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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—SEPTEMBER, 1964—PAGE 13 <OUTH CAROLINA 15 Districts Are Desegregated For First Time As Term Opens South Carolina Highlights (Continued From Page 12) ■or the Richland County Citizens Com- (a Negro group), admitted her Organization had inspired the applica tions, adding that it had been working ,’oward the goal for two years. Seven of the children were admitted •o Rosewood Elementary school, three . 0 Withers Elementary, five to Hand junior High, four to Wardlaw Junior Righ, one to Columbia High, and two w Dreher High. Five of them were children of Mrs. Hattie F. Fruster, who had to distribute (ter children to three schools on open ing day. Only one of them came from a family prominently identified with the civil rights movement. He was Morris Newman, son of State NAACP Field Secretary I. Dequincey Newman. Morris became a fourth-grade student at Withers. Principals Pleased The desegregation was accomplished without a surface ripple and principals of the schools involved all were pleased with the outcome. At Rosewood Ele mentary, one Negro lad was seen play ing kickball with white classmates at the first recess on opening day. Chairman Withers, after noting dur ing a press conference that “student behavior and activities were perfectly normal,” said, “From now on, the pub lic and news media should be far more concerned with the educational op portunity for all our students.” (With ers has long been known as a stout defender of segregation.) Sgt. Shelvie Wheeler, father of two of the children involved and a 21-year Army veteran who has lived in Colum bia since his retirement, said: “The way in which their admission was bandied, and the smoothness that exists here, encourages me even more to want to fight for my country. I would also be willing to give my life, if necessary, for this great city, because it has shown me that I am a citizen • It made me want to hug the whole City of Columbia.” One incident, which some news re ports seemed to link with desegrega tion, apparently was entirely unrelated. A 16-year-old student at all-Negro C- A. Johnson High School in Colum bia was shot and slightly wounded in the hallway of all-Negro W. A. Perry unior High shortly before the first bell rang on opening day. A Perry stu- ° r j . ax x i j ijvu - ent > 14, W as arrested and turned over •o juvenile authorities. Police said they lieved the shooting was the result of notion between rival factions in the wo schools. Last year Richland District 1, South arolina s second largest school dis- Nct, had 19,018 white and 11,707 Negro ents in average daily attendance. Richland County District 2 District 2, encompassing suburban in 1 j Ura ^ areas i n Richland County Fort i' 15 ’ *Le entire encampment of w Jackson Army Training Center, cW _ district in the county to on f regate voluntarily. It announced ug - 7 that it had accepted two ‘ sr° glr i s at Dentsville High School. s in other districts, the school board PUrrJJ nCet ^ d RR no constructive for OS€ COU *d be served by waiting E. p < u ) ; Urt or der to desegregate. Supt. tjw , n Sht also noted that the dis- ^t'onof , res P° nsibilit y f or the edu- Th We re e t ' vo girls admitted, however, "'ere r ° f miIit ary parentage. They Sutler o Jean Henr y “d Olivia “Petieri n Aug ' 31 > when school mother’ u two girIs arrived with their bell r= S about 10 minutes after the first Principal C. E. Young any , e really did not anticipate d *nts ZZ h L here. Many of our stu- *11 of th' 6 atten d e d integrated schools the country >> Ves ™ other sections of »hite s ^ nrollme nt figures: 4,258 > r,udl Negroes. Greenville County trict U ^. F ar ° lma ’ s largest school dis- tet >dan n l a 1963-64 average daily at- ^hibuwi °L 46,799 (36,356 white), d I 9 Negro Pupils among 15 ^Pt l one “district county on Z r iT er c ! among the 55 admitted 1101 to . schoQl officials decided ^it ( Whi T\ itS defense in a desegre- Hoo, OisTrfct) 9 V Greenville Count V widespread desegregation was Conference in Sumter Supt. Hugh T. Stoddard and Sheriff Byrd Parnell. accomplished without serious incidents. The largest group entered Greenville Senior High School. Darlington County All 13 Negroes anticipated—five ad mitted under court order and eight voluntarily—appeared on opening day, Sept. 1. They entered schools in the county’s two largest cities—Darlington (pop. 6,710) and Hartsville (pop. 6,392). Although the county has only one school district divided into three areas, different methods were employed at Hartsville and Darlington. At Hartsville, four Negro pupils, ac companied by their parents, entered three schools routinely and at the same time as other children. Area Supt. T. H. Ulmer called the opening “just an other day.” At Darlington, nine Negro children arrived 30 minutes after whites had entered their classrooms. Then some Negroes were taken to the area’s administrative offices and finally to the rear entrance of a three-school com plex that was absorbing three of the students. At least a dozen city police men directed traffic in the area and guarded the entrance. Supt. Russell C. King said the security would be dropped in a few days. Although it is a largely agricultural county in the rich Pee Dee region of the state, Darlington County has slightly more white school children than Negro—7,063 to 6,765 last year. York County District 3 Seven Negro students, accepted voluntarily by Rock Hill City schools after threatened court suits, entered 1,500-student Rock Hill High School Sept. 1. Earlier the district school board had announced that eight Negroes would attend the high school and two a gram mar school. No explanation was made as to why the three others chose not to attend. Six of those appearing were transfers from Emmett Scott High (Negro) in Rock Hill and another from a preparatory school in Camden. The Negroes—three girls and four boys—arrived on the school grounds after white students were seated in the auditorium and cafeteria. There were no disturbances. Negro sources in Rock Hill revealed they were pressing for the admission of nine additional high school students in Rock Hill this year. They apparently objected to the failure of the school board to approve other applications to the lower grades. The district’s racial division last year was 7,558 white and 3,834 Negro. Anderson District 1 The trustees of Anderson County School District 1, centered at the textile town of Williamston (pop. 3,721), said Aug. 27 they had agreed to the transfer of a Negro brother and sister—John and Deborah Rice—from all-Negro Spearman High to previously all-white Palmetto High. Both schools are in Williamston. Schools opened there on Sept. 2 but Dr. Walter Trammel, superintendent, announced the day before that the Negro students would not enter until the first full day of classes on Sept. 7. He said the reasons were “adminis trative.” District 1, like all of the Piedmont industrial county, has far more white students than Negroes—3,264 to 616 last year. ★ ★ ★ 84 Charleston Negroes In Schools with Whites The City of Charleston, entering its second year of desegregation, peace fully absorbed 84 Negro children into its previously all-white schools Sept. 2. It was by far the largest scale de segregation in the state. Sixteen school districts in 14 coun ties admitted Negro students to form erly white schools—15 for the first time. In all, some 260 Negroes were involved. The state president of the NAACP said a suit would probably he filed soon to desegregate faculties in Charleston School District 20. Federal court orders, filed in Au gust, desegregated two school dis tricts in the state and another school desegregation suit was filed against a Chesterfield County district. Last September, 11 Negro plaintiffs were admitted after the conclusion of the first successful desegregation suit in the state. One of them returned voluntarily to an all-Negro school after a few days and another was ex pelled, reportedly for bad conduct. In late May, the district, under court order to effect full-scale desegregation this year, accepted transfer applica tions from 77 additional Negroes. All but two appeared. District officials said 37 Negroes en rolled at Rivers High School, nine at Charleston High, seven at Memminger Elementary and 31 at Simons Ele mentary. No particular security precautions were evident and in the main Negro students walked unaccompanied to their classes. Supt. T. A. Carrere de scribed the opening as “a smooth one.” The district, which includes the downtown area of historic Charleston, is heavily Negro in school population. Last year, average daily attendance figures listed 2,479 whites and 8,683 Negroes. Legal Action Two Counties Told To Desegregate; New Lawsuit Filed Federal court decisions called for ending of school segregation in two South Carolina counties in August and Negroes went to court to attack segre gation in yet another county. On Aug. 8, 26 Negro pupils filed suit against Chesterfield County District 2 —the City of Cheraw and the sur rounding area. It thus became the seventh school district in the state made defendant in federal court suits—only two of which still are pending at the district court level. On Aug. 10, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Hemphill ordered Sumter County District 2 to admit 13 Negro plaintiffs in the year-old case of Private Schools Thrive In 3 Counties In the wake of public school desegre gation, three South Carolina counties have experienced a small boom in pri vate schools, most of which looked hopefully to the state’s previously un used tuition grants program for sup port. In the Charleston area, three new private educational enterprises pre pared to open Sept. 8 and several other organizations considered launching other schools. Also on Sept. 8, Thomas Sumter Academy planned to open in an aban- from 11 ° f a large number of children doned school building in a rural area ^ military families. of Sumter County. But the first to get under way was Wade Hampton Acad emy in Orangeburg, which opened Aug. 31. In all, these five schools will have approximately 700 children. Three hun dred enrolled at Orangeburg; 100 were expected at Sumter, and about 300 in the three Charleston schools. Fees Close to Grants All but one of these schools were trying to keep their fees close to the amount expected in tuition grants. That exception, Charleston College Prepara tory School, charges each student about $500, against approximately $245 per child that can be expected in the dis trict from the grants program. The amount of the tuition grant varies from district to district. It is the sum of the state’s regular per pupil expendi ture in public schools plus the school district’s regular supplement to public schools. Participation must be approved by the school district involved. The district, in effect, loses that state grant for each pupil attending a private school and further must add its own supplement. The grant is paid to the parents of stu dents attending private schools. In addition, any participating private school must meet rigid standards set by the State Department of Education. And grants cannot go to a church-re lated school, although churches may lend or lease property for school use. Declared Void Such programs, although differing in detail, have been declared void in other states and the state NAACP has threatened repeatedly to contest the plan in the courts when the first grant is paid. In fact, in an aside attack on the Orangeburg undertaking, parents of two young Negro children—Earl Wesley Jr. and Renner Coblin—applied to Wade Hampton Academy. They were not ac cepted. The Orangeburg school, which split the town into two camps when it sought to enroll as many white students as it could obtain in an aggressive campaign, opened in two locations a mile and a half apart. The first through the sixth grades are being taught in facilities provided by Northside Baptist Church. The upper grades, through 12, are located in a large private home rented by the pri vate school. It contains a dozen large rooms to house the 110-odd students attending school there. The lower grades at Northside have about 190 students and eight teachers. There are two classes each in the first and fifth grades. The private school group plans to build a permanent building in the fu ture. Dr. T. E. Wannamaker, who is chair man of the school and who will person ally teach physics and chemistry in the top two grades, told an opening day assembly: “You are pioneers. The pio neers were known, not only for the hardships they experienced, but were distinguished by their strong convic tions and determination.” D. Leon McCormac, a veteran educa tor who held high school positions in Savannah, Ga., and Columbia, and with the State Department of Education be fore retirement, was named superinten dent of the Orangeburg school Aug. 10. In the opening assembly, he told the students: “I hope all of you will accept this as an adventure. It will require sacrifice and work and I hope you will take full advantage of the opportunity.” Sumter Expected 100 In Sumter County, Thomas Sumter Academy expected about 100 students for its opening Sept. 8. John B. Pate, a trustee of the private educational ven ture, said recently the faculty and cur ricula were organized and ready to go. The school will use the abandoned Hillcrest School building near Shaw AFB. It stands across the highway from the sleek, modem new Hillcrest School, which was one of three schools in Sum ter County District 2 that desegregated at the beginning of this school year. The three Charleston area schools ready for this school year are East Cooper River Private School in Mount Pleasant, the College Preparatory School in downtown Charleston and Miss Mason’s School on South Battery —the heart of old Charleston. All were scheduled to open Sept. 8. Charleston Rep. Nat W. Cabell, an early advocate of the tuition grants bill and private schools, said their presence has “undoubtedly eased tensions in Charleston.” The Citadel, South Carolina’s mili tary college, rejected its first known Negro applicant, but the University of South Carolina apparently has ac cepted between 13 and 15 new Negro students, including the first to enter its law school. Five new private schools, which ex pect to be the first to draw on the state’s tuitions grants program, were to open in three localities. Negro attorneys attached Orange burg’s pupil assignment and transfer plan in a petition to U.S. District Court. Harris Marshall Orangeburg superintendent. Randall v. Sumter County School Dis trict 2. On Aug. 12, segregation fell in Orangeburg County District 5 when Federal Judge Charles E. Simons Jr. instructed the defendant trustees to accept 28 Negro pupils in its white schools. There had been only 23 original plaintiffs in the suit (Adams et al v. School District 5 of Orange burg County) which was filed last March 20. Followed Pattern These were the first school decisions by Judges Simons and Hemphill, both of whom were appointed to the federal bench in the spring. Their orders fol lowed the general pattern of those laid down by Judge J. Robert Martin in previous decisions against districts in Charleston, Greenville and Darlington counties. The Sumter case differed slightly from the others in that all of the plain tiffs were children of military person nel living on Shaw Air Force Base. The district, in fighting the desegre gation move, announced it could no longer be responsible for educating military children. The federal govern ment obtained an injunction on the grounds it had put up most of the money to build the schools involved. Thirty children were listed in the original suit but many moved away since it was filed Sept. 16, 1963. Sumter District 2 covers all of the largely rural county except the City of Sumter itself. Shaw AFB is located 10 miles west of Sumter on the Colum bia highway. Last year the district had 3,460 white students in average daily attendance and 5,434 Negroes. No Trials Neither the Sumter nor Orangeburg cases ever went to trial. In both cases attorneys agreed after pre-trial hear ings that no open-court testimony was needed. In fact only one of the five desegregation cases decided in the state has reached the trial stage. That came last summer in Charleston District 20 and brought the state its first public school desegregation in September of 1963. Testimony in the Charleston case has been made a part of the record in sub sequent cases. School boards in both Sumter and Orangeburg were ordered to implement full-scale desegregation programs by the 1965-66 school year. This too fol lowed the precedent established by Judge Martin in the Charleston case when he gave the school board there a year’s grace after token desegrega tion before dropping all racial barriers to admission. The Sumter and Orangeburg boards were given the option of submitting pupil assignment and transfer plans devoid of racial considerations. Orange burg has done this already and prompt ly had the plan attacked by Negro petitions just as Negroes objected to similar court-approved plans in Charleston and Greenville counties. (See separate article.) In both cases the federal courts re jected school board arguments that ethnic differences should control school assignments. In the Sumter case, Judge Hemphill held that the Supreme Court’s “de liberate speed” policy on school de segregation was not intended to (See SOUTH CAROLINA, Page 16)