Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16—JUNE, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
South Carolina
(Continued from Page 15)
the committee, calling it “sound and
morally right’’ and predicting that
“friction of the bitterest sort” would
result from school desegregation.
Summerton School District Chairman
J. W. Sconyers said his area’s public
schools will close rather than desegre
gate. He said, in an obvious reference
to a private school under the state’s
tuition-grants program, that whites j
would educate their children and leave |
Negroes to educate theirs.
(Later, shortly after the May 25 Su
preme Court decision ordering Prince
Edward County, Va., to reopen its pub
lic schools which have been closed since
1959, Sconyers said the Summerton
board may have to make “changes in
some directions.” He said he was sure
the decision would be discussed at the
next meeting of the board. Commented
McCord: “We’re in bad shape if we
can’t have private schools.”)
Mild Controversy
The hearing was preceded by a mild
controversy over whether members of
the advisory group to the U. S. Civil
Rights Commission would be allowed to
inspect Clarendon schools on the day
of their Manning meeting.
At first the request was denied. Man
ning district Board Chairman R. E.
Wells Jr., said the proposed tour would
disrupt classes on the day final exam
inations began.
However, members of the commit
tee were permitted to visit schools in
Clarendon School District 3, which
surrounds the small town of Turbeville.
Committee Chairman E. R. Mclver of
Conway said later that the white and
Negro schools in that district “made a
very favorable impression on me.”
McCord, a Presbyterian minister who
has been Clarendon County superin
tendent of education since 1940, return
ed to Manning the day before the
hearing after making a speech before
the Citizens’ Council of Jackson, Miss.
In the speech he criticized other
clergymen for participating in civil-
rights movements.
There is no such thing as equality,”
he said in the address. “Read your
Bible. We’re everything but equal.”
He said that “God was a segregation
ist—he discriminated.”
He vowed that there would be no
change in Clarendon County’s policy
of segregation.
Schoolmen
Orangeburg Official
States Opposition
To Private Schools
The superintendent of the Orange
burg school district went to bat for
public schools as opposed to privately
financed education in a May 19
Rotary Club speech in the racially torn
agricultural and industrial center.
Attacking a plan to open private
schools in Orangeburg in the face of
public-school desegregation, Supt. Har
ris Marshall said that white students [
who leave to attend private schools !
will leave vacancies for Negro pupils
in presently all-white schools.
Parents of 23 Negroes, who have
brought suit in U.S. District Court in
Charleston to desegregate the schools
of Orangeburg County’s School District
5 (the city), asked the court during
May for a summary judgment in the
case.
The action sparked activity on the
private school front. A three-man com
mittee, headed by Dr. T. Elliott Wan-
namaker, made a tour of private-school
facilities in Prince Edward County,
Powatan, Front Royal and Charlottes
ville, Va., and reported it had ac
cumulated a vast amount of material
which will be turned into a report.
Asks Support
The District 5 school board called
for support of the public schools against
these efforts to establish private |
schools under the state’s tuition-grants
program. Approximately 100 teachers
promptly signed a pledge of loyalty
to the board.
In his talk, Marshall said a number
of these teachers had been harassed
by telephone calls for their stand.
Marshall admitted—for the first time j
publicly—that the school board had I
discussed the possibility of token de
segregation as the wisest course of
action. But he said the plan was
abandoned after the board sought the
advice of the State School (Gressette)
Committee.
Members of that group, Marshall |
said, told the Orangeburg schoolmen
that they would rather see Orange- I
burg schools closed than accept a single
Negro student.
State Sen. L. Marion Gressette of
adjacent Calhoun County, long-time
head of the governmental committee
set up as a “watch-dog” of segregation,
declined to comment on Marshall’s
statement, saying that his committee’s
meeting with the Orangeburg trustees
was “in executive session.” But he
pointed out that final decisions in all
school matters rest with local trustees.
The Orangeburg school suit (Adams
et al. v. Orangeburg School District 5)
was filed on March 10, shortly after
the meeting with the Gressette Com
mittee.
★ ★ ★
In the meantime, in Charleston,
presently the only city in the state
with desegregated schools, the First
Presbyterian Church announced a
private elementary school will be
opened in September.
Dr. C. W. Legerton Jr., chairman of
the Christian Education Committee of
the church, said that the school will
be operated independently of the
church in order that its students can
qualify for state tuition-grants, which
can go only to students attending non
sectarian schools.
The grants, which will amount to the
per-pupil cost of education in the dis
trict, will make up only a little more
than one-half of the estimated $400
tuition.
Initially, only two grades of 20 stu
dents each are planned—a first grade
and an ungraded primary class.
Miss Harriett Starr Mason, former
president of the South Carolina Edu
cation Association, has been named
director of the proposed school.
★ ★ ★
The trustees of populous Brookland-
Cayce School District in Lexington
County decided at a May policy meet
ing not to participate in the state’s
tuition-grants program.
The B-C District is located across
the Congaree River from the capital
city of Columbia.
The trustees’ statement said their de
cision was based on present circum
stances “which do not warrant
emergency action.”
Requests to the State Department of
Education for participation in the
program, which provides tuition in the
amount equal to the per-pupil cost in
public schools for students who desire
to attend private schools, must come
from school districts.
In the Colleges
First Desegregation
In Private Colleges
Expected Next Fall
South Carolina’s first desegregation
in denominational and independent
colleges seems likely to occur next
September.
During May, three such schools
indicated a willingness to accept quali
fied Negro students.
On May 14, Lander College at
Greenwood announced that it had re
ceived its first application from a
Negro and was processing it “in the
same manner as all other applications.”
On May 21 the board of trustees of
Wofford College at Spartanburg re
leased the text of a resolution which
declared its admissions policy “is ap
plicable to all students who may apply,
regardless of race or creed.”
And the board chairman of Newberry
College at Newberry, questioned dur
ing a newspaper survey that was
prompted by the Wofford announce
ment, said that race or creed would
no longer be considered by his institu
tion in the handling of applications.
Community Action
NAACP Conference
Lists Five Goals
The South Carolina NAACP, cele
brating the 10th anniversary of the
1954 school desegregation decision with
a conference in Charleston May 15-17,
outlined five goals which promise wide
spread desegregation activity this year.
“Recognizing the 10th anniversary of
the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision
on school desegregation and the sacri
ficial participation of heroes and
martyrs who struggle in the fight for
TEXAS
\h
University of Texas Appoints
Negro to Engineering Faculty
AUSTIN
E rvin Sewall Perry, who was
graduated from the Univer
sity of Texas on May 30 with a
doctor of philosophy degree in
civil engineering, was named
earlier as an assistant professor
by the faculty and administration.
Dr. Perry will become the first Ne
gro to serve on the faculty of a former
ly all-white Southern university, so far
as is known here.
Meanwhile, the university Board of
Regents announced the final step in a
desegregation program which started in
1950 with a U.S. Supreme Court order
to admit Negroes to its law school
(Sweatt v. Painter).
The regents latest pronouncement:
“ . . . All teaching and non-teaching
personnel, housing and other facilities,
and units of the entire University of
Texas System are now ordered com
pletely integrated.”
Honorary Degrees
This preceded the award of honorary
doctoral degrees to President Lyndon
B. Johnson and his wife. Johnson holds
an earned bachelor degree from South
west Texas State Teachers College. His
wife holds bachelor degrees in arts and
journalism from the University of
Texas.
In a commencement address, follow
ing award of the doctor of laws, Presi
dent Johnson called for the nation to
act to meet the “knowledge explosion.”
“I call for a goal of a higher educa
tion for every young American with the
desire and the capacity to learn,” said
Mr. Johnson. “No one should be kept
from knowledge because there is no
room, or no teacher, or no library, or
because he has no money . . .”
On the same program were two Ne-
g oes, several Orientals, Middle East
erners, and Latin-Americans among 100
recipients of doctoral degrees. The Uni
versity of Texas awarded more than
2,100 degrees at the commencement.
‘Best Available’
Dr. Perry, the Negro who will be
come a faculty member in September,
was described by his dean, John J.
McKetta, as “the best available Ph.D.
candidate graduating this year—any
where in the world.”
Perry, 28, holds a master’s degree
from the University of Texas, and a
bachelor’s degree from Prairie View
A&M, the state’s oldest institution of
higher education for Negroes.
Texas Highlights
Ervin Sewell Perry, doctor of
philosophy in civil engineering, was
appointed to the University of Texas
faculty, the first Negro to hold such
a post in any once-segregated South
ern university.
President and Mrs. Lyndon B.
Johnson received honorary degrees
at the same commencement where
Periy became a Ph.D.
The University of Texas regents
ordered all units to be “completely
integrated” after a dormitory dese
gregation lawsuit was dropped.
Appeals were announced in law
suits over admitting Negroes to Rice
University, and over efforts to speed
up desegregation in the Denison pub
lic schools.
Under criticism from accrediting
inspectors for the “bad condition” of
its Negro schools, the San Marcos
board voted for complete desegrega
tion this fall.
Ten Negro teachers in West Oso
district, near Corpus Christi, were
placed on formerly all-white facul
ties.
justice, equality and human dignity,”
the adopted statement read, “the South
Carolina conference . . . will:
“1. Launch a statewide attack ... on
discrimination practices in employ
ment . . .
“2. Support . . . attacks on local busi
ness concerns that continue discrimina
tory practices.
“3. Encourage communities to seek
an end to school segregation in every
county in South Carolina.
“4. Encourage and support desegre
gation of pools, parks and playgrounds.”
Dr. Ervin S. Perry (left)
Negro faculty member at the University
of Texas discusses a structural torsion
test.
Dr. Perry’s twin brother, Mervin, is
a U.S. Army captain and instructor of
the Prairie View Reserve Officers
Training Corps. Capt. Perry also is a
Prairie View graduate. Four sisters of
the two men have earned two degrees
each from Prairie View, and all are
employed as teachers or supervisors in
public schools of East Texas.
The six are children of Willie Perry,
an East Texas farmer, and his wife who
died in 1963. They were reared on a
five-acre cotton and livestock farm in
San Jacinto County, about 65 miles
north of Houston, and educated mostly
in the schools there. The majority of
the county’s 6,200 people are Negroes,
and one-third of its residents currently
are receiving public welfare assistance.
Farmer Perry, now 69, said, that al
though his family never had much
money, “we never were without.” The
father had a grade-school education
and his wife attended Prairie View and
later taught in rural schools.
Scholastic Honors
All six Perry children won scholastic
honors at the schools they attended.
Dr. Ervin Perry’s grades in the Univer
sity of Texas Engineering Graduate
School for the past four years have
been “three-point” (straight A). He is
married, with two children, and is em
ployed as a structural specialist in the
University Research Laboratory.
He received numerous offers from
other educational institutions and in
dustries in several states, including an
offer of $14,500 salary from a university
in another state. Dr. Perry said he
chose to accept the $8,50O-a-year ap
pointment at the University of Texas
“because I like it, and on the basis of
opportunity for both teaching and re
search. The other offers that I received
were slanted too much, one way or the
other.”
Vice-Chancellor Norman Hackerman
said that the university normally does
not employ as teachers its recent Ph.D.
graduates, preferring to exchange
academic talent with other schools. But
he said Dr. Perry was strongly recom
mended by the engineering faculty and
by Dean McKetta as by far the best
available person.
Legal Action
The University of Texas had about
175 Negroes among its 22,000-plus stu-
dents in the year just closed.
W. W. Heath, chairman of the Board
of Regents, said one final obstacle to
complete desegregation was removed
when plaintiffs in May dismissed the
case of Sanders v. Ransom, filed Nov 8 1
1961, to open all university-owned
housing and other facilities on a non.
racial basis. Women’s dormitories and
some men’s housing has been racially
divided.
★ ★ ★
The University of Houston, a state
institution, announced that it has be
gun recruiting Negro athletes, as well
as white. Elvin Hayes of Rayville, La
and Don Chaney, a high school all-
American from Baton Rouge, signed
letters of intent to attend the Houston
school on basketball scholarships.
Schoolmen
Agency Report
Brings Action
San Marcos school board voted to
complete desegregation next Septem
ber, after receiving a Texas Education
Agency accreditation report that its
Negro elementary school is “in very
bad condition.”
The city, about 40 miles south of
Austin, desegregated its high school
several years ago, and its junior high
last year. The elimination of Dunbar
Elementary will make its 122 Negro pu
pils el'gible to attend formerly all-
wh’te schools next September. The San
Marcos board earlier accepted the
resignations of Dunbar Principal Mau
rice Powell and his wife, a teacher at
the school. There are two other teachers
on the Dunbar faculty.
The action for complete desegrega
tion came somewhat as a surprise, de
spite the board’s earlier moves to elim
inate dual classrooms. Six members
approved the latest move, but Presi
dent M. M. Martin abstained, saying
“we may be moving too fast.”
★ ★ ★
At West Oso Independent School Dis-
trice, near Corpus Christi, the board
voted to place its 10 Negro teachers
among formerly white faculties. Some
other Texas school systems have taken
this step, but involving fewer Negroes
at one time. Most Negro teachers m
“b: racial” classrooms teach predomin
antly Negro or Latin-American stu
dents. The West Oso system
desegregated students several y ears
ago.
★ ★ ★
louston, largest school district m
mth, a Negro newspaper n0 *
wer than 200 of the city s 63,
students are attending d asse
/hite pupils, after four y ears 0
a-year court-ordered desesrega
Ross v. Butler). About 200, ^
attend Houston public schoo
Two Appeals Announced
Two appeals were announced in law
suits over racial desegregation in Texas.
John B. Coffee and Val T. Billups
gave notice of appeal in Rice v. Carr,
in which a state trial court held that
trustees of Rice University could ad
mit Negro students and charge tuition,
notwithstanding restrictions imposed by
founder William Marsh Rice in 1891.
(SSN, April, May 1964)
The Houston university announced
plans to begin enrolling qualified Ne
gro students, and charging tuition, in
September, 1965. Tuition was set at
$1,200 annually, with provision for about
60 per cent of all students to receive
some scholarship aid.
At Denison, attorneys for 16 Negro
children said they would appeal to the
U.S. Circuit Court from an adverse
trial-court decision on their plea for
faster desegregation of the North Texas
community’s public schools. (Price v.
Denison, SSN, May, 1964) Denison
schools have enrolled 10 Negro children
in fo merly all-white classes ^
grade-a-year program. Parents
other children, represented Y j e .
NAACP, sought court action
segregate more quickly.
★ ★ ★
as, Supt. W. T. White said**
preme Court decision Pf &e ,
xamination of an ff ct th e
>n plan would not
ade-a-year program- iona l
arence Laws, Dallas a p
>f the NAACP, said m a ^„ 0 f
over the “snail s P jj e -
mixing. He said only ^
9,400 in the citys ‘ded
y grades, actuary jos;
i white pupils m tne > „ rea d}•
e said the NAACP > Ne gr°
nd able” to r epres<m pal'
■ho wish to challen=, a re
and that local N«£*