Newspaper Page Text
teN years in review
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE 3-B
HIGHER education
Decision Gave Impetus
To College Desegregation
D esegregation of the public
colleges and universities in
the Southern and border region
began as early as 1936 but did
no t gain impetus until after the
U.S. Supreme Court’s ruhngs in
the School Segregation Cases.
At the time of the first ruling on
jtay 17, 1954, the region had 29 insti
tutions of higher learning with policies
to admit both races. Seven days after
that ruling, the Supreme Court indi
cated the decision in the cases involv
ing elementary and high schools would
apply a l* s0 to higher education. The
court returned the University of Flori
da desegregation suit to a lower court
“for consideration in light of the Seg
regation Cases . . . and conditions that
. n ow prevail.”
The pace of college desegregation
followed closely that of the graded
schools. The number of colleges ad
mitting both races doubled in the first
school year after the Supreme Court’s
1954 decision and continued to increase
at a sizable figure for the next two
years. In the 1954-55 school year, the
region had 60 biracial colleges and
universities, and 39 more ended their
policies of discrimination in 1955-56,
and 18 others, in 1956-57.
By the end of the 1957-58 school
year, the region had 128 desegregated
public institutions of higher learning.
The pace slowed during the middle
years of the decade, with five more
schools desegregating in 1958-59, three
in the next year, and four in 1960-6L
Beginning with 1961-62, the deseg
regation pace increased in the region’s
public colleges and by this year all 79
schools in the border area had deseg
regated in practice or policy. The year
1962- 63 added another 25 schools to
the list, and 20 more schools acted in
1963- 64.
Every border state had begun some
college desegregation by the 1954-55
school year and they had completed
the process by 1961-62. The last Sou
thern states to admit Negroes to form
erly all-white public colleges, Mis
sissippi and South Carolina, delayed
acting until 1962-63, complying only
by federal court order. The Southern
states still have 95 segregated institu
tions of higher learning.
The decade ends with 197 desegre
gated public colleges, out of a total of
292 schools in the region. Twenty-five
of these biracial schools have pre
dominantly Negro enrollments. Only
32 of the 197 schools acted by court
order, and the other 165 complied
voluntarily.
Statistics by race on the enrollments
in the desegregated schools have been
difficult to obtain. The best estimates
available indicate that the region has
approximately 35,880 Negroes in bi
racial public colleges, attending classes
with about 573,109 whites.
Desegregated Public
Colleges and Universities
Predominantly White—Predominantly Negro
Total
Pre-1954
1954-55
1955-56
1956-57
1957-58
1958-59
1959-60
1960-61
1961-62
1962-63
1963-64
Schools
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
PW-PN
Alabama
1-0
1-0
1-0
1-0
1-0
1-0
1-0
1-1
3-1
7-2
Arkansas
... 1-0
1-0
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1
Florida
1-0
1-0
3-0
5-1
9-1
10-2
20-13
Georgia
1-0
2-0
6-0
7-1
16-3
Louisiana
... 1-0
4-0
4-0
4-0
4-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
6-0
10-3
Mississippi
1-0
1-0
19-6
North Carolina
... 2-0
2-0
2-0
3-0
4-1
4-1
4-1
4-1
6-1
8-1
11-6*
11-6
South Carolina ....
1-0
2-0
5-1
Tennessee
... 1-0
1-0
1-0
3-1
5-1
5-1
6-1*
6-1*
6-1*
6-1*
6-1*
6-1
Texas
... 7-0
9-0
14-1
21-2
23-2
23-2
25-2
26-2
29-2
39-2
40-3
50-4
Virginia
... 5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
5-0
6-0
8-0
9-0
19-2
SOUTH
... 17-0
22-0
34-2
44-4
49-5
51-5
54-5
58-5
67-6
91-7
102-15
170-42
Delaware
... 1-0
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1*
1-1
Dist. of Columbia...
1-1*
0-1**
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1*
0-1
Kentucky
... 3-0
3-1
4-1
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1*
7-1
Maryland
... 2-2
3-2
8-4
8-4
12-4
14-4
14-4
14-4
16-4*
16-4*
16-4*
16-4
Missouri
... 2-0
11-1
12-1
12-1
12-1
13-1*
13-1*
13-1*
13-1*
13-1*
14-1*
14-1
Oklahoma
... 1-0
2-0
18-1
21-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1*
22-1
West Virginia ....
... 1-0
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1*
10-1
BORDER
... 10-2
31-7
53-10
59-10
64-10
67-10
67-10
67-10
69-10*
69-10*
70-10 !
70-10
REGION
... 27-2
53-7
87-12
103-14
113-15
118-15
121-15
125-15
136-16
160-17
172-25
240-52
*—Indicates all public colleges and universities desegregated.
**—Two schools merged.
TENNESSEE
State’s Rate of Desegregation
Is Second Among 11 in South
10-Year SEES Files
Placed on Microfilm
The 10-year collection of race
•*- relations material in the Sou
thern Education Reporting Ser
vice library has been recorded
on microfilm and is available for
• research in 50 libraries across the
United States.
Included in the microfilm collection,
known as “Facts on Film,” are news
paper and magazine clippings, speeches,
'“mphlets, bibliographies and all back
'sues of the three SERS publications—
Southern School News, the “Statistical
Summary” and “Race Relations Law
reporter.” The series is supplemented
annually.
Locations of “Facts on Film” are:
; : Bahama—Alabama A & M, Normal,
■ Tuskegee Institute; Arkansas—
diversity of Arkansas, Fayetteville;
' r —University of California,
. Angeles; Connecticut—Wesleyan
• ^versify, Middletown, and Yale Uni-
s ersity, jj ew Haven; District of Co-
3 ^mbia—Howard University and the
0 , Commission on Civil Rights;
i orida—University of Miami, Coral
Population
(Continued from Page 2-B)
and on the West Coast. Non-
] Negro population is almost
usively urban, with more than 90
in cities.
a Southern states—Mississippi
^kansas—lost Negro population
. t .' ee ' n 1950 and 1960. The total in-
ias Se ® Negro population in Alabama
5o Pu]°c w hile the increase in
!, as L°n for the state as a whole
the Mississippi continued as
of fjg ^ with the highest percentage
, -ose Population, and Negroes com-
> ] per cent of the population of
Southern state to hold out
^°ols 3ny desegregation of public
“U ; South Carolina, second high-
3fst , ®4.8 per cent Negroes, had its
■ear Segregated district this school
P
>t P d U,atio n shifts have had their
t t»y re arnat ic effect in the cities where
'■» g u Sati °n occurred shortly after
v er, pt | em e Court decision. How-
1 le s that have desegregated
f*sis. rn Centl Y and on a more limited
yH 0 j wl follow a pattern similar to
^ii s , . f*bington, Baltimore and St.
- Hg, . Negro children becoming
of tiT ty ’ n Lhe public school sys-
*>i» . “ e
central city. Atlanta, Mem-
., -<i Birmingham have all wit-
' -legr 0 grease in the percentage
UbecJ. ||* ou gh desegregation has in-
y* al<^ ® impact of population shifts
;< ‘ cb ari _ r ° u ght about resegregation
^hooi j 6s , m the racial composition
Ist ricts and student bodies.
child;
ren.
Gables; Georgia—University of Georg
ia, Athens, Atlanta University, Emory
University at Atlanta, and Southern
Regional Council, Atlanta; Illinois—
Southern Illinois University, Carbon-
dale, University of Chicago, Northern
Illinois University, DeKalb, and Uni
versity of Illinois, Urbana; Indiana—
Purdue University, Lafayette; Ken
tucky—University of Kentucky, Lex
ington; Louisiana—Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge, Southern
University, Baton Rouge, Northwestern
State College, Natchitoches, and Dil
lard University, New Orleans; Mary
land—Johns Hopkins University, Balti
more; Massachusetts—Harvard College,
Cambridge; Michigan—University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan State
University, East Lansing; Mississippi—
University of Southern Mississippi,
Hattiesburg; New Hampshire—Dart
mouth College, Hanover; New York—
Brooklyn College, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York Public Library, and
New York University Library; North
Carolina—University of North Caro
lina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Col
lege at Durham, and Agricultural &
Technical College, Greensboro; Ohio—
Cleveland Public Library and Ohio
State University, Columbus; Pennsyl
vania—University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia; South Carolina—Univer
sity of South Carolina, Columbia,
Winthrop College, Rock Hill; Tennes
see—Memphis State University, Fisk
University, Nashville, and Tennessee
A & I, Nashville; Texas—North Texas
State University, Denton, and Prairie
View A & M; Virginia—Virginia State
College, Petersburg, Radford College,
and Virginia Union University, Rich
mond; Wisconsin—University of Wis
consin, Madison.
Gov. Frank G. Clement
Called out froops.
NASHVILLE
P ublic school desegregation
has occurred more rapidly in
Tennessee than in all but one of
the 11 Southern states since the
U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 de
cision.
The latest figures show that 4,486
of Tennessee’s nearly 165,000 Negro
students are attending classes with
white students. The 45 desegregated
districts represent more than 31 per
cent of the state’s total system having
both white and Negro students; the
percentage of Negroes attending bi
racial schools is 2.72 per cent of the
total Negro enrollment.
This percentage, among the South
ern states, is surpassed only by Texas,
which has 5.52 of its Negroes in bi
racial schools.
Three of the desegregated districts—
Elizabethton, Humboldt and Water-
town—have had no Negroes attending
classes with whites. Thirty-three of the
districts, more than 73 per cent of
the total, began desegregation under
plans adopted voluntarily, although
some of them acted under threats of
lawsuits by Negroes.
Federal court orders brought biracial
classes in the other 12 districts. In
cluding districts in which litigation oc
curred after desegregation plans were
adopted voluntarily, a total of 15 fed
eral suits have been filed seeking de
segregation in grades one through 12.
As the 10th anniversary of the Su
preme Court decision approached an
estimated 500,768 of Tennessee’s 852,842
students were in desegregated districts.
These estimates included 380,321
white students and 120,447 Negro stu
dents. They also reflected totals from
the state’s four metropolitan areas—
Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and
Memphis—in which desegregation is
under way.
All 12 Grades
At least nine of the desegregated dis
tricts operate biracial classes in all 12
grades. The Knoxville Board of Edu
cation and the Knox County Board of
Education have announced plans to
desegregate the remaining six grades
this fall. They will become the first
metropolitan area in Tennessee to de
segregate all 12 grades.
At least two districts have desegre
gated faculties. Putnam County has
four Negro teachers assigned to pre
dominantly white schools. Oak Ridge,
which in 1955, while under federal
control, became the state’s first district
to drop racial bars has four white
teachers and staff members assigned to
an all-Negro school.
Desegregation in Tennessee for the
most part has been quiet and orderly,
but in the earlier years it was marked
by outbursts of violence. The first ser
ious violence erupted at Clinton High
School in Anderson County in 1956 as
it became the first state-supported
school to begin biracial classes. Riot
ing broke out as a group of Negroes,
under federal court order, sought to
begin classes in the school. Gov. Frank
G. Clement dispatched National Guard
troops to restore order.
U.S. District Court enjoined segre
gation leader John Kasper, a native of
New Jersey, and others from interfer
ing with the de
segregation. Kas
per served about
15 months in a
federal prison on
contempt of court
charges.
The students
were enrolled in
the school. Two
years later the
school was dam
aged heavily by
a dynamite explo
sion.
School Dynamiting
There also was the dynamiting of
Hattie Cotton School at Nashville in
September, 1957, as the city began
grade-a-year desegregation under fed
eral court orders. Both blasts occurred
while the buildings were empty and no
one was injured. No one has been ar
rested in connection with either ex
plosion, although one man earlier had
been convicted and sentenced to prison
for conspiring to blow up the Clinton
school in 1957.
Kasper also was arrested in Nash
ville, on charges of inciting to riot
during the disorder accompanying de
segregation, and was sentenced to a
six-month term in the Davidson Coun
ty Workhouse.
Since 1957, there have been few in
cidents of violence connected with
school desegregation. No serious dis
orders have been reported in connec
tion with the desegregation of Ten
nessee’s colleges and universities, all
seven of which are open to students
of both races.
The University of Tennessee at
Knoxville was the first state-supported
institution of higher learning to deseg
regate, admitting Negroes to graduate,
professional and special classes under
federal district court order in 1952.
Plan Rejected
Desegregation of two of the other
six state-supported colleges and uni
versities began in 1956 under a plan
later rejected by the U.S. Sixth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals. In 1957, the
State Board of Education removed
race as a factor in admissions to the
six colleges and universities under its
jurisdiction.
Latest figures show that an esti
mated 403 Negro students attend classes
with 36,510 white students at the uni
versity and four other predominantly-
white colleges and universities. These
include 181 Negroes in biracial classes
at the university’s Knoxville campus
and branches at Martin, Nashville and
Memphis: 58 at Austin Peay State Col
lege at Clarksville; 30 at East Tennes
see State University at Johnson City;
110 at Memphis State University; and
24 at Middle Tennessee State College
at Murfreesboro. No Negroes have been
enrolled at Tennessee Polytechnic In
stitute at Cookeville.
The seventh state institution, Ten
nessee A & I University at Nashville,
a predominantly-Negro school had
three white students among its 4,240
enrollment this year.
KASPER
No Negro teachers are listed as mem
bers of the faculty at the six predom-
inantly-white institutions, but A&I has
two full-time white instructors and
several part-time white instructors.
Many of Tennessee’s private colleges
and universities also have opened ad
mission to students without regard to
race.
As in the other Southern and border
states, Tennessee’s legislature in the
earlier years considered the question
of school segregation-desegregation. No
legislation was approved until 1957
when the General Assembly protested
encroachment of states’ rights and con
demned the Supreme Court decision.
The 1957 assembly also passed a ser
ies of nine laws dealing with pupil
transfers, permitting voluntary segre
gation, establishing pupil assignment,
allowing segregation by sex, and re
quiring registration of racial organi
zations and information on solicitors
for litigation.
The 1959 legislature made local school
boards responsible for enforcing com
pulsory attendance and permitted par
ents to withdraw children from school
for good reason, with school board con
sent, and to enroll them elsewhere
within 30 days.
Most of the laws have not been
tested in the courts. But U.S. District
Court at Nashville in 1957 declared the
voluntary segregation law unconstitu
tional in Kelley v. Nashville Board of
Education. The pupil assignment law
has come under frequent attack by
Negro plaintiffs and the U.S. Sixth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals in 1962 reversed
a U.S. District Court ruling and held
that the law was inadequate as a de
segregation plan.
School segregation-desegregation leg
islation has not been considered by the
legislature since 1957, and the issue has
been raised seldom in political cam
paigns in recent years.
Figured Prominently
But Tennessee has figured promi
nently in the public school desegrega
tion story. The grade-a-year plan ap
proved in Nash
ville by U.S. Dis
trict Judge Wil
liam E. Miller in
1957 served as a
guide for many
other Southern
communities. The
suit was among
the first in which
gradual desegre
gation programs
were upheld by
federal appellate
courts. Becoming known as “the Nash
ville plan,” the grade-a-year formula
also served as model for some districts
which began desegregation voluntarily.
One section of the “Nashville plan”
provided for the transfer of students
from schools where their race was in
the minority to one where it was a ma
jority. This also was incorporated into
other gradual desegregation plans in
the South. The U.S. Supreme Court in
1963 in two other Tennessee cases
struck down the transfer clause.