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T EN years in review
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE ll-B
ALABAMA
White Schools in Four Districts
Admit Negroes by Court Order
MONTGOMERY
esegregation in Alabama
public schools did not begin
un til the start of the 1963-64
school year, when 24 Negroes en
tered previously all-white schools
in Huntsville, Birmingham, Tus
kegee and Mobile by federal court
orders.
Gov. George C. Wallace, who was
elected in 1962 on a pledge to “stand
in the schoolhouse door,” briefly at
tempted to block the admission of the
Negro students but backed away in
face of federal court orders directing
him not to intervene.
All white students, some 250, with
drew from Tuskegee High in Septem
ber with the admission of 13 Negroes.
(One Negro subsequently was expelled
for disciplinary reasons). The State
Board of Education ordered the school
closed early in 1964 because its opera
tion was uneconomic, with only 12 stu
dents and 13 faculty members.
U.S. District Judge Frank M. John
son Jr., who had ordered the Negroes
admitted, agreed that the operation of
the school was
uneconomic, but
ordered that the
12 remaining stu
dents be admitted
to white high
schools at Shorter
and Notasulga.
White students
boycotted both of
these schools as
well and the Ne
gro students re
mained the only
ones attending them.
In April, a fire blamed on arsonists
destroyed the high school at Notasulga.
The school board transferred the Ne
gro students to the all-Negro high
school.
No Biracial Schools
Many of the boycotting white students
enrolled at Macon Academy, a private
school formed last fall to accomodate
the students who withdrew from Tus
kegee High.
Huntsville, Mobile and Birmingham
We Negroes attending schools with
whites.
MALONE HOOD
1955 Pupil Placement Law without dis
crimination.
That law was upheld as valid on its
face in 1958 by a three-judge federal
district court sitting in Birmingham
and, on appeal, by the U.S. Supreme
Court the same year. The decision
warned, however, that the law could
later prove unconstitutional in appli
cation.
This is the issue pending before a
new three-judge court, which in Feb
ruary, heard arguments in the Tuske
gee case (Lee v. Macon.) The plaintiffs
have asked for a statewide desegrega
tion order predicated on the contention
that the State Board of Education and
Gov. Wallace demonstrated central con
trol of local schools in intervening in
Macon.
The board later rescinded all its or
ders relating to Macon schools, and
asked the court to find that its inter
ference did not constitute assumption
of central control, since it had recanted.
The board’s argument is that it had
no authority to intervene, recognized
this and reversed its orders.
Excluding the Macon Negro chil
dren in the boycotted schools, there
are now 21 Ne
groes attending
classes with
whites in Birm
ingham, Mobile
and Huntsville.
Further desegre
gation is all but
certain in the
three areas next
fall.
On the college
level, the first
desegregation oc
curred in 1956 with the admission of
Miss Autherine Lucy to the main
campus at the University of Ala
bama in Tuscaloosa. After attending
classes for a few days in February
that year, she was driven from the
campus by rioting and was later ex
pelled by the board of trustees for
publicly accusing university officials of
conspiring with the mob.
The expulsion was upheld by the
U.S. district judge, H. H. Grooms of
Birmingham, whose 1955 order (Lucy
v. Adams) had opened the doors to
her. Grooms ruled the board’s action
a valid use of discipHnary authority.
However, Grooms’ injunction re
mained in effect, applying to all quali
fied Negroes. Under his injunction, two
Negroes, Vivian J. Malone and James
Hood, were ordered admitted to the
main campus last June. Gov. Wallace
attempted to intervene, appearing per
sonally to forbid their admission. But
he retired from the “schoolhouse
door” when the late President Ken
nedy federalized the Alabama Guard
to enforce the federal court’s orders.
Subsequently, the university accepted
another Negro at its extension facility
at Huntsville and, at mid-term, two
more to its center in Birmingham.
Florence State College enrolled its first
Negro student in September under
court orders, as did Auburn University
Jan. 4. Hood, accused of maligning
University of Alabama officials, with
drew late last summer.
The segregation issue has played a
dominant, perhaps decisive, role in Ala
bama politics since 1954. John Patter
son was elected governor in 1958
largely on his record as attorney gen-
GROOMS LUCY
JOHNSON
PATTERSON
Gov. Wallace at ‘Schoolhouse Door’
Brig. Gen. Henry C. Graham had his orders.
eral in obtaining an order banning the
NAACP from the state. (That 1956
order is once again before the U.S.
Supreme Court—Alabama v. NAACP.)
In 1962, George Wallace was elected
governor after a campaign in which
he concentrated his attack on the fed
eral courts and promised unyielding
opposition to desegregation suits. When
he was inaugurated in January, 1963,
he pledged “segregation now, segrega
tion tomorrow, segregation forever.”
He won a substantial vote in the Wis
consin presidential primary April 7 and
has entered primaries in Indiana and
Maryland. His campaign has been di
rected principally at the civil rights
bill pending in the U.S. Congress.
The Pupil Placement Law passed in
1955 was the most significant legislation
resulting from the 1954 Brown decision,
but the legislature has also passed a
group of other laws designed to pre
vent or contain court-ordered desegre
gation.
In addition to the possibility of in
creased desegregation in Macon County
(Tuskegee), Madison County (Hunts
ville), Birmingham and Mobile, other
school districts could desegregate.
Gadsden has been ordered to get school
desegregation started, although no defi
nite date has been set.
Should the three-judge federal court,
which heard the Macon suit in Feb
ruary, decide that the State Board
of Education could be enjoined to end
segregation on a statewide basis—be
cause of its actions assuming local con
trol—it is conceivable that all of the
state’s 114 school districts would receive
desegregation orders before schools
open in September.
Four Negroes began attending deseg
regated classes in Huntsville in Sep
tember, 1963, followed by 10 more Jan.
21. Two were admitted in September
to Murphy High in Mobile and five
to three schools in Birmingham. Boards
in all four areas, including Macon, are
under orders to proceed with general
desegregation plans, applying Alabama’s
Maryland
(Continued from Page 10-B)
[dared policy included a statement that
Procedures respecting transfer, bus
transportation and assignment shall ap-
^ Lyitheut regard to race.”
White demonstrations or other overt
act s of opposition occurred during the
early years in parts of Carroll, Mont
gomery, Anne Arundel, Prince
^rge’s, Talbot and Baltimore coun-
t®* ^d in Baltimore city. In several
r^wces one or several Negro chil-
were withdrawn by their parents
‘ oa > white schools because of the hos-
I but in no recorded instance did
. s °bool officials back down from
U'wusly adopted plans,
er f 6gr ° c °urt actions, appeals and oth-
0rrns °f pressure were a desegre-
t 0r( j 0n factor in Cecil, St. Mary’s, Har-
an d Prince George’s counties, to
tin exten t of stimulating action or get-
fjQj , a uoore liberal program. A bi-
spy, 8r°up in Baltimore last year
ing e ° changes in transfer, district-
lievg 911 ^ transportation policies to re-
s°,n e O ’’ er crowded Negro schools and
g a y 0 °f the effects of de facto segre-
' ®ut the only place where street
de Se „ nstra tions played a role in school
city af egati °n was in the Eastern Shore
adjjjtj ^ am bridge. Desegregation of an
dentni na three grades was an inci-
but u P ar t last year of the turmoil,
Ual car ne a major part of the event-
gPcacehd settlement.
kt targe the desegregation pace
has kJMand during the first decade
=cti 0ri the pace set not by court
°f thn e S* s lative action or the actions
ra e f° r or against separation of
’M Sa v S| but by local school boards
•tate Q ?.°t officials in response to a
With d~?7. cy °f “voluntary compliance
ue hberate speed.”
LOUISIANA
Legislature Built Largest Legal Barrier
NEW ORLEANS
ouisiana’s legislature was
in session on May 17, 1954,
when the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled segregation in public edu
cation unconstitutional. It was a
prophetic circumstance for this
state.
For before it adjourned the legis
lature had enacted the first three
measures intended to raise a legal bar
rier against court-ordered desegrega
tion. By the end of the decade, that
barrier included 131 legislative enact
ments, more than twice the number
adopted in any other state.
The federal judicial and state legis
lative issue was joined when, within
two years, a U.S. District Court in
Louisiana invalidated the first of the
numerous measures Southern states
were to adopt in their efforts to pre
vent, deter or control school desegre
gation. Louisiana’s public elementary
and secondary schools maintained their
traditional segregated status for the
first six years of the decade, although
a state university had desegregated
by court order as early as 1950.
Legal Rope
In 1960, the Orleans Parish public
schools played out the end of the legal
rope stretching back to 1952 and be
gan a grade-a-year desegregation pro
gram. In Bush v. Orleans Parish School
Board, U.S. District Judge J. Skelly
Wright on May 16, 1960, ordered the
board to begin desegregation on Sept.
6. Acting under legislative authority,
Gov. Jimmie S. Davis on Aug. 17 seized
control of the city’s schools to block
the pending desegregation. A three-
judge federal court on Aug. 27 de
clared the act unconstitutional and
returned the schools to the school
board’s administration. On Aug. 30
Judge Wright stayed the implementa
tion of his previous order until Nov.
14.
OAVIS WRIGHT
On Nov. 14 four Negro girls escorted
by federal marshals enrolled at two
public schools in middle-class neigh
borhoods. Crowds gathered around the
two schools—McDonogh 19, which re
ceived three of the Negro pupils, and
Frantz, which received one. The gath
erings were orderly but whites shouted
and booed persons entering the schools
and cheered those who took their
children out. By Nov. 18 an almost
complete boycott had set in against the
two schools. Three white pupils of the
1,040 enrolled showed up.
First Violence
New Orleans’ first violence occurred
on Nov. 15. Following a Citizens’
Council rally the previous evening, an
estimated 800 whites converged on the
school board offices. Mounted police
and firehoses dispersed the throng.
Gangs of white youths hurled rocks,
bottles and insults at Negroes during
the day. At night gangs of Negro
youths assaulted several whites.
A specially trained police unit, con
stantly on alert for six days, moved
swiftly to trouble spots around the city
and prevented rioting. There were
many arrests but no serious injuries.
Judge Wright previously had en
joined all state and local officials—
including the legislators and the gov
ernor—from interfering with the sched
uled desegregation. As the legislature
moved to take over administration of
the Orleans Parish schools, Judge
Wright as promptly struck down the
acts. The boycott at Frantz and Mc
Donogh 19 continued almost total for
the remainder of the school year.
The following fall, desegregation
spread without incident to four other
schools and included 12 Negro pupils
at the first and second grade levels.
End Attendance Zones
U.S. District Judge Frank B. Ellis
ordered the school board to eliminate
white and Negro attendance zones for
the first five
grades by the fall
of 1964. In the
fall of 1963, 333
Negroes enrolled
in grades 1-4 of
26 predominantly
white elementary
schools of Or
leans Parish
along with 10,901
white students.
Fourteen Negroes
were among the ELIIS
453 pupils enrolled at a special high
school for superior students. One white
child attended a Negro school with
an enrollment of 1,439.
White enrollments in most of the
desegregating schools were down
somewhat in comparison with their
pre-desegregation total. But early in
the fall of 1962 and again in 1963,
school authorities said that enroll
ments in those schools had stabilized
to an extent that day-to-day counts
were not collected after the first few
weeks of the school year.
Louisiana’s only other desegregated
school district is East Baton Rouge
Parish.
Under court order, a “reverse stair
step” plan was inaugurated in Sep
tember, 1963. Twenty-eight Negro 12th
graders were enrolled in four high
schools in the capital city of Baton
Rouge, along with 5,280 white pupils.
There were no incidents.
Another school district under court
order to desegregate “with all delib
erate speed” is rural St. Helena Par
ish, on the Mississippi border.
Higher Education
In the realm of higher education, de
segregation in Louisiana predates the
1954 segregation decisions. Louisiana
State University at Baton Rouge, un
der court order, in 1950 opened its
graduate and professional schools to
Negroes but still maintains segrega
tion at the undergraduate level on the
main campus. LSU’s undergraduate
branch at New Orleans has been de
segregated since its inception in 1958.
Three other state institutions of
higher learning desegregated under
court orders issued after the Brown
decision, and another accepted its first
Negro students after a brief court ac
tion in 1963. Thus six of the state’s 10
formerly all-white campuses are de
segregated. Three Negro institutions
remain segregated.
Private schools play a large role in
education in Louisiana. About 15 per
cent of all elementary and secondary
pupils in the state are enrolled in non
public schools. In New Orleans, the
percentage rises to 35 per cent. Among
white pupils, 20 per cent are in non
public schools statewide, while the
proportion in New Orleans is 55 per
cent.
Parochial Schools
The non-sectarian private schools
throughout the state maintain the tra
ditional segregation. Among the paro
chial schools in heavily Catholic
Louisiana, those of the archdiocese of
New Orleans are desegregated. The
archdiocese embraces all or part of 10
civil parishes (counties) in the south
eastern part of the state.
Desegregation in the diocesean
schools, reaching to all grades, was
inaugurated in the fall of 1962. It af
fects principally Orleans and adjacent
parishes, but diocesean school authori-
(See LOUISIANA, Page 12-B)