Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8-A—MAY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville Desegregation
Set For Next September
COLUMBIA
rustees of the Greenville
County School District, larg
est in South Carolina, have agreed
to desegregate next September.
The move makes unnecessary the
trial of a suit brought Aug. 19, 1963,
by a Negro student seeking to enter a
white school.
Because the case, later expanded to
cover five more students, was pending
in court, a formal order was required.
It was issued on April 27 by U.S. Dis
trict Judge J. Robert Martin of Green
ville.
The Greenville County plans to de
segregate followed substantially plans
agreed to by Charleston District 20
trustees after they had been ordered
to desegregate.
The Greenville school district includes
75 white schools and 20 Negro schools.
The enrollment is about 55,000, of
which 20 per cent are Negro pupils.
Under the Greenville plan, the first
one in South Carolina to be submitted
voluntarily, students may submit ap
plication for transfers from Negro to
white schools between May 1 and June
1 of this year. Judge Martin’s order
requires publication in the Greenville
newspapers, once a week for three con
secutive weeks, of the new board pol
icy and of two key paragraphs of his
order.
Copies of the policy statement,
adopted unanimously by the board, are
required to be sent home to parents
by their children, along with copies
of the two paragraphs of the judge’s
order. The paragraphs from Judge
Martin’s order state that students have
a right to choose racially non-segre-
gated schools, and give formal accep
tance to the board’s new policy state
ment on transfers and pupil assign
ments.
One of the students, Beatrice Thomp
son, withdrew from the case since she
was scheduled to graduate this June.
The judge ordered the board at the
hearing March 19 to consider the ap
plications and report back on April 6.
The board reported on that day to the
ty’s 1956 desegregation policy. An
NAACP leader asked in April if the
school board intended to “effectively
implement its avowed purpose.”
A voluntary desegregation program
gradually opened all grades of white
schools to Negro transfers in Anne
Arundel. As of last fall, 1,972 Negroes
attended 44 formerly all-white schools
while some 5,700 remained in all-Negro
schools. A bone of contention, particu
larly for the NAACP, is that Negroes
are transported from any parts of the
county to the county’s one all-Negro
secondary school in Annapolis although
the county’s 1956 desegregation policy
said that Negroes would attend “the
nearest school or [their] present
school.”
Emotional Adjustment
An “adequate period of time must be
permitted for the psychological and
emotional adjustment” to total integra
tion, the Howard County Board of Edu
cation declared in April in a statement
on its four-step program to eliminate
separate Negro classes by fall, 1967.
The board defended its four-year plan
as the county NAACP sought complete
integration by this coming fall.
Describing its program of “directed
integration” as one requiring the move-
Georgia
(Continued from Page 7-A)
segregation was sought as a start in
any particular school system.
“We feel that once a start has been
made, then the following year the whole
system should be desegregated,” she
said. Pending the U. S. Supreme Court’s
decision on Atlanta’s gradual desegrega
tion plan, she said, “we are saying that
the six grades or the four grades we
are asking is a minimum.”
Mrs. Motley also sought an interim
order pending the high tribunal’s de
cision on Atlanta’s grade-a-year plan
expected this spring. She said she be
lieves the Supreme Court will require
that all dual systems be abolished, in
cluding separate teaching staffs. Briefs
explaining the Atlanta plan in more
detail were presented to the Supreme
Court April 15.
court that the transfers would be
granted. The trustees formalized this
action in a closed meeting on April
14 in which the statetment of policy
was unanimously agreed upon.
The board then submitted to the
court the statement of policy and a
formal resolution accepting the trans
fer applications. No public announce
ment was made. At a closed pjretrial
conference on April 22 in Judge Mar
tin’s chambers, attorneys for the Ne
gro plaintiffs moved for a summary
judgment granting their petition.
Since all issues of fact were agreed
upon between both parties, Judge Mar
tin ruled that the plaintiffs were en
titled to the judgment.
Judge Martin held a closed meeting
with newsmen in his office April 25
explaining details of the order. He filed
the order on the following Monday at
which time the first news of the step
reached the general public.
The only difference between the
Greenville and Charleston plans is that
in Greenville, because of the size of
the big district, area superintendents
are authorized to handle transfers and
assignmemnts. The district superintend
ent is responsible in Charleston.
Similar desegregation suits in South
Carolina are pending in Darlington,
Orangeburg, Sumter and Clarendon
Counties. Applications for transfers of
Negro students to white schools are
under consideration by school officials
in Rock Hill. No court action is as yet
pending.
★ ★ ★
Charleston’s School District 20, the
state’s only desegregated district, has
received federal court approval for a
pupil assignment and transfer plan de
veloped since 11 Negroes first entered
its previously all-white schools last
September.
When U.S. Judge J. Robert Martin
ruled in favor of the Negro plaintiffs
in a Charleston case (Brown et al v.
Charleston School District 20) last Au
gust, he ordered not only that the
plaintiffs be admitted immediately, but
also that the district completely de
ment “of white pupils into two Negro
schools and the transfer of many of the
Negro children in these schools into
other integrated schools,” the three-
man board said an adjustment period
was needed for “both white and Negro
parents whose sons and daughters will
be directed to attend certain schools.”
The board’s program, adopted in
April, 1963, would close two small
schools, one white and the other Negro,
this June and reassign the pupils to a
new elementary school in the fall. Next
year, two more Negro elementaries
would be closed and their pupils
shifted to predominantly white schools.
By the fall of 1966 the board expects to
have converted the county’s one all-
Negro secondary school to a predom
inantly white junior-senior high, re
built to double its present capacity.
The one remaining Negro elementary
would become integrated in the fall of
1967.
Following the meeting on April 7,
the NAACP delegation indicated that
it did not plan to act against the four-
year timetable until after June 1, when
state legislation takes effect and en
larges the county school board to five
members.
Howard County has about 8,570 white
and 1,220 Negro children in its school
system. Under its voluntary desegre
gation program, begun with the first
five grades in 1956 and a grade a year
thereafter, only 194 Negro pupils by
last fall had shifted to white schools.
★ ★ ★
The use of racial identification on
University of Maryland student appli
cation forms was made an issue in
April by the Maryland Commission on
Interracial Problems and Relations.
The state interracial agency asked the
university’s Board of Regents to elim
inate from the application form a ques
tion concerning the race of the appli
cant’s parents. The agency quoted the
university’s admissions director as say
ing the only purpose of the question
was to provide guidance in the off-
campus housing of foreign students.
The Board of Regents was scheduled
to take up the issue at its May meet
ing.
S. C. Highlights
Greenville County, biggest school
district in South Carolina, plans to
desegregate in the fall.
A State Segregation Committee
spokesman predicted the 1954 U.S.
Supreme Court decision will be modi
fied.
Orangeburg plans private schools
in the event of desegregation.
A federal court has approved
Charleston’s assignment and transfer
plan.
segregate by September, 1964.
There would be no deadlines for ap
plications or other regulations or re
strictions unless the school board itself
submitted to him a plan of its own to
“complete elimination of discrimina
tion” in Charleston schools.
The district trustees adopted such
a plan April 8 and Judge Martin ap
proved it April 13. When he did so,
he made it clear that he was not wa
tering down the original order. He left
the door open for Negro plaintiffs to
appeal to the court for further modi
fication if it appeared the intent and
purpose of his original order of Aug.
22, 1963, were being circumvented.
★ ★ ★
Orangeburg District 5 school board
lawyers generally have followed the
defense fine laid down in earlier de
segregation cases in South Carolina.
They answered a suit by saying that
intelligence and health differences in
white and Negro pupils constitute a
“rational basis” for voluntary segre
gation of the races.
The answer was filed in the case
(Adams v. Orangeburg School District
5) in U. S. District Court at Charles
ton April 16. It replies to a desegrega
tion action brought March 20 on behalf
of 23 Negro children.
On April 22, seven white parents,
acting on behalf of 18 students, peti
tioned the court to be allowed to in
tervene in the suit as parties defendant.
Orangeburg is the latest South Caro
lina city in which plans for a private
school in the event of desegregation
have been announced. Plans to begin
financing of a private school were re
vealed at an April 3 meeting of the
Citizens’ Council. The Citizens’ Coun
cil school, under the proposal advanced
at the meeting, would qualify under
the state’s tuition grants program.
Legislative Action
School Committee
Believes Trend
Against Decision
South Carolina’s key body in segre
gation matters believes evidence is
mounting against the 1954 Supreme
Court decision on schools, and a
spokesman predicted it will be modi
fied.
The S.C. School Committee—more
familiarly known as the Segregation
Committee or the Gressette Commit
tee-noted the trend in its annual re
port to the General Assembly April 2.
The report said that the anti-deseg
regation position is “rapidly being
further reinforced by the mounting
evidence that the decrees and orders
promulgated under the court’s decision
of 1954 . . . can be enforced upon an
unwilling people, including a majority
of both races, only at the expense of
severe and almost certainly permanent
damage to public education.”
Committee Secretary Wayne W.
Freeman, a Greenville newspaper edi
tor, said, in presenting the report, that
he believes the 1954 decision will be
modified through future court action,
probably brought in a Northern court
against forced mixing.
Freeman is one of five gubernatorial
appointees on the 15-member special
committee headed by Calhoun County
Sen. L. Marion Gressette. The group
was originally appointed in 1955 to
serve as a watchdog over segregation
in the state.
Among its recommendations, the
committee suggested a statewide sys
tem of testing and classifying students
for placement in grades, curricula and
particular schools. It also asked for a
study to determine if public school
courses are designed for students of
varying scholastic aptitudes.
The committee also suggested strong
ly that local school officials consider
closing schools if students miss classes
in order to participate in racial dem
onstrations.
Asked later about this proposal, S.C.
Attorney General Daniel R. McLeod
said local school officials have the right
to close schools under these conditions.
★ ★ ★
Allocations for school building proj
ects in South Carolina since 1951
Maryland
(Continued from Page 7-A)
<
DELAWARE
l
i
State University Policy
On Faculties Criticized
DOVER
A Negro educator who teaches
during the summer-school
session at the University of Dela
ware charged April 13 that the
regular faculty is “segregated”
and that the university therefore
cannot prepare teachers properly
for work in an “integrated so
ciety.”
Dr. Earl C. Jackson, principal at Del
aware’s Bancroft Junior High School,
speaking during a forum on “Equal Op
portunity When?” at Temple Beth Sha
lom in Wilmington, said the university
could find qualified Negro teachers.
“They are very worried about pre
paring teachers for work in an inte
grated society,” he said. “It would be
much more impressive if they didn’t
have a segregated faculty. I teach there
in the summer, and I’m the only Ne
gro, as far as I know.”
The university agreed it has no Ne
groes on its regular faculty, but Dr.
Ray M. Hall, dean of the school of
education, said there are a dozen or
more Negro “co-operating teachers” on
the payroll. Co-operating teachers, Hall
explained, help train student teachers
in their classrooms.
“We have white students working
with Negro co-operating teachers and
Negro students working with white co
operating teachers,” Hall said. “We
prepare our students to work in an
integrated society in the sense that
the student body is integrated. And
many of our students of education do
student teaching in integrated schools.”
Sees Little ‘Integration’
Dr. Jackson, during the all-day
“workshop,” cited Delaware for prog
ress in “desegregation” but little in
“integration.” He said there is a prob
lem in Wilmington schools in “get
ting a two-way movement of students
and staff members.”
While several Negro teachers and
students are now in previously white
schools, he said, the schools that were
formerly all-Negro have drawn only
a few whites.
Segregated schools also came under
attack by Seymour Komblum, execu
tive director of the Jewish Community
Center. He said school desegregation
cannot wait for desegregated housing.
“We acknowledge that de facto school
segregation is wrong, but if counter
measures mean transporting a child to
a school in a different neighborhood,
we are doubtful,” he said. “Oddly
enough, we don’t have the same con
cerns about transporting our child to a
private school in another neighborhood
to assure him a better education.
“We advance the argument that in
tegrated schools must wait for inte
grated housing, but integrated housing
requires economic resources, and eco
nomic resources depend on education.”
Thus, said Komblum, “we encircle
solutions with endless deliberations.”
Schoolmen
Small Schools
Still An Issue
The future of small Negro schools
continued to dominate meetings of the
State Board of Education, which in
April voted to add rooms at two schools
but stop a building program at a third.
The board voted unanimously April
16 to add two rooms each at the Rich
ard Allen school in the Georgetown
Special School District at a cost of $78,-
000, and at the Du Pont Avenue school
in the Lewes Special School District at
a cost of $78,900.
Both projects were delayed in March
at the request of Harry D. Zutz, who
questioned whether the schools would
fit into the educational pattern under
full desegregation. Dr. Richard P.
Gousha, State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, assured the board at the
reached $220,387,440 in April when the
State Educational Finance Commis
sion approved additional expenditures
of $271,284.
Over 60 per cent of the money paid
out in new school construction in the
last 13 years has gone into schools
for Negroes, who constitute approxi-
mmately 35 per cent of the state’s
population.
The program was launched in 1951
by then Gov. James F. Byrnes. Byrnes’
avowed purpose was to make the
state’s Negro school facilities substan
tially equal to those of its white schools
under the then prevalent “separate-
but-equal” doctrine of school opera
tion.
Delaware Highlights
The University of Delaware ad- i
mitted it has an all-white faculty
but said it employs a dozen or more
Negro “co-operating teachers” who
help train student teachers in their
classrooms.
Additions will be made to two
small Negro schools, but a reduc-
tin will be made in the building p ro .
gram at a third.
Dover Special School District,
after receiving a letter of protest
from the NAACP, said it made an
oversight in not putting predominant
ly Negro Delaware State College on
its teacher recruiting list.
April meeting that the schools would
fit into the future eduactional needs of
the districts.
On April 27, the board announced a
reduction of some $300,000 in the build
ing program at the Shelbyville 210 (Ne
gro) school. The board also announced,
that the Negro students in the seventh
and eighth grades would be given free
dom of choice to attend either the Sel-
byville 32 (white) school or the William
C. Jason Negro school at George
town.
Small schools should be absorbed
by their larger neighbors to bring
about more effective desegregation, ac
cording to the State Human Rela
tions Commission.
Consolidation of such schools, most
of them Negro, was one of three
points proposed by the Very Rev.
Msg. Paul J. Taggart of Wilmington,
a member of the commission.
★ ★ ★
Five-day Period Set
For Nejiro Transfers
Negro pupils who wish to transfer
to a white school, and Negro first-grad
ers who wish to enter a white school,
may do so during the May 11-15 period.
This special registration has been set
by the State Board of Education, in ,
compliance with an order from the i
U.S. District Court in Wilmington.
To provide for students who ha\e
justifiable reasons for failing to register,
applications will be considered if P rc '
sented before June 29, or at a date set
by local school authorities.
★ ★ ★
School for Moors Loses
One of Two Teachers
A one-room school for Moors vn^
>se one of its two teachers but con^
nue to exist, under action taken
ae April meeting of the State B
f Education.
The school at Cheswold, near Dove,
as an enrollment of 25, compared
8 last year.
★ ★ ★
Dover Special School District h
greed, following receipt of a le e
rotest from the NAACP, to pu
ominantly Negro Delaware Sta
ige on its teacher recruiting 1S , j
Dr. Dustin W. Wilson, Dover sen -
uperintendent, said the orrussi ,
ielaware State was “pure oversis*
Race Balance
(Continued from Page 2-A) ^
e Constitution requires an end* se g.
rt o' segregation as well ns ^ #t .
gation imposed by law. NAA ^
meys said Negro children arei ^
Ivantaged by de facto segreg
r de jure segregation. seb® 0 '
It was contended that the Ga
>ard had an “affirmative duty gpd
cial balance among its sc ’
at the courts “must deal gild
escribe all racial discriminatin' 1
gregation in education.
In a decision upheld by 1 e ^ iC 3g c
ircuit Court of Appeals in ^e'
.S. District Judge Georg e ( , ' b*l"
:ld on Jan. 29, 1963, that racw ^
ice in our public schools is"
itutionally mandated. He se ff‘ e '
•oblem in Gary is not one se grr
ited schools but rather one
ited housing.” transit'
The district judge said , tr neig hb° r
me pupils away from tlie1 ^ “si 1 ®'
>ods and leaving ot ^ r ^ lanC ing
y for the purpose of b ^f^. ol dd *
ces in the various ® ch °° io l a tion ° h
y opinion be indeed a ^ ft
e equal protection clause