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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.”