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PAGE 4-B—MAY, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TEN YEARS IN REVIEW
ARKANSAS
Faubus, Only Governor to Serve
For Decade, Shifted With State
LITTLE ROCK
A rkansas accepted the 1954
desegregation decision with
some protest but the mood gener
ally was one of resigned accept
ance.
The governor, Francis A. Cherry of
Jonesboro, commented, “Arkansas will
obey the law. It always has.” Four
school boards decided voluntarily that
summer to desegregate or to begin
planning for it and 17 school districts
received NAACP petitions asking im
mediate desegregation.
A month after the decision, Gov.
Cherry said in a statement endorsed
by the State Board of Education, “Our
present state law provides for segre
gation in the public schools and any
decision for integration of the races is
premature, as the Supreme Court in
its decision stated that further argu
ments would be heard and a decree
entered.” The State Board of Edu
cation adopted the policy that the local
boards should continue to work toward
equalization of facilities and that de
segregation petitions by the NAACP
were out of harmony with that policy
and with the Supreme Court decision.
Nevertheless, Little Rock decided to
work on a desegregation plan pending
the 1955 decree. Charleston and Fay
etteville desegregated quietly but
Sheridan met local opposition and
dropped its plan.
Bill Failed
In the regular legislature of January-
March, 1955, Gov. Orval E. Faubus,
making his first inaugural address, did
not mention the race situation. A pupil
asignment bill introduced failed in the
Senate.
After the 1955 decree, SSN surveyed
Arkansas school superintendents and
found their reaction to be that major
trouble was not expected and that de
segregation probably would be rapid in
districts with small Negro populations
but would be longer drawn out in oth
ers. Seven more school districts acted
on voluntary plans leading to desegre
gation, and Little Rock gave the de
tails of its plan to be started in 1957.
The state attorney general informed the
state-supported colleges that the Su
preme Court ruling applied to them
too, and four of the seven admitted Ne
gro students in September, 1955. (The
University of Arkansas had desegre
gated in 1948).
Hoxie, admitted all 20 of its Negro
students to schools with about 1,000
white students and all went well for
three weeks then a very strong pro
test movement developed, guided from
outside the district and from outside
the state. Hoxie experienced protest ral
lies, threats, obscene phone calls, and
the like. This lead to a unique law
suit.
The Hoxie School Board went to fed
eral court for a restraining order
against the dissidents and for a decla
ratory judgment of its duties and re
sponsibilities. Federal District Judge
Albert L. Reeves ruled that the Su
preme Court rulings had nullified the
state laws on school segregation and
that the Hoxie board would have left
itself open to both civil and criminal
actions by failing to desegregate its
schools.
When the defendants appealed, the
U.S. Department of Justice intervened
(for the first time in a desegregation
case) for the school board and the
State of Georgia intervened on the
side of the segregationists. In October,
1956, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled against the defendants,
who included the Citizens’ Councils of
Arkansas.
First Suit
While that was going on the first
Arkansas desegregation suit was filed
and concluded. Twenty-four Negro
children sued the Van Buren School
Board in October, 1955. In January,
1956, Federal Judge John E. Miller
told the board that there was no ques
tion about the law, that the board
would have to produce a desegregation
plan. The board did and the suit was
dismissed without a court order being
issued.
Gov. Faubus had stayed out of the
desegregation issue. When the Hoxie
situation developed in August, 1955.
Faubus had said that the state would
not intervene there or in any other lo
cal district. Five months later, he made
his first formal statement on the sub
ject. He had determined, he said, that
85 per cent of the people of Arkansas
Gov. Orval Faubus
Center of Controversy
were against school integration and
added:
“It should be obvious that centuries-
old customs and regional traditions can
not be changed overnight—even by
court edict. I cannot be a party to any
attempt to force acceptance of a change
to which the people are so overwhelm
ingly opposed.”
In the same months that Faubus was
disclosing his change, the Little Rock
school case developed. Mrs. L. C.
(Daisy) Bates, of Little Rock, state
NAACP president, took 27 Negro chil
dren to four white schools on Jan. 25
and they were refused admission. On
Feb. 8 they filed suit in federal court
to overthrow the board’s announced
plan of gradual desegregation in favor
of immediate desegregation.
Campaign Differed
Faubus’s second term campaign of
1956 differed from that of 1954. This
time it was all about desegregation.
Faubus said, “Since I have been your
governor, no school board has been
forced to desegregate its schools against
its will” and no board will “be forced
to mix the races while I am your gov
ernor.” He swamped his opponents. All
eight members of the Arkansas con
gressional delegation signed the South
ern Manifesto and Sen. John L. Mc
Clellan (D-Ark.) called the Supreme
Court justices “nine men lacking ju
dicial capacity.” In November the vot
ers of Arkansas approved an inter
position resolution and a pupil assign
ment act.
In August, 1956, Federal Judge John
E. Miller ruled against the NAACP and
upheld Little Rock’s gradual plan. Hot
Springs desegregated a high school
class in auto mechanics. About 50 Ne
gro students were scattered through
the seven white state-supported col
leges.
The 1957 legislature adopted four
segregation laws that were to become
part of the basis for Faubus’s actions
in the Little Rock school crises. In
April the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court
of Appeals also approved the Little
Rock plan to desegregate over six
years, beginning in 1957.
A Chancery Court in August granted
an injunction under the new state laws
to prevent the start of desegregation
at Little Rock, but a federal court over
ruled it next day.
In September, 1957, Fort Smith and
Van Buren desegregated on schedule.
Two Ozark Negro students admitted
to a high school with whites withdrew
after two days of harassment. North
Little Rock postponed its start because
of the trouble at Little Rock.
At Little Rock, Gov. Faubus sur
rounded Central High the night of Mon
day, Sept. 2, with armed National
Guardsmen and announced that he was
doing this to keep the peace. But when
the nine Negro children arrived for the
first day of school next morning, the
Guardsmen would not let them in.
Faubus kept his Guardsmen there
and the Negroes out for three weeks.
Under a new federal court order, he
removed the Guardsmen and for two
two days the Little Rock police tried
and failed to handle the mobs that
gathered at the school each morning.
President Eisenhower then put the
National Guard under federal control
and sent the 101st Division in. From
Sept. 25 through the school year,
soldiers patrolled Central High and
protected the Negro nine. In Febru
ary, one of them was expelled.
In federal court months later, school
officials testified that during 1957-58,
Central High had had 30 fires inside
the building, 23 searches for bombs
and firecrackers going off constantly,
and that 200 pupils had been suspended
and three expelled.
In the summer of 1958 Faubus won
a third term as governor, the second
man in Arkansas history to get one.
Against two opponents he carried all
75 counties.
Also that summer the Little Rock
school board persuaded Federal Dis
trict Judge Harry J. Lemley to grant
a two and one-
half-year post
ponement in the
second year of
d e s egregation.
But the appeals
court cancelled
the delay, Aug.
12, though it
stayed its order
for 30 days to let
the U.S. Supreme
Court review it.
Faubus promptly
DELAWARE
Central High School, 1957
Gov. Faubus called out the Guard.
called a special legislative session that
speedily approved a series of laws.
On Sept. 12 the U.S. Supreme Court
confirmed that there could not be a
two and one-half-year delay. The
school board ordered the desegregated
high schools to open on Monday, Sept.
15. Gov. Faubus ordered the high
schools closed, under Acts 4 and 5 of
the 1958 special session. Act 4 provided
a special election in which the voters
could choose closed high schools or the
immediate total desegregation of all
the schools. Little Rock voted for closed
high schools. Several private schools
for whites opened.
Other places also had problems in
September, 1958. Ozark had kept three
Negro students in its high school dur
ing the spring semester. It let them
return in the fall and for the second
time they were driven out by white
harassment. Two of the Ozark board
members resigned because of criticism,
and Ozark has not attempted desegre
gation since then. Van Buren, enter
ing its second year of desegregation,
briefly had 50 junior high students out
on a protest strike.
In the November, 1958, general elec
tion, Dr. Dale Alford, the only pro-
Faubus member of the Little Rock
School Board, put on an eight-day
HAYS
ALFORD
Milford Had Only Public Protest
DOVER
D elaware’s school system,
with one exception, has gone
through a decade of desegregation
without public protest.
The one exception, at Milford, came
four months after the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in May, 1954, that segre
gated schools were inherently unequaL
The 11 Negroes who entered the white
school at Milford in the fall of 1954 sub
sequently were returned to the all-
Negro schools, not because of demon
strations, but by the Delaware courts.
The students were ruled not eligible
to attend the white school because the
local board had not submitted its de
segregation plan to the State Board
of Education.
But, during the interim, protesting
white parents kept their children at
home and the Milford school board
resigned. Many of the mass meetings
were sparked by Bryant W. Bowles,
founder of the National Association for
the Advancement of White People.
Bowles is currently serving a life sen
tence in a Texas prison on a murder
charge.
While Milford protested, Dover, 15
miles to the north, admitted Negro pup
ils in the academy curriculum without
incident. But the majority of the local
districts, unlike Dover or Milford, tacit
ly resisted desegregation or fought it
in the federal courts.
Curiously, school desegregation, again
with one exception, did not become
an issue in the legislature. It arose
in 1958 with the introduction of a so-
called “Little Rock” bill, which would
have forced schools to close if fed
eral troops appeared on school grounds.
The bill was defeated.
Both the Democrat who introduced
the bill, Rep. Charles P. West, and
the Republican who fought it hardest,
Rep. George H.
Ehinger, that year
lost bids to ad
vance to the State
senate.
The main legal
battle to force
Delaware schools
to abide by the
U.S. Supreme
Court decision of
May 7, 1954, was
joined in May,
1956, when some
REDDING
40 Negro students from seven districts
sued to enter white schools.
The suits were brought by Negro
Attorney Louis L. Redding against Mil
ford, Milton, John M. Clayton, Clayton,
Seaford, Laurel, and Greenwood school
districts, and became known as Evans
v. Buchanan.
In 1959, after several court decisions
affirming that it was the responsibility
of the State Board of Education rather
than local districts, to desegregate the
schools, the state board obtained ap
proval of a stairstep, grade-a-year
plan from the U.S. District Court in
Wilmington. Judge Caleb R. Layton,
who held a three-day hearing before
approving the plan, said in his opinion
that “any thought of a total and im
mediate integration of the Delaware
school system is out of the question.”
Twenty-seven Negro pupils enrolled
under the stairstep plan in eight white
districts in September, 1959, bringing
the desegregated districts to 19 of 94.
But the U.S. Third Circuit Court of
Appeals, in Philadelphia, struck down
the grade-a-year plan on July 19, 1960,
after a hearing by a three-judge panel
on April 22.
That decision, in effect, opened all
Delaware schools to all races, and Ne
groes have been admitted as they ap
plied without incident. More than half
of the Negro school population now at
tends classes with whites.
The state board, as a matter of
course, has ordered a comprehensive
study to determine the status of all-
Negro schools, in view of either clos
ing them or consolidating them with
white districts.
write-in campaign, based solely on seg
regation, against Congressman Brooks
Hays of Little Rock, member of Con
gress for 16 year. Hays had taken the
“moderate” role in Little Rock, trying
to get the two sides together. Alford
won.
Within a week the other five mem
bers of the Little Rock Board resigned
all at one time, citing “the utter hope
lessness, helplesness and frustration of
our present position,” later defined by
one of them as the harassment from
Faubus. A new board was elected Dec.
6, 1958, consisting of three outright
segregationists and three moderates
who were segregationists but wanted
open schools.
Before that the legislature met for its
regular 1959 session and approved a
proposal by Faubus to put his school
closing powers into the constitution
and also approved 32 of 58 bills relating
to segregation.
Popular Uprising
May, 1959, a popular
In May, 1959, a popular uprising
against the three segregationists oc
curred and STOP (Stop This Outrage
ous Purge) was formed to recall them.
Segregationists retaliated with CROSS
(Committee to Retain Our Segregated L
Schools) and all six board members
faced a recall election. After three
furious weeks of electioneering, with
Faubus himself coming out for the
three segregationists, the city voted
those three off the board and kept the
three moderates.
Three more moderates were aP'
pointed and the new board—as so® 8
as a federal court killed the sta
school-closing laws June
nounced that it would reopen the hi? 1
schools. i
In a surprise maneuver the boart
opened the high schools Aug. 12,
month early, with three Negro
dents assigned to Central and t
to Hall High. A mob tried to stop >
after hearing a talk by Gov. Faubus
the state Capitol. Little Rock P°
and firemen used billy clubs an
hoses and won a showdown in
streets a block from Central Hig&-
a stormy night three weeks later, ._
dynamite explosions ripped Little ^
one at the school board office, ^
five offenders were rounded up
convicted.
Another district, Pulaski
(rural), desegregated
1959, but only because all of
dren in one of its elementary ^
came from the Little Rock T ^iei
Base and the government dem*“
that it be desegregated.
Countf
in Septemg
Fourth Term
In 1960 Faubus won a foU ^J a tipf
the first in Arkansas history, - jn
without a runou
four candidates
an 11
M'
November a school-closing — tc
ment he had sponsored wen .^06
defeat. By that time, the ^
district was desegregated. - e fji*
admitted one Negro child Th
grade under federal court an0 tM :
fall of 1960 was notable » i9?
way—it was the first time ^gir
that no trouble had marre g e pte&' 1
nine of school in the state.^^
nmg or scnwi *** ul „ .
ber. 1960, and in March, gri
peals court held that Dollarw^ th
and then Little Rock were
assignment law hlegalV . adj 0 ?^
segregation. Both disV n0 fu-
their procedure and have
ther legal trouble on tha P
In the fall of 1961 notone ^ yd
district desegregated. Only
this happened before.
(See ARKANSAS, Page
6-B)
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