Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE, 1964—PAGE 7
ARKANSAS
At Least
LITTLE ROCK
the Arkansas River valley
l in Northwest Arkansas, where
the Negro population is sparse,
a t least three school districts will
desegregate next fall instead of
sending Negro students by bus to
a nearby town.
They are Russellville (SSN, May)
Danville, which announced its decisior
y a y 22, and Dardanelle, which made
its decision May 25. Ola, Havana and
\tkins also have been sending their
high-school students to the L. W. Sul
livan Negro School at Morrilton. The
Morrilton superintendent, Terry Hum
ble, said May 22 that Ola would not
send students to Morrilton next fall
and those two probably will desegre
gate, though nothing official has been
announced. Havana and Atkins have
not announced their intentions.
The problem for these districts has
been to continue segregation when
they have few Negro students, usuallv
too few in a single district to warrant
having a separate school. All six towns
have been sending their hieh-school
sudents to Sullivan High at Morrilton
by bus. Atkins is 14 miles from Mor
rilton, Russellville 31, Dardanelle 35
Ola 50, Danville 54 and Havana 63
Russellville and Atkins operated their
own buses. Danville furnished the bus
used by the other four. Morrilton has
been charging tuition of $190 a year
per student but is going to raise that to
$240 next fall.
Negro parents have complained about
the long journeys involved.
High Schools
I
Russellville announced April 28 that
it would admit its 35 Negro high-school
students to its white high school in
September, and Danville followed suit
May 22. Supt. S. C. Tucker of Dan
ville said he would have four Negro
students in the high-school grades in
September.
Danville also will desegregate the
fight lower grades. The board ex
plained, “Since the high school class
rooms are located in the same build
ing with elementary classrooms, we dc
not feel that we can justi'y admitting
four Negroes to grades 9-12 and oper
ating a separate school for eight Ne
groes in grades 1-8.”
Danville will close a one-room schoo
it has been operating for the eigh
osroes in the lower grades.
Dardanelle will admit about 10 Ne
gro students to its white high schoo
m September but will continue Doug
fementary School for Negroes ii
e ower grades. The school boart
■ ade this change in a resolution adop
e May 25. The resolution said the
°o d had been asked to provide higl
"0°! facilities within the district “fo
i 6 a j n students” and that it hac
°nnd the request worthy.
I } resolved not to send students bi
to schools outside the district am
c °, e an d also that it was not e'onom
, to provide another high schoo
th y 1 district Beginning next fall
oar< f decided, it would “admit a]
sch \ en e D§ifd e to attend the higl
r_ 00 , ^ v i n S within its boundaries
sardless of race of creed”.
★ ★ ★
^ r> 6 R°ck school board mat
closed assi 8 Tlrne nts for 1964-65 at
the s' meetang Ma Y 6 "dth three
closed* mem ^ ers present. This was dii
M ap 2i at regular board meetir
from m Provoked a strong prote
j^Ted Lamb, a member.
latiom P roce chire was a vit
act t of fl 16 state pupil assignme:
^ainst^i an £ d f H ' Cottre ll Jr. vot<
A. jj au °f the assignments. Dr.
tele-v rre ' J r - gave his approval l
6 meet' 116 '^ le °ther three at the M;
Eve retj m | were Russell H. Matson J
aid. f ucker Jr. and W. C. McDoi
"■ere T dle Tattle Rock assignmen
198 jj ounced May 29, they showi
Sc hool s eSr ° stu dents assigned to
at th e ’ c ° m Pared to 121 in 15 schoc
kred l®d3-64. They are sea
°f th e n ° U ^ 12 grades. One pha
0 bjeeti o ass *S nm ent drew strenuo
East g:j S from the Neg o communit
j*ad jg a Junior High School, whit
“vipg , e Sro students this year,
'hose 19°f ed ’ an< l the board assigni
a *?hs { 0 a ll'Negro junior or seni
Aid thp 0r lo nex t year. Negro leade
'Howed * 9 from East Side should
? con tinue with their clas
Se &eg at , tea< f °f being sent back
thp Q s °hools. School officia
u,l de r nQ ® assignments were mac
nila l assignment procedure.
The * ★ ★
*hkh Little Rock school boar
start desegregation vo
Three Northwest Districts To Desegregate
Arkansas Highlights
Danville and Dardanelle decided
to desegregate in September, 1964,
instead of sending their few Negro
high-school students 54 miles and 34
miles respectively to a Negro school.
The Little Rock PTA Council re
ceived a resolution to bar all Coun
cil offices to Negro members, but a
vote was postponed until next fall.
untarily next fall, assigned nine Negro
children May 26 to the first and second
grades in three white schools.
Five were placed in Clendenin School,
three in Riverside and one in McRae.
Three other requests were turned
down, one from an elementary pupil
because it was too late and two more
because they were from secondary-
school pupils.
The North Little Rock Ministerial
Alliance adopted a resolution May 4
pledging co-operation with the school
board in its desegregation plan and
urging the community to co-operate.
The alliance is composed o' white min
isters.
The Hot Springs School Board voted
May 27 to extend its desegregation next
fall to the third and fourth grades. It
also assigned two more Negro pupils
o desegregated schools, one in the
ourth grade and one in the first grade.
Hot Springs ended 1963-64 with five
degro pupils in the first and second
grades of three white schools, a sixth
laving dropped out during the year.
T his means there will be seven Ne
groes in three desegregated elementary
schools in September. A reassignment
-equest from a third Negro pupil was
efused.
★ ★ ★
Pine Bluff, which this year had five
Negro children in the first and second
grades of three formerly white ele
mentary schools, has assigned six more
to the same schools for next year.
One additional Negro will be in the
first and fourth grades of each school.
Negroes in those schools during the
1963-64 year will be in the second and
third grades next year.
The Pine Bluff plan calls foi deseg
regation of two additional grades each
year.
★ ★ ★
Ten white boys, students at Little
Rock Central High School, were ar
rested on charges of night-riding last
month following an attempt to bum a
cross at the home of a white youth
who had been friendly with Negro
pupils and eaten lunch with them.
A few days earlier, the same white
boy was attacked and knocked down
MARYLAND
W allace
(Continued from Page 5)
the merger of the white and Negro
teachers associations, the presence of a
Negro on the comity school board since
1956, the 24 Negroes in predominantly
white county schools in the 1963-64
school year and the fact that the coun
ty’s civil-defense training program,
conducted at Cambridge High for all
adults, had been under the leadership
of a Negro teacher since 1960.
Miscellaneous
Baltimore Board
Dismisses Protest
A representative of a Baltimore pro
test group told the city’s Board of
School Commissioners in May that it
had “failed miserably” in preventing
overcrowded high schools and should
return to the practice of drawing dis
trict lines around schools that are taxed
beyond their capacities. The practice
was discarded as of Oct. 1, 1963, in re
sponse to the contention of a biracial
parents group and the NAACP early
last summer that previous districting
and transfer policies tended to foster
de facto segregation.
The school board dismissed the
charge, brought by Mrs. Estelle Badg
er, of the Taxpayers’ Interest League,
after Supt. George B. Brain cited en-
in the school building. His attacker was
suspended from school.
Community Action
PTA Council Asked
To Bar Negroes
From Its Offices
When the final meeting for the school
year o' the Little Rock PTA Council
was nearly over, May 12, a resolution
was proposed to bar Negroes from any
office in the council. It was fought on
the ground that it was out of order,
that it would constitute a change in the
constitution, and that the delegates had
not been instructed by their local PTAs
on how to vote on it. No vote was
taken.
Hie resolution was introduced by
Mrs. Philip Greening, president-elect
of the West Side Junior High School
PTA, who finally withdrew it on con
dition that it be brought up for a vote
at the first meeting of the next school
year in September.
The council is made up of delegates
from the PTAs of the all-white and
the desegregated schools in the sys
tem. A Negro PTA Council serves only
the all-Negro schools.
What provoked the proposed resolu
tion was the appointment of Mrs. Ozell
Sutton, a Negro, to a special council
committee on education which works
with culturally deprived children or
those with learning difficulties. She is
a first-grade teacher at Rightsell school,
for Negroes, but her own children at
tend Mitchell Elementary and West
Side Junior High, both desegregated
schools, and she is a member of both
the Mitchell and the West Side PTAs.
Her husband is an officer of the Ark
ansas Council on Human Relations.
Mrs. Sara Murphy, chairman of the
special committee, said Mrs. Sutton had
been selected 'or the committee because
of her training and background in the
work the committee does.
Action Disclosed
It was stated that Mrs. Sutton’s ap
pointment had caused a lively round
of behind-the-scenes discussion and
telephoning before the PTA Council
meeting. Mrs. Greening said she intro
duced the resolution for the presidents-
elect of seven schools, which she de
clined to name.
Other members said the resolution
had not been considered by any local
PTA unit, and it was not mentioned a
week later when the West Side PTA
held its final meeting of the year to
install Mrs. Greening and other new
officers.
As introduced, Mrs. Greening’s reso
lution would have barred all offices to
any person “who is not a member of
the Caucasian race.” She was asked if
Revisit to Central High
Gen. Edwin A. Walker.
this would exclude Jews and Oriental
persons, and she later changed the res
olution to read “who is a member of
the Negro race.”
Mrs. Frank N. Gordon, council presi
dent, objected to the resolution. She
said it was her understanding that a
school patron whose PTA dues are
paid is eligible for any PTA office.
Mrs. Gordon later wrote to Mrs. Clif
ford N. Jenkins of New York, national
PTA president, about the resolution,
and received a reply saying that the
resolution was “completely contrary to
national policy.” PTA membership is
all-inclusive and “the question o' race,
color or religion must not enter into
parent-teacher work,” Mrs. Jenkins
wrote.
★ ★ ★
General Walker Visits
Central High Again
Edwin A. Walker, the former major
general who was commander of the
Arkansas Military District in 1957 and
thus was in command of the 101st Para-
troop Division when it was sent to en
force desegregation at Little Rock Cen
tral High, returned to Little Rock as
the guest of the Capital Citizens’ Coun
cil in its 10th anniversary observance
of “Black Monday,” the day the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down its de
segregation decision in 1954.
Since his resignation from the Army,
Walker has declared that he was on
the “wrong side” at Central High in
1957.
The Citizens Council announced that
Walker would have a press conference
Sunday afternoon, May 17, on the steps
of Central High and would speak at a
Citizens’ Council “rally for civil peace”
Monday night at the municipal audi
torium downtown. The school board re
fused to let him use school property,
however, so the press con'erence was
held at the Arsenal Building in Mac-
Arthur Park, the place where Gen.
Douglas MacArthur was bom.
Walker was met at the airport and
escorted by Claude D. Carpenter Jr.,
attorney for the state Commerce Com
mission, who was acting as Gov. Or-
val E. Faubus’s representative.
After the press conference, Walker
drove by Central High and stopped for
a few minutes, commenting only that
the school tiger painted on the front of
the building looked fresher than it did
in 1957.
In both his press conference and at
the rally the next night, attended by
about 275, he discussed the menace of
communism and the proposed civil-
rights bill and related subjects.
Others on the program were Amis
Guthridge, president of the Capital
Citizens’ Council, and Louis W. Hollis
and Dr. Medford Evans from the Citi
zens Councils of America at Jackson,
Miss.
★ ★ ★
Advisory Group Hears
Complaints In Fort Smith
The Arkansas Advisory Committee to
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
held an open hearing May 23 at Fort
Smith and received complaints about
school segregation, among other mat
ters.
Fort Smith started voluntarily a
grade-a-year desegregation plan in the
first grade in 1957 and this year had
31 of 1,222 Negro students in the dis
trict attending desegregated schools.
The testimony about schools came
from the Rev. Ray Peters, a white Lu
theran minister, and Dr. H. P. McDon
ald, president of the Fort Smith Branch
of the NAACP, whose wife is a member
of the advisory committee. Both said
the school attendance areas in Fort
Smith were drawn in such a way as
to keep Negro pupils from living in
the attendance areas of the white
schools and that the school board’s
building program was designed to pro
long segregation.
Peters said it had become impossible
to deal with the school board on de
segregation, partly because of the law
suit filed last year by two Negro girls
who wanted to attend the white North-
side High School.
The committee was told that hear
ings in the suit in federal court had
been postponed because of a remodel
ing project at the high school.
In The Colleges
Athletes Reported
Expecting Change
In the Arkansas Democrat, Little
Rock, of May 8, an article on the sports
page began, “It’s one of those subjects
that just isn’t discussed, at least not
openly. It’s tacitly understood that it
shouldn’t be talked about, but make
no mistakes, the topic of integration of
athletics at the University is a live one.
The University Board of Trustees has
said that the present policy—i. e., seg
regation—would continue, but the
question is for how long?”
The article reported interviews with
several members of the Razorback foot
ball team and summed up the results
as 'ollows:
“The opinion of the Razorbacks
themselves is that it (segregation)
won’t stand long, and furthermore,
they don’t mind the racial barrier fal
ling.”
All other members of the Southwest
Conference have dropped segregation
of varsity athletics.
Several student organizations at the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
called on the university authorities to
end segregation in athletics and hous
ing. The organizations include the Stu
dent Bar Association, the Mortar
Board, the Charming Club (Unitarians)
and the Wesley Foundation Student
Council (Methodist).
Visit Stirs Cambridge
rollment figures indicating swollen en
rollments in all high schools and said
that the dropping of districting lines
had not contributed “whatever” to the
overcrowded situations. Board mem
bers told Mrs. Badger that double
shift in high schools could have been
avoided if the schools had received
their full construction requests from
the city government.
The Taxpayers’ Interest League was
organized by some white parents in
North and East Baltimore last year to
protest the transportation of pupils
from overcrowded inner-city (Negro)
schools to outlying white or predomi
nantly white schools.
Under questioning by a school board
member, Mrs. Badger said that “we
women,” but not the league as a whole,
had sponsored a rally for Gov. WeI-
lace of Alabama while he was car
paigning in Maryland.
Legal Action
New Court Battle
In Harford County
0
A fresh legal battle arose during
May in Harford County, where the
Board of Education in March adopted
a four-step program to empty the
county’s two all-Negro schools by
September, 1967, reassigning some 1,600
pupils to predominantly white schools.
A suit challenging the program as too
slow was filed in the United States
District Court in Baltimore by two
NAACP lawyers on behalf of 36 Har
ford County children (Christmas v.
Board of Education of Harford County).
A “show-cause” order was signed by
Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen on
May 3 in response to the NAACP’s
contention that Harford County’s
schools could be fully desegregated in
the coming school year. The county
Boar d of Education responded on May
25 with a request that the suit be dis
missed. The board’s lawyers said that
time was needed to redesign and re
equip schools for the change-over and
that “school loyalties would have to be
nurtured by a substantial and long
term period of public information.”
The subject of court actions several
times in the past, Harford has a fourth
of its nearly 2,200 Negro pupils scat
tered among 21 formerly all-white
schools, while the remainder are in
the two all-Negro schools, which house
grades one through twelve. The
board’s program calls for reassigning
ninth-graders at both Negro schools
to other schools this September; those
in the top three grades in the fall of
1956; the first-graders in 1966, and all
remaining children in September, 1967.
Legal attention was expected to be
focused on the third step, in which
only the first-graders would be shifted
out. The contention has arisen in the
county that the third step is an un
necessary one.