Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—MARCH, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ALABAMA
Court Studies State School Laws
(Continued From Page 1)
Jan. 30 order (SSN, February) which
had directed the Macon County board
to close Tuskegee High. At the same
time, the board also nullified its Feb. 4
(SSN, February) directive to the Ma
con board ordering the board to make
state tuition grants available to white
students attending private segregated
schools. Principal beneficiary would
have been the Macon Academy, formed
last fall after all 250 white students at
Tuskegee High withdrew with the
court-ordered admission of 12 Negroes.
To Other Schools
When the school was ordered closed
Jan. 30 for economic reasons—13 fac
ulty members were employed for 12
Negro students—Judge Frank M. John
son Jr., of Montgomery ordered that
six of them be admitted to a previously
all-white high school at Shorter and
the other six at Notasulga. (SSN Feb
ruary.)
Johnson ordered the governor and
the state board not to interfere. At
Notasulga the six assigned there were
turned away by Mayor Frank Rea Feb.
5 (SSN, February) with the explana
tion that, under a recently adopted fire
and safety ordinance, the additional
students would create an unsafe con
dition.
At Shorter, the six Negroes assigned
there entered without serious incident
(SSN, February).
On Feb. 13, Judge Johnson ordered
Notasulga city officials not to interfere
with desegregation of the high school
there. The judge called Mayor Rea’s
contention of a safety hazard only a
ruse to circumvent the court’s order.
A partial boycott of white students
in both cities became total in a few
days. The result: Tuskegee High re
mained closed, Johnson having agreed
that its operation was uneconomic;
high schools at Shorter and Notasulga
were attended only by the six Negro
students assigned to each. Enrollment
mounted at the Macon Academy. (See
Schoolmen.)
Statewide Application
Seizing on the state board’s inter
vention in Macon, Negro attorney Fred
Gray of Montgomery sought not only
to end interference with the court’s
desegregation orders but filed an
amendment to the original Macon suit
seeking an order to require desegre
gation in every system in the state.
Johnson did not rule on this Feb. 4,
deferring a hearing until Feb. 21 when
a three-judge federal panel heard the
case. The panel consisted of Johnson,
presiding Judge Richard T. Rives of
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and
District Judge H. H. Grooms of Bir
mingham.
Plaintiffs sought to establish from
testimony of State Supt. Meadows,
Macon Supt. C. A. Pruitt and others
that the state had not only intervened
in the Macon case but had exercised
substantial control over local boards
for years and had adhered to a segre
gated school policy.
The array of defense lawyers for
the state board, the Macon County
Board and the Macon Academy at
tempted to prove that the board had
erred in its intervention, that it had
no such authority and had successfully
purged itself by rescinding its closing
and tuition directives.
Testimony revealed that, at the urg
ing of Gov. Wallace, state employees
had contributed some $2,400 to the
Alabama’s whole segregation-de
segregation posture will be reviewed
by a three-judge federal court panel
which on Feb. 21-22 heard petitioners
ask for a statewide order to desegre
gate all the districts in the state on
the basis of the State Board of
Education’s intervention in Macon
County.
The board ordered Tuskekee High
closed Jan. 30, pupils and teachers
transferred to other schools and, on
Feb. 4, authorized tuition grants to
students with no public schools to
attend.
U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson
of Montgomery agreed that the oper
ation of Tuskegee High—with 12 Ne
gro students and 13 faculty members
after all the 250 white students with
drew from the school last September
—was uneconomic. However he di
rected that the students be admitted
Notasulga’s Mayor Rea
The city had a law.
private Macon Academy and that other
individuals and groups over the state
also had contributed. However, the
defense denied that any state funds
actually had been granted for purposes
of maintaining a segregated school.
Plaintiffs did not prove that any had,
but argued that by various acts—such
as accreditation of the academy by the
PRUITT
state board—the new private school
was in fact an integral part of the
state public school system. Negro stu
dents testified that they had attempted
to enroll at the school after Tuskegee
High was closed and were turned away.
The plaintiffs further contended that
the state board’s actions rescinding its
closing and tuition orders made no
difference since it had intervened, with
or without authority.
At stake was the 1955 placement law.
It was upheld by the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1958 as valid on its face, but
the lower-court finding affirmed by the
high court had warned that the law
might later prove unconstitutional “in
application.”
Macon Supt. Pruitt testified that he
received directions from the state board
to close Tuskegee High, to provide
transportation for white pupils to other
schools in the county, and to imple
ment tuition grants to their parents.
Placement Law
Pruitt said the placement law had
been applied when the 12 Negro stu
dents were transferred to Tuskegee last
September but that it had not been
used when white students transferred
to Shorter and Notasulga. (For de
scription of Pruitt’s previous efforts to
facilitate desegregation of Tuskegee
High, see SSN, February.)
When Montgomery attorney Marion
Rushton made the closing argument for
the state board Feb. 22, he was inter-
to schools at Shorter and Notasulga.
White students in both cities boy
cotted the schools, leaving six Ne
groes in each.
Attorneys for Negro plaintiffs con
tended that the state board’s actions,
and support of the newly organized
private Macon Academy, made it
subject to a statewide desegregation
order. The court gave both sides 50
days, from Feb. 22, in which to file
written briefs.
The state board retreated from its
orders, but the plaintiffs insisted
that the intervention was nonetheless
a usurpation of local control.
Two Negro teachers were admitted
to the University of Alabama’s ex
tension center in Birmingham, the
first of their race to attend the facil
ity, which has an enrollment of
1,600.
rupted by Judge Johnson who asked
what assurance the court had the board
would not again seek to assume au
thority over local school affairs as it
had in Macon. Rushton replied that
the board had already disavowed its
legal authority to intervene.
State Attorney General Richmond
Flowers, who had been at odds with
the governor and the school board,
which he accused
of having com
mitted a blunder
in its intervention
order, contended
that the Macon
board was the
sole defendant
and plaintiffs had
no legal right to
ask for court or
ders affecting
other boards in
the state. flowers
Joining Gray in representing the
plaintiffs were New York attorneys
Jack Greenberg and Charlie Jones,
both employed by the Legal Defense
Fund of NAACP. The U.S. Justice
Department was represented by St.
John Barrett and Robert Owens. Gov.
Wallace and the state board were rep
resented by four prominent Montgom
ery law firms.
Attorney General By-Passed
Flowers, normally counsel for the
state board, was bypassed, though he
said this was illegal (SSN, February);
he appeared only as an attorney for
the Macon board and, as he put it, to
safeguard the legal and moral interests
of the state.
Flowers’ falling-out with Wallace
dates back to his inaugural statement
in January, 1963 (SSN, February, 1963)
when he appealed for law and order
and legal resistance, in sharp contrast
to Wallace’s “segregation now, segre
gation tomorrow, segregation forever”
speech.
Flowers said of the board’s action
rescinding its order that finally the
members, including ex-officio chairman
Wallace, had joined his position. “It
possibly will enable me to save them
from a blunder they have made.”
Earlier he had called the intervention
foolish, ill-planned and outside the law
—“a catastrophe that would mean total
integration for Alabama. It submits
every local school board in the state
to one federal court order.”
★ ★ ★
Birmingham Indictments
Against Eight Quashed
U.S. District Judge Frank W. Allgood
of Birmingham dismissed indictments
against eight persons accused of forci
bly obstructing court-ordered school
desegregation in Birmingham last fall.
Allgood agreed with attorneys for the
defendants that the indictments failed
to state specific offenses.
Among the eight were Edward R.
Fields, 32, information officer of the
National States’ Rights Party, other
members of the party and their attor
ney, Jessie B. Stoner of Atlanta.
All but Jack Cash, Birmingham, were
charged with conspiracy to interfere
with the court’s school desegregation
order. Cash was charged on two
counts: attempting to obstruct justice
“by threats and force” and possession
of an unauthorized weapon. Judge All-
Georgia
(Continued From Page 5)
news coverage of racial incidents. He
used as an example an incident in
Princess Anne, Md., accused the Wash
ington Post of playing it down and said
that if it had occurred in the Deep
South, the newspaper would have had
a headline “that high,” and “a grue
some cartoon from the pen of Her-
block.”
★ ★ ★
Former Mayor William B. Hartsfield
of Atlanta suggested that extension of
the city limits would help solve At
lanta’s racial problems.
Addressing the Atlanta Rotary Club,
he said a “racial balance, a partnership
arrangement” was vital. “If this be
comes too much a Negro town,” he
warned, “we will have a built-in
hatred.”
In a later speech to the Atlanta chap
ter of Sigma Delta Chi journalism
society, Hartsfield, a moderate in racial
matters, criticized “Negro extremists,”
saying they “are like hot-rodders. They
forget the past achievements of the
earlier Negro leaders.”
Alabama Highlights
MEADOWS
I
(
At Tuskegee, the Doors Were Locked t
Principal E. W. Wadsworth, Dr. J. H. M. Henderson and daughter Ellen.
good retained the latter count against
Cash.
★ ★ ★
U.S. District Judge H. H. Grooms
of Birmingham Feb. 24 struck out of
a voter discrimination suit against
Sumter County’s board of registrars
allegations that the county provides
inferior schools for Negroes.
It was alleged that because Negroes
are denied equal educational opportu
nities, they were at a disadvantage in
registering. Grooms rejected this sec
tion of the complaint because, he said,
the county school board would not be
involved in the hearing, expected
sometime in the spring.
Schoolmen
State Board Eases
Ruling on Pupils
From Out-of-State
The State Board of Education re
treated in early February from a Jan.
30 resolution (SSN, February) which
required approval of the state board
before any “nonresident” student could
be “duly enrolled” in a public school.
All 10 of the students who entered
previously all-white schools in Hunts
ville were, according to Gov. George
Wallace, dependents of personnel at
the space and missile complex at
Huntsville. The resolution would have
applied to every city and county sys
tem in the state, requiring each to
report within 30 days a list of all
nonresident students enrolled or hav
ing applied for enrollment.
Reports also would have been re
quired in subsequent semesters. Board
members said the report would give
them a weapon to fight desegregation.
They said it could be used to remove
the 10 Negroes enrolled when schools
were desegregated in Huntsville Jan.
27. (SSN, February.)
The resolution, as amended in Feb
ruary, requires only the approval oi
local boards. State School Supt. Austin
R. Meadows wired U.S. Education
Commissioner Francis Keppel Feb. 6:
“State board resolution applies only ;
to pupils living on federal property
who enroll in public schools on non-
federal property and the resolution ap
plies to support county and city boards .
of education in their placement of j
pupils in accordance with state laws
and does not authorize the state board
... to place any pupil in any school.
“The state board is unanimous in
welcoming non-resident pupils in the
public schools in accordance with state
iaws.” J
The action was in accordance vatn
the state board’s withdrawal (■**
Legal Action) from the position that
it had authority to close schools, assign
pupils or transfer teachers —. |° I
which actions were explicit in the
board’s Jan. 30 resolutions that man?
observers thought exposed the state |
a single-shot, statewide desegregation ^
order and undercut the Pupil Pl ace
ment Act.
School boards in Huntsville, 1
mingham, Tuskegee and Mobile rem .
under federal-court orders to a PP^
the law without discrimination in
ting up desegregation plans. M'os ,
tomeys believe the law gi v ' es ,j
boards some flexibility which w
otherwise be denied.
★ ★ ★
White Boycotters Swell
Rolls at Private School
Boycotting white stu.d e nts
schools at Notasulga and ^
swelled the enrollment of die P
(See ALABAMA, Page O
At Shorter, Negroes Were Admitted
Patrolmen board school bus.