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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL, 1964—PAGE II WEST VIRGINA State Board To Draft Desegregation Policy Statement CHARLESTON T he West Virginia Board of Education, prodded to “take a position of moral leadership even if it lacks authority,” voted March 12 to draft a policy state ment on public school desegre gation. The prodding came from a four- member delegation representing the State Human Rights Commission in a 45-minute appearance before the board. Howard W. McKinney, commission executive director, told the board 40 per cent of school-age Negro children in the state still attend Negro schools. Board members replied that the board quickly desegregated state-op erated colleges after the 1954 Supreme Court decision, but they said the board has no power over the county school boards which run the county public school systems. Reluctant to let it go at that, the delegation pushed for an affirmative step by the board to speed desegre gation where it is lagging. Commission representatives argued that a statement by the board urging complete desegre gation would have an effect even though it was unenforceable. Subcommittee Appointed After the delegation left, the board voted, on a motion by Joseph C. Jef- ferds Jr. of Charleston, to appoint a subcommittee to draft a statement of the board’s position on public school desegregation. Board President Arthur H. Spangler of Bluefield named a subcommittee made up of Arnold Vickers of Mont gomery as chairman, Charles H. Brown of Kingwood and Lacy I. Rice of Mar- tinsburg. Under the Jeffords motion, the sub committee is to draft a statement for consideration by the board at the next meeting April 30-May 1. Whether the statement will approach commission recommendations remains to be seen. In its 1963 annual report, summarized in a statement to the board Thursday by McKinney, commission recommended that board: • Set a date “not more than five years hence” for elimination of all Ne gro schools. • Adopt a policy of “positive lead ership for the integration of faculty end administrative personnel.” • Adopt a policy of “promoting hu- m an relations in the schools and that attention be given to curriculum con tent and assistance to teachers in deal ing with prejudice and handling inter racial activities.” Appearing with McKinney were Dr. Jhomas W. Gavett of West Virginia University, Human Rights Commission chairman, Mrs. Charles W. Wilson III Charleston, vice-chairman, and nabbi Samuel Cooper of Charleston, a m ember. McKinney told the board the com- the the Alabama (Continued From Page 10) ksulga when these were ordered de- 'cgregated (See Legal Action). sch arents pupils at the Shorter tr C °°1 se t up a car pool to provide ansportation to and from the school, remodeled residence, me 6 ,^ acon Academy in Tuskegee anwhile, was declared “completely ccessful.” Despite the pressure of new and " ts fr° m high schools at Shorter War j^°tf su lga, Headmaster Cliff Ed- sbiH sa ' < i a month’s trial run of two- Ro °^ ra h° n had worked well. Virvi P > earson , f ormer administrator of vat e Prhice Edward County pri- “tryi ^hool, declared the academy ^wJ 6markable anc i a credit to the 4 r People of Macon County.” temnl ^ j 6 an< ^ modem” school is con- counh- et L° n “suitable acreage” in the officials tls said. ★ ★ ★ Uagu- handerdale County Voters >Uissi 0n S tbe Florence City Com bating m . arc h to move toward elimi- icbs discrimination in schools, Th^d other areas. ^° a g to°^ iSSion Passed the request Mdch ad - 6 ck ? , ' s hiracial study group, ;Cfs, Tb V , lses city officials on such mat- ard 0 f '[j? gUe rec l u ested that the city ? ese greir=«ucation prepare a plan of Tb a . 10n a U public schools in *° the board^*^ 0 request was referred o histor^ 6 ’ f 1 ^ or th Alabama, has had S»h ^°f,.P eace f u l race relations, f a kd. Nem^° 1C “hools remain segre- WaJ ^(j 063 b °id executive positions I mission was not overlooking what he called “important progress” already in public school desegregation. West Virginia has a higher percent age (60) of its school-age Negro chil dren attending desegregated schools than any other border or Southern state which had compulsory segregation prior to the 1954 decision, McKinney said. However, according to a report he distributed to the board members, in seven counties with 53 per cent of the state’s school-age Negroes, seven out of ten Negro children still attend seg regated schools. These counties are Jefferson, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Raleigh, Wyoming and Fayette. Negro Schools Remain Gavett said that as long as there are neighborhood schools and all-Ne gro neighborhoods, there undoubtedly will be some all-Negro schools. But he said there are instances in the state—and he cited Jefferson Coun ty in particular—where Negro children are transported “from one end of the county to another” and pass white schools on their way to all-Negro insti tutions. Board Secretary H. K. Baer told the delegation the board, in matters over which it has power, has not hesitated to move toward desegregation. He recalled that it was only three days after the 1954 court decision that the board wiped out racial barriers at state-operated colleges. And in January of this year, Baer said, the board started writing into construction contracts a prohibition against employment discrimination “because of race, creed, color or na tional origin.” In the Colleges White Students Boycott School In Resort Town More than 100 students boycotted White Sulphur Springs High School March 18 and 19 in protest of racial desegregation within the school. White Sulphur Springs is a resort town almost on the southeast Virginia border and was the scene last fall of a Negro student demonstration during the Southern Governors’ Conference. The governors’ conference demon stration was aimed primarily at Ala bama Gov. George Wallace and Mis sissippi Gov. Ross Barnett, according to statements made by the student leaders and the signs they carried. White Sulphur Springs also was the scene of a student demonstration back in 1955 when the Greenbrier County Board of Education ordered school de segregation and then bowed to the pressures invoked by white citizens. Voluntary Basis A year later the National Associa tion for the Advancement of Colored People brought suit in southern district federal court to force desegregation, and at a hearing in Lewisburg, the Greenbrier County seat, agreement was reached between the contesting parties that desegregation would begin the next fall on a voluntary basis. Several other holdout counties in the southern region fell into line on What They Say m West Virginia Highlights The State Board of Education will draft a policy statement on school desegregation. This was decided after the State Human Rights Commission asked it to take a stand on an end to school segregation in five years. More than 100 students at West Virginia’s most popular resort, White Sulphur Springs, demonstrated against school desegregation. The Ku Klux Klan was reorganized in southern West Virginia as a means of combating school desegregation. Serious racial inequalities were charged in Kanawha County, the state’s largest county and one of its most desegregated. the basis of the Lewisburg agreement. Students who started the most recent boycott congregated at a city park in White Sulphur Springs and refused to return to classes despite pleas by school and city officials. All children participating in the boy cott were white. There was about an even division of boys and girls. Students Parade After spending most of the morning on the second day in the park, the stu dents paraded for the second time through the city’s main street. A few carried signs protesting desegregation. Police were on hand, but the dem onstrating was orderly. E. W. Cooper, Greenbrier County school superintendent, said he planned to take no action until a meeting a week later with the county school board. “If any disciplinary action is taken,” he added, “it will not be an nounced in following our policy.” Cooper said he didn’t know who was behind the boycotts but said it ap parently was someone who wants a seventh-grade Negro girl removed as a majorette. “But of course that’s im possible,” he commented. He also said that more than half the students participating in the boycott “are the type who can’t afford to miss classes.” The school has an enrollment of about 650. Slightly more than 10 per cent of the student body is Negro. Schoolmen NAACP Leaders Issue Charges On ‘Inequities’ Serious racial inequities exist in Kanawha County’s school system—es pecially in hiring practices and extra curricular activities—the leaders of Charleston’s NAACP branch said March 22. In a statement, the Negro group ex pressed concern and urged the county board of education to take “extraordi nary measures” to rectify the situation. The NAACP’s critical assessment of the school board’s racial policy was an outgrowth of two recent sessions its delegation held with Supt. L. K. Lov- enstein and the board. “At both meetings,” the statement said, “the NAACP leaders stated em phatically that they didn’t believe suffi cient progress had been made in the direction of integration to meet the needs of 1964. And looking forward, they feared the board had no plan to accelerate integration. NAACP Charges “Negroes are tired of waiting for equality, and in 1964 are in no mood to follow leaders who merely accepted pledges of gradual change.” Specifically, the NAACP charged among other things: • Negroes in the county are virtual ly excluded in all areas of school ad ministration. Both the county board and the entire administration staff are white. • The present situation is even worse than in 1954, the last year before court-ordered desegregation. (In 1954 one of the nine assistant superinten dents was Negro. Today there is no Negro assistant.) • While the school system was great ly expanded during the 1954-63 period, the percentage of Negro teachers dropped substantially. • Too many Negro pupils feel alien ated in the supposedly desegregated schools, largely because of factors which could be removed by a vigorous policy of promoting desegregation. • The current district school bound aries do not seem to be drawn in a manner which would promote maxi mum desegregation and additional op portunities for less privileged children. • The school system shows general disregard for Negro culture and his tory. (Before desegregation a number of schools were named for Negroes who played a role in American history, but since 1954 the names of such schools have been changed.) • It is almost impossible for school children, both white and Negro, to get a fair picture of the Negro and his story through their textbooks. Zoning Questioned The NAACP also questioned the pattern for zoning for the junior high schools, especially for John Adams Junior High, “because of the racial composition of students living close to the school who seem to be shunted to another school so that pupils from South Hills could predominate at Ad ams.” The statement said that at present two small elementary schools have Ne gro principals where in 1954 there were 10 Negro principals excluding eight others in two-room schools. The NAACP said, "If it (the school board) really wished to give more than lip service to integration, it should show the same kind of initiative in hiring that is shown by the federal government.” Turning to the declining number of Negro teachers and coaches, the NAACP noted, “The failure to employ Negroes as principals and as adminis trators has also been a factor signifi cantly discouraging Negro teachers from entering the county school sys tem.” As for the areas of extra-curricular life, it recommended that the county’s educational leaders must take strong steps to root out every possible vestige of discrimination and that school ad ministrators and teachers must stop giving any encouragement to out-of school groups when they deny mem bership to Negro students. Community Action Klan Unit Organized in Hinton Area The existence of the Ku Klux Klan “realm of West Virginia” as an organi zation to fight school desegregation and other advancement in the field of civil rights was revealed in Hinton March 14. Two Klan officers said a membership of 135 was recruited in three counties but some of these charter members were later culled. Hinton is a railroad ing and agricultural center in the southeastern part of the state. Noah Palmer, a Hinton plumber, re vealed himself as imperial wizard, and W. E. Houchins, also of Hinton, was said to be the Klan’s grand dragon. On March 22 it was announced that Hou chins had taken over the leadership. State NAACP President Says Five-Year Plan Is Too Slow The state president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said in Bluefield March 10 that a five-year plan to eliminate remaining Negro schools in the state is too slow. “Ten years is long enough. The schools of West Virginia have had plenty of time to integrate,” said the Rev. C. Anderson Davis of Bluefield, state NAACP head. The State Human Rights Commission intended at the time Davis made his comment to present its five-year plan to the State Board of Education a few days later. It did this, and the board named a committee to prepare a policy statement on the suggestions made. A commission report released some time ago says there are 74 all-Negro public schools in West Virginia. A ma jority of these are in deep southern counties and the easternmost county, Jefferson. The Rev. Mr. Davis said any plan to eliminate all-Negro schools in five years is contrary to the policy of NAACP. “We hope that the state board will not even consider any such five- year plan,” he said. He further said his organization has suits pending in Raleigh and Mercer counties to complete the desegregation process this fall. “It seems that the commission per sists in giving out information to the press which is not factual and which is contrary to the fight of the NAACP,” he said. As an example, he said a com mission report listed 20 Negroes as employed in Bluefield stores when ac tually the number is less. The Rev. Mr. Davis said the Human Rights Commission has enough to do without working counter to the I NAACP. Both Houchins and Palmer said the primary aim of the West Virginia realm is complete separation of the races, in cluding restoration of segregation in the public schools. Objectives Listed Other objectives, they said, are oppo sition to the Supreme Court ruling re garding religious exercises in the pub lic schools, adherence to the principle of states’ rights, abolition of the in come tax and abolition of foreign aid. “This is a Christian organization,” said Palmer. “We believe the Negro should have rights as long as he stays in his place.” Houchins said after he assumed the leadership of the organization that it would have 1,400 members by early June. He is a corresppndence course salesman and a former member of the John Birch Society. At this time, he said, about 113 white Protestants from Mercer, Raleigh, Summers and Braxton counties com pose the group. Women Supporters Houchins said the Klan’s staunchest supporters in the state are women “who seem to be worried about their daugh ters attending public integrated schools.” A national NAACP official March 15 blamed the “lack of moral leadership” of both political parties for what he called a resurgence of the Klan move ment in West Virginia. “Our elected officials of both parties in the state are morally and socially responsible for this resurgence because they have refused to take a positive posture,” said Philip Gordon, NAACP field secretary, in a statement in Charleston. “It is most regrettable and unfor tunate for West Virginia,” he said, “be cause this state’s attitude on civil rights generally has been a lot better than other Southern states. It behooves all citizens of West Virginia, both black and white, from the governor to the lowest person in the community to re nounce these social frauds for what they are.” ★ ★ ★ Two Groups to Conduct Joint Study Project Community studies searching for reasons behind bare statistics on such civil-rights matters as school desegre gation and equal employment oppor tunities will be undertaken in West Virginia soon. Beginning in Charleston and extend ing later to other communities, the studies will be joint projects of the West Virginia Human Rights Commis sion and the State Advisory Commit tee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commis sion. The two groups decided at a meeting March 19 to go ahead with the under- STANLEY GAVETT taking. Dr. Thomas Gavett of West Virginia University is chairman of the Human Rights Commission and Miles C. Stanley, president of the West Vir ginia Labor Federation (AFL-CIO), is president of the state advisory com mittee. Meeting with the groups was Samuel J. Simmons of Washington, director of the State Advisory Committees Divi sion of the U.S. Civil Rights Commis sion.