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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE, 1964—PAGE 15 Mississippi (Continued from Page 14) the educational deficiencies of iQth Uth, ^ 12411 grade Negro chil- jjen will be attacked. “Thus, you see, the project is con ned with construction, not agitation, with development, not destruc- - * tion- j n The Colleges grown University Resources To Aid Tougaloo College Tougaloo College, a predominantly Negro college three miles north of Jackson, and Brown University of Providence. R.I., most of whose stu dents are white, have entered into an agreement for Brown to offer its edu cational and administrative resources for an intensive academic development program at Tougaloo. Presidents A. D Beittel of Tougaloo and Bamaby C. Keeney of Brown an nounced the agreement May 18. They said the program will be fi nanced initially by two grants totaling $245,000 from the Fund for the Ad vancement of Education, an organiza tion established by the Ford Founda tion. “Five other foundations and one individual have made additional pledges of $118,000,” a Tougaloo news release said, “and more support is being sought elsewhere.” Tougfioo, founded in 1869, is sup ported financially by the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. About half-a-dozen white stu dents attend the school. Half of the faculty members are Negroes. A program director will be appointed to co-ordinate the activities between Tougaloo and Brown. President Beittel last month an nounced his retirement, effective in the fall. ★ ★ ★ Governor Announces Temporary’ Approval Of Negro at Ole Miss Gov. Paul B. Johnson disclosed May 'bat the University of Mississippi “ad temporarily admitted” a Negro student for the summer term beginning June 10. Johnson told a news conference that e Negro was “temporarily admitted y acting registrar George Gober, sub- review by the Board of Trus- The governor did not reveal the j. ® ol 'he potential student. He said e board discussed the matter at its caif mee ' ln ® hut postponed action be- l ^ a quorum was not present. The . ar d, Johnson added, will “look at cre dentials carefully.” renew ® overnor ’ s statement followed Tou ? 'h 3 ' a 17-year-old student at tro ,7* College, a predominantly Ne- for . C ,° ege n ear Jackson, had applied admission at Ole Miss. Senate Measure the q* * ayS before Johnson’s disclosure. Onij ate S ena te approved a bill which N- e „ r . s P rea d a legal roadblock to the f erre j 3 admittance. The measure, re- the Q 0 as “emergency legislation” on ^Urts” 6 / 13 * 6 door, authorizes youth to c-i, 0 make their records available hetvf 8eS universities, a youth dm Ole Miss applicant has ' :ci Patin C ° Urt recortl of arrest for par- ti 0ns ,? in civil-rights demonstra- a 3a«ist i, UC ^ a recor d could be used The ” 1S aPPhcation. B°a r ^ of 6 ™ 1 r egular meeting of the of Trustees of State Institutions hy s g ft er Learning is June 18, eight “lay, j lQ er 'he summer term begins. It J° h - ev ar, meet in special session, know ? newsmen he did not ^apld - S llm e” what action he •'’agrn’t; e 11 'he board allowed the 3 enrollment. r °ss-Burnings Hurt ailSe ’ Stennis Says g. J^elanri if, 0111 C. Stennis warned W Cr °SS-burr,- SS '’ May 7 that re P° r paging mgs across the state a: T* 5 * 0rts to defeat the civi k^Ns ^on before the Senate. \ a ) dressin g a Delta Count J d such actions “give 01 SOUTH CAROLINA Summary Judgments Asked in Two Lawsuits COLUMBIA EGRO ATTORNEYS in two South Carolina desegregation cases asked U.S. District Judge J. Rob ert Martin during May for sum mary judgments in favor of their clients. The effect of the judgments, if grant ed, would be desegregation of the school districts involved without court trials. Judge Martin was asked to de cide whether he can rule on the issues as outlined in court petitions, answers and depositions without additional sup port of testimony. The cases involved arose in Orange burg County (Adams v. Orangeburg School District 5) and Darlington County (Stanley et al. v. Darlington County School District No. 1). He al ready has taken the Darlington case under advisement. Negro plaintiffs objected to school de segregation plans submitted by authori ties in Greenville and Charleston and approved by Judge Martin. The similar plans established conditions under which desegregation may begin in September. Likely Target Chesterfield County, bordering North Carolina in the eastern portion of the state, became a likely target for the next school suit when the parents of 25 Negro children petitioned a school board in the historic town of Cheraw to transfer their children to the dis trict’s three all-white schools. In addition, Matthew J. Perry of Columbia, chief NAACP counsel in South Carolina, told reporters on May 4 that Negro parents in school districts not now under court attack have com municated with him about possible de segregation attempts. He specifically mentioned Rock Hill, where Negro children already have applied for trans fers. And he said a desegregation suit pending in Sumter is “ready for trial.” Judge Martin, burdened with a heavy criminal docket during an early May term of court in Florence, did not get to the school case that arose in the adjacent county of Darlington—a case originally filed on May 29, 1962. How ever, he did hold a closed-door pre trial conference with attorneys. And at torney Perry filed a motion for a sum mary judgment. Motion Filed In mid-May, Judge Martin moved on to Charleston, seat of South Carolina’s Eastern District Court. There Perry and his associates in the Orangeburg case, brought initially on March 20 of this year, filed a motion for the summary judgment. The action was taken on May 20. The judge said the Darlington case was first in line for consideration and he returned to Florence for a May 29 conference with attorneys there. After the meeting he said that law yers for both sides had agreed there was no need for testimony in the case and that there will be no public hearing since all evidence was contained in briefs, depositions and admissions filed with him. He took the case under ad visement and indicated he would rule as soon as the press of other work per mitted. Judge Martin has handled all de segregation cases brought in the state within the past year. It was he who ordered Negro plaintiffs admitted to the Charleston public schools and the University of South Carolina last Sep tember. Carried Load the first, and so far only, desegregated district in the state. The motion to vacate said the plan “only masquerades as one granting freedom of choice” to Negro pupils. It attacked the five criteria set forth in the plan on which trustees will judge applications for transfer to white schools. The five determining factors were: • Preference indicated by the ap plication. • Whether the pupil’s educational program can be met by the school to which assignment is sought. • The capacity of the school in volved. • The availability of space in schools other than those from which and to which transfer is sought. • The distance the pupil lives from such schools. Court Order As a rule, the court order accepting the plan said, “pupils shall be assigned to schools which they attended the previous years, except those eligible for promotion . . . Notwithstanding, how ever, and as a matter of absolute right, application may be made . . . for place ment in another school specified in the application ... in which case reason for the requested transfer must be stated.” In his order admitting the 11 Ne groes last September, Judge Martin said that the district had to desegre gate completely in September, 1964. He gave school authorities the right to sub mit a plan of their own to affect this and the proposal accepted April 13 was the result. Just over a week after the Charles ton plan was attacked, Negro attorneys made a similar assault on the almost- identical Greenville plan. Greenville’s proposal, announced by Judge Martin April 27, was the first voluntary plan ever submitted by a tax-supported educational unit in South Carolina. The school district in the upstate industrial county had a desegregation suit pending against it at South Carolina Highlights Negro attorneys sought summary judgments in two school desegrega tion suits and objected to plans for desegregation submitted by two other school districts. Plaintiffs in the original Clarendon County school suit that became a part of the 1954 Supreme Court de cision complained publicly that the county’s schools are not only still segregated but inferior to white schools. A Negro spokesman said the Uni versity of South Carolina had already accepted “one or two” more Negro students for its 1964-65 term. The superintendent of Orange burg’s schools, attacking plans to build private schools in the area, said white students who attend such schools will leave vacancies for Ne groes in the presently all-white pub lic schools. Three independent white colleges apparently will have their first Negro students next fall. il • rjEj! Sp lllfm <r HI ' saps ^ i J r$ * 1 i III i Civil-Rights Hearing in Clarendon County Testifying (center): Charles Ragin, an original plaintiff. the time but only one hearing had been held in the case. Largest District With its plan, the Greenville school district, the state’s largest with 55,000 pupils in 75 white and 20 Negro schools, offered a resolution formally accepting transfer applications from five plain tiffs in the case (Whittenberg v. School District of Greenville County). The Negro motion “to vacate or amend” Judge Martin’s order in the Greenville case contained almost the same language used in the Charleston motion. In the developing Cheraw situation, an unidentified Negro spokesman said a suit will be instituted if the transfer applications of the 25 Negro children are rejected. The applications were filed on May 15 and the school board agreed to con sider them at its next regular meeting on June 15, or at a special meeting be fore that time. Reasons Listed The Cheraw Citizens Committee, a Negro political and civil-action group, issued a statement, giving two reasons for the transfer requests—“the failure of the trustee board to have the Negro schools accredited and the reluctance of the library board to permit Negroes to use the library.” The latter comment referred to the closing of the Matheson Memorial Li brary, a privately owned but publicly used facility, last January after a Negro student attempted to check out a book. The statement said the closing “serves notice on Negro citizens that they will not be readily accepted in any facet of our town . . . Negroes now be lieve they cannot hope to be considered in the matter of jobs, schools or any other public facility on a friendly and timely basis.” Miscellaneous Clarendon County’s Original Plaintiffs Provide Testimony Plaintiffs in the original Clarendon County school case complained May 22 that, 10 years after the 1954 decision, the county’s schools not only are still segregated but are still inferior to white schools. They were among the 20-odd persons who appeared before the biracial South Carolina Advisory Committee on Civil Rights. The group picked Manning, Clarendon’s county seat, for its periodic meeting because of the 10th anniver sary of the U.S. Supreme Court de cision. The Clarendon case (Briggs v. Elliott) was one of the package of five on which the court based its decision. Original plaintiffs appearing before the committee included Charles Ragin, now a Philadelphia industrial worker; Mrs. Delores Ragin Jones, an Elizabeth, N.J., housewife; and Thelmaer Bethume, a farmer in the county. Ragin said, “My kids are now taking courses in the seventh grade in Penn sylvania that I took in the 11th grade. I’m having to learn along with them.” Recall Conditions Mrs. Jones recalled that Negro schools in Summerton, Clarendon’s number-two town from which Briggs v. Elliott arose, were overcrowded and lacked indoor toilet facilities when she was a student from 1941 to 1953. Ragin and Mrs. Jones both said their poor basic education caused them to fail at South Carolina State College. Other testimony showed that modem schools for Negroes were subsequently built in the Summerton district, which has 1,300 Negro students to 300 whites. Bethune told of troubles that he said beset him after he signed the 1949 peti tion that led to the suit. He said his home was burned in 1957; white merch ants refused to do business with him; and an FHA agent told him not to ap ply for a loan because “I’ll see that it’s turned down.” NAACP Leader Much of the testimony for the Ne groes was offered by William (Billy) Fleming, a Manning Negro undertaker and the county’s NAACP leader. He charged before an earlier meeting of the group at nearby Sumter that whites in Clarendon County enjoy better classrooms, lunch programs, bus trans portation and laboratory facilities. Clarendon County Supt. of Education L. B. McCord termed the charges “tommyrot.” Fleming claimed the science pro grams in Negro schools were “a joke.” Dr. E. W. Keller, a physician who is a member of the Summerton school board, said, . . those courses are fall ing behind in every school.” Fleming charged “the inadequate state of education” is demoralizing to Negroes and has contributed to the acute dropout problem. No Responsibility In answer to this, Supt. McCord said, “We have no moral responsibility to educate somebody else’s child when he is living up North and paying taxes there.” His reference was to the frequently heard complaint in lower South Caro lina that Negro parents leave their children with friends or relatives and go to work in the North. McCord defended segregation before (See SOUTH CAROLINA, Page 16) What They Say More Negro Enrollees Are Reported He and his colleague, Judge C. C. Wyche, have carried the entire fed eral court load in the state for nearly two years. Relief was in sight in June when newly appointed Judges Robert W. Hemphill and Charles E. Simons Jr. go to work in earnest. Negro objections to desegregation plans in Charleston and Greenville were voiced within 10 days of each other. The first came in Charleston on April 29 when Negro attorneys asked Judge Martin to vacate his April 13 order approving a pupil-assignment and transfer plan submitted by Char leston’s School District 20. This district admitted 11 Negro children under court order last September, thus becoming opponents an additional weapon to use against us — one which they are using to their advantage with a number of Northern and Western senators.” He urged Mississippians to “exercise judgment, restraint, discretion and common sense.” The University of South Carolina already has accepted “one or two” more Negro students for the fall term, a Negro spokesman told a Columbia audience in mid-May. Matthew J. Perry, a Columbia lawyer who has been a plaintiff’s counsel in all successful South Carolina desegrega tion cases, added that a few other Negroes had applied to the State Uni versity at Columbia. Perry was speaking to the biracial Columbia Council of Human Relations on “The Desegregation Decision from Ten Years’ Perspective.” The university, following its usual policy, would make no comment on Perry’s statements. After its racial bar riers were knocked down last summer by a federal court that ordered Henri Monteith admitted, USC voluntarily admitted three additional Negro stu dents. One of the students Perry mentioned was identified by his father, Columbia undertaker A. P. Williams, one of 10 Negro candidates for the S. C. House of Representatives from Richland County. During a political speech, Williams mentioned that his son, A. P. Ill, an honor graduate of Booker T. Washing ton High School in Columbia, will enter USC in the fall and major in business administration. Later, speak ing privately, Williams observed, “Since Carolina has decided to accept students on their qualifications alone, I think Richland County schools should too.” (Richland, the state’s third most populous county, has no public-school desegregation and no suits are pend ing against it.) Looking ahead, he predicted “many more suits” by Negroes. He added: “I’m sure the University of South Carolina is going to see an influx of Negro students in the years to come.” On May 11, Perry spoke before a banquet meeting of Pi Sigma Alpha, the honorary political-science fraterni ty at the University of South Carolina. Discussing the recent Supreme Court decision favoring the neighborhood- school concept, Perry said, “I do not subscribe to the theory of carting chil dren clear across town just to have integrated schools,”