Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2-A—MAY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Johnson Would Take
Some Changes In Bill
D.C. Highlights
(Continued from Page 1-A)
criminatory programs. Gore said this
section would confer “vast and poten
tially oppressive power” on the govern
ment.
★ ★ ★
Hansen Keeps Stand
On Transfers; Seeks
Biracial Faculties
D. C. School Supt. Carl F. Hansen
said April 30 he continues to oppose
enforced transfers of pupils to relieve
school overcrowding.
The superintendent made his com
ment to members of a committee of
civil-rights, religious and community
leaders who originally met with him
March 10 to forestall a threatened
school boycott.
In a staff memorandum made public
April 14, Hansen declared that “those
in charge of personnel assignments will
make a maximum effort to set up bi
racial faculties in each school unit.’
He said he hoped all District schools
would have biracial staffs within one
year.
One senior high school, two junior
high schools and several elementary
schools now have all-Negro teaching
staffs, while two other elementary
schools have all-white faculties.
Hansen said the school system’s per
sonnel department had been concerned
about the problem since schools were
desegregated in 1954, and that the pol
icy of seeking a racial balance was not
new.
But he added that “consultations with
Negro leadership groups, including
President Johnson made it known
that the White House would accept
some Senate modifications of the
House-passed civil-rights bill.
In an address to an interreligious
gathering of clergymen backing the
civil-rights bill, a Presbyterian lead
er called for demonstrations against
segregated schools in the North and
South.
School Supt. Carl F. Hansen said
District public schools would contin
ue to oppose enforced pupil trans
fers to relieve overcrowding. Hansen
lashed out at “prejudiced critics” and
“publicity seekers.” He called for re
newed efforts to promote better racial
balance in staff assignment of teach
ers.
A Republican group headed by
Milton Eisenhower called for legal
requirement of a prompt desegre
gation start by all school systems.
The Republican Critical Issues Cun-
cil also endorsed cutting off federal
funds from all discriminatory pro
grams.
CORE,” indicated that there was a need
“to be more definitive in our approach
to these problems.”
Hansen noted that almost 75 per cent
of the city’s public-school teachers are
Negroes, so that he “was not talking
about numbers” or an equal distribu
tion of white and Negro teachers.
His memorandum urged teachers to
request transfers to “schools of different
ethnic or socio-economic characteris-
| tics ... to broaden their professional
| backgrounds.” Teachers who do so, he
added, will be given “additional con
sideration” for promotions.
★ ★ ★
In an April 29 address to a group of
Rotarians, D.C. School Supt. Carl Han-
denounced “prejudiced critics” and
“publicity seekers” who have taken
Washington school problems out of
context
The superintendent described in
struction programs and auxiliary serv
ices representing “the positive side” of
the school system.
“One special reason for taking this
tack at this time,” Hansen said, “is that
our school system has been under
rather severe critical analysis by people
who fail to consider all the facts or who
are concerned with only a segment of
our problems . . . For publicity reasons,
they are desirous of building up these
problems into spectaculars.”
Hansen’s comments were interpreted
as a reply to Mordecai Johnson, school
board member and former president of
Howard University, who has been crit
ical of some of the superintendent’s pol
icies and programs.
On April 15, Johnson charged that
“segregated white and segregated Ne
gro schools” received better treatment
in the District than biracial schools. He
said he had made an analysis of per-
pupil costs and found “astonishing dif
ferences.”
Cites “Misunderstanding”
School board member West A. Ham
ilton, like Johnson a Negro, said John
son had “misunderstood” the cost
figures and taken them out of context.
Hansen said the differences in cost re
flected different school programs, vary
ing needs of children and under-utili
zation of some schools.
The superintendent protested “the
inference that there is a deliberate or
even accidental favoring of schools that
are 100 per cent white or 100 per cent
Negro.”
Conflict between Johnson and Han
sen reached new intensity at a school
board committee meeting April 23,
when the board member called the
‘I’ll Get Down to Earth
Eventually ... I think!’
Yardley, Baltimore Sun
superintendent “a dangerous man in
this position.”
Johnson attacked Hansen’s personnel
practices, and said he doubted that the
superintendent “really wants a merit
system of appointing teachers.” If that
charge were true, Hansen retorted, “the
board should dismiss me immediately.”
Johnson’s attacks on Hansen drew
rebukes from several other board mem
bers.
Clergymen Hear Blake
Denounce Segregated Schools
Clergymen of all major faiths met at
Georgetown University April 28 as the
National Interreligious Convocation on
Civil Rights, a religious demonstration
in behalf of the bill pending before the
Senate.
In an address to the opening session,
the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake,
stated clerk of the United Presbyterian
Church, denounced segregated schools
“retained against the Constitution in a
Southern state or maintained by neigh
borhood racial ghettos in Northern
cities.”
MISSISSIPPI
Clarksdale
JACKSON
T he first public school deseg-
regration suit in the Northern
Mississippi Federal District Court
was filed at Clarksdale April 23
by parents of 17 Negro children.
The parents include Aaron Henry,
president of the Mississippi branches
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People. The case
will be tried before District Judge
Claude Clayton of Tupelo.
The Clarksdale suit names as de
fendant the Clarksdale Municipal Sep
arate School District Board and the
Clarksdale-Coahoma County school
board. It seeks a preliminary and per
manent injunction against the school
authorities “from continuing their pol
icy, practice, custom and usage of op
erating a compulsory biracial [segre
gated] school system for the children
in Clarksdale.”
No hearing date has been set by
Judge Clayton.
Three other public-school desegre
gation suits are pending in the South
ern Federal Court District involving
the cities of Jackson and Biloxi and
Leake County (Carthage).
★ ★ ★
On the day after the 10th anniver
sary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s pub
lic school desegregation mandate, Mis
sissippi’s first public-school desegrega
tion suit will go to trial “on its merits”
before U.S. District Judge S. C. Mize
at Jackson. The suit against Jackson
city school system was filed by the
NAACP on behalf of nine Negro chil
dren, including two of the late Med-
gar Evers, field representative of the
NAACP who was assassinated June 12,
1963.
The Jackson school board is under
order from Judge Mize to submit by
July 15 a plan for desegregation of at
least one grade during the school year
beginning this fall, but the judge in
issuing the temporary compliance in
junction noted that it could be affected
by the outcome of the May 18 hearing.
Since filing of the suit against the
Jackson board, the voters have ap
proved a $5 million bond issue for
construction of additional racially sep
arate schools.
★ ★ ★
The second trial of Byron de la Beck
with, 43-year-old white man of Green-
Negroes Sue For Desegregation
wood, on charges of murdering Negro
civil-rights leader Medgar Evers, ended
in a mistrial in Jackson’s Hinds County
Circuit Court April 17.
Reportedly, the all-white jury dead
locked 8 to 4 for Beckwith’s acquittal.
The first jury deadlocked 6 to 6.
Beckwith was released on $10,000
bond pending convening of the May
term of court. He had been in jail since
his arrest on June 22, 1963.
In the Colleges
Silver Ouster
Demands To Go
Before Faculty
Demands for the ouster of contro
versial Dr. James Wesley Silver from
the faculty of the University of Mis
sissippi reportedly will be considered
through regular collegiate channels be
fore any action is taken by the Board
of Trustees of State Institutions of
Higher Learning.
Protests against Dr. Silver, who
called Mississippi a “closed society”
and accused the state’s leadership of
being “deficient and irresponsible” in
not admitting the state has no chance
but for eventual integration, have been
filed by citizen groups and made in
statements by legislators on the floors
of the General Assembly.
A special committee of the college
board has been studying the accusa
tions and conducting an investigation.
It reportedly has obtained evidence
outside the realm of Dr. Silver’s aca
demic freedom which will be filed with
Chancellor J. D. Williams, who, in turn,
will submit it to a faculty council for
consideration and recommendation.
Broadcasters Meet
At the April 18 convention of the
Mississippi-Louisiana Broadcasters As
sociation at Biloxi, President LeRoy
Collins of the National Association of
Broadcasters and former Florida gov
ernor, urged the two-state group to
speak against the proposed firing of Dr.
Silver. Collins defended Dr. Silver’s
freedom of speech and called on the
broadcasters to do likewise.
“I do not know Professor Silver. I
have never met him,” Collins said. “I do
Mississippi Highlights
The first public school desegrega
tion suit in the Northern Mississippi
Federal District was filed at Clarks
dale by the parents of 17 Negro
children.
Charges against Dr. James W.
Silver of the University of Missis
sippi, involving his speeches critical
of the state and university adminis
tration, reportedly have been referred
by the Board of Trustees of State
Institutions of Higher Learning to
Chancellor J. D. Williams for inves
tigation through usual collegiate
channels.
The Board of Trustees of State In
stitutions of Higher Learning upheld
the fifth refusal of the University of
Southern Mississippi to enroll John
Frazier, 22-year-old Greenville Ne
gro. The board took under advise
ment a petition of Cleve McDowell,
Negro of Sunflower County, for re
admission to the University of Missis
sippi, which expelled him last year.
A second mistrial was called in
the case of Byron de la Beckwith,
charged with murdering civil-rights
leader Medgar Evers.
not know precisely what he has done
or what he advocates, but what he has
said actually pales in importance in
fight of his right to say what he will
without intimidation and economic co-
ersion.
Lew Heilbroner, vice president of
radio station WJQS in Jackson, upheld
Dr. Silver’s right of free speech, but
questioned “whether a man who re
peatedly condemns the state in speeches
in and out of the state is a fit instruc
tor for their young men and women.”
Challenging Collins’ suggestion that
Mississippi broadcasters back the pro
fessor, Heilbroner asked: “What else
could the association expect when they
invite a carpetbagger to speak to
them?”
★ ★ ★
The Board of Trustees of State Insti
tutions of Higher Learning at its April
16 meeting upheld action of the Uni
versity of Southern Mississippi in re
fusing to enroll John Frazier, 22-year-
old Greenville Negro now attending
Tougaloo Southern Christian College
near Jackson. This was the fifth turn
down for Frazier, state president of the
collegiate division of the National As
sociation for the Advancement of Col
ored People and now on its national
board of directors.
Frazier had petitioned the college
board to change a regulation requiring
prospective students to submit applica
tions at least 20 days before enrolling
for a new term. That was the basis of
his fifth rejection.
The board also took under advise
ment a petition of Cleve McDowell, Ne
gro of Sunflower County, for readmis
sion to the University of Mississippi.
He was expelled last October for vio
lating a rule against students carrying
concealed weapons on the campus.
It was McDowell’s second request for
readmission. The first was turned down.
Schoolmen
Equalization Plan
Cost $214.5 Million
Mississippi has spent $214,500,000 on
school facilities under a 1954 legislative
program designed to bring Negro
schools to a par with those of the
whites.
Officials estimate that up to 70 per
cent of the expenditures have been for
facilities for Negroes.
T. H. Naylor Jr., executive secretary
of the State Educational Finance Com
mission, handling the equalization pro
gram, said the state has put up $107.5
million and local districts the other
$107 million.
Naylor said since World War II,
Mississippi has spent an overall $289,-
500,000 on new school facilities. Of this
total, $75 million was spent prior to
the equalization authorization.
Under the equalization program, the
state contributes $12 for each child in
average daily attendance and an addi
tional $3 for each Negro child.
Dr. Blake urged the audience *
6,500 to “begin now, if you have
already begun, to solve this scW
problem in your community.” '
school boards “do not listen,” Dr. guf*
added, “demonstrations must
manned and pressed until the scW
boards listen or are replaced by 1
aroused electorate.”
In a speech to the convocation w
April 29, President Johnson declare''
that “the problem of racial wrongs and
racial rights is the central moral prob
lem of this Republic.” Passage of ^
civil-rights bill is “our most immedi^
need,” Johnson said.
GOP Group Urges
Desegregation Law
All school districts still practicing
racial segregation should be required by
law to make a first step toward de
segregation within the next school year
the Republican Critical Issues Council
proposed April 27.
The council also demanded prompt
action by either the Congress or the
President to cut off federal aid funds
from projects in which racial discrim
ination is practiced.
The council’s recommendations were
in one of a series of reports it is issu
ing before the Republican National
Convention. The council is not an offi
cial arm of the GOP, but has the sup.
port of former President Eisenhower
and is headed by his brother, Milton
Eisenhower.
The report called for an amendment
to the civil-rights bill pending in the
Senate to require a prompt start on
school desegregation. It said failure to
enact the fund cut-off provision already
in the pending bill could become “one
of the key civil-rights issues in the
1964 campaign.”
The council opposed pupil transfers
to correct racial imbalances in schools,
but said efforts must be made to im
prove schools in predominantly Negro
neighborhoods.
★ ★ ★
Appointment of Eugene Patterson,
editor of the Atlanta Constitution, to fill
a vacancy on the Civil Rights Commis-
sion was announced by President John
son on April 18.
Patterson, 40, will replace Robert
Storey, dean of the Southern Methodist
University law school in Dallas, who
resigned. The new member, a native of
Valdosta, Ga., was graduated from the
University of Georgia in 1943 and
worked as a reporter in Texas, Geor-
gia, New York and abroad.
Pentagon Bans
Segregated Training
All military services and Defense
Department agencies have h*®
directed to stop training active-duty
military personnel at schools practicing >
racial discrimination. A Pentagon mem
orandum to that effect was issued J
Assistant Secretary of Defense Norman
Paul on March 25, to take effect with® j
60 days. Existence of the memorand
was not reported until April 10-
Pentagon sources estimated that
about 100,000 service personnel are*
volved in various educational program^
at Government expense. The ^ eser ' ot
Officers Training Corps program ® n
involved in the new order.
OUTSIDE THE SOUTH
Supreme Court
Lets Decision
)n Gary Stand
WASHINGTON
r HE U.S. Supreme Court ^ e ,
dined May 4 to review a ^
>urt decision which uphe ^
;ihborhood-school policy 0 ^
ary, Ind., school system
ss of de facto segregate
icial “imbalances.” jt
This was the first case in' °c' u pre n ’ e
rto segregation to reach the
>urt, although a half-dozen
e pending from Northern an
n cities. . i fry
Negro plaintiffs and the Nation^^
ciation for the Advancernen
ed People had asked tne ^
urts to require an end pop'
gregation in Gary resulting
n the suit the NAACP
(See RACE, Page 8-A)
1