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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.