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PAGE 6—JUNE, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS DELAWARE Desegregation Is Issue in Election of Board Member DOVER ESEGREGATION AROSE as an is- sue during the campaign for a seat on the Dover Special School District Board of Education, but the candidate who proposed a “controlled plan” finished fourth and last in the race. Daniel D. Tryon, who said in pre election statements that he did not want to see happen in Dover “what happened in Chester, Pa.,” drew 29 of 1,110 votes cast in the district. The winner of the seat vacated by President Paul Baker, who did not seek re-election, was David H. L. King, who polled 355 votes. Two other candidates, Robert D. Bewick and Henry Heller, respectively drew 341 and 285. Baker was the only member of the present four-member board who voted in 1954 to desegregate the high school at the academic level. Under Attack Tryon’s stand on desegregation came under attack two days prior to the May 9 election at a public meeting held at the Negro elementary school in the Dover district. “Dover has made no progress in in tegration,” said Dr. Mary C. Baker, state secretary for the NAACP and a teacher at Delaware State College, a predominantly Negro institution. “It will take more than a controlled plan of integration,” she told the candi dates, “to avoid trouble in Dover.” Dr. Baker cited particularly the matter of teacher desegregation, noting that there are only four Negro teachers in the three white schools and one white teacher in the Negro school. “Is this integration?” she asked. Cites Example Dr. Baker told the candidates they should take no pride in the fact that Delaware State College is desegre gated. She cited an example of a Dover white girl who graduated from Dover High School and entered Delaware State College only “to suffer great humiliation from members of her own race.” She also noted that there are no white children at the Negro Booker T. Wash ington school in the Dover district. “It is a little premature to begin patting ourselves on the back because we haven’t had any racial problems,” Dr. Baker said. “There haven’t been any, but don’t feel that there won’t be in the future,” she warned. TRYON KING was too late in the year to tell teachers affected that they will not have a job in September. Dr. Richard P. Gousha, state superin tendent of public instruction, agreed with Dr. King that the board “has a moral obligation” to the teachers. How ever, he said, if the grades are elim inated the teaching positions no longer exist. Find Positions “We can reduce the number of teachers without a legal problem,” Dr. Gousha said, but he recommended that the board make every effort to find positions for such displaced teachers. Both Dr. Lasher and Dr. Woodrow Wilson, the only Negro on the six- member state board, argued that the teachers could accompany the pupils to the schools they will now attend. “It’s not quite that easy,” said Dr. King, who cited the power of local boards to hire their own teachers unless they have a vacancy by Aug. 15, when the State Department of Public Instruc tion takes over. And Dr. Howard B. Row, assistant superintendent in charge of secondary education, pointed out that the teachers would not necessarily be certified for such vacancies as might exist at schools which the displaced pupils eventually enter. Teacher Need “If the need is for an algebra teacher it would be educationally unsound to use a teacher of English,” he declared. Dr. Wilson argued, in effect, that the state board has the power to tell the local boards to hire the displaced teachers. “I think we shirk our responsibility when we allow it to be said the local boards of trustees shall say what will happen to them,” he said. “I think it is our responsibility to reassign person nel.” GEORGIA The board, while voting to take away the grades, did not come to a clear-cut decision on what to do with the teachers. ★ ★ ★ Negro Pupils Register In Two Sussex Districts At least two more Delaware school districts will be desegregated in prac tice next September, according to May registration. Negro pupils, at a special registration held in mid-May in compliance with a federal court order, signed up to attend previously white schools at Selbyville and Lord Baltimore. Both schools are in Sussex County, the southernmost of Delaware’s three counties and the one where school de segregation has faced the most resist ance. Six Negroes registered at Selbyville while five registered at Lord Baltimore, a school which serves the Ocean View- Bethany Beach-Millville area. Five of the students who will enter Lord Baltimore previously attended the all-Negro Frankford 206 school while another who attended Frankford 206 transferred to Selbyville. The other five who will attend Selby ville were students at the Philip C. Showell School in Selbyville, which the State Board of Education voted in April to reduce rather than enlarge. Students in the seventh and eighth grades were given the privilege to at tend either the Selbyville (white) school or the William C. Jason (Negro) school at Georgetown. Under Survey Report Classifies School Buildings As Unsatisfactory There are 1,002 students, including 878 Negroes, in 27 school buildings called “unsatisfactory” in a report on desegregation presented at the May 21 meeting of the State Board of Educa tion. The report, compiled at the request of Harry D. Zutz, a member of the board, was presented by Dr. Richard Delaware Highlights A candidate who advocated a con trolled plan of desegregation finish ed fourth and last in a bid to win a seat on the Board of Education at Dover. At least two more Delaware dis tricts will be desegregated in prac tice next September, according to May enrollment. Additions to a Negro school were rejected for the second time in two months by the State Board of Educa tion. There are 27 unsatisfactory school buildings, 24 of which are Negro, in Delaware, according to a report compiled by the State Department of Public Instruction. P. Gousha, state superintendent of pub lic instruction. Twenty-three of the 27 buildings called unsatisfactory have an all-Negro enrollment, and none has more than two rooms. The four white schools, with a com bined enrollment of 124, are also one- or two-room schools. Move to Close Schools Zutz, after Dr. Gousha presented the report, moved to have all 27 of the schools called unsatisfactory closed at the end of the current school year. “The time has come to close all 27 of these schools on the basis of them being unsatisfactory from the physical point of view,” he said. “If we close them,” Zutz continued, “we will also accomplish integration. If the staff thinks these schools are un satisfactory it’s time we did something about it.” But Robert L. D. Allen, a member of the state board from Sussex County, where most of the schools in question are located, asked for time to delib erate. Study ‘Incomplete’ “The study is not complete,” Allen argued, and his view was endorsed in essence by Dr. Gousha, who admitted he does “not know what this (the re port) means.” But Zutz pressed for a shutdown of all the schools. “There is no doubt in your mind,” he asked Dr. Gousha, ‘' nov that you have inspected these school! that the students are getting an adequate education, is there?” Dr. Gousha agreed. “The inadeq Uat(j physical facilities reflect an inadequ^., education,” he said. But J. Ohrum Small, president of th e state board, also suggested that action be delayed. “We will make this the No 1 item on the June agenda,” he said “In the meantime,” he continued “the staff will have the opportunity to prepare further data and recommenda tions for the consideration of th board.” Zutz Agrees Zutz ag eed with Small’s proposal suggesting that “we invite all inter- ested persons to attend this meeting to share their views and enable us t 0 achieve integration in an orderly man ner.” The issue arose again at the May 28 meeting of the Delaware School Board Association in Dover. Dr. Gousha, in essence, reaffirmed his earlier stated belief that Negro schools should be eliminated in Delaware. The dual school system, he said, is an extra vagance the state can no longer afford. He suggested that local white boards assume the initiative in policy matters pertaining to mergers with nearby Ne gro districts. What They Say Small Unconcerned By Tax List Delay In Two Counties Another year’s delay in adding Ne groes to the property tax list in Kent and Sussex counties is of no imme diate “concern” to J. Ohrum Small, president of the State Board of Educa tion. Small was informed that two of Dela ware’s three counties would not put Negroes on the tax list this year despite a state board reminder that “there shall be no deletions in taxables because of race or color.” Small, in a telegram sent to the Levy Court of each county, requested that “you do not accept any assessment list (See DELAWARE, Page 8) Views Asked Another who asked the candidates to express their views on desegregation was Mrs. Lillian Sockum, a teacher at William T. Henry, a Negro school serv ing Kent County. All four candidates for the board seat agreed that Dover is making what they termed satisfactory porgress. Tryon, in a campaign statement, said that “integration is inevitable, because of space requirements, if nothing else.” But he said a “controlled plan,” as op posed to immediate desegregation, is the answer. All Delaware districts are under court order to admit all members of all races at all grade levels. Schoolmen Board Turns Down Planned Addition For Negro School For the second consecutive month the State Board of Education has re jected an addition to an existing Negro school and instructed the students in the seventh and eighth grades to enroll at other nearby white or Negro schools. The latest cutback comes at Frank ford 206, where the board voted unanimously to reduce a $220,000 build ing program by some $80,000 by not adding two projected classrooms. In April, the board voted to take two grades away from the Negro Phil lip Showell school at Selbyville, also in Sussex County. The Frankford action was taken at the request of Dr. Hiram C. Lasher, vice-president of the state board and a Sussex County resident. Dr. Lasher, during a long and spirited debate with Dr. H. B. King, assistant superintendent in charge of elementary education, said Frankford 206 is not in a rapidly growing area and that the school population is nearly static, Dr. King, in the main, argued that it Atlanta Plan Returned for More Hearings (Continued from Page 1) Schoolmen 15 Transfers Get Board Approval In Bibb County The May 30 deadline for Negro stu dents in Bibb County (Macon) to apply for transfers to white schools this fall passed and the school board announced that the applications of 15 Negroes had been approved. Eight transfer requests remained on file and awaiting action. Dr. Leon Culpepper, co-ordinator of the court-approved desegregation plan, said Negro students would be assigned to the following 12 grades: four to Lanier (boys), five to Miller (girls), one to Willingham (boys), one to Mc- Evoy (girls) and four to Dudley Hughes (vocational coeducational). The distribution may change when transfer requests still on file are processed. The Baptist Ministers Brotherhood of Macon and Vicinity, a Negro organiza tion, asked why so few Negro llth-graders applied for transfer to white schools and charged that princi pals and teachers of Negro high schools were discouraging their students from seeking such transfers. Other Communities Meanwhile, applications for transfers by Negroes to desegregated schools this fall were being processed in some other Georgia communities. In Chatham County (Savannah), 59 Negroes applied. Forty-four asked to be enrolled at Savannah High and 15 at Groves. For the second straight year, no Negroes asked entrance to Jenkins High. D. H. King, assistant superintendent of schools, said applicants would be Georgia Highlights A U. S. District Court was ordered by the U. S. Supreme Court to con duct more hearings on Negro com plaints that Atlanta’s grade-a-year school desegregation plan is too slow. Applications of 15 Negroes for transfer to previously white schools in Bibb County (Macon) this fall were approved, with eight applica tions yet to be processed. But a group of Negro Baptist ministers charged Negro principals and teachers were discouraging the llth-grade Negroes from applying for admissions to the 12th grade in the white schools. Fifty-nine Negroes applied for transfer to 11th and 12th grades in predominantly white schools in Chat ham County (Savannah). A spokesman for a Negro teacher group protested that of 400 pupils enrolled in a special state-financed honors program this summer, only 12 are Negroes. notified of the decision on their ap plications by June 15. A grade-a year desegregation plan was put into effect in Chatham County under court order last September. It applied only to the 12th grade. This year, the 11th grade also will be de segregated. 19 Transferred in 1963 In 1963, a total of 42 Negroes applied for transfer to white schools. Of these, 21 were approved and two changed their minds, leaving 19 Negroes in pre viously white schools. Eighty-one Negro children have ap plied for admission to the first and second grades of white schools in Dougherty County (Albany) this fall. Four Negroes have been accepted for enrollment in white schools in Musco gee County (Columbus) in September. Clarke County (Athens) and Glynn County (Brunswick) desegregated schools last fall. ★ ★ ★ Student Honors Program Called Discriminatory At a meeting of the State Board of Education May 21, Dr. H. E. Tate, executive secretary of the Negro Georgia Teachers and Education As sociation, protested that a state- sponsored honors program was racially discriminatory. An eight-week honors school for the brightest students in Georgia, paid for by the state, will open at Wesleyan College in Macon in June. Tate objected that of the 400 pupils enrolled for the honors school, only 12 were Negroes. He also complained that while there are qualified Neg o teach ers in the state, none is included on the 33-member staff of the advanced summer session. Competition Held Pupils for the honors school were selected competitively for aptitude in social studies, mathematics, languages, music, drama and art. Board member David Rice of Atlanta told Tate it is “remarkable” that such a program in Georgia should be de segregated at all. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” he told the Negro spokesman. “You’re just hurting your cause.” Tate answered, “I still object to the state spending $125,000 for this pro gram with only 12 Negroes in it.” Tate also asked the state board to order county and other local school systems to end discrimination against Negro teachers in their salary supple ments. Chairman James S. Peters of Manchester said the state lacks au thority to tell local systems how to spend their funds. Miscellaneous Negro Job-Guidance Grant Is Approved U.S. Rep. Charles L. Weltner said the federal Area Redevelopment . istration has approved a technical sistance g ant of $80,000 for A University (Negro) to use in a bureau to help create new jo Negroes by giving guidance to e » enterprises. ★ ★ ★ Seven young Negroes were convi ^. of violating Georgia’s anti-trespass^^ The cha ges grew out of ^ ese fp^ns tion decisions at a drive-in ^ which caters to University of students. The university was “ es u ^-. gated under court order in 311 1961. ★ ★ ★ Schools providing off-duty tional services for military were queried concerning a DeP .^a- of Defense directive on non "(f per- tion in civil schooling of m ‘rV a bo<J‘ sonnel. The schools were as ^ policies on acceptance and t ’T. 3 student applicants without 1S tion. ★ ★ ★ • a OP E. Sanders, appear*^, televised P^^grega' ears of school deseg ^ .rgians are “P^f^ re never closed <>uf ad troops come u) 0-