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teN YEARS in review
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE 13-B
Demonstrators Under Arrest
University of Mississippi, 1962.
Every State Experienced
School-Race Incidents
OKLAHOMA
State Waited One Year
Before Starting Change
(Con/inued from Page 12-B)
University of Georgia, Athens-
Two Negroes entered the university on
Jan. 9, 1961, by court order. After
minor incidents on the night of Jan.
10, a large crowd of students and out
siders gathered on the campus the
following night. Bricks and fireworks
were hurled and dormitory windows
broken. Several persons were injured
and tear gas and fire hoses were used
to break up the crowd. That same
night, the two Negro students were
suspended and removed from the cam
pus “in the interest of their personal
safety.” Another court order returned
the two on Jan. 16, with tightened
security measures. As a result of the
Jan. 11 disorders, eight Klan mem
bers and two students were arrested.
Thirteen students were suspended,
although some were reinstated.
1961- 62
No major incidents of violence or
protest occurred, Public officials in
Atlanta, Ga., Memphis, Tenn., and Dal
las, Tex., made extensive preparations
to avoid violence when their public
schools desegregated for the first time
in the fall of 1961.
1962- 63
New Orleans, La.—Crowds gathered
outside desegregated public and Cath
olic parochial schools to jeer Negro
students and to cheer white parents
withdrawing their children. Shots were
fired through a door at a Catholic
school, and the window of a Negro
Parent’s car was smashed at a church
school. Several bomb threats caused
the evacuation of parochial and public
schools for searches. This was the third
year of desegregation. (See 1960-61.)
Atlanta, Ga.—When desegregation
°egan at West Fulton High School
A ^g. 20, three young members of a
white-supremacy organization were
arrested and fined for refusing police
°™ers to cease picketing. The same
school, on the same day, expelled a
u dent carrying a sign bearing a Nazi
swastika and legend.
Buras, La.—A boycott began Aug.
> the first day Negro students en-
“j red Our Lady of Good Harbor Cath-
u ' c School. The Negroes did not show
P on the second day. The school then
because of “numerous threats”
~ Insufficient police protection.”
c ass ® s resumed for a few days, but a
com' te b °y c °tt began Sept. 7 and
^®3 64)^ throughout the year. (See
j a ^ n * Vers *ty of Mississippi, Oxford—
°h th S ^ Meredith, a Negro, arrived
Panv 6 *) airipus °n Sept. 30, in the corn
ua °1 ^ e< fi era l marshals, to enroll
r three federal court orders. Gov.
Johns Barnett and Lt ' Gov - Paul B ’
had blocked previous efforts.
a televised appeal by Presi-
a „ ennedy for peaceful compliance,
bric]»° Wd 2,500 gathered to throw
pipg S bottles, and to use lead
federal ^°tguns and rifles against the
tear e mars hals. The marshals used
op as gainst the mob. During riot-
tVench • nigbt Sept. 30-Oct. 1, a
ho* Journalist and an Oxford juke-
thari 3^ rat ° r were killed and more
big P^sons were injured, includ-
aji . naarshals. The President issued
^ at ion a Tp tlVe ° rder P lac ™g 11,000
OPd a,- Guardsmen in federal service
Vjoo ^P a tched to the scene about
Pig, vvlvn r * roo P s - Destructive riot-
^*f°rd m s P rea< l into the town of
hi hours by the troops after
Rested . ore than 150 persons were
■ "fin A u ^l U| fing former Army Gen.
th e s k "'alker. Meredith remained
°°1, accompanied by federal
marshals, until he was graduated in
June, 1963.
Caswell County, N.C.—Negroes en
tered three formerly all-white schools
in Yanceyville, Jan. 22, 1963, and Jas
per Brown, father of four of the child
ren, later shot two young white men
on a rural road. Both victims suffered
minor wounds. Brown, who claimed
that his life had been threatened, was
sentenced to 90 days in prison and
given a 12-18 month suspended term.
In 1964, he said he was moving to
Washington, D.C.
Dollarway, Ark.—On Jan. 22, 1963,
a Negro girl entered the already deseg
regated Dollarway School. At the end
of her second day, the girl’s uncle,
William Howard, had his car windows
broken when he arrived to pick up
two Negro students. A white boy in the
12th grade was stabbed and Howard
was arrested. The Negro girl, Sarah
Howard, reported that students had
kicked and shoved her and thrown
things at her. A white mother said her
two daughters had been abused for
befriending Sarah Howard. One of the
daughters withdrew from school but
her sister and the two Negro students
returned after several days.
1963-64
Jackson, Miss.—Medgar Evers, 37-
year-old NAACP field secretary in
Mississippi, was shot to death early
June 12 when he stepped from his
auto after returning from a desegrega
tion strategy meeting. Evers, a leader
in desgregation efforts in Mississippi,
was a plaintiff in a suit to desegregate
Jackson public schools. Byron de la
Beckwith, an ardent segregationist,
was charged with the murder. His
first trial was declared a mistrial, and
a second mistrial was declared on April
17.
Cambridge, Md.—Gov. J. Millard
Tawes sent in National Guardsmen
on June 14 after racial hostilities had
erupted into rioting, a shooting, arson
and brick-throwing. Demonstrations
prior to the arrival of troops had been
touched off by the breakdown of bi-
racial negotiations. Negroes called for
full desegregation including schools,
as a part of their demands for “equal
opportunities.” Periodic demonstra
tions continued and Guardmen were
called to restore order again on July
12. On July 23, Cambridge leaders
signed an agreement in the offices of
U.S. Attorney General Robert Ken
nedy, with assurances of accelerated
desegregation.
Kansas City, Mo.—On July 5, more
than 200 persons marched on the Board
of Education calling for greater deseg
regation and modification of school
district boundaries.
St. Louis, Mo.—A protest march was
made to the Board of Education build
ing June 20, by about 1,000 persons
calling for maximum desegregation in
city schools, first desegregated in 1955.
On July 26, civil-rights groups pic
keted a board meeting, and in August,
Negro adults and children picketed
the home of the board president. The
demonstrations ended when the board
agreed to additional desegregation.
Prince Edward County, Va.—About
60 Negro youths marched in Farm-
ville, the county seat, on July 25, to
protest closed schools. In the next
three days 33 Negroes were arrested
for demonstrations against segregation.
Prince Edward had closed its public
schools in the summer, 1959, to avoid
desegregation.
Washington, D.C.—The March on
Washington “for jobs and freedom”
brought about 200,000 Negroes and
whites together Aug. 28, in an orderly
protest. The marchers’ demands in
cluded total desegregation.
Buras, La.—Our Lady of Good Har
bor, a parochial school, was damaged
by a gasoline fire and explosion on
Aug. 27. Boycotted completely since
its desegregation, the school in Plaque
mines Parish had been scheduled to
reopen Sept. 3. (See 1962-63.)
Columbia, S.C.—A midnight explo
sion on Aug. 26 blew a small crater
near the home of Miss Henri Mon-
teith, an 18-year-old Negro scheduled
to enter the University of South Caro
lina in September by a federal court
order. When classes began in Septem
ber she was one of four Negroes ad
mitted.
Smithville, Tenn.—Gunshots pierced
a Negro family’s home and car on
Sept. 3, the day after their two child
ren had become the first Negroes to
enroll with whites in a DeKalb County
school. No one was injured.
Rowan County, N.C.—A white boy
was suspended Sept. 6 from East Rowan
High for attacking the first Negro to
enter a white county high school.
New Orleans, La.—After the arrest
of over 100 persons, in a series of
demonstrations by Negroes, an esti
mated 8,000 persons marched on City
Hall, Sept. 30, to present grievances,
including demands for faster school
desegregation.
Hammond, La.—At Greenville Park
High, 200 Negro students cut classes
in early September to parade to City
Hall, demanding an end to segregation.
Suspended for a week, the pupils pic
keted the school the next day to pro
test their suspension.
Birmingham, Ala.—The home of a
Negro leader and attorney, Arthur D.
Shores, was bombed twice within 15
days. The second bombing, on the
night of Sept. 4, damaged his home
and injured his wife. Rioting touched
off in the Negro community by the
latter explosion resulted in the death
of one Negro and the injury of several
persons, including policemen. Earlier
the same day, city police had quickly
quelled jeering disorders outside two
of three schools desegregating for the
first time, by order of federal courts.
Gov. George Wallace used state
troopers to block actual desegregation
until Sept. 10, when President Kennedy
federalized the Alabama National
Guard and all five U.S. district judges
in Alabama issued an order restrain
ing interference by the governor. Five
Negroes then entered the three schools.
Street demonstrations and rioting by
white students and adults, along with
white boycotts of the schools began
Sept. 10 and continued until Sept. 14.
Federal indictments against eight white
adults were later dismissed. On Sun
day Sept. 15, an explosion at the Six
teenth Street Baptist Church killed
four Negro girls and injured 23 others.
Within hours after the explosion, two
white youths fatally shot a 13-year-
old Negro boy, and policemen shot to
death a 16-year-old Negro boy. Two
major fires, believed to have been
set, broke out that night amid confu
sion and scattered incidents of vio
lence. Rock-throwing by Negroes was
reported in many areas. Gov. Wallace
rushed 300 state troopers and alerted
500 National Guardsmen in Birming
ham. Three white men, all with Ku
Klux Klan backgrounds, were con
victed of illegal possession of dyna
mite in connection with the church
bombing; they were sentenced to six
months in jail and fined $100 each.
By late September, attendance at
Birmingham schools was near normal.
Mobile, Ala.—Some 300 white stu
dents demonstrated against the admis
sion of two Negroes to Murphy High,
but after the arrest of 54 of them Sept.
12, the boycott diminished.
Macon County, Ala.—After Gov.
Wallace’s resistance ended, 13 Negroes
entered Tuskegee’s only white high
school Sept. 10. All whites subsequently
withdrew. On Jan. 30, the State Board
of Education ordered the school closed.
The Negroes in the school were pad
locked out when they reported for
classes Feb. 3. A federal court ordered
six each admitted to Shorter and
Notasulga High Schools. On the night
of Feb. 2 crosses were burned at the
homes of three members of the county
school board, and on Feb. 4, two build
ings burned at the home of another
board member. The Negroes entered
the schools at Notasulga and Shorter
and partial white boycotts at both
schools became total. Fire destroyed the
Notasulga school in April, and the local
board transferred the six Negroes to an
all-Negro school.
Jacksonville, Fla.—One person was
injured in the Feb. 16 bombing of the
home of the only Negro at previously
all-white Lackawanna Elementary
School. William Sterling Rosecrans, a
white Indiana laborer, was convicted
for the dynamiting. Five others, all
identified as Ku Klux Klan members,
were charged as accessories. These
events contributed to rising tensions
OKLAHOMA CITY
O klahoma public schools en
rolled white and Negro stu
dents separately in the fall term
of 1954 as state educators awaited
further instructions from the U.S.
Supreme Court on its school rul
ing.
The following spring Oklahoma vot
ers set the stage for desegregation by
approving on April 5, by a 3-to-l mar
gin, a “better schools amendment” to
the state constitution. It eliminated the
old countywide four-mill levy for sep
arate schools, replacing it with a man
datory four-mill levy going to all dis
tricts on a per capita basis. This, in
effect, merged previously separate
white and Negro school budgets.
Later, on May 28, 1955, the legisla
ture adopted a new school code em
bodying the financial overhaul and
also giving local boards the power to
designate schools to be attended by
children of the district.
The State Regents for Higher Edu
cation on June 6, 1955, opened all
state colleges and universities to quali
fied undergrad
uates of all races.
State officials, led
by Gov. Raymond
Gary, set the tone
for official com
pliance by de
claring on June
17, 1955, that Ok
lahoma would no
longer pay for
two separate
school systems.
They also official
ly voided all state statutes in conflict
with the U.S. Supreme Court order.
Announce Plans
In the same month of 1955, desegre
gation plans were announced by 10
Oklahoma school districts, led by Po-
teau and including Tulsa. Oklahoma
City’s board voted full-scale desegre
gation Aug. 1, 1955.
The State Board of Education an
nounced in January, 1956, a new finan
cial policy of calculating Negro and
white enrollments together in figur
ing the number of teachers on which
districts can draw state aid.
A U.S. District Court ordered four
Negro pupils admitted in February,
1957, to the Earlsboro white high school
in Bottawatomie County but permitted
the district to keep other pupils seg
regated until the following school
year. In August a settlement of a fed
eral court suit brought by the par
ents of a 10-year-old deaf mute opened
the Oklahoma School for the Deaf at
Sulphur to Negroes.
Negroes enrolled in white schools for
the first time in Morris and Preston,
Okmulgee County, for the fall term
of 1957 on an or
der of U.S. Dis
trict Judge Eu
gene Rice. A
year later, in fol
low-up rulings,
he declared the
Supreme Court
did not suggest
Oklahoma had to
maintain only
“int egrated”
schools and that
a Negro is not
in the city, where demonstrations were
being conducted against segregated
businesses. Mayor Haydon Bums depu
tized more than 400 city fireman as
auxiliary policemen. On March 23,
Negro groups, mostly youths, roamed
the streets, threw rocks at cars and
set fire to buildings. One Negro woman
was shot to death and three persons
wounded. On March 24, the rioting
continued, with serious disturbances
at two high schools. Police said more
than 1,500 persons took part in the
day-long rioting. About 350 persons
were arrested in the two-day period.
St. Augustine, Fla.—On Jan. 21, 1964,
fire damaged the automobile of a Ne
gro family whose three children at
tended Fullerwood Elementary School
in the first year of local desegregation.
The next night a Negro man sought to
enroll in a white adult training pro
gram and was slugged on his way
home. On Feb. 7, 1964, fire destroyed
the residence of the only other Negro
family sending a child to Fullerwood.
Greenbrier County, W. Va.—At
White Sulphur Springs, over 100 white
students boycotted a school for two
days in mid-March because a Negro
girl was named a majorette.
denied his constitutional rights if he
is required to follow regular transfer
procedures.
The state’s policy of applying finan
cial pressure on local districts to en
courage desegregation was tested by
the Graham and Fox school boards
in Carter County in the summer of
1958. They asked for continued sep
arate calculation of races for state aid
purposes for another year. The state
board turned them down. That fall
Graham desegregated after failing to
find financing for separate schools. Fox
operated separate schools for another
year.
Faculty Desegregation
Oklahoma City had its first faculty
desegregation in February, 1959, when
Negro counselors were assigned to two
desegregated schools, Webster Junior
High and Culbertson Elementary. By
May, 1960, the school board had re
placed white faculties there with Ne
gro teachers because the once all-
white schools had been resegregated
as Negro. Creston Hills, another ele
mentary school, had previously gone
through this cycle.
In the spring and summer of 1959
Negro families were moving across
Oklahoma City’s Northeast 23rd St.,
the traditional “boundary” between
Negro and white residential areas. The
migration led eventually to the de
segregation of a high school and sev
eral elementary schools in northeastern
Oklahoma City. It brought also the
organization of neighborhood commit
tees that sought to prevail on white
families not to move out.
The predominantly Negro Langs
ton University got a new president,
Dr. William H. Hale, in May, 1961. He
served notice he
would fight to
keep the school
going even as
economy - minded
legislators talked
of closing it.
Alumni and other
friends got a leg
islative “declara
tion of intent”
that summer that
Langston is im
portant to the
state’s higher education system. Nearly
two years later the school appeared on
solid footing as it received a $1,119,000
government loan to help finance a 10-
year building project.
Transfer Law Attacked
The constitutionality of Oklahoma’s
pupil transfer law was attacked in a
federal court suit in October, 1961. A
Negro father charged the Oklahoma
City board used it to retain school
segregation. The board of education
contended any “unintegrated” schools
were the result of residential patterns,
not any official effort to maintain seg
regation.
On July 10, 1962, a three-judge fed
eral court ruled the Oklahoma City
board had not unconstitutionally ap
plied the law giv
ing it the right to
designate schools
for pupils to at
tend. The case
was returned to
the district court
for trial on fact
ual issues. U.S.
District Judge
Luther Bohanon,
in a July 11, 1963,
ruling, ordered
the Oklahoma
City school board to stop transferring
pupils on the basis of race and to be
gin biracial faculty assignments imme
diately.
The board came up Aug. 5 with a
court-ordered desegregation plan,
which eliminated the minority-to-
majority transfer plan but re-asserted
the neighborhood-school principle. This
was confirmed in a permanent policy
statement adopted Jan. 14, 1964. Judge
Bohanon refused to approve or dis
approve it, calling instead for an out
side expert’s study.
During the decade, an estimated 396
Negro teachers lost their jobs because
of desegregation in the state.
At the end of the decade a newly
established state human rights com
mission was calling for repeal of racial
laws, including those on school seg
regation.
GARY