Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 10—AUGUST, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 9)
Gov. Orval Faubus declined an invi
tation to meet for an hour at Little
Rock with Luther Hodges, Secretary of
Commerce, LeRoy Collins, director of
the new Community Relations Service,
and Buford Ellington, working with
Collins, who were on a tour of the
South to explain the new law to the
governors. Faubus said he did not like
the arrangements, the secrecy and the
brevity of the time allotted for the
meeting.
★ ★ ★
Lillie Effect Expected
From NEA Resolution
Although the National Education
Association adopted a resolution July 3
at its national convention calling on all
of its affiliates to admit Negro members,
it is not expected to have much effect
in Arkansas.
Forrest Rozzell, executive secretary
of the Arkansas Education Association
(white) and T. E. Patterson, executive
secretary of the Arkansas Teachers
Association (Negro) agreed on this
when they returned from the conven
tion. The AEA and the ATA have a
joint committee which began work al
most a year ago on the problems of
merging the two organizations.
The NEA resolution contains nothing
that is not already being done in Ar
kansas, according to Rozzell, who
opposed the resolution as poor strategy
and liable to misinterpretation.
★ ★ ★
Negroes Discuss Grievances
With Board; Policies Kept
Fifty-two Negro patrons of the Star
City School District petitioned the
school board for a public hearing on
their grievances, including a request
for desegregation, and the meeting was
held July 27 at the Lincoln Negro High
School in Star City.
No school board policies were
changed. This was the fourth meeting
this year with the Negro patrons at
their request.
The Negroes had wanted to be in
formed about what the school board
had done and was planning to do with
regard to desegregating the schools.
They also were inquiring about the dis
missal of six teachers at the end of the
1963-64 school year at the Negro high
school and about the administrative
policies of the principal of the Negro
high school.
About 350 attended the July 27 meet
ing. They were about evenly divided
between white and Negro and kept
themselves segregated in the school
auditorium.
Supt. Harold Tidwell explained the
board’s desegregation policy at the
meeting. He said any request for a
transfer to a different school must be
made to him, and he will present it to
the school board for a decision.
This procedure had been explained
in a previous meeting. One of those who
petitioned for the new meeting said the
Negroes were not satisfied by the first
meeting, according to the Associated
Press.
Star City, population 1,572, is the
county seat of Lincoln County in south
east Arkansas. The town has 1,380
whites and 192 Negroes, but the school
district, which covers 238 square miles,
has an average daily attendance of
1,365. The racial breakdown of the pu
pils was not available.
Political Action
Faubus Nominated
For Sixth Term
Gov. Orval E. Faubus swept to an
easy sixth-term nomination in the
Democratic preferential primary July
27 over three opponents, all of them
political unknowns.
The losers were Odell Dorsey of
North Little Rock, Joe Hubbard of Rus
sellville and R. D. Burrow, Walnut
Ridge. Faubus had campaign headquar
ters in Little Rock but did not campaign
as usual. He accepted all the speaking
engagements he could and used them.
The unofficial returns from 2,257 of
2,325 boxes were: Faubus, 234,593;
Dorsey, 67,530; Hubbard, 38,825; Bur
row, 16,462.
In his campaign-opening speech,
Faubus said there are people who,
rather than seeking to convert others to
their viewpoints through democratic
processes, “impatiently seek to impose
their viewpoint on all who disagree, by
the use of force.” He said this includes
“the illegal and unconstitutional use of
duly constituted authority.”
ALABAMA
Court Orders Desegregation of Four Grades
(Continued From Page 1)
normally attend when classes open
Sept. 3, at which time they may apply
for transfer.
The board was directed to consider
the applications without discrimination,
using criteria set forth in Alabama’s
Placement Law.
Huntsville, Madison County and
Gadsden—U.S. District Judge H. H.
Grooms applied an almost identical
formula for four-grade desegregation as
did Judge Lynne, also requiring the
school boards to give public notice of
plans and procedures. In Huntsville,
which desegregated for the first time
last year, the deadline for transfer ap
plications is Aug. 20; in Madison Coun
ty, where schools open Aug. 25, a week
earlier than in the county’s principal
city of Huntsville, the deadline is Aug.
11; in Gadsden, where schools open
Sept. 8, the deadline is Aug. 20.
Like Lynne, Grooms rejected Negro
complaints that the plan was too slow,
did not abolish racial lines, and failed
to provide for desegregation of teach
ers and other personnel.
Mobile—U.S. District Judge Daniel
Thomas applied the same four-grade
formula for 1964-65 and heard much the
same objections to it July 29. On July
31, he modified the order to include
three grades—the 10th, 11th and 12th
—outside the city. Plaintiffs also
protested that the three-day period for
transfer applications in August was too
vague, too short, that it forced Negro
families to apply individually and vol
untarily for transfer, etc., and on July
31, Judge Thomas extended the applica
tions periods to a week, Aug. 3
through the 10th. He too ordered the
board to notify the public through
newspaper advertisements that it was
accepting applications for transfer.
Macon County—The desegregation
plan covers the high school and one
elementary grade. (See separate ac
count of the Lee v. Macon suit, which
put the burden of promoting desegrega
tion on the state.)
Montgomery — U.S. District Judge
Frank M. Johnson on Aug. 3 ordered
the desegregation of the first, 10th,
11th and 12th grades in Montgomery
this fall. The judge also directed the
school board to produce a desegrega
tion plan for the remaining grades by
next Jan. 15. Johnson, as did judges
in other cases, also directed the board
to notify the public through newspaper
advertisements that it would take ap
plications for transfers. He commented
from the bench July 29 that it was the
duty of public school officials to begin
school desegregation. There has been
none in the state’s capital. That duty
does not rest on Negro citizens, he said,
in answer to the school board’s argu
ment that no Negroes have sought to
transfer to white schools under the
placement law. That law, he said, would
not substitute for “affirmative action”
by the school board and other education
officials. Boards Chairman Harold Har
ris, while conceding that Montgomery
schools were being operated on a
separate basis, contended: “We use the
neighborhood system.” He and other
school officials denied any instructions
to assign on the basis of race.
Johnson had been asked by plaintiffs
to desegregate the Montgomery school
system outright or require the board
to submit a plan.
★ ★ ★
Court Rules Desegregation
Is Responsibility of State
A three-judge federal court stopped
just short of ordering statewide de
segregation in Alabama in an opinion
and decree delivered July 13. However,
the court indicated strongly that it later
might issue a general desegregation
order, invalidate the state’s Pupil
Placement Law and prohibit the dis-
Such methods, he contended, “are not
only contrary to the basic precepts of
democratic government but, if widely
used, will destroy our form of govern
ment.”
Faubus declared that advocates of
these methods “have determined that I
must be destroyed. . . . That is the rea
son for my strongest opposition.”
The incumbent governor’s Republican
opponent in the November general elec
tion will be Winthrop Rockefeller,
brother of New York Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller.
Faubus also announced on July 7 that
if he won his sixth term, it would be
his last. If he runs for office in 1966, he
said, it will be for Congress in the First
(Northwest Arkansas) District and then
only if the incumbent, J. W. Trimble,
does not choose to run.
Alabama Highlights
School systems in Birmingham,
Huntsville, Madison County, Gads
den, Macon County, Mobile and
Montgomery have been ordered to
expand or begin school desegrega
tion under new standards directed
by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals in June.
In a case against the Montgomery
County school board, U.S. District
Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. com
mented in a hearing July 29 that it
was the duty of public school officials
to begin desegregation. However, he
did not rule immediately.
In an opinion and a decree in the
Macon County (Tuskegee) case, a
three-judge panel held July 13 that
the state was under a duty to pro
mote desegregation, and warned that
the allocation of state funds to segre
gated districts might later be de
clared unconstitutional unless de
segregation is accomplished in a
“reasonable” time.
bursement of state funds to segregated
districts.
The court that heard the case of
Lee v. Macon (SSN, March and May)
put the burden on the state to promote
desegregation or face more stringent
court action.
Jack Greenberg, director counsel of
the NAACP Legal Defense and Educa
tional Fund, called the court’s action
“the most sweeping decree in the his
tory of the legal defense fund’s school
integration campaign,” adding that
“school officials are now free to move
toward integration without pressure
from state officials.”
Statewide desegregation has been
ordered in only one other Southern or
border state—Delaware, he said. The
July 13 decision in Montgomery points
toward similar future action in Ala
bama, he added.
“Momentous Decision’
Alabama Attorney General Richmond
Flowers called the decision the “most
far-reaching since the 1954 decision.”
The public does not comprehend the
“momentous decision,” Flowers said at
a meeting with circuit solicitors
(prosecutors) in Mobile July 16.
Through judicial decree, Flowers said,
the court has indicated it will soon step
in and order total school desegregation
through control of the state’s treasury.
He said: “Our backs are really to the
wall now. If we appeal it, it may be
made the law of the land by the Su
preme Court. We’re afraid to appeal. I
don’t think our school officials realize
how important this ruling is.”
By the wording of the opinion and
accompanying decree, Flowers said, the
court would not wait long before as
suming control of state funds which go
to public schools. “This is a new con
cept in integration cases,” he added.
“This order is coming. Fm afraid we
may not even be able to get by this
year . . . Time requests don’t work
anymore. The court says time is of the
essence—that it’s been too long since
the 1954 decision.”
The court ordered Gov. George C.
Wallace and the State Board of Educa
tion and others to refrain from inter
fering in any court desegregation
order, as well as in Macon.
State Troopers
Wallace used state troopers last year
to delay the admittance of Negroes to
white schools, in some instances block -
ing their admission to school buildings.
Public school desegregation came for
the first time in Alabama last Septem
ber when a start was made to desegre
gate schools in Birmingham, Huntsville,
Mobile and Macon. In the first three
cities, Negroes were admitted and
stayed. In Macon, the 12 ordered ad
mitted to Tuskegee High were accepted
but all white students walked out,
leaving the Negroes the only pupils in
the school.
Early this year, the State Board of
Education, over which Wallace presides,
ordered the school closed for economic
reasons. The federal court then ordered
the Negroes admitted to white high
schools at Shorter and Notasulga,
where similar boycotts followed.
The high school at Notasulga was
later burned to the ground, but U.S.
District Court in Montgomery ordered
the six Negroes assigned to it to be re
assigned to some other part of the
three-unit complex. They finished the
year in the auditorium, a structure
separate from the destroyed high
school as well as the grammar school.
The six Negroes assigned to Shorter
completed the year alone in their high
school classrooms.
It was the state board’s intervention
in Macon, assuming control of a local
system, that prompted the new suit by
the plaintiffs insisting that the board,
since it had exercised local control,
established the basis of a statewide de
segregation order.
The Jan. 30 closing order was later
rescinded by the board but the court
found after hearings were completed
Feb. 22 (SSN, March) and briefs filed
in April (SSN, May) that the official
policy of the board and the state had
been to preserve segregation.
‘Could and Probably Should’
The court said it “could and prob
ably should” prohibit state authorities
from allocating funds to segregated
schools, but declined to go that far for
the time being.
“Needless to say,” the court added in
the strongest part of its opinion, “it is
only a question of time until such illegal
and unconstitutional support of segre
gated school systems must cease. These
state officials and the local school of
ficials are now put on notice that within
a reasonable time this court will expect
such support to cease. These school of
ficials should now proceed to formulate
and place into effect plans designed to
make the distribution of public funds
to the various schools throughout the
state of Alabama only to those schools
and school systems that have proceeded
with ‘deliberate speed’ in the desegre
gation of their schools and public school
systems as required by Brown v. Board
of Education. .
In the decree accompanying the
opinion, the court directed that the
governor, members of the State Board
of Education, State Supt. of Education
Austin R. Meadows, their agents and
employes, cease any interference,
harassment or other action against
either students, teachers, Macon school
board members or others “in enrolling,
admitting, educating or transferring
any child to a school attended by chil
dren of another race.”
The court extended this to apply
statewide, to any school district in Ala
bama.
Forbade Grants
It also forbade the state to make
available tuition grants or other
funds to students for attendance in a
school in which enrollment is limited
or restricted on the basis of race. This
referred specifically to Macon Academy,
an all-white private school formed last
fall to accommodate white students who
had boycotted Tuskegee High and, later,
boycotting students from high schools
in Notasulga and Shorter.
In the opinion of the court, the evi
dence in the case “strongly indicates”
that Macon Academy had received
“public services and support,” from
Gov. Wallace, Superintendent Meadows
and other state officials and that the in
stitution should be added as a party to
the suit to determine whether it had
become a part of the public school sys
tem. In such case, the court indicated,
the Academy would also be prohibited
from discriminating against Negroes in
its admission policy.
As for the plaintiffs’ petition that the
placement law be invalidated (it was
held constitutional on its face in 1958
by a lower district court and the U.S.
Supreme Court), the court said it would
not take such action at this time, in
suite of the “illegal use” of the law in
Macon, where Tuskegee High white
students were transferred to Shorter
and Notasulga to evade desegregation.
However, the court warned: “. . . The
record in this case indicates that the
State Board of Education regards the
Alabama School Placement Law as a
law to be used merely when a school
board is faced with demands for de
segregation. Such a use of (the law),
since it is clearly unconstitutional, will
be enjoined. . .”
Constitutional Manner
The law could be used in a constitu
tional manner to serve a good purpose,
the court said, “not only for the Ala
bama public school system but for
Alabama citizens of both races.” There
fore, it should not be stricken down
(at this time) because of its application
in Macon County. . .” Future use of the
law in “somewhat more normal cir
cumstance should be awaited before
finally determining the constitutionality
of its use.” The court said it would re
tain jurisdiction of this aspect of the
case.
The court found that “there is no
question that the State of Alabama has
GREENBERG
FLOWERS
an official policy favoring racial segre-
gation in public education.”
In the final order in the decree, the
court enjoined state officials from:
“Failing, in the exercise of its control
and supervision over the public schools
of the state, to use such control and
supervision in such a manner as to pro- '
mote and encourage the elimination of
racial discrimination in the public
schools, rather than prevent and dis
courage the elimination of such dis
crimination.”
The Macon County Board of Educa
tion, the county superintendent, their
agents and successors, were enjoined
from:
• Failing to provide desegregated
classes for the plaintiffs in “a school or
schools (where) there shall be both
space and teaching capacity for the re
enrollment of students who have with
drawn from attendance in the high )
school grades of the Macon County |
schools since Sept. 2, 1963.”
• Failing to take additional steps to
eliminate racial discrimination in Ma
con schools for the 1964-65 school “as
may be required by any desegregation
plan approved by this court.”
• Applying different tests, proce
dures or requirements “for transfer by
Negroes than are applied to similar ap
plications by whites.”
® Paying or authorizing any grant
or other fund to students, parents or
guardians to attend Macon Academy
“or any other school” in which attend
ance is limited or restricted by race.
Detailed Plan
The court further ordered that the
Macon board file by Aug. 3 a detailed
plan for desegregation of the ninth,
10th, 11th and 12th grades and at least
one elementary grade for the coming
year.
However, following the total boycott
of the three Macon schools during the
past year, observers doubted what
practical effect the step-up desegrega
tion order would have. White parents
have said they hope to broaden the
Macon Academy to include all grades,
one through 12.
Of particular concern to educators
was the threat to void state alloca
tions of funds to local school systems.
As an average, the state pays 68 per
cent of the cost of education in Ala
bama, the cities and counties in the
state 27 per cent and federal funds
(now a question mark) the remaining
five per cent.
This is the average, but some coun
ties count on 90 per cent of their school
money from the state. A few wealthier
counties might make out on entirely
local funds, by adding new taxes, t> u
the problem in smaller, rural counties
might be insurmountable.
On the panel hearing the case were
U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal 5
Judge Richard T. Rives, Montgomery
U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson
Jr., Montgomery; and U.S. Distnc
Judge H. H. Grooms, Birmingham.
\
★ ★ ★
nleral Court Reverses
egro Girl’s Expulsion
rhe U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of AT
als reversed July 20 a federal ju
vision not to restrain the Bir® ^
m school board from expelling a ^
) girl arrested for taking P art
:ial demonstration. ^
rhe student, Linda Cal Woo s. ^
•ested and charged with _ s j, e
rading without a license, w ® 4,
ik part in a demonstration -
!3. a Saturday. Later her f atn ® ^
tified that she would not be a 0 f
return to high school for t e
! term - , w AH'
J.S. District Judge Charles
ad refused to issue a tempora j r0l -i
training the school Boar ap'
•rying out the expulsion. 1 th e
late court, however, enjoin ^
ard not to take the action P
learing on appeal. c1 ,neriH'
3n appeal, the school hoar jp/oot-
ident said the case had bee c ; p lin<^
said no student had Been arre s (s
ely because of demonstra 1