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PAGE 14-B— MAY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS TEN YEARS IN REVIEW TEXAS Pace Increases In Last Part Of Decade AUSTIN he tempo of desegregation quickened in Texas near the end of the first decade after the Supreme Court decision in the Brown case. A total of 263 districts, containing about 200,000 of the state’s 325,000 Ne groes enrolled in public schools, have abolished segregation as a policy. An other 110 all-white districts have de segregation policies. About 18,000 Ne groes actually attend class with white students. While 809 Texas districts have both white and Negroes of school- age, many of these transfer students to other districts. Typical of the present attitude in Texas toward accepting school deseg regation is Marshall in a county ad joining Louisiana and deep in South ern tradition. The county has about an equal numbers of whites and Ne groes. Yet the Marshall board in 1963 without court action, ordered grade-a- year desegregation to start in Septem ber, 1964, along the lines established in Dallas three years ago. The transition from a dual school system to acceptance of desegregation generally was accomplished in Texas voluntarily and without violence. Only isolated instances of protest accom panied the change. In July 1954, the NAACP in Sul phur Springs, Tex., petitioned the board to admit Negroes with whites, and about a week later two shotgun blasts and seven pistol slugs were fired into the empty home of the local NAACP chairman. Sulphur Springs is still segregated. Clash of Authority In 1956, a clash of authority oc curred at Mansfield, a rural commun ity 15 miles from Fort Worth. Negroes obtained a federal court order (Jack- son v. Rawdon) for the Mansfield schools to accept students of all races rather than transporting the Negro high school students to Fort Worth. Crowds of white citizens gathered at Mansfield High to protest the expected registration of Negroes. Gov. Allan Shivers ordered the Tex as Rangers to preserve peace in the town and disperse the crowds. Shivers issued a proclamation that the school board should transfer away any schol astics, “white or colored, whose attend ance or attempts to attend Mansfield High School would be reasonably cal culated to incite violence.” Although the Mansfield story re ceived national publicity, the Negroes and the federal courts did not press admission, as happened in Little Rock, and the Mansfield district still remains segregated. It operates a 12-grade sys tem for about 900 white students. An elementary school is maintained for Negroes at Mansfield and high-school age Negroes still are sent to Fort Worth. In September of the same year, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Texarkana Junior College to admit two Negroes. Again whites barred them from the school and Tex as Rangers came in to disperse the crowd. The Negroes did not enter the school and it did not desegregate until 1963. Board Action Public schools at San Antonio, El Paso, Austin and about 100 other dis trict desegregated by board action soon after the Texas Supreme Court declared in 1955 in McKinney v. Blankenship that Big Spring ISD could continue to draw state funds for de segregated operation despite state con stitutional and statutory requirements for segregation. Friona, a West Texas district, al ready had enrolled a few Negroes in white classes in 1953—before the fed eral and state court decisions. This was not discovered until later, how ever. It was done because local school officials had no other way to accom modate the Negro students. Districts in South and West Texas, particularly with large numbers of La tin-American and few Negroes, quickly adopted non-racial policies. The question of segregating Latin- Americans for educational purposes previously had been fought out in court by South Texas districts, with the result that separation was out lawed except in the first grade while Spanish-speaking students were taught English. Some districts, with few Negroes, had found operation of dual school systems difficult, and these boards Gov. Allan Shivers Trouble at Mansfield. hastened to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling. In 1957, the Texas legislature passed several laws aimed at preserving seg regation. The main one prohibited de segregation by a district without prior approval by a majority of its voters. The penalty was loss of state funds— which amounts to about half the mon ey Texas schools spend—and fines up to $1,000 against officials who took such action. The penalties were never invoked, but the act did slow down desegregation. More than a score of districts deseg regated by election in the next three years and several others did so by court order. Houston started grade- a-year desegregation in 1960 by fed eral court order, despite an adverse popular vote; and Dallas did the same in 1961, also in the face of 4-1 disap proval in a referendum. Both big-city systems have large numbers of Negroes as well as whites. Relatively few Negroes have enrolled with white pupils in the elementary grades. Part of this resulted from a “brother-sister” rule, later knocked out in court as discriminatory. But there has been no rush of Ne groes into classrooms with whites in Texas whenever there is a choice of attending predominantly Negro schools. Negroes continue to campaign for fast er desegregation in most cities. Some school systems, such as Austin, com pleted gradual desegregation programs ahead of the original schedule. Law Nullified A ruling by Attorney General Will Wilson, as he left office in December, 1962, nullified the 1957 referendum law. Citing a U.S. Cir cuit Court of Ap peals decision in the Dallas case (Boson v. Rip- py), Wilson ad. vised the Texas Education Agen cy that it could pay state funds to districts that desegregated by board action or court action, without the necessity for a referen dum. The ruling brought a considerable speedup in desegregation during 1963, much of it without local publicity. Probably 100 school boards abolished segregation voluntarily in 1963 after the Wilson opinion was handed down. No effort was made to override the opinion by court action. Texas Education Agency received for the first time in 1964 reports from superintendents on which districts are desegregated. About 100 superinten dents, in addition to districts teach ing white and Negro children together reported their schools are willing to accept students on a non-racial basis but presently they have no Negroes. Statistics on the extent of actual classroom mixing are difficult to ob tain, and only estimates are available. Some districts, particularly with large Latin-American populations, have non- Negroes attending formerly all-Negro schools. This tends to make the statis tics on desegregation somewhat mis leading, when viewed in the sense of Negroes being admitted to former “white” schools. Accepted Generally School desegregation has virtually ceased to be a political issue in Texas, but is being accepted generally as in evitable even in areas where segre gation sentiment is strong. In areas with large Negro populations, deseg regation continues but on an officially restricted basis. This is not entirely by the wishes of white patrons alone. For some Texas Negroes apparently want to preserve schools and teaching-administration predominantly for members of their race. Anson, in West Texas, abolished its Negro high school last year over DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington Became One of First Big Cities to Begin Compliance WASHINGTON T he Washington public schools —one of the first big-city systems to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision—was envisaged by some as the “model of desegregation” and represented by others as a horrible example. School officials concede that major problems persist, 10 years after Brown v. Board of Education, but they assert that these problems are educational, not racial. This view gets considerable support among civil-rights leaders and in the Negro community as a whole. The most significant fact about the school system is its heavy preponder ance of Negro pupils, who now con stitute 85.7 per cent of the total ele mentary and secondary enrollment of 137,718. Despite the complete absence of racial criteria in the assignment of pupils, some two dozen of the city’s public schools have all-Negro student bodies as a result of housing segrega tion and heavy concentration of non white residents. Four schools have all- white enrollments. School officials say that the increase in the proportion of Negro students and the decline in white enrollments reflect population trends that may be observed in cities North and South, regardless of school desegregation. The white school population, they point out, has been declining steadily since 1935, and Negroes became a majority in the school system in 1950. In 1954, when the District moved to comply with the Supreme Court decision, there were 41,000 white students and 64,000 Negroes in the public schools. Key Role School Supt. Carl F. Hansen, who played a key role in planning the desegregation of the District schools, has commented: “We have no embarrassment about the enrollment ratio. It is symptomatic of an urban problem that needs adjust ments beyond the scope of the school system—in such fields as housing and public services.” The District Board of Education was a party to one of the five desegrega tion suits decided by the Supreme Court on May 17, 1954—Bolling v. Sharpe. Public school segregation, the high court held, “imposes on Negro children of the District of Columbia a burden that constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of their liberty in violation of the due process clause.” The decision was not unexpected— or unwelcome—so far as many leaders of the community were concerned. Attorney Walter N. Tobriner, then a member of the Board of Education who was later to serve as its president and now heads the D.C. Board of Commissioners, commented on May 17: “Today’s decision is neither a vic tory for the Negroes nor a defeat for whites. It is simply one further step in the unfolding of a greater freedom and decency in the life of all Ameri cans.” On the following day, President Dwight Eisenhower, who had pledged during the 1952 campaign that he would end racial discrimination in the nation’s capital, expressed the hope that Washington would be a “model” in school desegregation. The presi dent’s statement was to haunt the city for years, since segregationist spokes men regarded it as a challenge to prove that Washington’s schools were in serious trouble. Only eight days after the Supreme Court announced its decision, the Dis trict school board moved to consoli date the two separate school systems the public protest of Negro patrons against desegregation. A few Negro teachers teach classes that have non-Negro students also. Generally faculties remain more seg regated than students although many school systems are abolishing segre gation of professional meetings. The Texas State Teachers Association is considering a proposal to accept Ne gro members, as requested by the state association of Negro teachers. At the college level, several public colleges and universities had desegre gated before the 1954 decision. The University of Texas admitted a Negro law student in 1950 by court order. Most of the college desegregation oc curred after 1954 and at the end of the decade, the state had 43 of its 54 public institutions of higher learning operating with desegregation policies. HANSEN EISENHOWER it had operated for more than 90 years. “We affirm our intention,” the board said, “to secure the right of every child within his own capacity, to the full, equal impartial use of all school facili ties, and the right of all qualified teachers to teach where needed with in the school system.” School boundary lines were redrawn, and when the schools opened in the fall of 1954, 75,000 of the city’s 105,000 students were assigned to biracial schools. Though trouble was expected, the schools opened without incident. A month later, however, demonstra tions against desegregation erupted at three high schools. For four days, a total of 2,500 students stayed out of school. On the fifth day, they returned to their classes. One Major Disorder Though there were isolated racial incidents in the months and years that followed, and one instance of major disorder at a high school football game, no large-scale demonstrations of any kind have involved the District schools since the fall of 1954. In a pamphlet about the city’s de segregation record, Supt. Hansen called it a “miracle of social adjustment,” and wrote of “a glow of pride” in the results. But as other school systems to the south of Washington grappled with problems of desegregation, the capital often became the subject of unflattering attention. In March, 1956, former Rep. James C. Davis (D-Ga.), then a member of the House District Committee, declared that desegregation in the nation’s capital was “not only a scholastic fail ure but—as an experiment in human relations—a nightmare.” Several months later Davis launched a Con gressional investigation of the school system, calling a number of teachers and principals who criticized the be havior or ability of Negro students. When the hearings ended, three other Southern congressmen joined Davis as signers of a report that found desegregation to have “seriously dam aged the public school system in the District of Columbia.” Two members of the Davis subcommittee—Reps. A. L. Miller (R-Neb.) and DeWytt S. Hyde (R-Md.)—disagreed with the Southern majority. They said the ma jority had drawn unwarranted con clusions from evidence that “does not appear to be well-balanced or objec tive.” Nonetheless, the subcommittee report—often with the minority dis sent omitted—was widely reprinted and distributed in the South in the late 1950’s. Citywide Tests Citywide standardized achievement tests administered to all pupils after desegregation — the first time that white and Negro students were tested on a comparable basis—showed formid able achievement lags behind national norms. In response to this evidence of educational shortcomings, the school system adopted in the fall of 1956 a “four-track system” of ability group ing, whereby senior-high-school stu dents were assigned to one of four learning programs: a rigorous “hon ors” track for top students; a “regular” track for students planning to go to college; a “general” track for those whose education would end with high school; and a remedial “basic” track. The track system, said Hansen, was designed to reduce the range of abil ity—or inability—within any one class room, and to provide students at every level with instruction suited to their needs. It was not, he said, “associated with desegregation or with the number of Negro students.” The tracks system came under attack almost at once as “undemocratic,” and critics complained—and still complain —that it tends to “freeze” pupils pre maturely into ability categories. None theless, it remains in effect and was extended to elementary and junior high schools—in modified form—in the fa]] of 1959. Citing “dramatic” gains in achieve- ment test scores, Supt. Hansen said in 1959 that academic improvements of fered “definite proof that integration is beneficial to the student.” But the school system continued to be sharply criticized by segregationist spokesmen. In a radio address to the people of Virginia in January, 1959 Gov. J. Lindsay Almond referred to “the livid stench of sadism, sex, un- morality and juvenile pregnancy in festing the mixed schools of the Dis trict of Columbia and elsewhere.” Hansen and School Board President Tobriner, in a joint statement, rebuked Almond for what they called “a gratui- tious and intemperate attack upon the innate decency of 114,000 children and youth in our public schools.” Total Attack In a five-year report on desegrega tion early in 1960, Hansen declared that the Supreme Court decision had “pre pared the ground for a total attack upon the improvement of instruction.” He added: “Integration has not retarded the advancement of high-quality students, Negro or white, and educational stand ards in the District public schools, when examined in relation to students’ prep aration and ability for learning, are high.” Achievement levels, as measured by standardized tests, have continued a gradual increase over the years, though they still trail national norms in some subjects and at some grade levels. In the spring of 1961, Wesley S. Wil liams, then vice president of the school board, succeeded to the presidency— the first Negro to hold the position. He has been re-elected regularly by the board, and continues to serve. Complacency Jolted Complacency about racial relations in the District school system was jolted on Thanksgiving Day, 1962, when some 300 spectators were injured in large-scale disorders that broke out after the annual high school champion ship football game at the D.C. Stadium. The fighting began when fans of Eastern High School, the predominant ly Negro public school that lost the game, surged across the playing field toward fans of St. Johns College High School, a predominantly white Catho lic school. Rep. John Bell Williams (D-Miss.) said the outbreak was “a race riot of the most vicious kind,” and blamed it on “forced in termixture of the races” in District schools. A biracial citi zens* committee appointed to hi" vestigate the inci dent said in its report that the hoodlums who went on a ram page at the sta dium would have attacked supporters of any victorious team, including a predominantly e gro one.” However, the committee w highly critical of lax discipline in schools. The report touched off a controversy over discipline in the sehools. tighter standards were adopted by school board, but it refused to gr Hansen’s request for authority to physical force to restrain unruly P ^ ils. Human relations programs m .j school system have been exp ^ since the Thanksgiving Day rio ■ f championship game, suspended the disorders, has not been resume A threatened student boycott, spring of the District schools, P r °P" 0 f by local leaders of the Congre ^ Racial Equality (CORE) to pr° “poor quality of education schools, was called off March 3 • leader Julius Hobson said he wa vinced, after meeting with Hanse , ^ the superintendent was “acting faith” to meet demands for sc WILLIAMS tt proposal drew li ^ Negro community, 0 f ny leaders of a num se . ags between ^ lpaders wa»