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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE 5-A
ARKANSAS
florth Little Rock Plans
Two-Grade Desegregation
LITTLE ROCK
T he North Little Rock School
Board announced April 20
•hat in September it would admit
Xegro students to the first and
Second grades of previously white
schools. Negro parents had until
\pril 24 to request the assignment
jf their children to the white
Nothing was said about desegrega-
,j on of the junior and senior high
schools, where Negroes applied for ad
mission last August, and the plan came
under strong criticism from the Negro
immunity. Last August the board had
said that it would announce during
the current school year a plan to begin
in September, 1964. It said that im
mediately after denying the requests
from five Negro students for admis
sion to the white high schools.
This will be North Little Rock’s sec
ond desegregation attempt. It once
planned to begin on the high school
level in September, 1957, but backed
out after Gov. Orval E. Faubus used
National Guard troops to block the
start of desegregation in Little Rock,
just across the Arkansas River.
Plan of Desegregation
Under the plan parents of this year’s
first grade children and of those who
will enter the first grade next fall may
request assignment to the white
schools. The assignments will be made
under the state Pupil Placement Law.
The requests were to be made on forms
distributed Tuesday, April 21, to be
returned by 5 p.m. Friday, April 24.
Supt. F. B. Wright said on April 29
that nine reassignment requests had
tome from Negro parents.
A committee of North Little Rock
Negroes met April 21 and expressed
their dissatisfaction with the plan. Dr.
H. Solomon Hill, president of Shorter
College, is chairman of the group. A
committee letter to the school board
sad that the plan fell “far short of
any serious attempt to comply with
the U. S. Supreme Court decision” and
that the committee had no course but
•o look further than you for relief
from this injury to the dignity of every
citizen who is denied his or her legal
and moral rights by your decision.”
Specified Complaints
The letter specified the Negro com-
Pnints about the plan: The students
"no applied for admission to the
tunior and senior high schools last fall
'' ere ignored; not enough time was al-
°"ed for parents to decide; and noth
ing was said about the future of
desegregation.
Supt. Wright defended the plan on
l * roun d that it followed the same
StTu? 1 aS t * le desegregation at Fort
Th' " V ^ 0t ® prin £s and Pine Bluff.
,1 ,, an ‘ n ^e lower grades and
allowed only four days for trans-
n^uests to be made, he said.
★ ★ ★
> Puss ellville school board dis-
April 7 that on March 27 it had
cersn^ 3 R^'Run signed by about 90
*>ns asking that the 35 Russellville
Nlc, r - r ?i t StUl ? ents sen t to high school in
School ° n ° y k us ’ be allowed to attend
no v , ln Russellville. Russellville has
0n ? 4 sc b°°l for Negro students,
that it k* r ^ the board announced
whit. . . £ decided to desegregate its
*as , scho<>1 next fall. Nothing
’"cptary a j^ ut j the one all-Negro ele-
■ill e e * s ^ miles from Russell-
51 Morrii/ Van School for Negroes
’’'dent c a ^ so acc °mmodates Negro
All a 0, n Danville, Ola and Atkins,
fr'iver .. towns are in the Arkansas
6 y in Northwest Arkansas.
★ ★ ★
‘he
^oes
at Fayetteville have asked
6 School T “yettevuie nave a:
"“Uuiinir, “oard to eliminate the one
he dist ' Segre S at °d Negro school in
Hoot J.'? Lincoln Elementary
H p | “ an estimated enrollment
*hoo k . - et teville has six elementary
The r ° r w bite students.
ration T Was the form of a
.'° n< cern a ™P te d by the Community
?d sW^ n 'Equality, a Negro group,
■ y J. B. Morgan, chairman.
Dr to Henry Shreve, school
ybl ig 1 ® n L during the week of
.^ve and Supt. Wayne
Pe< d to comment.
^ant 6 f 0l , Ut i on asked also for a
5 dent s ; ° btb Participation by all
; l, olo yrnent c J cho01 activities, the
yVl °f Negro teachers in the
> e ’ r ° stud Pm an< l the inclusion of
f tl ' ar 's Dni 0 ) n,S ' n the two-mile limit
ation to and from school.
Arkansas Highlights
North Little Rock plans to begin
desegregation in the first and second
grades next fall but the plan came
under heavy criticism from Negroes.
Russellville, which sends 35 Negro
students to a high school in Morril-
ton, 26 miles away, said it would ad
mit them to the white high school
next fall.
Fayetteville Negroes asked elimi
nation of a Negro elementary, the
only Negro segregated school left.
The Negro Council on Community
Affairs at Little Rock, which delayed
a school boycott after the school
board made some concessions, said
this was a victory for Little Rock
and justice, not for the Negroes.
Fayetteville desegregated its high
school in 1954, with the admission of
five Negro students, and later added
its two junior high schools.
★ ★ ★
Pine Bluff anounced April 29 that it
would extend desegregation to the
third and fourth grades next Septem
ber. This year it has one Negro in the
first grade and four in the second
grade of a formerly all-white school.
Under the Pine Bluff plan begun last
fall, a Negro has the opportunity to
enter with whites only at the time he
enters a grade being desegregated for
the first time. Negroes entering first
and fourth grades next fall may re
quest desegregation. But second and
third grades will be desegregated only
by those Negroes promoted this year.
Community Action
School Board’s
Concessions End
Boycott Threat
The Negro boycott of Little Rock
schools, scheduled for April 6, was not
held because of concessions made
April 3 by the school board. In a state
ment April 4, the Negro Council on
Community Affairs (COCA) said this
was not a victory for COCA or the
Negro community but for all of Little
Rock and for justice.
“COCA is now willing to work with
a properly constituted biracial commit
tee to find solutions to other problems
related to minorities and offers its
services to the board in advancing the
cause of better education for all
children,” the statement said.
The biracial committee was not one
on which the board made any conces
sion. All the board did was to amplify
and restate five existing policies and
then only by a vote of 4 to 2, but it
characterized these as an example of
good faith. It was on that basis and
on the consideration that the state
ment recognized the existence of the
Negro grievances that COCA accepted
the board’s concessions and put off the
boycott to allow the board time to
implement its statement.
The board’s statement was approved
by Russell H. Matson Jr., Dr. J. A.
Harrel Jr., Ted Lamb and W. C. Mc
Donald, but Everett Tucker Jr. and J.
H. Cottrell Jr. voted against it.
Statements I, III and V were restate
ments of previously announced policies
or decisions. Statement No. n amplified
the desegregated situation at the voca
tional school. Statement No. IV was
interpreted to mean that the board
would make an effort to find qualified
Negroes for employment in the admin
istrative level.
Strained Feelings
Nothing more has developed, at least
publicly, but the episode left some
strained feelings on both sides. Tucker
and Cottrell, members of the school
board, made it clear that they did not
believe the Negroes had a proper
grievance or were pursuing it in a
legitimate manner if they did. Some
Negroes were bitter about what they
construed as an effort by the board to
split the Negro community.
A spate of letters to the editor ex
pressed the Negroes’ feelings. One came
from L. W. Jordan, president of the
Committee on Better Education, a
Negro group. He said he was “sadly
dismayed” by the school board’s efforts.
This letter was the first public men
tion of the Committee on Better Edu
cation. Inquiry found that it had been
meeting since the school crisis of 1957
and was made up of the Negro students
in desegregated schools plus their
parents and friends. Jordan, who has
had two children graduate from Central
High, said the committee had 300 to
400 members who met about once a
month just to talk over the situation
of the desegregated students. The com
mittee is a strong backer of COCA and
much of the information on which
COCA based its grievances to the
school board came out of the com
mittee discussions.
M iscellaneous
Gov. Faubus Files
For Sixth Term
Orval E. Faubus filed April 22 as a
candidate for his sixth consecutive two-
year term in office as governor of
Arkansas.
By the April 29 deadline for filing
to get in the party primaries, only four
men — all unknown politically — had
filed against Faubus. For the first time
in his political career, Faubus has no
significant opposition in a Democratic
primary.
In his statement the governor made
no reference to the race situation.
Winthrop Rockefeller filed April 23
as a Republican candidate for governor.
Assuming they survive the party
primaries, Rockefeller and Faubus will
face each other in the general election
in November. Winthrop is a brother of
Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New
York and has lived in Arkansas since
1953. From 1955 until a few weeks ago
he was a member of the Faubus admin
istration as chairman of the Arkansas
Industrial Development Commission.
Republicans have not elected a gov
ernor in Arkansas since 1872.
★ ★ ★
The American Association of Uni
versity Professors voted April 11 at St.
Louis to censure the University of
Arkansas because of its handling of
(See ARKANSAS, Page 6-A)
TEXAS
State Board Plans End
To Negro-Aid Programs
w
AUSTIN
ith most of the state’s
colleges desegregated, the
Texas Commission on Higher
Education gave notice that it in
tends to abolish two programs de
signed particularly to assist Ne
groes. The commission will:
• Phase out Texas participation in
Southern Regional Education Board’s
support of Meharry Medical School at
Nashville, by discontinuing scholar
ships for Texas Negroes to study
medicine and dentistry there. No date
was set for cutting off new applica
tions by Texas Negroes for state aid.
• Eliminate state support of re
medial courses at institutions of higher
education, to bring students up to the
level of doing college work, particu
larly in mathematics and English. This
will affect mainly Texas Southern
University and Prairie View A&M,
two state senior colleges established
for Negroes. Most TSU students re
quire remedial courses (SSN April).
These changes were recommended
by the Council of Presidents of State-
supported Colleges and Universities.
Dr. F. L. McDonald, president of
Lamar Tech at Beaumont, reporting
for a study committee, said the Texas
Commission on Higher Education
might wish to make some exceptions
to the no-remedial-courses rule, but
he said the college educators feel that
a policy should be set against state
pavment for “remedial” education in
college.
May Make Exceptions
Vice Chairman John E. Gray noted
that the commission “may make ex
ceptions if it cares to do so for re
medial courses at Texas Southern and
Prairie View — but I won’t say that
we will.”
Officials at Texas Southern recently
were quoted in Houston as saying that
nine out of ten of the freshmen it ad
mits require special training to cor
rect deficiencies in their educational
background. The Ford Foundation has
granted $400,000 for the school to es
tablish remedial courses for 300
students this summer and 600 in the
summer of 1965.
The board approved $79,150 annual
ly to provide scholarships to Texas
students in other states in 1964-1965.
This includes 17 Negroes studying
medicine at Meharry College and
eight studying dentistry; also five
Texas girls receiving state aid to study
Veterinary Medicine at Oklahoma
State University. Texas A.&M., the
only state institution here educating
veterinarians, accepted only men until
last year.
Cut-Off Date
Vice Chairman Gray said that Tex
ans now attending Meharry at state
expense will be allowed to continue
there, but that a cut-off date will be
established for adding new students
to the program. Gray said September,
1965. is being considered tentatively
as the deadline for new students to
come under the program.
“We feel that we can accommodate
all students in our own institutions,”
WEST VIRGINIA
Broader Desegregation Base Asked
CHARLESTON
T he West Virginia Human
Rights Commission met in
Charleston April 16 with the West
Virginia Association of College
and University Presidents to ask
them to broaden the base of racial
desegregation on their campuses.
Howard W. McKinney, director of
the Human Rights Commission, de
scribed the luncheon session as “very
cordial.”
The commission asked the college
presidents to consider ways of recruit
ing Negro faculty members, of elimi
nating discriminatory barriers in social
fraternities and sororities, and of pre
paring future teachers to work with
pupils of all races, religions and social
classes.
The Human Rights Commission
asked the State Board of Education
last month to draft a policy statement
on public-school desegregation even if
it lacks the authority to enforce such
a “position of moral leadership.” The
policy statement had not been released
at the end of April.
★ ★ ★
The Rev. Dunbar Ogden Jr., a white
clergyman who was forced to leave his
Little Rock, Ark., church for escorting
Negro children to an all-white school
in 1957 was cited by the Charleston
NAACP April 19 for having recruited
the most new members in its annual
membership drive.
The Rev. Mr. Ogden is associate
pastor of the Bream Memorial Presby
terian Church in Charleston. The other
minister at Bream Memorial, the Rev.
Robert McNeill, left a pastorate in
Columbus, Ga., after taking a stand for
racial desegregttion in the South.
★ ★ ★
On April 17, historic Storer College
at Harpers Ferry became the Stephen
T. Mather Interpretive Training and
Research Center.
Storer College, closed since shortly
after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed
school desegregation, overlooks the site
where John Brown rebelled against
the U.S. government in a vain attempt
to bring slavery to an end.
The college was founded soon after
the Civil War as a Negro institution,
and survived in its late years only with
the aid of a state subsidy of $20,000
a year.
When the State Board of Education
decided in 1954 that all state colleges
should be desegregated, it withdrew
the subsidy and the college closed the
next year.
The research center will be operated
by the National Park Service for train
ing naturalists, historians and archeol
ogists of all races.
★ ★ ★
W. H. Nelson, 66, first Negro to
serve on the West Virginia Board of
Education, died April 27 at his home
in Beckley. His term on the state school
board was from 1947 to 1953.
M
Texas Highlights
The Texas Commission on Higher
Education gave notice that it intends
to discontinue two policies in an ef
fort to put all students on an equal
basis in the state colleges.
A federal court denied a request
to speed up Denison’s grade-a-year
desegregation plan.
Demonstrators picketed the Dallas
school board, seeking to increase the
pace of school desegregation.
Gray said of the commission’s recom
mendation to conclude the out-of-
state assistance plan.
The commission also adopted the
college presidents’ proposal to drop
state support in other areas described
as “questionable” to the purpose of
higher education. These include “tour”
and “travel” courses “in which students
move about from place to place or are
located in a foreign country.” An ex
ception was requested for a summer
course for Spanish language students
conducted in Mexico City under
auspices of Texas Technological
College.
The new policy still permits state
aid for field courses like geology,
surveying, and archeology.
Legal Action
U. S. Judge Rejects
Plea For Speed
U.S. District Judge Joe Sheehy re
jected a plea by parents of 16 Negro
children for complete, immediate de
segregation of the Denison Public
Schools (Price v. Denison, filed Jan.
9). The school has embarked on a
grade-a-year desegregation program
and has enrolled 10 Negroes in
formerly all-white classes. Judge
Sheehy assessed court costs against the
unsuccessful plaintiffs, and said he
would retain jurisdiction until the de
segregation is completed.
★ ★ ★
In another case, Judge Sheehy re
fused to make a civil rights issue of
a suit over dismissal of Jesse Ritter
from the faculty of North Texas State
University at Denton. Ritter partici
pated in demonstrations seeking to de
segregate Denton theatres in 1961; and
he now teaches in Illinois. President
J. C. Matthews said the “financial
irresponsibility”—not his civil rights
views—led to Ritter’s separation from
NTSU. The university has been de
segregated since 1956.
★ ★ ★
At Houston, State District Judge
William H. Holland overruled a mo
tion for a new trial in Rice v. Carr, in
which he held that Rice University
can admit Negroes and charge tuition,
notwithstanding contrary stipulations
in a bequest by its founder in 1891.
(SSN, April). It was unknown whether
the case, which was filed by Rice
trustees, will be contested further by
John B. Coffee and Val T. Billups,
two ex-students.
Schoolmen
Dallas Negroes
Picket Board
About 70 demonstrators, about two-
thirds of them Negroes, picketed the
Dallas School Administration Building
during the noon hour one day, seek
ing to speed up desegregation.
The Rev. Earl Allen, chairman of
the sponsoring group, said if the school
board and administration “refuse to
hear our case” that further measures
would be taken, possibly including
more demonstrations. The dispute cur
rently seems to be over whether a
proposed hearing of grievances shall
be conducted privately, as Allen pre
fers, or presented in open meeting to
the Dallas board.
Dr. W. T. White, superintendent of
schools in Dallas, said he considers
the grade-a-year desegregation plan
started in 1961 with federal court ap
proval is “adequate and fair.”