said it has been found only the best Negro high school graduates can pass the examinations but they pass up technical-type employment to go to college. Average Negro students are not prepared to pass the tests and, thus, while they may be competent to handle the jobs in practice, are not in position to get them, Stewart said. He also testified that, with the ex ception of six or seven Oklahoma cities, when a Negro teacher is elimi nated from the community, Negro pupils lose their motivation to improve themselves. There are no other for mally trained Negroes to provide such motivation, he said. In The Colleges OU Board Adopts Housing Policy The University of Oklahoma regents have decided to approve off-campus housing for students only when the landlord agrees in writing to a non segregation policy. The statement adopted by the Board of Regents Feb. 13 was more liberal than a resolution recommended by the human-relations committee of the OU Student Senate. The student group said a recent sur vey disclosed that 78 of 108 Norman landlords refused to rent to Negro students. Of the 108 landlords 63 opposed any change in regulations and 26 voted in favor of a policy of desegregation, the survey showed. The regents also asked that univer sity officials exert their influence to ward elimination of racial discrimina tion. What They Say Carmack Predicts ‘Healing Process’ In Public Schools An Oklahoma human-relations spe cialist sees the public schools as a place to start the healing process that will follow America’s struggle over civil rights. Dr. William R. Carmack, Norman, predicted efforts will concentrate more and more on working with schools to develop ways of teaching good human relationships. Carmack is director of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies on the University of Oklahoma campus. He described two phases to the struggle for im proved “i nt e r - group” relations. The most ur gent phase, he said, concerns civil rights, or discrimination. “This is won with all the tech niques of the law court and the demonstration, but this may leave the participants even more hostile toward one another,” he said. Second Phase The second phase will concern im proved human relations, or overcom ing prejudice, he said. Here old insti tutions will find new goals and meth ods more effective, and new social institutions will be created, Carmack predicted. Carmack said a human relations subcommittee of the Oklahoma Cur riculum Commission, an educators’ group, has asked his center to set up a workshop for about 10 selected communities to deal with human re lations in the school. It would explore, he said, ways in which good human relations princi ples can be introduced throughout the school’s curriculum, not in isolated courses. The workshop, yet to be scheduled, will bring together teams of administrators and teachers in a sort of pilot study. PARKER TATE