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EOLITH CAROLINA
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL, 1964—PAGE 5
Desegregation Suit Filed Against Orangeburg County
COLUMBIA
O rangeburg County, in the
heart of South Carolina’s
agricultural Low-Country, be-
ca me the sixth of the state’s 46
counties to become the target of
a school desegregation suit dur
ing March.
In upstate Greenville, a school board
was ordered to act on Negro applica
tions by April 6.
The Greenville order was issued by
US. District Judge J. Robert Martin,
a Greenville resident who ordered the
state’s first public-school desegregation
in Charleston last August.
“I want to get this thing over as soon
as we can,” Judge Martin told lawyers
and interested parties attending a hear
ing on a motion to add plaintiffs to a
school desegregation suit brought last
August by the father of seventh-grader
flaine Whittenberg, who now attends
all-Negro Gower Elementary School.
The girl was the only plaintiff in the
original suit (Whittenberg v. School
District of Greenville County, et al)
but it was brought as a class action.
More Plaintiffs
Purpose of the hearing was to rule
on a motion by Negro attorneys to add
other Negro plaintiffs who had pre
viously applied for transer to all-white
schools. Greenville school attorney E.
P. (Ted) Riley asked the court to dis
miss the motion as well as the original
suit but was unsuccessful.
Instead, four new Negro plaintiffs
were added—Sara Thompson, Lewis
Ronald Byrd, Mary M. Baker and Don
ald James Sampson Jr. The latter, son
of one of the Negro attorneys in the
case, was the first of his race to apply
for transfer to one of Greenville’s all-
white schools.
The new plaintiffs had all applied
for transfer previously and entered new
applications on February 24 and March
5. Riley told the court the new appli
cations still were pending before the
hoard. He argued that the applications
constituted new action on the part of
the plaintiffs.
But Judge Martin said, “I am going
to give that board an opportunity to
act. Anybody ought to be able to make
up his mind in 30 days.” Then he set
the April 6 deadline for decision.
He directed Riley to notify the
Delaware
(Continued From Page 4)
at Jf as t 4,420 in September.
6 current enrollment is
'"®> of which 1,415 are in graduate
sohools and 3,036 are taking extension
courses.
The current overall budget is $15,-
.000, with about one-third supplied
the state, which provides 100 per
cant °t the operational cost at the Ne-
?r ° state college.
yhile mindful of expansion, Dr. Per-
arirf the JFC that the University
abl ^ aware State College should be
ne h * *° ^ an< He the higher education
hitur s t a te in the foreseeable
it sa^ 6 - un i vers ity is desegregated,
j ** < t° es not keep records on the
bow. r Negroes enrolled. Estimates,
j ever, put the number at about two
ueator Backs
holier Training
^^hoolg R aVe a responsibility to pro-
*^° v >dhi >Ul1 ^- * nter S rou P relations by
kaeher- 11 ® in-service training for
Md , ’ ac cording to a Baltimore,
^ educator.
rv C. Bard, president of Bal-
Tw e Junior
H.
Xol A , . .
Th e “.jU^nistrators in Smyrna.
^tur e aree C’s,” he said, are child
^'Utitv <.* Ur , r * cu ^ um revision, and com-
S tudy.
*^ced (b ® a Himore as an example, he
Hty. 6 Path of desegregation in that
JHoolg u
/Jip r 0 i e saic i> should take a lead-
'"“iects 6 an ^ Heal with controversial
“A
. 1 W e sa iH> “can teach that
and worth, and teach
College, proposed a
or e tv, “ P ro gram in an address
6 Delaware Association of
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school board of his order and asked
further that its members outline a
broad policy on what it intends to do
with similar transfer applications and
initial assignments.
Judge Martin said that, if the school
board did not act by the deadline, “I’ll
assume they want the court to act.
The court has no
desire to move in
on any school dis
trict as long as it
is complying and
acting in good
faith.”
He added that
he agreed that the
board had not had
time to act on
last year’s appli
cations before the
beginning of the martin
September, 1963, term.
Riley, who just retired as State
Chairman of the Democratic Party, in
sisted the board was not trying to
dodge issues. He said it is possible that
the trustees might rule favorably on
the new applications and said he had
“no objections to having the case tried
on its merits.”
Indications were that such a trial will
rather quickly follow the April 6 dead
line.
Orangeburg Case
In Orangeburg, 23 Negro children
joined as plaintiffs in a suit filed March
20 against Orangeburg County School
District No. 5, which includes the city
schools of the county seat of Orange
burg (1960 pop. 13,852).
Defendants in the action are the dis
trict, Supt. H. A. Marshall, Board
Chairman Larry W. Wells, and trustees
Dr. Harry Atwell, R. S. Williams Jr.,
Tally Smith and Edgar Culler.
The suit was filed as a class action
in U.S. District Court in Columbia by
three NAACP attorneys who have been
connected with most racial litigation in
this state, Jack Greenberg of New
York and Matthew Perry and Lincoln
Jenkins of Columbia—plus two Orange
burg lawyers, Zack E. Townsend and
Early W. Boblyn.
The complaint alleges that the dis
trict operates an unconstitutional seg
regated school system, that the plain
tiffs have requested the practice be
stopped, and that their request has
been denied.
The suit was not unexpected. A
number of the plaintiffs have previous
ly asked to be transferred to all-white
schools.
Went Before Committee
Orangeburg school officials went be
fore the State School (Segregation)
Committee last month, apparently to
discuss the transfer requests and the
expected court suit. Chairman of the
committee is Sen. L. Marion Gressette
of adjacent Calhoun County.
No announcement was made as to
what transpired at the meeting, but an
informed source said a plan for vol
untarily desegregating the city’s schools
was discussed and rejected.
Orangeburg, home of two Negro col
leges, has been the scene of more
antisegregation demonstrations than
any other South Carolina city.
One of the plaintiffs in the case is
Lurma Rackley, daughter of Mrs. Glo
ria Rackley, an Orangeburg Negro
school teacher who was dismissed last
fall following her participation in a
downtown demonstration. A short-lived
boycott of schools by Negro pupils
followed.
Mrs. Rackley is also a state official
of the NAACP.
Other Plaintiffs
Other plaintiffs are Rudolph W.,
Brenda and Theodore R. Adams, Alice
Smith, Winthrop E. Cottingham, Ar
thur Rose Jr., John E. Brunson n,
Patricia Rhone, Heidi Williams, Leona
Ferguson, Brenda Joyce Smiley, June
Sheralyn Manning, Rosetta Lata Good
en, Ann Thomas, Tyrone Romeo Rob
inson, Barbara Fields, Jacquelyn, Eve
lyn and Tyrone Dash and Thomasina
Moss.
The suit, titled Adams et al v. School
District No. 5 of Orangeburg et al, asks
for the normal type of specific injunc
tions against the operation of a segre
gated system, including the assignment
of teachers and administrative person
nel and planning of budgets, policies
and new construction designed to
maintain separate schools.
As an alternative, the prayer of the
complaint asks for a decree requiring
the school district to present a com
plete plan, within a specified period of
time, for the reorganization of the en
tire school system into a “unitary, non-
racial system.”
South Carolina Highlights
The state’s sixth public-school de
segregation suit was filed in Orange
burg County and a federal judge
ordered a Greenville school board,
already under court attack, to act
on Negro transfer applications by
April 6.
A number of local contests in the
June Democratic primary are ex
pected to have racial overtones with
a number of Negro candidates filed.
A bill to allow local school boards
to charge tuition to federally con
nected pupils in the event impacted
area funds are cut off passed the
House of Representatives.
Political Action
Negroes Seeking
Loeal Offices
In Party Primary
Several local races in South Caro
lina’s June Democratic primary are
expected to have strong racial over
tones.
A number of Negroes, including sev
eral who have been prominent in de
segregation activities, filed for office on
or before the March 16 deadline.
The greatest activity of this type will
likely come in Richland County, which
includes the capital city of Columbia.
Ten Negroes filed for the county’s 10
seats in the House of Representatives.
Nineteen whites, including seven in
cumbents, will seek the same seats.
Also in Richland County, four Ne
groes qualified to run for school-board
positions.
NAACP Lawyer
In Greenville County, Negro lawyer
Donald James Sampson became a can
didate for the House. It was Sampson,
along with other lawyers associated
with the NAACP, who brought the de
segregation case (Whittenberg v. School
District of Greenville County et al)
that is currently pending in U.S. Dis
trict Court in Greenville. In addition
he has requested the Greenville trus
tees and administration to allow his
son to transfer to an all-white school.
Negro businessman James Shulton is
running for the House in Orangeburg
which is 62 per cent Negro.
Candidates for the Richland School
District 1 board include two Negro
women, Mrs. Harriet G. Liverman and
Mrs. R. Rebecca Monteith. The latter,
a Columbia school teacher, is the
mother of Henri Monteith, the Negro
teenager whose suit broke the color
line of the University of South Carolina
last year.
In School District 5, which includes
part of suburban Columbia, two Ne
groes, Joseph Stroy and Lewis N.
Scott, are among seven candidates.
Schoolmen
BOULWARE
Nine of the 10 Negro House candi
dates in Richland surprised by filing
shortly before the deadline. They were
the Rev. William McKinley Bowman,
a Columbia radio personality and a
perennial candidate for public office;
mortician A. P. Williams, the Rev. J.
W. Mungin, lawyer Hemphill P. Pride
II, mortician A. Manigault Hurley, Mrs.
Mattie L. James, printer Wilson Miles,
Negro Director of Citizen Education
Benjamin J. Mack, and Dr. Henry D.
Monteith, an uncle of Henri.
Bouhvare Runs
Attorney Harold R. Boulware, who
handled cases that opened the then
all-white Democratic primary to Ne
groes and ob
tained equal pay
for Negro teachers
in the 1940s, filed
earlier. Boulware
was one of the
original lawyers
in the Briggs v.
Elliott case, one
of the group on
which the Su
preme Court
school desegrega
tion decision of
1954 was based.
Dr. Monteith, who has said he sees
no need for civil-rights legislation be
cause adequate laws are in effect if
enforced, the Rev. Mr. Mangin and
Mrs. R. R. Monteith, the school-board
candidate, were among the six Ne
groes who entered previously all-white
adult evening classes at Dreher High
School in Columbia in January.
White candidates for the House in
Richland include restuarant owner
Maurice Bessinger, a leader in groups
opposing desegregation.
Legislative Action
Bill Would Permit
Tuition Fees If Aid
Withdrawn by U. S.
A bill to give local school boards a
weapon against federal threats to cut
off impacted-area funds because of
segregation was approved by the South
Carolina House of Representatives
March 11. It awaited Senate action.
The measure would allow trustees
in such districts to charge federally
connected pupils a tuition fee equal to
the per-pupil cost of education.
More than 30 school districts in the
state receive impacted-area funds.
Most are located near military bases.
After the first federal threat was
issued last year, two military bases—
Fort Jackson near Columbia and
Myrtle Beach Air Force Base—opened
biracial schools on-base. But many
children of parents attached to these
bases still attend public schools adja
cent to the bases.
The bill won key second reading in
the House March 11. The Senate must
have considered it before expected ad
journment of statewide matters on
March 9 or it would die.
A bill that would have banned youths
under 17 from participating in racial
demonstrations was killed by a 46-26
vote in the House of Representatives
March 5.
The measure was introduced by Rep.
Jerry M. Hughes Jr. of Orangeburg
County, who said it was in the best
interests of the youths’ welfare and
education. He said young demonstrators
were being “exploited.”
Charleston Rep. A. T. Smythe, fight
ing the measure, said it would limit
the constitutional rights of persons
under 17.
Miscellaneous
Training Provided
For Uneducated
On Biracial Basis
Louis Hatchell, 45-year-old man of
odd jobs, and J. S. Weatherly, a some
time construction worker, ride daily
to school from their home in Sumter
to Camden, 29 miles away, with Rob
ert McKenzie and Thomas Goodman.
McKenzie owns the car. He and
Goodman are Negroes. Hatchell and
Weatherly are white.
Their mutual destination is a new
type of educational institution for
South Carolina. Located in a former
Camden garage, the school serves 78
South Carolinians from three counties
as a base for a new type of educational
opportunity.
The Camden unit is the first of a
projected group of 30 such schools un
der the federally subsidized Special
ized Training for Economic Progress
(STEP).
Federally Financed
The undertaking costs South Caro
lina nothing. Gov. Donald S. Russell,
on a trip to Washington, learned that
$5.6 million was available to this state
under the Manpower Training and De
velopment Act. Since the authorization
expired Jan. 1, 1964, he moved rapidly
to establish the program and announced
it shortly before the deadline.
He admitted at the outset that the
program would be, under law, com
pletely biracial. It provides the most
basic training in reading, writing and
arithmetic for the completely illiterate,
and vocational programs ranging
through 33 courses from auto mechan
ics to landscape gardening for the un
dereducated.
For instance, Mrs. Louise Jamison,
Negro mother of 11, is studying gar
ment-making in the hope, she says, of
obtaining a job that will enable her
to supplement her husband’s earnings
as a sawmill worker and keep the
seven of her children currently in
school there.
The S.C. Employment Security Com
mission will attempt to place people
trained under STEP after they have
finished their courses.
Improvement of Negro Schools Asked
A committee of Negro teachers pre
sented a five-point program for im
provement in Columbia’s Negro schools
Feb. 11 and called for “immediate at
tention to it.”
Appearing before the Board of Trus
tees of Richland County School District
1 (Columbia) were six Negro educa
tors, including Mrs. Rebecca R. Mon
teith, mother of Henri Montieth, the
teenage girl who went to court last
year in a successful effort to break
the color line at the University of
South Carolina.
The committee asked:
• That Negro kindergartens be es
tablished.
• That class loads be reduced to an
average of 26.
• That special classes be set up for
mentally retarded and physically hand
icapped children.
• That technical training be pro
vided at the junior high level.
• That vocational education teacher
loads be reduced.
The group said its recommendations
were submitted in order to help over
come conditions “which obstruct ef
fective teaching in the Negro schools.”
The trustees expressed general agree
ment with most of the plan. But John
H. Whiteman, supervisor of Negro
schools, said some of the findings of
the survey made by the group were
incorrect.
The committee, appointed by the
executive committee of the Columbia
(Negro) Teachers Association, admitted
that it may not have looked deeply
enough into some of the problem
areas.
During the discussion which fol
lowed the presentation, Dr. Guy L.
Varn, district superintendent, pointed
out that the school system’s most com
prehensive and expensive trade-school
program was operated at all-Negro
Booker T. Washington High School.
Whiteman told the group that not
enough students wanted business and
technical courses to justify buying
equipment for them.
Mrs Monteith, chairman of the com
mittee, said she felt that “in the past
they didn’t take these courses because
there were no jobs for Negroes in this
area. Now there are jobs and the stu
dents are not qualified.”
(Negro employment opportunities
have improved in the Columbia area
over the past several years. For ex
ample, several textile mills now are
hiring Negroes for their production
lines. One mill executive said recently
his plant was actively recruiting Ne
groes but had found few who were
qualified.)
Whiteman also reminded the group
that adult classes for Negroes are not
filled. (Mrs. Monteith’s son and two
other relatives were among several Ne
groes who registered for adult educa
tion classes at Columbia’s all-white
Dreher High School last month. They
said that the Negro adult-education
program at Booker T. Washington did
not have the courses they wanted. They
were admitted without incident. Oth
erwise, Columbia’s schools remain
segregated.)
Board Chairman Caldwell Withers,
who had earlier expressed some dis
pleasure because the Negroes had given
the press a copy of their recommen
dations before the meeting, told the
committee it was welcome to come
back at any time.
He said the report would be investi
gated further.