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PAGE 2—AUGUST, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
At School in Governor’s Honor Program
Biracial dramatics class enacts a "death" scene as part of summer program
at Wesleyan College in Macon. Four hundred exceptional white and Negro
students are attending school by invitation.
GEORGIA
Judge Approves Atlanta’s
Speed in Desegregating
MACON
S. District Judge Frank A.
• Hooper on July 29 rejected
a request of the National Asso
ciation for the Advancement of
Colored People for faster school
desegregation in Atlanta.
“I’m not going to order the Atlanta
school board to change the plan,”
Hooper said. “I’m going to leave it like
it is.”
The judge said, “The relationship
here in Atlanta between the races, in
my opinion, has been far from perfect.
But if we are going to draw com
parisons possibly they would be in
Atlanta’s favor.”
He praised the Atlanta Board of Edu
cation, which, he said, had “shown a
spirit of fine cooperation” in carrying
out a grade-a-year desegregation plan.
Judge Hooper earlier had refused re
quests by Negro plaintiffs to require a
speedup in the pace of desegregation.
But on May 25 the U. S. Supreme Court
ordered a new hearing. Hooper began
the hearing July 28.
Hooper, noting the board had extend
ed the approved plan to make it easier
for Negroes to attend desegregated
schools, said full findings of fact for the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the
Supreme Court would be made when
the case reaches them on appeal.
Present Trend
Atlanta’s school superintendent, Dr.
John W. Letson, testified that more than
50 per cent of the students in Atlanta
schools are Negro, and said if the pres
ent trend continues, “the question we’re
considering will be moot.”
Mrs. Constance Baker Motley of New
York, an NAACP attorney, asked, “Do
you mean all the whites would disap
pear from the city of Atlanta?”
At the present rate, this could be
true in a few years, Letson answered.
Sixty-four per cent of the Negro ap
plicants to predominantly white schools
for this fall were approved by the
Atlanta school system, and more than
800 Negro students will be desegregated.
This is a considerable jump over the
previous year in which about 150
Negroes attended formerly white
schools, Dr. Letson said.
Letson said the big increase in the
number of desegregated pupils is due
largely to a new policy of letting each
student have a first and second choice
in the high school he would like to at
tend upon attaining the eighth grade.
Georgia Highlights
A federal court judge ruled that
Atlanta’s grade-a-year school de
segregation plan was proceeding at a
swift enough pace.
New or expanded desegregation
plans were announced for Augusta
and Brunswick, and Houston County
began to consider desegregation.
School officials from four South
ern states heard Washington officials
warn that a great amount of federal
funds might be lost by failure to
comply with the new civil rights law.
A spokesman for a Negro teachers
group said it wat not sure it wanted
to merge with a white teachers group,
even though the National Education
Association does demand such action.
LETSON MOTLEY
Letson and Oby T. Brewer, chairman
of the Atlanta Board of Education, said
the choice can be limited by considera
tions of neighborhood proximity and
school space availability.
Mrs. Motley said that, under that
scheme, Negroes will never be integrat
ed in any greater amount than the
number of vacant seats in the white
schools. Brewer said that this was
“theoretically” correct.
Earlier, NAACP attorneys had ques
tioned Letson and Brewer about the
“administrative” and “educational”
reasons for not desegregating at a rate
faster than a grade a year.
Letson said “adjustments and as
similation” of racially mixed groups
will be slow and difficult to achieve and
simply cannot be done effectively in
a hurry. Specifying the administrative
reasons why he feels desegregation
should not proceed faster, in some
three hours of questioning July 29
Letson cited the following problems as
arising from desegregation:
• Grouping of students.
• “Need for interpretation” of
pupils’ test scores.
• Need for study of “background,
strength and weaknesses” of particular
children.
• “Reorientation” of teachers.
• Desegregation of faculties, creating
a “recruiting” problem.
‘Greater Degree’
Letson agreed with Mrs. Motley that
these were problems normally arising
among all-white school enrollments,
but added there is a “greater degree”
of difficulty chiefly because of the
large number of Negroes coming into
the Atlanta school system. He said en
rollment increases over the last several
years have been almost completely
Negro.
“Desegregation”, he said, “involves
many educational decisions in questions
relating to grouping in schools, achieve
ment, relationships of persons involved
and many other things. There is a
physical limit to how effectively this
job can be done.”
The “geometric multiplication of
education problems” prevents a faster
plan than the grade-a-year schedule
now in use, he said. As one example,
Letson said, analysis and evaluation of
student test scores is time-consuming,
and now has additional emotional
p-oblems to be considered with deseg
regation. The assignment of pupils is
accordingly more difficult and requires
more time and effort by the school
system, Letson said.
For these and other “educational
reasons,” he said, it would be inad
visable to start desegregating at the first
grade in elementary school simul
taneously with the current grade-a-
year process at the upper end of the
school ladder.
An argument broke out during the
hearing over use of the downtown
WASHINGTON REPORT
President Meets With
(Continued From Page 1)
acute and complex. The difficulties we
face are real enough. But I think that
with wisdom and reasonableness they
can be resolved just as America, once
facing its problems, has always resolved
them.”
Johnson Asks $13 Million
To Implement Provisions
A request for a special appropriation
of $13 million to implement provisions
of the Civil Rights Act was submitted
to Congress July 20 by President John
son.
The largest outlay, $8 million, was
asked for the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare to finance the
operation of institutes and local training
programs devoted to helping teachers
and school administrators meet the
problems occasioned by school desegre
gation.
Other fund requests included $1.1
million for the new Community Rela
tions Service; $2.5 million for the first
year’s operations of the Equal Employ
ment Opportunities Commission;
$295,000 for new clearinghouse functions
assigned to the Civil Rights Commis
sion; $1,093,000 to enable the Depart
ment of Justice to hire 49 additional
lawyers and 60 clerical employes, and
$100,000 for a Labor Department study
of job discrimination because of age.
Johnson called for quick approval of
the fund request so that “justice will be
provided to all our citizens.”
In a letter to House Speaker John W.
McCormack, the President noted that
“though some activities can and will be
started immediately without additional
financing, money is needed to support
Washington Highlights
At a White House meeting with
more than 300 public school officials,
President Johnson called for their
help in bringing about orderly
compliance with the new Civil Rights
Act.
The President asked Congress for
$13 million to implement the new
law, including $8 million for efforts
to accelerate and aid the process of
school desegregation.
Former Florida Governor LeRoy
Collins was confirmed by the Senate
as head of the new Community Rela
tions Service. A federal judge re
ferred to the service the school
desegregation case of St. Helena
Parish, La.
‘You’ll Have a Lot More
Vitality When You Become
Accustomed to Your New
Teeth’
PAINLESS
Matthews, Baltimore Afro-American
programs to increase popular under
standing of the law, to provide help in
coping with the problems caused by its
initial impact, and to increase the Fed
eral Government’s capacity to enforce
it.”
Senate Confirms
Collins as Head
Of New Service
The Senate voted 53-to-8 on July 20
to confirm the nomination of former
Florida Governor LeRoy Collins as
head of the Community Relations Serv
ice, the key conciliation agency set up
by the Civil Rights Act.
Outspoken opposition to the appoint
ment came only from Sen. Strom
Thurmond (D-S.C.), who described
Collins as a former segregationist who
“changed his viewpoint completely.”
Thurmond said he had “little respect
for turncoats.”
But Florida’s two Democratic Sena
tors, who voted against the civil rights
bill, spoke in favor of the appointment
of Collins, who resigned a $60,000-a-
year job as head of the National Asso
ciation of Broadcasters to accept the
civil rights post.
Voting against confirmation, along
with Thurmond, were these seven
Southern Senators: James O. Eastland
(Miss.); Lister Hill (Ala.); Olin D.
Johnston (S.C.); John L. McLellan
Smith-Hughes building as an annex for
two overcrowded Negro schools, Wash
ington and Price. Letson said some
1,200 Negroes who had applied to go
to Price and Washington were siphoned
off into the Smith-Hughes building to
relieve “serious overcrowding.”
B. J. Thompson, tenant relations
supervisor for the Atlanta Housing Au
thority, testified there is an all-white
housing project within four to five
blocks of the Smith-Hughes building
and another one within six blocks of
Washington High School. Mrs. Motley
said the school system had not assigned
any of the white children in those areas
to either Washington or the Smith-
Hughes building on the basis of
“proximity,” but were requiring Negro
students to be transported even greater
distances to go there.
Why Not This Year?
Mrs. Motley said she wanted to know
why classes in the Smith-Hughes
building could not be desegregated this
year. She suggested that 1,200 white
pupils from various white high schools
should be assigned to Smith-Hughes,
then a similar number of Negroes re
assigned from overcrowded Washington
to the white schools.
Judge Hooper described the ideas as
“very revolutionary . . . vague . . . im
practicable.” Hooper said it appeared
to him to be “just plain common sense”
that public school pupils should remain
in the schools they have chosen or been
assigned to unless justifiable reasons
arise for transfers. “There is no
discrimination in that,” the judge said.
In other testimony, Letson said:
A total of 1,121 Negroes asked for
transfers and 721 were approved for
this fall.
The court had approved a grade-a-
year desegregation plan, but the school
system itself decided to expand the
plan this fall to cover two grades, the
eighth and ninth.
Parents’ desires cannot be the sole
criterion for approving a transfer.
Utter chaos would result if every
pupil were given a free choice in the
school he wanted to attend.
Negroes will be put into existing
vacancies in formerly white schools, of
which there were 400 at the end of the
past school year.
The Atlanta plan is “not static” and
new pupils to the sixth grade possibly
might be admitted on a non-segregated
basis.
School capacities shift constantly,
making it diffcult to give definite
figures.
There are no formal school zones.
Desegregation of teaching staffs has
been discussed but no decision has
been reached.
Attorneys Seek
Attorneys for the NAACP are seek
ing elimination of all racial lines in
zoning, and are asking assignment of
pupils, teachers and other personnel
without regard to race.
The board says it does not use a
system of attendance zones based on
zone lines, but that all students enter
ing the eighth grade will be assigned
this fall to high schools without regard
to race and that there are no features
of the current plan that apply only to
Negroes.
The Negroes’ attorneys want absolute
abolition of all racial lines in Atlanta
schools immediately, including faculty
and staff. The board wants to wait until
the full time originally allowed for de
segregation of each grade, and to deseg
regate the faculty—which was not
included in the original plan—at its own
will.
The Negroes and the board also dis-
(See GEORGIA, Page 3)
Schoolmen
(Ark.); A. Willis Robertson (Va.); j 0 ^ v |
J. Sparkman (Ala.), and John Stenn^
(Miss.), all Democrats.
Southern Senators who opposed the
Civil Rights Act but voted for con
firmation of Collins included: Allen j
Ellender (La.); J. W. Fulbright (Arki-
Herman E. Talmadge (Ga.); Alben
Gore (Tenn.); Herbert S. Walter!
(Term.), and Spessard Holland (Fla
all Democrats, and John Tower fR
Tex.).
Governors Visited
At the request of President Johnson
Collins, Secretary of Commerce Luther
Hodges and former Tennessee Governor
Buford Ellington visited 16 governors
during July to explain the functions of
the Community Relations Service
Among them were governors of a
number of Southern and border states
including Florida, Georgia, Kentucky.
Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina.
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and
West Virginia.
A meeting with the governor of
Texas was also scheduled, Collins said
at a July 23 news conference, but there
were indications that governors of Ala
bama, Mississippi, South Carolina and
Arkansas had declined bids to confer
about the Community Relations Serv
ice.
Collins said that information the
agency receives in racial disputes will
be held in confidence. The same proce
dure will apparently apply to its rec
ommendations.
An agency spokesman confirmed July |
27 that the service had received the
HODGES ELLINGTON
school desegregation case in St. Helena
Parish, La. It was the first dispute re
ferred to the agency by a federal judge,
though not the first request for assist
ance. (See Louisiana report.)
Acting under procedure authorized
by the Civil Rights Act, U.S. District
Judge E. Gordon West at Baton Rouge.
La., granted an indefinite extension o!
a deadline he had previously set for
submission of a school desegregation
plan for St. Helena Parish.
★ ★ ★
Arthur H. Dean, former chief U-fi
disarmament negotiator and now a Watt
Street lawyer, was named by President
Johnson July 3 to serve as chairman o.
the national advisory committee to t e
Community Relations Service.
¥ ¥ ¥
Nominations to fill two vacancies on
the six-member Civil Rights Com ^
sion were approved by a Senate su^
committee and sent on to the
Judiciary Committee July 28.
Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.)>°
conducted the subcommittee near
predicted Senate confirmation for
nominees. They are: gt.
Mrs. Frankie Muse Freeman, a,
Louis lawyer active in the N
who was nominated March H-
Eugene Patterson, editor of the ^
lanta Constitution, who was nomm
April 23. the
Both nominations were sent
Senate during the long debate <>ve
Civil Rights Act, which extended ^
life of the commission, first se
1957, for another four years.
For Education
f,f —HOW MANY THOUSANDS
OF ■S.CHOOL'MAH-HOUR?
Equality
Manning, A^ N °