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PAGE 8—AUGUST, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS SOUTH CAROLINA Darlington County Gets Orders To Admit Negroes With Whites COLUMBIA A series of major develop ments occurred in South Carolina during July as another school year drew near. They fol low: • A federal court ordered five Ne groes admitted to Darlington County schools in September. • Beaufort County District 1 and York County District 3 became the sec ond and third of the state’s 108 school districts to desegregate voluntarily. • Greenville County, which gave up a court fight in the spring and sub mitted a desegregation plan, announced that 55 applications from Negroes for transfer to all-white schools had been approved. • Pickens County apparently will admit voluntarily its first Negroes, although a positive statement to that effect has not been forthcoming. • Attorneys for both sides agreed that oral testimony would not be neces sary in desegregation suits against schools in Sumter and Orangeburg counties. 150 to 175 Expected It appeared that between 150 and 175 Negroes will attend biracial public schools in South Carolina this fall. The majority will be in Charleston, which experienced the state’s first public school desegregation in 1963, and in Greenville counties. Charleston City Schools announced in June that transfer applications from 77 Negroes had been accepted. They will join nine who were in white schools last year. Adjacent North Charleston voluntarily accepted four. On July 14, Greenville, the state’s largest district, approved transfers of 18 elementary pupils and 37 high school students. Sixteen previously white schools are involved. These Negro admissions were volun tary except that a desegregation suit was pending at the time of the school board’s decision. Beaufort School District 1 followed North Charleston among districts to announce desegregation plans without legal proceedings. The coastal city, site of the Parris Island Marine Base, announced July 14 that it will admit three Negro children, dropping racial barriers at three schools. Transfer applications were accepted from Roland Washington (to Beaufort Florida (Continued From Page 7) each Negro attorney at this school at $200,000. The suit was dismissed on technical grounds and an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court is pending. Legal Action KKK Defendants To Get New Trial The trial of five admitted Ku Klux Klan members, charged with conspiracy to bomb the home of a Negro schoolboy in Jacksonville, ended without a final decision. One defendant, Jacky Don Harden, was found innocent July 6 by an all- white federal court jury. Mistrials were declared for the other four when the jurymen failed to agree. The explosion took place last Sep tember at the home of six-year-old Donald Godfrey, the only Negro attending Lackawanna Elementary School, which was desegregated under court order. Donald was uninjured. William Sterling Rosecrans Jr., an itinerant carpenter from Indiana, pre viously pleaded guilty to the actual bombing and is serving a seven-year sentence. Rosecrans testified as a prosecuting witness, telling of contacts with the five defendants. He said he had been persuaded to place the bomb in an effort to intimidate other Negroes who might seek to register at the school. All defendants denied the charge and said they had never discussed the plot with Rosecrans. New trial dates will be set for the four—Robert Pittman Gentry, Donald Eugene Spegal, Barton H. Griffin and Willie Eugene Wilson. Because of a crowded court docket, a postponement until fall is likely. Simons and Hemphill New federal judges. High School), Craig Washington (to Beaufort Elementary School) and Jeanelle Drake (to Mossy Oaks Ele mentary School). The Beaufort district received $293,- 170 in federal impacted area funds last year, ranking in this respect only be hind North Charleston ($906,300) and Aiken ($474,620). The U.S., of course, has threatened to cut off these funds to districts that remain segregated. (See What They Say) On July 31, Rock Hill schools (York District 3) announced 10 transfer ap plications from Negro children had been accepted. Suits have been threat ened in this industrial city 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., but none have been filed. The board’s voluntary ac tion had been rumored for some time. Supt. W. C. Sullivan, in announcing the decision, issued this statement: “The board of trustees . . . after a lengthy consideration, including a study of the experience of other school districts who have faced like situations, as well as on account of respected and competent legal advice, has acted favorably on the requests for transfer of the pupils ... on the high school level . . .” While this will be the first public school desegregation in Rock Hill, St. Anne’s Catholic School there has been desegregated since 1954. To ‘Process’ Applications In mountainous Pickens County, Joe C. Durham, superintendent of educa tion of the one-district county, said. July 28 his school board had decided to “process” the applications of two Negro girls to all-white Daniel High School near Clemson, site of Clemson University where South Carolina’s first college-level desegregation took place in January, 1963. The girls were not identified but it was reported that they are both rising juniors and are daughters of employes of Clemson University. Supt. Durham’s statement said: “The two students who have made applica tion for transfer from Clearwater High School (all-Negro) to D. W. Daniel High School within the time specified by the board will be processed when and if they complete their applica tions . . .” Summary Judgment U. S. District Judge J. Robert Martin issued a summary judgment July 13 in the long-pending Darlington desegrega tion case (Stanley et al v. Darlington County School District). Earlier, attorneys for both sides had stipulated to certain facts and agreed that court testimony would not be necessary in the case. Several closed- door conferences were held. The case was brought in May, 1962 on behalf of five Negro children. Judge Martin’s order, however, restrained the Darlington school district, which in cludes the entire county of 53,000 people, from denying admission or transfer to its schools on the basis of He ordered that transfer applications be made available from July 27 to Aug. 3 and that applications be re ceived after Aug. 3. The forms are available from area principals in three county cities — Darlington, Hartsville and Lamar. School board attorney Benny R. Greer said he doubted “very seriously” if the school district would appeal the summary judgment. “I don’t think there is anything we can do except comply with the order. The wording is very clear.” Judge Martin’s order includes a transfer formula similar to ones agreed to in Charleston and Greenville. It al lows school boards to consider such matters as the availability of space, the educational program offered and the distance the child lives from the school in deciding on transfer applications. Negro attorney Matthew J. Perry, as he had done in the Greenville and Charleston cases, filed a petition on July 27 attacking the formula as being “vague, indefinite and inadequate.” The petition said it leaves school boards with discretionary powers that can be applied in a discriminatory manner. It was considered probable that more than the five Negro plaintiffs in the court case will apply to Darlington white schools for the fall term. Darling ton service station owner Arthur W. Stanley, whose two children were among the plaintiffs, said July 14 that other transfers were being discussed. Back-to-back pre-trial hearings be tween federal judges and attorneys in volved in the Orangeburg (Adams V. Orangeburg School District 5) and Sumter (Randall v. Sumter School Dis trict 2) cases occurred at the Federal Courthouse in Columbia July 14. Judge Robert W. Hemphill heard the Sumter case and Judge Charles E. Simons Jr. presided over the Orange burg case. Both judges are new to the federal bench, having been appointed in the spring. South Carolina Highlights Federal court judges ordered Darl ington County to accept Negro pupils in its white schools and agreed that no further testimony was needed in school suits in Sumter and Orange burg counties; Beaufort and Rock Hill schools voluntarily admitted Ne groes for the first time and Pickens County appeared ready to follow suit; Greenville approved transfer of 55 Negroes to previously all-white schools. An attempt by a Sumter County board to discontinue educating chil dren of Air Force personnel, 30 of whom are suing to enter white schools, was thwarted by a federal court injunction. The first Negro in history enrolled at Winthrop College, the state-sup ported school for women. Orangeburg’s District 5, scene of a heated fight between public and pri vate school partisans, agreed to par ticipate in the state’s tuition grants program. Gov. Donald S. Russell accused a federal official of trying to stampede school districts receiving impacted area money into desegregation moves. In the Colleges Attorneys in Sumter and Orangeburg Suits Matthew Perry, Zack Townsend, Hemphill Pride, Ernest Finney. The hearings were designed to clear the way for final action in the actions. Motions and other legal technicalities were disposed of. In both cases, lawyers agreed that no further testimony would be re quired. Instead, the court record of the Charleston desegregation case, which Judge Martin heard and decided last summer, was accepted as the basis of arguments. In that case, extensive testimony was introduced to the effect that ethnic differences between the races provide the best natural classification of pupils and produce the best educational re sults. This procedure was also resorted to in the Darlington case. The line of argument has not been successful on the district court level in South Caro lina. In the Sumter case, Judge Hemphill ordered the lawyers to file briefs not later than July 25 and gave them four additional days to reply. Judge Simons allowed a group of white parents to intervene as parties defendant in the Orangeburg case. Motions by Negro attorneys for sum mary judgments are the only matters left for the courts to dispose of. Compositions Vary The racial compositions of the school districts involved in recent desegrega tion activities or which are certain to be desegregated in September vary considerably. Average daily attendance figures in these districts for the 1963-64 school year were as follows: Beaufort District 1—white 3,151, Ne gro 4,549; Charleston District 4 (North Charleston)—white 12,144, Negro 4,957; Charleston District 20 (City of Charles ton)—white 2,479, Negro 8,683; Darling ton—white 7,063, Negro 6,765; Dorchest er District 3 (Harleyville-Ridgeville)— white 682; Negro 928; Greenville—white 36,356, Negro 10,423; Orangeburg Dis trict 5—white 3,289, Negro 3,796; Pick ens—white 9,621, Negro 1,280; Sumter District 2—white 3,460, Negro 5,434; York District 3 (Rock Hill)—white 7,558, Negro 3,834. Legal Action Injunction Blocks Halt in Schooling An attempt by Sumter School Dis trict 2 to discontinue educating chil dren of military parents living on Shaw Air Force Base was halted July 29 by a federal court injunction. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Hemp hill issued the temporary restraining order, pending a trial of the case on its merits, after the U.S. Government complained that it had paid a substan tial portion of the cost of the schools built by the district near Shaw AFB which is located 10 miles west of the City of Sumter. The government, in its complaint filed July 2 by U.S. Attorney Terrell Glenn in Columbia and in subsequent oral arguments, contended that the dis trict board, in refusing to accept Shaw- based children, was violating an argu ment it made in accepting federal con struction funds. Judge Hemphill in his decision agreed with this contention and further or dered the school district to make ar rangements for the admission of Shaw children to its schools in September. ‘Contractual Obligations’ In addition, Stoddard’s letter s Winthrop College Enrolls First Negro Winthrop, South Carolina’s state- supported college for women, admitted the first Negro in its 77-year history July 20 when Mrs. Cynthia Plair Rod- dey, 24, registered in its graduate school. The Rock Hill institution thus be came the first tax-backed college in the state to desegregate voluntarily. Earlier the University of South Carolina and Clemson University admitted Negroes after court tests. As in the previous cases, Winthrop’s desegregation day was accomplished peacefully. Mrs. Roddey’s entrance was not accompanied by the fanfare that attended the initial Negro registration at Clemson and USC. The young Negro, an honor graduate at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., and an elementary school teacher in the Rock Hill schools, was one of about 500 students who registered for the second six-week term of summer school at Winthrop. The 1963-64 enrollment at the school was 2,240. Dr. Charles S. Davis, Winthrop presi dent, said in a 65-word statement that Mrs. Roddey had expressed a desire to pursue a masters degree, would con tinue to live at her Rock Hill home, and had expressed a desire that there be no interviews or pictures during her registration. Library Science Mrs. Roddey signed up for two courses in library science. She arrived on campus shortly after 7 a.m., entered the administration building, went to an upstairs room, and awaited the start of registration. Later she declined to make a ^ ment to a small group of ne '! Q j 0 g- She appeared annoyed when a P ^ rapher snapped her picture walked to her first class. gyst Mrs. Roddey’s admission was| revealed 11 days before her a ^ jjjll Earlier, Negro sources in K °~ duat es said two 1964 high schoo P g^p. planned to enter the college tember. ;moer. ggu Elsewhere, the University o ^ g g r c Carolina has admitted its on a part-time basis. A. P- gaid a Negro mortician in Columbia, ^ July 10 his son, A. P- ,j _ tfeff 0 graduate of Columbia s - r hool, Booker T. Washington High & ^ e . taking a refresher course m ^ matics at the university. “ e ' st u- Sumter County owes the integrity of its heritage the performance of its solemn, binding contractual obliga tions,” Hemphill wrote. “If Sumter County will not perform as a matter of honor, the court will enforce as a matter of right.” Hemphill said “this is not a case involving segregation,” but underlying the case—although not mentioned spe cifically in any of the proceedings—is a desegregation suit (Randall et d v Sumter School District No. 2 et al) which was filed Sept. 16, 1963 by 14 Negro airmen stationed at Shaw on behalf of their 30 school-age children. The case has reached the point of a pre-trial hearing before Judge Hemp hill. Revealed in the government com plaint was a letter, dated May 11, 1964, written by District Supt. Hugh T. Stoddard to Col. Harrison M. Harp Jr., Shaw AFB commander. Stoddard, saying he was acting by direction of his board of trustees, told Col. Harp the district could no longer assume responsibility for the education of Shaw children, who numbered ap proximately 970 during 1963-64. Schools attended by white children among these were Shaw Heights Ele mentary School, Shaw Junior Hig School and Hillcrest High School. The district offered to lease Shaw Heights Elementary School to the g° v " ernment for “a reasonable rent’ la revealed to be $1 a year. (A similar arrangement has been effect in Beaufort County for se ^ , years. There, the Laurel Bay Schoo^ turned over to the government for exclusive use of dependents of Marin stationed in the area, is now fede operated and fully biracial.) itated that “should some of the children the base wish to attend the schoo this district, applications mightbe ^ cepted and considered in the hg space available and/or other ac (See 150-175, Page 9) ith