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PAGE 2—SEPTEMBER, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Eight
More Desegregated Districts Bring Total to 21
LITTLE ROCK
W ith eight more school dis
tricts beginning desegrega
tion this fall, and some others
expanding their desegregation,
Arkansas will have 21 desegre
gated districts this year with an
estimated 898 Negro students in
desegregated schools. Last year
the 13 desegregated districts had
about 362.
The districts and the anticipated
number of Negroes in desegregated
schools this year compared with list
year follow:
District
1964
1963
Bentonville
3
3
Charleston
18
18
Dollarway
2
2
Fayetteville
56
56
Fort Smith
268
31
Gosnell
20
20
Hot Springs
7
6
Hoxie
1
4
Little Rock
229
123
Mansfield
12
14
Pine Bluff
12
5
Pulaski Co.
53
25
Van Buren
75
55
Atkins
29
0
Danville
12
0
Dardanelle
14
0
Havana
13
0
Ola
25
0
North Little Rock
9
0
Russellville
35
0
Texarkana
5
0
Total
898
362
Pine Bluff
At Pine Bluff, 11 Negro children had
been assigned to the first four grades
of three formerly white elementary
schools but one of them requested
reassignment to a Negro school because
of transportation problems. Then two
were added.
Texarkana
At Texarkana, which is beginning
desegregation this year, the school
authorities released no information in
advance about the number of Negro
requests or assignments to the white
schools. Supt. E. D. Trice said, “The
people involved have been notified
and our board feels this is the best
way to handle it—with as little fan
fare and publicity as possible.” After
the first day of classes Aug. 31, Trice
announced that five Negro children had
been assigned to the first two grades
of two schools. He said the opening day
was normal and routine. Texar
kana is using the Pupil Placement Law
in which school attendance areas are
not one of the criteria for making as
signments. Little Rock, North Little
Rock, Pine Bluff, Hot Springs and Dol
larway also use the placement law and
not attendance areas.
Mrs. Ermer Woods, president of the
Texarkana Branch of the NAACP, said
that 24 more Negro students,
in grades three through 12, had ap
plied for assignment to white schools
and that all 24 had been turned down,
because the board wants to start its
plan in the first two grades. In con
nection with those 24, their parents
have asked the NAACP for assistance,
she said.
Texarkana will have about 6,500 stu
dents all told this year and about 34
per cent of them are Negro.
Pulaski County
In the Pulaski County (rural) School
District (all of the county outside of
Little Rock and North Little Rock), an
increase in the number of Negro
students in desegregated schools
occurred because the district in
tends to comply, reluctantly, with
the new Civil Rights Act. Last
year the district’s desegregation con
sisted of 25 children of Negro men
stationed at the Little Rock Air Force
Base attending three formerly white
schools near the base. The district had
intended to continue restricting its
desegregation to the children of Negro
airmen at the base, but the civil rights
law requires an end to racial segre
gation if federal aid is to be received.
Of the district’s $5 million budget
last year, $1 million came in federal
aid, and the board has been unable to
figure out how to get by without the
federal money.
The board has discussed this at
length and has put off adopting the
resolution required, that it will abide
by the law, but Supt. E. P. Dunn has
let it be known that the board will
do it. It has until October when the
district will make application for its
federal aid. In the meantime Dunn
let the word circulate unofficially that
Arkansas Highlights
Federal Judge John E. Miller ruled
against the plaintiffs in the Fort
Smith desegregation lawsuit but he
required the school board to revise
its desegregation plan to eliminate
the voluntary transfer provision.
Two Negro students filed suit to
have the University of Arkansas end
racial segregation in housing
teacher employment, varsity athletics
and “all other” activities.
Ouachita Baptist College at Arka-
delphia, privately owned by the
Arkansas Baptist State Convention,
opened its undergraduate classes to
Negro students.
With 21 districts to be desegre
gated this year, Arkansas will have
an estimated 898 Negro students in
desegregated schools, compared to
362 last year.
Negro applicants would be accepted
at white schools.
After the first day of classes Aug. 31,
Dunn said that 53 Negro students had
enrolled in six schools. Ten entered
Fuller High School, three entered
Fuller Elementary and seven, David O.
Dodd Elementary, all of which had
previously been all-white; 27 are in
the Little Rock Air Force Base ele
mentary school, four in Jacksonville
Junior High and two in Jacksonville
Senior High.
North Little Rock
North Little Rock, like Texarkana,
is starting this year with a olan to
desegregate the first two grades and
has assigned nine Negroes. This plan
has provoked a good deal of
protest among Negroes, including the
Southern Mediator Journal, Little Rock
Negro weekly newspaper.
Fort Smith
At Fort Smith, the number of Negro
students in desegregated schools will
increase because of elimination of the
voluntary transfer provision, as ordered
by federal district court during the
summer. That provision meant that
a Negro child assigned to a white
school or a white child to a Negro
school could request and receive as
signment to a school where his race
was not the minority. Except for the
attendance areas of three Negro ele
mentary schools, the voluntary transfer
provision no longer applies in Fort
Smith, and after this school year it
will not apply even to those three
schools (see Legal Action).
To cope with this and also as part
of a general reorganization of the
junior and senior high schools, the
school board is abolishing its only
Negro junior high school in two steps
to take two years. This year, grades
seven and eight will be dropped from
the Lincoln Junior-Senior High School,
for Negroes, and the 185 Negro children
in those two grades will be assigned
to the white junior high schools nearest
their homes, the Darby and Kimmons
junior high schools. Next year the
tenth grade will be eliminated in the
same way. In addition, the school
board expects 50 to 100 Negro children
in the elementary grades to enroll at
four or five of its 21 elementary schools
for whites. Last year Fort Smith had
30 Negroes in the Parker and Duval
Elementary schools and one in Darby
Junior High.
The change at Lincoln Junior High
What They Say
Negro Vote
A Negro speaker told the Little Rock
Civitan Club at its luncheon meeting
Aug. 27 that the Negro now has reached
the point in seeking his freedom that
only the Negro, and no one else,
could choose who would represent him
in public office or at the conference
table. Ozell Sutton of Little Rock,
Negro associate director of the Ark
ansas Council on Human Relations is
now on leave to direct the Arkansas
Voter Registration Projects.
Sutton cited the runoff primary Aug.
11 between Everett Tucker Jr., mem
ber of the Little Rock school board,
and state Rep, Jim Brandon of Little
Rock, for a position in the state Sen
ate. “The regular Negro politicians
supported Tucker, but Brandon carried
the Negro boxes by two to one,” Sut-
has not cost any Negro teacher a job
so far, according to Supt. Chris D.
Corbin. Last year it had 20 Negro
teachers, this year 15. Four of the
teachers left during the summer for
other jobs elsewhere, Corbin said,
and one other was transferred to a
vacancy in Howard Elementary School.
The developments at Fort Smith are
causing some uneasiness in the white
community where a grade-a-year de
segregation plan has proceed without
public protest since 1957. About 200
white residents of the north side of
town met Thursday night, Aug. 13 to
express their unhappiness. The tenor
of their meeting was to lay the blame
on the school board. Buck Jones, the
moderator, decried the plan to change
the school attendance areas, which is
part of the procedure of abandoning
Lincoln Junior High and of reorganiz
ing all the secondary schools. “We are
here to try to protect the property the
Fort Smith School Board is trying to
destroy. The federal government said
we will have integration, so I guess
we’ll have it, but under the school
board proposal one section of Fort
Smith will bear the brunt,” he said.
The following night there was a
mass meeting at Ramsey Junior High
School to choose candidates for two
positions on the school board to be
up for election in September, a pro
cedure that no other Arkansas city
uses as far as known, and the two
nominated were Jones and Virgil Sel
lars, also a north side resident. Jones
was nominated for Position six now
held by Bruce Shaw, board president,
and Sellars for Position five, now
held by Dr. Edgar F. Paul. In the
following week three more candidates
filed. Mrs. Ray Hooten and Felice
(Babe) Cialone filed for Position six,
and Dr. Ted Skokos for Position five.
The filing deadline is Sept. 8.
West Memphis
At West Memphis, two llth-grade
Negro boys, L. T. Gates and Arthur
Williams, went to the white high school,
obtained transfer forms from Bill
Kessinger, the principal, filled them
out and returned them to him. Kessing
er said the school board would con
sider them. He said the boys asked for
40 more forms but he told them that
other students wishing to transfer
would have to apply in person. The
two students were accompanied by B.
J. Yarbrough of the NAACP and the
Rev. S. L. Henry, a Negro minister.
Little Rock
A contest for a school board seat
also developed at Little Rock. Jim
Coates Jr., 38, insurance man and
former state representative, and George
B. Brittain, 37, insurance adjuster, both
have announced for the seat now held
by Ted Lamb. Lamb announced Sept.
BRITTAIN
4 that he would not seek re-election.
Lamb is the only outright integrationist
on the Little Rock board of six members
and also disagrees, usually publicly,
with the board on other matters, such
as bank deposits, buying insurance and
College Students in Summer Program
Kenneth Robinson, 17, senior in Little Rock High School; Jean Balfour, 19, senior
in Ouachita Baptist College; Robert Price, 21, senior at Columbia University, ani
Carolyn Smith, 17, senior at Jones High School in North Little Rock. They comprise
one of the interracial groups organized in Little Rock by the Student Educaliono
Exchange Roundtable, headed by Price. SEER was organized last year by Irving
Spitzberg Jr. of Little Rock, then a Columbia senior, to improve race communica
tions and provide cultural and educational growth.
taking bids on supplies. Both Coates and
Brittain in their announcements re
ferred to their desire to see mo r ^
co-operation and less dissension on
the board. The other position up for
election this year is held by J. H. Cot
trell Jr., a state representative.
★ ★ ★
The Little Rock School Board hired
its first Negro administrator Aug. 27.
She is Mrs. Sylvia Caruth, a teacher at
Rightsell Ele
mentary School,
who was appoint
ed a supervisor of
elementary educ
ation. This is a
new position and
she is the third
elementary su
pervisor in the
system. The use
of qualified Ne
groes in admini
strative and staff
jobs is one of several demands the
local Negro community has been pres
sing on the board.
CARUTH
★ ★ ★
District Threatens
Use of Federal Aid
All but two of the 415 school districts
in Arkansas have used the National
Defense Education Act at one time or
another since its enactment in 1958.
But some of them now threaten to pull
out of it because the new Civil Rights
Act requires desegregation if federal
aid is received. This was reported at
a staff meeting of the State Education
Department, Aug. 3, but state Educa
tion Commissioner A. W. Ford said
that no district had actually quit and
he discounted reports that any of
them would.
In 1963-64, 264 Arkansas districts re
ceived $967,416 under the act. The
total since the program was started
is $5,821,257.
Influence Declared Higher
ton said, and Brandon won the nomina
tion.
Sutton said this demonstrated that
no longer could a Negro politician
lead the Negro community into sup
port of a candidate; only the candidate’s
own record could do that. Brandon has
a record of support for Negro aspira
tions while Tucker, because of the
gradual desegregation program of the
Little Rock school board, has become
scorned in the Negro community as
the creator of “Tuckerism.”
It is unusual for one of the down
town civic clubs, which are all white,
to invite a Negro speaker.
★ ★ ★
When reporters asked Gov. Orval
E. Faubus what he thought about the
desegregation lawsuit by two Negro
students against the University of
Arkansas, he said he could not help
but believe that they were more in
terested in trying to create disorder
than they were in getting an education.
It had been his impression that all the
Negroes wanted was an opportunity to
get an education, so this proves “you
can’t depend on what the leaders of
these radical groups say.”
“I don’t think it will ever stop. If
they have everything, they start dem
onstrating like they have in New York,
Rochester, Chicago and elsewhere. The
goal of some is just disorder,” he said.
And there is financial gain for some
in such strife, he added.
Legal Action
Fort Smith Drops
Voluntary Transfer
Provision In Plan
In the Fort Smith desegregation law
suit, Rogers v. Paul et al, U.S. District
Judge John E. Miller refused on Aug
19 to order the Negro plaintiffs, Janice
and Patricia Rogers, admitted to white
Northside High School because the
school board’s grade-a-year plan has 1
not reached their grade yet. Judge
Miller did require the board to He ,
a revised desegregation plan, which
was like the original plan except that
the provision for voluntary transfers
by students was eliminated.
A voluntary transfer had allowed
a student assigned to a school where
his race was in the minority to trans
fer to a school where his race would
be in the majority. Such transfers were
held unconstitutional June 3, 196$ t.
the U.S. Supreme Court in Goss
Board of Education, a Tennessee case
Mrs. Corine Rogers filed the fta
Smith lawsuit Sept. 12, 1963, for he
daughters. The complaint also con
tested the school board’s alleged as
signment of faculty, staff and rnone;
on a racial basis.
The Fort Smith board had
a voluntary desegregation plan in
1956
and this was the first time it had be*
taken to court. The plan began
wiih
LcUVtril LU UUU.Il. 111C pan o .1-
the admission of Negro students to
first grade in 1957 and proceeded
ward one grade a year. In the 19
school year, 31 Negro students a'
tten de* 1
formerly white schools in
the 2*
seven grades. That year the d
had 12,002 white students
Negro students.
and
Pre-trial Conference
on &
At a pre-trial conference
lawsuit, June 13, 1964, Judge
held that the voluntary trans er ^
vision of the desegregation P
invalid, and the board filed a r
plan July 17, 1964. The plaint s , ^
sented by George Howard Jr- 0
Bluff, state NAACP president,
ed July 23, 1964, saying that ^
original and revised plans jf-
represent a good faith and pro
fort to desegregate.
10,
196*-
The case was tried Aug- ,-jth
Much of the testimony had to ^
three Negro elementary &
Howard, Dunbar and Washmgto^
the revised plan, these three ^ the
got a one-year exemption ^ d
1964-65 school year) from “f is , &
the voluntary transfer; tna ^ ^
voluntary transfer can s i
at those schools only for ^
year. This is for the benefit■
107 white pupils who live m Qther w^
attendance areas and o ^ th**'
would have to be assign
Negro schools this year. ^
In the revised plan th pUP'.'
says that to require the 7** ^
to attend the Negro ® ^ imp 3 ’:
cause “an intense psychology “p«f£
and it asked for * e v'b 1 .
of adjustment and tra^ ^ w^ -
the court approved s a‘d
stand, Supt. Chris • white s t0