Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 16-B—MAY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS TEN YEARS IN REVIEW 10-Year-Old SERS Began as 4 Unique Experiment S outhern Education Report ing Service is 10 years old. When it was established in 1954, its founders described it as a “unique experiment in American journalism.” They believed that the experiment would have run its course within one year. But the job they set for themselves has not yet been completed. The idea for SERS was conceived in Washington in April of 1954 at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. A group of South ern editors gathered to discuss the im pending decision of the United States Supreme Court in the School Segrega tion Cases. Their principal interest lay in the reporting of the events that would follow the decision. They agreed to the desirability of establishing a central source of factual, objective, accurate information that would be readily available without bias or editorial opinion. From this meeting emerged Southern Education Reporting Service, supported financially by the Ford Foundation, and with a board of directors composed of prom inent Southern editors and educators. Purpose of SERS was—and is—to collect and disseminate facts on the school segregation-desegregation situ ation in the area where laws prior to 1954 had required that the races be separated in the public schools. This was the case in 17 Southern and bor der states and the District of Columbia. SARRATT BALL Southern School News, the monthly publication of SERS, is the principal medium for providing these facts. It works with a staff of leading news paper editors and writers. The paper is circulated in all 50 states and 44 foreign countries to people of many interests and persuasions. In addition to news media, the subscribers include many who are on the firing line in school is sues—judges, government officials, at torneys, educators, school board mem bers, students, clergymen and other religious leaders, sociological research ers and concerned laymen. SERS has many unsolicited letters testifying to the paper’s value and its unique suc cess in maintaining objectivity on a highly controversial subject. Three awards for journalistic achieve ment have come to Southern School News: In 1956 the National Newspaper Publishers Association Russworm Award “in recognition of outstanding achievement”; in 1962 the “layman’s citation for distinguished service in the public journals” from Texas Southern University; and in 1963 the Lincoln University Board of Curators award for “significant contributions to better human relations.” The monthly paper is just one of the publications and services of SERS. In 1959, the agency was assigned manage ment functions for Race Relations Law Reporter, a quarterly edited by the Law School of Vanderbilt University. The Law Reporter contains the com plete texts of court decisions, legisla tive acts and administrative rules, reg ulations and orders in the field of race relations throughout the United States. Periodically, SERS publishes a re vised edition of its “Statistical Sum mary of School Segregation-Desegrega tion in the Southern and Border States.” This pamphlet, which grows with each edition, contains complete enrollment statistics, broken down by race, for all the public schools and colleges of the 17 Southern and border states and the District of Columbia. Among the other information presented in cap sule form are lists, by states, of all laws enacted to deal with the school segregation issue and of all court decisions handed down. The SERS staff has produced two books. The first was edited by Don Shoemaker and published in 1957 un der the title “With All Deliberate Speed.” The second, published in 1959, was edited by Ed Ball and Pat Mc- SHOEMAKER McKNIGHT Cauley and was entitled “Southern Schools: Progress and Problems.” Most of the writing for these books was done by Southern School News correspond ents. The manuscript for a third book now is being written, with Reed Sarratt and Chester Davis as co-authors. It will tell the story of the decade of school desegregation, 1954-64. In addition to its publications, SERS performs other informational services that are in constant use. The backbone of this service is the library. Unlike Southern School News the library em braces every phase of race relations in the United States. Approximately 50 daily newspapers are clipped, to gether with very nearly every news magazine and journal of opinion pub lished in the United States. These ma terials are indexed under more than 500 separate subject headings. Also col lected for the library are books, pam phlets, reports, surveys, studies, texts SOUTH CAROLINA State Calm with First COLUMBIA n Jan. 28, 1963, Harvey B. Gantt, a Negro, drove onto the hilly campus of Clemson Col lege to register for the School of Architecture. Behind him was the power of the federal courts. With him was the power of the State of South Carolina. Thus South Carolina’s educational color line—a cornerstone of state pol icy since Reconstruction Days—was broken. There was no violence, such as had accompanied the entry of James Meredith into the University of Mis sissippi a few months before. Even though the state did not want Harvey Gantt or any member of his race as a student at state-supported Clemson, neither did the state want another outbreak of racial disorder. While Clemson’s lawyers pursued last-minute ap peals from the U.S. Fourth Cir cuit Court of Ap peal s directive that Clemson ad mit Gantt, the leadership of the state called for calm compliance. Former Gov. Ernest F. Hollings; for mer U.S. Sen. Charles Daniel, a mil lionaire contractor and leading indus try-seeker; and John Cauthen, power ful lobbyist for textile interests, were credited with playing major roles in preparing the state for the eventuality of segregation. Another key figure was State Sen. Edgar A. Brown, dominant figure of the state legislature for three decades. As a life trustee of Clemson, Brown had more than a governmental inter est in seeing that the school’s progress was not interrupted. Laid Groundwork The Clemson Administration, headed by President Robert C. Edwards, care fully laid the groundwork for Gantt’s reception. When it became imminent, calls for calm came from churchmen, business and professional associations and the news media. Joining in the plea even while at tacking the court decision were two BYRNES HOLLINGS leaders who had fought long and hard for the separate-but-equal doctrine that the Supreme Court struck down' in its 1954 desegregation decision. They were former Gov. James F. Byrnes and State Sen. L. Marion Gressette. In the end it was new Gov. Donald S. Russell, inaugurated only short days before Gantt’s scheduled entry, who issued the orders that assured no violence would ensue. After re portedly rejecting a suggestion from U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Ke n n e d y that federal marshals be sent to help keep order, Rus sell dispatched state officers to Clemson with orders to seal off the campus to unauthorized persons. The approximately 160 newsmen who gathered to report the event—many of them veterans of the Ole Miss crisis and other desegregation battles—had little to write and talk about on a day that was as uneventful as it was mo mentous. The token desegregation of 1963 came after almost 13 years of legal attack on the state’s all-white school system. South Carolina’s first anti-segregation case (Briggs v. Elliott) was filed on Dec. 22, 1950. This case eventually be came a part of the school segregation cases that formed the basis of the 1954 decision outlawing discrimination in schools. Briggs v. Elliott arose in the Sum- merton District of Clarendon County, an agricultural section with a 70 per cent Negro population. Clarendon re mains completely segregated today, even though it has been ordered to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” When the 1954 decision was an nounced, Gov. James F. Byrnes pretty well summed up the reaction of the state when he said he was “shocked.” But he urged the members of both races to “exercise restraint and pre serve order.” The battle against desegregation in South Carolina continued for years as government leaders fought a delaying action. Named to head the struggle was Sen. L. Marion Gressette, veteran rep resentative of Calhoun County. Gres sette was selected as chairman of a 15- member special committee, comprised of five state senators, five House mem bers and five citizens appointed by the governor. It was officially named the State School Committee but has been known almost from the beginning as the Gressette Committee. Its duty was clear—to guard segregation. With this committee in the lead, the state built an intricate legal fortress against segregation. Some laws, such as the one requiring compulsory school attendance, were repealed. A number Negro Admission GRESSETTE EDWARDS of others generally increased the power of local school boards. Three measures were highly signif icant. The first cut off public funds from schools to which and from which pupils were ordered transferred by the court. Another revised procedural rules for appeals from local school board decisions on pupil placement. The third specified that school appropriations must be made on a racially segregated basis only. On April 13, 1960, 15 Negro parents, some of whom had also been plain tiffs in the original Briggs v. Elliott case filed a decade before, brought a new federal suit against Summerton school officials on behalf of their 43 minor children. The issues in Brunson et al v. School District 1 of Clarendon County were essentially the same as those in Briggs. Filed almost simultaneously with the Brunson case was a Darlington Coun ty action (Byrd v. Gary). The Byrd case was never thereafter pressed and the Brunson case lay dormant for more than two years. Attitude Changes In the meantime, the attitude of a number of government officials and many leading citizens of South Caro lina was undergoing a change from de fiance. At a private press briefing early in 1962, Gov. Ernest F. Hollings predicted an increase in desegregation activity and suggested it was a duty of the press to prepare the public for it. At the same time, the legislature acted quietly to assure that the state’s schools and colleges would not have to be closed or public funds cut off when desegregation was ordered. One method was the elimination from the bulky appropriations bill of the tiny phrase that disbursed school funds on a “racially segregated basis only.” An other section of the money bill speci fied that no institution for which the General Assembly provided funds could be discontinued during the fiscal year. Some legal authorities said these ac tions had the effect of nullifying those sections of the S. C. Code, enacted after the 1954 decision, which required school closings. On May 28, 1962, the parents of 13 Negro children filed suit in the federal court against Charleston schools (Brown v. School District 20 of Char leston County.) The next day a similar suit was filed from Darlington County (Stanley v. Darlington County School District No. 1.) One reason that Clarendon County remains segregated is that NAACP lawyers chose to move first in the Charleston case. After a trial, U.S. Judge J. Robert Martin ordered the Charleston schools to accept the 11 re maining Negro plaintiffs in September, 1963. They were admitted without vio lence—the first, and so far the only, children under college age to attend public school with whites in South Carolina. Catholic schools were deseg regated at the same time. Judge Martin’s order in the Charles ton case further required the district to desegregate completely by Septem ber, 1964, or submit a plan satisfac tory to the court. He accepted such a plan on April 13, 1964. University of S.C. On Oct. 31, 1962, Henri Monteith, a Columbia Negro, filed a federal court suit, seeking admission to the Univer sity of South Carolina. In September, 1963—about the same time that public school desegregation took place in Charleston—Miss Mon teith and three Negro males accepted without court order, entered the Uni versity of South Carolina with no dis turbance. At the same time Lucinda Brawley, a Negro girl, joined Gantt at Clemson. Judge Martin had ruled fa vorably on Miss Monteith’s suit on July 10, 1963. Since then, public school desegre- gatin suits have been filed from Greenville, Sumter and Orangeburg counties. They are in various stages of advancement in the federal courts of the state. The South Carolina General Assem bly has provided an alternative to white parents who do not want their children to attend school with Ne groes. A 1963 act established a tuition grants program. No pupils are receiv ing funds under it for private school attendance at this moment but sev eral private schools, principally in the Charleston area, are expected to quali fy for grants by September, 1964. MARTIN MONTEITH of speeches, laws, court decisions anj numerous miscellaneous publications dealing with race relations. Altogethe more than one million items have bee: placed in the library since 1954 At the end of each operating year most additions to the library collection are microfilmed, complete with the card catalog. The microfilm through June 30 1963, filled 124 rolls of 35mm film, j, has been purchased by more than 5o major libraries scattered across the country. Dr. Felix Robb, president of George Peabody College for Teachers and a member of the SERS Board, has called the SERS library and publications “the most magnificent piece of documenta tion of human behavior that this coun try or any other country has had on such a scale.” Similar statements have been volunteered by others. Information Requests Regularly, the SERS headquarters office in Nashville receives requests for information, and these are handled promptly and without charge. Hun dreds of such questions are answered in a year’s time. Each month, press releases based on Southern School News are mailed to publications that have requested them. From this direct mailing list and the principal news services SERS-gathered facts are widely disseminated. A new service added in 1962 is the supplying of Xerox reproductions of materials collected for the library. Since the service was inaugurated, more than 150,000 of these reproductions have been supplied. Reed Sarratt, former executive as. 1 sistant to the publisher of the Winston- Salem (N.C.) Journal and Twin City Sentinel, has served as executive di rector of SERS since 1960. Tom Flake is director of publications and Jim Leeson is director of information and research and editor of the Summary. Previous executive directors were Edward D. Ball, now editor and pub lisher of the Venice, Fla., Gondolier, from 1958 to 1959; Don Shoemaker, now editor of the Miami Herald, from 1955 to 1958; and C. A. (Pete) McKnight, now editor of the Charlotte Observer, from 1954 until 1955. Board Chairmen McKnight, who established the SERS offices, was elected chairman of the board of directors on March 14, 1964 Other chairmen of the board have in cluded Bert Struby, general manager of the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph and News, AHLGREN DABNEY from 1962 to 1964 Frank Ahlgr<st >ditor of the STRUBY Memphis Com ' mercial ApP ea ’ from 1957 to 1962; and Virg^' ius Dabney, tor of the Re mand Times- patch, from to 1957. , Dr . Alexan* Heard, chance ^ Vanderbilt University, Nashville, ^ irch was elected vice-chair _ e board, succeeding Thomas K. I, editor of the News and ., fre larleston, S. C., who had he st since the inception of SEIw- i fn addition to McKnight, Dr. ^ rratt, Struby, Shoemaker an %, the Board of Directors nf* ■. Luther H. Foster, president oi gee Institute, Tuskegee * ns jj to r a.; Charles Moss, executive c the Nashville Banner; Dr. j^y ibb, president of George ^ as illege for Teachers, which se . ge p- cal agent for SERS; John eS . der, editor of the Nashville ^ in; Henry I. Willett supenn schools, Richmond, Va.; Dr.. Ter sity- Wright, president of Fisk U- -gp- tshville; and John N. P°P (jfia-W d managing editor of the oga Times. fr0 m ** rhe first grant to SERS y e af- rd Foundation was for 0 ^ate- rd grants to date total app r w'i- $1,800,000, and the latest ^ ce the service through J u " e Jpnt^ in March, the SERS boar pid' committee to “re-examine ;J ses and programs of SEtw- ( ! 1 s ; (