Newspaper Page Text
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Southern School News
Objective
VOL. II. NO. I
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
JULY, 1964
Strongest Civil-Rights Bill Becomes Law
tJ |uf«*bnoii . if UC08G1*
THE REGION
Courts Order
Seven Systems
To Alter Plans
S even school districts in two
Deep South states already
have received court orders to al
ter their desegregation programs
in light of the U.S. Supreme
Court’s new standards for speed
in compliance.
Decisions by federal district and
circuit courts in five Alabama and two
Georgia districts in June referred
specifically to the May rulings of the
Supreme Court in the Prince Edward
County, Va., and Atlanta, Ga., school
cases (SSN, June).
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals held that “the import of the
Supreme Court’s views . . . must now
be effectuated. . . . This means that
desegregation on the basis of one
grade per year over a twelve-year
course is no longer satisfactory.”
The Supreme Court had held in its
May 2 ruling in Griffin v. Prince Ed
ward County that “the time for more
'deliberate speed’ has run out” and
that “there has been entirely too
much deliberation and not enough
speed.” In Calhoun v. Latimer (At
lanta), the court ruled the same day
that the phrases “good faith compli
ance at the earliest practicable date”
and “all deliberate speed,” which were
used in the original Brown decisions,
must now be interpreted and applied
to desegregation plans in a “signifi-
| cantly altered” context.
New Minimum Standards
On June 18, the Fifth Circuit Court
; ru l®d that grade-a-year programs
were no longer acceptable in the
Chatham County and Glynn County,
Ca., and the Birmingham and Mobile,
Ala., school districts, where desegre-
?ation began last year. The court set
aew minimum standards for these
districts to complete desegregation of
ad grades by the beginning of the
1968-69 school year,
i Under the new plan, these districts
will desegregate the first and 10th
Httough the 12th grades this fall, the
second and ninth grades in 1965-66,
e third and eighth grades the next
^ar, the fourth and seventh grades
1967-68, and finally the fifth and
; grades in 1968-69.
er~n court indicated that these gen-
P~y would be the minimum stan-
| ards it would accept in the future,
bu t noted:
(See THE REGON, Page 5)
h This Issue
Reports
^abama
1
(bkansas ..
P®laware .
13
7
g*** of Columbia
2 eor Sia
i
9
3
{Kentucky
f^uisiana
Inland ..
9
8
lfi
^Issippi
10
-'hssouri .
3
Ca rolina .W!
5
15
S uth Carolina ....
ennessee
6
11
,\ exa s ,
Vrginia
1
est Virginia ...
14
^ial Articles
^Aacp
Region
1
Plans Drive 1
-""TOWS,, , ,
4 In <lex to Volume 10
to Volume 10 of Southern
|,J 6l) j' ^ ( Ju 'y. 1963, through June,
% issu PU ^ ished as a supplement to
^Ved f , " e su PPlement may be re-
'aluiv.. 11 ac *- for bindinsr with thai
"'ved . , — ’“ppieineni may De re-
"lutne n ai t for binding with that
Civil-Rights Bill Is Signed
NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins receives one of the pens
President Johnson used.
ALABAMA
Minimum Standards Set
To Meet Court Orders
MONTGOMERY
A decision on June 18 of the
U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals, setting minimum stand
ards of desegregation, applies to
school boards in Birmingham,
Mobile, Huntsville, Madison
County (in which Huntsville is
located) and Gadsden.
The appeals court’s decision directly
affected only Birmingham and Mobile,
but U. S. District Judge H. H. Grooms
of Birmingham extended it to the other
three systems in June rulings.
Complying with the appeals court’s
directions, U.S. District Judge Daniel
H. Thomas ordered the Mobile school
board June 29 to submit an accelerated
plan by July 17.
On June 30, U. S. District Judge
Seyboum Lynne set the same date for
Birmingham’s school board to submit
its plan with the same speedup re
quirements.
Also on June 30, U. S. District Judge
Frank M. Johnson Jr. set July 29 for
arguments on suits filed against the
Montgomery and Bullock County
boards. These systems also are con
sidered likely to come under the
formula.
Another school system to which the
formula may apply is that of Macon
County, which has been under deseg
regation orders since last fall, when
Negroes were ordered admitted to Tus-
kegee High. All white students boy
cotted the school, which was closed in
January because it was attended by
only the 12 Negroes with a faculty of
13.
When Judge Johnson ordered
them admitted to other previously all-
white schools in Macon County, at
Shorter and Notasulga, whites with
drew from these, too. The Notasulga
High School was completely destroyed
by fire in April (SSN, May), leaving
only a grammar school and auditorium,
separate buildings connected by walk
ways with the high school.
On the court’s order, the Notasulga
Negro students finished the year in the
auditorium. Three of them graduated
May 21 (SSN, June). The Macon case
is still before a three-judge court in
Montgomery, which was asked after a
February hearing (SSN, March and
May) to issue a statewide desegrega
tion order because of the interference
of state officials.
Plan Spelled Out
In setting out the minimum stand
ards of desegregation, the Court of Ap
peals said that Birmingham and Mo
bile, along with Savannah and Glynn
County, Ga., must desegregate the
10th, 11th, 12th and first grades in the
1964-65 school year; the second and
ninth grades in the 1965-66 school; the
third and the eighth the following year;
then the fourth and seventh grades;
then the fifth and sixth.
The appeals court’s order applied di
rectly only to Birmingham and Mo
bile, but Judge Grooms embraced it
as a minimum plan in his directives
during June to Huntsville, Madison
County and Gadsden.
The Montgomery case was still pend
ing in June. (See Schoolmen.)
The appeals court ruling quoted Su
preme Court rulings which the Cir-
(See COURTS, Page 14)
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
JUL1 ^ *64
Speedup In Desegregation
Of Schools Among Goals
WASHINGTON
*■ 11 he nation’s strongest civil-rights measure since the Reconstruc-
tion Era was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, a
few hours after a 289-to-126 vote of the House of Representatives
completed more than a year of Congressional consideration of the bill.
In a nationally televised signing ceremony, the President called on
Americans to “close the springs of racial poison . . . lay aside irrelevant
differences and make our nation whole.”
Johnson cautioned that “we must not approach this law in a venge
ful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish. Its purpose is not to divide but
to end division.”
One of the law’s 11 titles is designed to speed up the pace of public-
school desegregation. Another is expected to affect education by
granting authority to withhold federal funds from segregated pro
grams. Other titles of the comprehensive act deal with voting rights,
public accommodations and facilities, and job discrimination.
The law extends the life of the U. S.
Civil Rights Commission by four years
and gives it additional authority to be
come a national clearing house on civil
rights. A Community Relations Service
is also established
in the Department
of Commerce, au
thorized to seek
voluntary compli
ance with provi
sions of the law.
President John
son announced
that he would
nominate LeRoy
Collins, former
governor of Flori
da and director of coilins
the National Association of Broad
casters, to head the Community Rela
tions Service. Johnson also said he
would appoint “an advisory committee
of distinguished Americans” to assist
Collins, and would seek supplemental
appropriations from Congress to meet
costs of administering the law.
Title IV of the law, dealing with
desegregation of public education, has
these provisions:
• The U.S. Office of Education is re
quired to make a survey and report to
Congress within two years on the
progress of desegregation at all levels
of public education.
• The Office of Education is author
ized to give technical and financial
assistance, if requested, to local public-
school systems planning or experi
encing the process of desegregation.
The assistance could take the form of
1) technical aid such as information
or expert personnel;
2) establishment of special insti
tutes at colleges or universities to
train school personnel to deal with
desegregation problems;
3) grants to school boards to pay
for training programs or employment
of specialists.
(See NEW LAWS, Page 2)
NAACP Plans
North-South
School Drive
An all-out drive to desegregate
schools in the North and South was
announced by officials of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People during the associa
tion’s week-long convention in Wash
ington at the end of June.
NAACP delegates from Northern and
Western states were told that litiga
tion, persuasion, negotiations and dem-
strations would be used to fight de
facto segregation and profit from “the
hard lessons learned in the South.”
Southern delegates were advised to
make use of provisions of the new
civil-rights law to step up the pace of
school desegregation.
Miss June Shagaloff, the NAACP’s
expert on school desegregation, told a
workshop session on June 26 that civil-
rights organizations would insist that
school officials in the North act to
achieve racial balance in the schools
to the fullest extent possible.
“We are insisting,” Miss Shagaloff
declared, “that educational standards
of criminally neglected schools be
drastically raised together with maxi
mum desegregation.”
Where such efforts are resisted, Miss
Shagaloff said, “protest demonstra
tions of all kinds, including study-ins
and school boycotts,” will be used to
back up negotiations.
Cautioning that a leadership vacuum
was developing in the North similar to
one that came to the South after the
Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegre
gation ruling, Miss Shagaloff asserted:
“The North simply cannot afford to
(See NAACP, Page 2)
VIRGINIA
Prince Edward Board Votes To Open Schools
RICHMOND
CTl he Prince Edward County
A Board of Supervisors voted
4 to 2 on June 23 to reopen the
public schools in September.
The 4 to 2 vote was on a motion
to levy taxes to raise $189,000 in local
funds for school purposes. The State
is expected to provide an additional
$222,200 under the usual local-state
formulas.
The board’s action was taken pur
suant to an order issued June 17 by
federal District Judge Oren R. Lewis.
(Griffin v. Prince Edward School
Board.)
He directed the supervisors “to ex
ercise the power that is theirs to levy
taxes to raise funds adequate to re
open, operate, and maintain without
racial discrimination, the public
school system in Prince Edward
County like that operated in other
counties in Virginia.”
Judge Lewis’ action was in line
with a directive from the U. S. Su
preme Court issued on May 25. The
high court ruled that Prince Ed
ward’s schools must be reopened, and
that the district judge should issue
whatever orders were needed to ac
complish the reopening.
Closed Since 1959
The supervisors closed the public
schools in 1959 to avoid court-
ordered desegregation. Since then,
almost all the county’s white children
have been attending private segre
gated schools operated by the Prince
Edward School Foundation. There
were no schools for Negroes in the
county until a year ago, when federal,
state and local authorities co
operated in establishing privately
financed free schools for Negroes.
Reopening of the public schools
presumably will mean that state-local
tuition grants will become available
for children attending the private
segregated schools. In an order issued
Nov. 16, 1961, Judge Lewis had en
joined the use of tuition grants by
Prince Edward children for as long
as public schools in the county re
mained closed.
(Some new questions as to the va
lidity of tuition grants were raised,
however, as a result of a federal dis
trict court ruling in the Surry Coun
ty school desegregation case. (See
Legal Action.)
On the theory that, legally, Prince
Edward’s public schools were already
reopened, the State Board of Educa
tion on July 1 voted to approve retro-
(See PRINCE EDWARD, Page 12)
Ringing the Bell
Public schools--
0e-i9-
Seibel, Richmond Times-Dispatch