Newspaper Page Text
teN YEARS in review
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE 7-B
KENTUCKY
Decision Got
Quick Support
From Officials
LOUISVILLE
T op Governmental and school
officials in Kentucky gave
prompt, though cautious, support
to the Supreme Court’s desegre
gation decision of May 17, 1954.
Their actions established a pat
tern of quiet compliance, which
has generally prevailed for a dec
ade of increasing desegregation in
public education.
Of 227 school districts 10 years ago,
188 contained both white and Negro
pupils and none had desegregated
classes. The current school year finds
the total number of districts reduced
through mergers to 204, of which 165
contain students of both races. Of these,
153 operate desegregated classes, and
another 10 are desegregated in policy.
All eight public institutions of high
er education are desegregated and all
private colleges are believed prepared
to admit qualified Negro applicants,
although a few have not yet expe
rienced actual biracial enrollment.
Ten years ago when the news of
the Supreme Court’s ruling reached
this former slave-holding state, Gov.
Lawrence W. Wetherby said at the cap
ital city of Frankfort, “Kentucky will
do whatever is necessary to comply
with the law.”
Though the state’s elementary and
secondary schools were completely seg
regated at the time, a trend toward
increasing desegregation in higher edu
cation had already been established. In
1949 a federal district court had or
dered the University of Kentucky to
open its graduate schools to Negro stu
dents.
Amend Day Law
The following year, 1950, saw the
state legislature amend the Day Law,
which had required school segregation.
The change permitted Negroes to attend
institutions of higher education pro
vided the institutions’ governing bodies
approved and provided comparable
courses were not available at Ken-
Jttcky State College for Negroes. The
University of Louisville and some
' ® a Uer colleges and some seminaries
^segregated under the amendment.
And in the year before the Su
preme Court’s ruling, Paducah Junior
doge had desegregated under fed
eral-court order. Thus the support giv-
e \ l cour ^ ruling of 1954 came against
■ a ack ground of falling racial barriers
“> education.
Additional acceptance of the ruling
within a year from the State De-
ertment of Education, the Kentucky
ncation Association, the Kentucky
v ?° Boards Association and the
min'* y -Association of School Ad-
trators, as well as from the state
‘orney general.
that 16 ■?»* Supreme Court ruling,
5u- Alay 31, 1955, received official
giver, 111 Kentu cky similar to that
- Ven the first.
State Board Directive
of I j'/ Une . 1955, the State Boar
^ards'f Ca u° n - d * rected local scho<
idly a 10 desegregation “as rap
howev conditi °ns warrant.” Actually
State rf’ accord ^ n 2 to records of th
reg ati epartm ent of Education, deseg
6, i9j- n nheady had begun: On Jun
summer a ,A fe Sr° girl had entered
Next ~ SCh ° o1 class in Fayette Counti
'atereri w July 18, six Negro childre
;or regui yne County’s Griffin Schoc
Wed a if r cesses. Other districts fol
‘S55 I t voluntarily, and by Octobei
“•racial 1 districts had initiate
eUpila. ciasses involving 313 Negr
Wrt^L,v rst: court test of the Supren
Wt j,GT ng , s in the state, U.S. Di
^55. Alac Swinford on Dec.
i
ord a °wnuora on uec.
:e Sate i* Adair County to desej
W its el 111511 sch ° o1 b y Feb. 1, 19£
the iqr|^ ntar y schools at the sta
v' 5 r wiyear -
W* in th 0ther federal-court deci
^ v e affimf j St f te hi the past deca<
legation ^ tlle Precedent that raci
„ d th e _ m Public schools is illeg.
jp*. 0re recen t decisions ha 1
^ell no e *p e Sation of teaching stai
The o , Student bodies.
^ ioun^i 01 fbe 1956-57 academ
, w and s m v ^i 0re di stricts desegri
iT® 1 clL 8 :° 17 T Ne Sr°es enrolled in b
jWille UT Interest was focused c
sm’all c 0 ® tate ’ s . largest ci ty. ai
“city, 1 communities in West Kei
1,1 1956 r ■
’ ^msville, a former slav.
WETHERBY SWINFORD
trading center, desegregated peaceably
at all grade levels in what was called
“The Quiet Heard Round The World”
in a book, The Louisville Story, by
the late School Supt. Omer Carmichael
and journalist Weldon James. Carmich
ael was summoned to the White House
by President Eisenhower to tell how
he had prepared for the desegregation
success.
But things differed in the Western
Kentucky communities of Sturgis in
Union County and Clay in Webster
County. Reports of desegregation strife
there prompted Gov. A. B. Chandler
to send in National Guard troops to
escort some Negro pupils through
crowds to classes in formerly all-white
schools. Twelve Negroes attempted to
attend schools in the two towns but
they withdrew after the state attorney
general ruled they were enrolled illeg
ally. The schools were desegregated
subsequently under court order.
By October, 1956, some two and a
half years after the Supreme Court’s
first ruling, the trend toward school
desegregation was firmly under way,
with the executive branch, the ju
diciary and the public-education hier
archy clearly committed by both word
and act.
“Too Slow’
From 1956-7 to 1962-3, however, the
number of desegregated districts rose
only from 91 to 119. This was viewed
by the State Board of Education as
too slow a pace and the board directed
the State Department of Education to
encourage more compliance with the
Supreme Court ruling.
Within two years, the number of de
segregated districts jumped to its pres
ent 153 total, enrolling 29,855 Negroes,
more than half the total, in biracial
schools. Eleven other districts have
plans or policies calling for desegre
gation—leaving only the Graves Coun
ty district practicing segregation with
out plan for change.
Negro leaders point out, however,
that the desegregation is far from com
plete in many counties and in some
is hardly more than token. Neverthe
less the State Department of Educa
tion’s school desegregation report for
1963-64 described the progress since
1954 as “unbelievable.”
GEORGIA
Complete Segregation of Schools
Maintained Until 1960-1
Session
MACON
S enator Herman E. Talmadge,
one of the best-known segre
gationists in the nation, was gov
ernor of Georgia when the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down its
public school desegregation de
cision May 17, 1954.
Talmadge was succeeded early in 1955
by Gov. S. Marvin Griffin, who said
in his gubernatorial campaign, “Come
hell or high water, races will not be
mixed in Georgia schools.”
There was no school desegregation
during the Talmadge and Griffin ad
ministrations, but Gov. Ernest Van
diver, who had promised that “not one,
no, not one” Negro would go to school
with whites in Georgia, was forced in
January, 1961, to admit Negroes to the
University of Georgia at Athens or
close the public schools. He chose to
desegregate.
Following the University System de
segregation in early 1961, Atlanta pub
lic schools admitted Negroes in the
fall of that year under another court
order.
Griffin’s main line of defense against
court-ordered desegregation was a plan
for the state to make individual grants
for educational purposes to students.
The idea was to provide money for
pupils who preferred private segregated
schools to public desegregated schools.
Opposition Grew
Vandiver latched on to the private
school plan and put a million dollars
aside for tuition grants, but as deseg-
VANDIVER
funds to be used
funds.
regation contin
ued and increased,
opposition grew
against the pro
ject.
In 1962 and 1963,
legislative acts re-
stricted imple
mentation of the
plan, placed the
proof for showing
need for the grant
on local officials,
and required local
i supplement state
Today, only a handful of students at
a private school in one of Georgia’s 159
counties are receiving tuition grants.
By the end of 1955, six school sys
tems in Georgia had received desegre
gation petitions, but the May, 1955, de
cision of the Supreme Court, handing
lower federal courts and local officials
the duty of ending all racial segre
gation in public schools “as soon as
practicable” was greeted with defiance
by the state government.
In Georgia, in the years following
the major desegregation rulings, re
sistance hardened and the voices of
“moderates” were greatly muted. Many
laws designed to curb Negro voting
and strengthen segregation were passed,
and the General Assembly gave Gov.
Vandiver the power to close any school
that desegregated.
There was activity in the federal
courts, however. A school desegrega
tion suit filed against the University
of Georgia by a Negro, Horace Ward,
was denied in 1957 by a U.S. District
Court on grounds that Ward had not
exhausted his administrative remedies.
New suits were filed against Georgia
State College in Atlanta and the uni
versity in Athens. And a suit filed early
in January, 1958, resulted in June, 1959,
in a federal court order for desegre
gation in Atlanta public schools on
May 1, 1961.
The Atlanta Board of Education was
ordered to submit a plan to the court.
The board came up with a grade-a-
year desegregation plan, starting with
the 12th grade. With the state and fed
eral governments on a collision course,
many Georgians became concerned that
the schools would be closed to avoid
desegregation.
Sibley Commission
The legislature created the Sibley
Commission, headed by an Atlanta
banker, John Sibley. After extensive
public hearings
over the state, the
commission re
ported to the peo
ple in the spring
of 1960. The ma
jority wanted
state constitution
al changes to per
mit freedom of
choice in schools
forced to desegre
gate. The climate
of public opinion
began to change so that the argument,
which had been segregation versus de
segregation, became closed schools ver
sus open, desegregated schools.
In January, 1961, two Atlanta Ne
groes, Hamilton Holmes and Miss Char-
layne Hunter, became the first members
of their race to attend a white public
GRIFFIN TALMADGE
school when they entered the univer
sity under court order. They were sus
pended following campus disorders but
were reinstated a few days later by a
court order.
The 1961 session of the legislature
repealed compulsory school closing
laws and fell back on local option,
tuition grants and freedom of choice
plans.
In the fall of 1961, Georgia Tech
in Atlanta desegregated. Georgia State
followed in 1962 and so did Armstrong,
Columbus, Valdosta State, West Geor
gia and Savannah State in 1963. All
college desegregation after the uni
versity at Athens was voluntary. To
day, 35 Negroes are in predominantly
white colleges and one white is in a
predominantly Negro school.
Graded Schools
Below the higher education level,
Georgia has 177 Negroes in predom
inantly white elementary and second
ary schools. Atlanta desegregated un
der court order in 1961 and so did
Chatham County (Savannah) in 1963.
Clarke County (Athens) and Glynn
County (Brunswick) desegregated vol
untarily in the fall of 1963.
Public school systems in Dougherty
County (Albany), Muscogee County
(Columbus) and Bibb County (Macon)
have been ordered to desegregate next
fall
Segregation of teachers is main
tained but this concept is under legal
attack, as is the grade-a-year deseg
regation plan used in Atlanta and Sav
annah, and contemplated by Macon and
Columbus. Albany’s stairstep plan was
thrown out by the U.S. Fifth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals, and first and
second grade Negro children in Dough
erty County have been ordered regis
tered without discrimination for the
1964-65 school term.
MISSOURI
State Segregation Laws Considered Invalid
(Continued from Page 6-B)
The Rev. John J. Hicks was elected
to the St. Louis Board of Education
April 7, 1959. He was the first Negro
elected to a public office in a citywide
vote in St. Louis. Hicks, a Methodist
minister, was named board president in
1963.
James E. Hurt Jr., elected to the
St. Louis board on April 4, 1961, be
came the second Negro board member.
He is president of a small loan firm
and a member of the St. Louis Council
on Human Relations.
Establishment of a permanent ad
ministrative committee to deal with
problems of racial segregation in St.
Louis public schools was announced
Nov. 3, 1961, by the Board of Educa
tion.
School board officials receive com
plaints of alleged discriminatory prac
tices from time to time, many of them
connected with the transportation of
students from overcrowded schools to
other areas of the city.
Racial segregation in St Louis pub
lic schools had worsened in the seven
years since the school system officially
desegregated, the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission reported on Dec. 2, 1962.
St. Louis was one of several cities
outside the South that had “problems
of resegregation due to residential pat
terns as well as a serious imbalance
in the distribution of white and Negro
teachers,” the report said.
The report noted that the city was
an “outstanding exception” to the gen
eral rule that school officials and the
Negro community lacked rapport.
Sweeping changes to promote maxi
mum desegregation in St. Louis public
schools were recommended June 21,
HURT
HICKS
1963, by the Citizens Advisory Commit
tee on Integration. The 12-member bi
racial committee urged the desegrega
tion of teachers on all school faculties,
redrawing of some school districts,
complete desegregation of Negro pup
ils transported by bus and the inclusion
of an open enrollment principle which
would permit some students to attend
available classrooms regardless of resi
dence.
The committee, headed by the Rev.
Trafford P. Maher (S.J.), pointed out
that “while some resegregation in the
schools has taken
place, it has not
been done through
deliberate intent
on the part of the
Board of Educa
tion.”
Several pa
trons’ organiza
tions of predom
inantly white
north and south
St. Louis schools
maher expressed un
compromising opposition to the pro
posed desegregation of Negro pupils
transported by bus.
Supt. of Instruction Hickey recom
mended July 24, 1963, that a modified
open enrollment policy be established.
He proposed a “permissive transfer”
plan under which elementary and high
school students might attend schools
other than those of their own neighbor
hood districts, if space were available.
Parents would be responsible for trans
portation.
The St. Louis Board of Education
filed suit Aug. 7, 1963, in U.S. District
Court, asking a judgment upholding the
legality of the board’s bus transporta
tion program and seeking an injunction
restraining Negro and civil-rights
groups from interfering with transport
ing of pupils.
On Aug. 20, the St. Louis branch of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People filed suit
in the same court. The petition accused
the school board of operating a seg
regated system in violation of the con
stitution and asked that school officials
be restrained from segregating trans
ported Negro pupils who are sent to
predominantly white receiving schools.
Extensive desegregation in the St.
Louis public schools, despite continued
residential segregation, was reported
in a study approved Feb. 11, 1964, by
the Board of Education. The adminis
trative report noted that the school
system is adding 3,300 Negro children
annually and is losing 1,100 white chil
dren.
The report said there were 1,818
white and 886 Negro teachers in the
school system in 1953. In 1963, there
were 1,811 white and 1,670 Negro teach
ers.
Several factors lessen the degree of
school desegregation that can be ac
complished, acting Supt. of Instruction
William Kottmey-
er told members
of the Board of
Education. These
include the rapid
rise in the num
ber of Negro pu
pils, the steady
decline in the
number of white
pupils and the
lack of desegrega
tion in the hous
ing pattern.
In Kansas City, where protests
against “resegregation” had not been
as emphatic as in St. Louis, some 200
persons marched on the board of edu
cation July 5, 1963, to present a list of
demands they said would promote de
segregation of public schools with re
spect both to children and to faculties.
The sponsor was the Kansas City
Chapter of the Congress of Racial
Equality. As in St. Louis, the Kansas
City public schools were desegregated
the year following the 1954 Supreme
Court decision. The Kansas City hoard
follows a neighborhood school policy,
but permits transfers, regardless of
race, where classroom space is avail
able.
The CORE group sought a policy
statement from the board looking to
ward greater desegregation by the
drawing of school district boundaries,
in selection of new school sites, in
granting transfers, and in faculty as
signments. The board said improved
education of the child in the classroom,
whoever the child might be, was the
primary concern of the board and staff.
KOTTMEYER