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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1964—PAGE 11
SOUTH CAROLINA
Wofford College Desegregates;
Enrollment Increases Reported
COLUMBIA
O nly one South Carolina col
lege joined the list of those
accepting Negroes at the opening
of the September term while Ne-
oro enrollment at previously de
segregated institutions increased
! slightly-
Methodist-supported Wofford College
jjj Spartanburg admitted its first Ne-
rro as a freshman Sept. 7. The 1,000-
student liberal arts school becomes
die state’s first church-related and
second independent college to deseg
regate.
Greenwood’s Lander College, a
' former Methodist school for women
now supported by Greenwood County,
admitted a Negro girl to its summer
school and she returned for the fall
semester.
The heaviest Negro enrollment was
at the University of South Carolina.
Although the university refuses to re
lease names and numbers of students
by race, unofficial counts showed there
were at least 16 Negroes among 9,000
students at its main Columbia campus
and five two-year branches.
Clemson and Winthrop
Among other state-supported insti
tutions of higher learning, Clemson
University, the first South Carolina
school to desegregate, reportedly has
added only one Negro to the two it
had last year, and Winthrop College
at Rock Hill, which had a Negro grad
uate student in its summer school,
enrolled two Negro freshmen—the
first in its undergraduate school.
Newberry College, a Lutheran school
at Newberry, said in the spring that
it would no longer consider race in
Georgia
(Continued From Page 9)
are moving from the vicinity of West
Fulton, we e turned down Sept. 14.
Board President Oby Brewer and
Letson in effect told the parents who
complained about conditions at the
school and sought transfers for their
children that the school system is per
mitting transfers for those white stu
dents only when circumstances fit
provisions of the federal court order
which controls school desegregation in
Atlanta.
Refers to Court Order
“I don’t think anybody in this room
wants us to openly defy a federal court
order,” Brewer said at a meeting with
die parents.
The board has told students who
ore moving from one school neighbor
hood to another that they mav attend
■he new school, and the federal court
order Brewer mentioned permits trans-
ers when students of either race live
55 close to the school they want to
ottend as to the one they are attending.
„ Complaints that their children were
jiervous” and “scared” to attend
o asses with so many Negroes in at-
cndance were voiced by parents who
Scared before the board. One parent
.'"fed: “How would you feel if your
■ds went to school where they were
i scared?”
betson said that except for several
i - r y racial incidents, conditions at
j Fulton have been quiet and or-
jty. He said school detectives have
n stationed on each floor of the
J tha* building to see that things stay
mitr Way added, “We’re not per-
5-i an Y student to remain in the
aol who cannot behave himself.”
said ‘“rL ™ mont b, Brewer had
Uj ' The federal courts have said to
solel K^ lat you can ma b £ no transfers
if t , y because of racial factors, even
knee 6 ” * actors involve threats of vio-
tr
aff 0 a , added, “The board intends to
tow ar d tu t * le P rotect i°n it can
tion - orderly processes of educa-
n at West Fulton.”
Criticisms Received
*as r ?, e ,^ e Pt- 14 meeting, the board
‘'ation l , lC ’ ze d by delegations from the
■Dent 0 c .-Association for the Advance-
on jj olored People and the Council
ahead nia '? deletions for not going
Schod ■ desegregating all of the
Orggd . ln tbe system. The board was
91 schr>° l ae ® 11 desegregating faculties
student bcdj W ^ iC ^ ^ave desegregated
Options also asked the board
'aider u , federal funds available
betson Civil Kights Act > but
9v ailaki 1 n ° such funds are yet
and will not be until Congress
South Carolina Highlights
Methodist-supported Wofford Col
lege joined the ranks of South Caro
lina’s desegregated institutions of
higher learning. Enrollment in
creased slightly at previously deseg
regated schools.
New private schools, hoping to
qualify for tuition grants, face tests
from both the NAACP and the State
Department of Education.
Aiken County schools announced
they would desegregate voluntarily at
the beginning of the 1965-66 school
term but a Negro leader indicated
that court action may be brought
to force earlier admission of Negroes
to white schools.
Two Negro teachers, ousted from
their jobs for civil rights activities,
filed suit to regain their former posi
tions.
A Baptist committee took no ac
tion on whether to allow Furman Uni
versity to desegregate. The State Bap
tist Convention meets in November.
its admissions policy, but it had no
Negro applicants.
Two state-supported colleges remain
all-white—The Citadel and the S. C.
Medical Colleges both in Charleston.
Fourteen private four-year colleges in
the state are in the same category.
Campus and private sources indicate
that 12 Negroes have joined the three
Negroes who previously were admitted
to the University of South Carolina’s
main campus. Two entered originally
in summer school.
At least nine of the Negroes are
living on campus. None have white
roommates.
The Negro students reportedly are
participating in a wide variety of extra
curricular activites. Two are on the
staff of The Gamecock, the university’s
weekly newspaper.
Branch Campuses
In addition, there was some deseg
regation activity on the university’s
five branch campuses.
Barbara Brayboy of Aiken entered
the sophomore class at the Aiken
branch—the first Negro to do so. She
was reportedly an honor student at
Howard University in Washington last
year.
The Beaufort branch had a Negro
Dart-time student from nearby Parris
Island Marine base last year, but it
had not been determined if any were
attending this year.
It appeared that no Negroes entered
the branches at Lancaster, Conway and
Florence.
Third at Clemson
A Columbia Negro—Larry Nazry—
became the third of his race at Clem
son University. He is a chemistry
major
Back for his senior year was Harvey
B. Gantt of Charleston, who became
the first Negro since Reconstruction
to attend South Carolina’s colleges with
whites after he won a federal court
suit in January of 1963.
Lucinda Brawley of Hopkins near
Columbia returned for her sophomore
year. She remains Clemson’s only Ne
gro co-ed.
Winthrop, South Carolina’s state-
supported college for women, regis
tered two Negro freshmen—Ametta
Gladden of Rock Hill and Delores
Johnson of Columbia. Both were as
signed rooms in the freshman dormi-
meets again and appropriates specific
funds.
On Sept. 21, Negroes picketed the
school board offices, two white elemen
tary schools in east Atlanta and a new
school annex opened in a church build
ing to relieve overcrowding at two
Negro schools.
A spokesman said Negro parents
rebelled at the annex plan because
there was classroom space in the two
elementary schools.
Negro pupils boycotted the annex.
A. R. Sampson of the NAACP said only
17 of 250 Negro students showed up at
the annex, a building leased from the
Presbyterian Church. Dr. G. Y. Smith,
area school superintendent, said about
75 pupils attended classes at the annex.
Smith said the Negroes wanted to
desegregate Kirkwood Elementary
School. The city’s desegregation plan
in effect this year, however, reaches
down only through the eighth grade.
tory. A third Negro who had been
accepted did not appear for registra
tion.
Mrs. Cynthia Roddey, a Negro
teacher in Rock Hill, attended sum
mer school at Winthrop. The Negro
student at Lander, primarily a girls’
school, was Alice Brown, 18-year-old
daughter of a college employe.
Wofford’s first Negro was Albert
Gray, 18. Last year he finished third
in his class at Spartanburg’s all-Negro
Carver High. He said he was not in
fluenced by any group to enter the
Methodist school, where he will major
in sociology. He called Wofford “a
wonderful college.”
Schoolmen
Private Schools
Facing Tests
From Two Sources
South Carolina’s new private sec
ondary schools—organized in the wake
of public school desegregation—face
tests from two different sources in
the near future.
State Supt. of Education Jesse T.
Anderson notified the schools during
September that evaluation teams were
ready to determine whether they meet
standards required in the state’s tui
tion grants program.
Those that do receive the grants
face almost certain court attacks by
the NAACP.
At the end of September, a total
of 112 applications for tuition grants
had been received by the state de
partment from three new private
schools in the Charleston area. Other
applications were expected from newly
formed independent schools in Sumter
and Orangeburg.
Each of these areas has experienced
court-ordered desegregation in ite
public schools.
Two Charleston Districts
The grants requests from Charleston
came from two school distriets—No. 20
(the city of Charleston) and No. 2
(a suburban area across the Cooper
River north of the city.) No. 20, de
segregated initially in September of
1963, currently has 109 Negro children
in classrooms with whites. District 2
remains segregated.
The three schools involved are East
Cooper Private School at Mount Pleas
ant in District 2 and two in Charleston
proper—College Preparatory School
and Miss Mason’s School. All opened
in early September.
Under the tuition-grants law—as yet
unused—school boards must first ap
prove grants applications and forward
them to the State Department of Edu
cation. If the school involved meets
the established standards, the student
receives an amount equal to the per-
pupil expenditure for public education
from state and district sources. This
means the public school not only loses
the grant but must supplement it from
local sources.
Frank M. Kirk, director of the Divi
sion of School Adminstration for the
Community Action
Private School at Orangeburg
Students enter Hampton Hall, upper-class division of Wade Hampton Academy,
opened last month.
state department, is in charge of the
evaluating teams for private schools.
Die teams will be sent only at the re
quest of the schools. Students at schools
not making the request would not be
eligible for grants.
Reasonable Standards
Kirk said Sept. 22 that teams would
be responsible for seeing that the
private institutions “meet reasonable
standards.”
Criteria include a proper pupil-
teacher ratio, teacher qualifications,
curricula, library resources and infor
mational materials.
Kirk said that if deficiencies are
found, the schools will be notified. If
they are corrected in time, their stu
dents still will be eligible for tuition
grants this semester.
Court Test Affected
The question of whether South Carol
ina’s tuition plan will stand up in fed
eral court is expected to be raised
shortly after the first grant is paid.
An NAACP spokesman said Sept. 9
that “we will attack as soon as the
machinery moves into position to form
the basis for the application for a fed
eral injunction.
“I dare say the applications from
Charleston would form part of the basis
for... a federal injunction,” he added.
‘Will You Put In A Small
Item About Us?’
LePelley, Christian Science Monitor
The spokesman indicated, however,
that the main attack on the grants pro
gram was likely to be aimed at Orange
burg’s Ware Academy, which was
formed after a lengthy public contro
versy.
Academy Enrollment
The NAACP official said there is
plenty of evidence that the Academy’s
enrollment is limited to white students.
He noted that the parents of two Negro
children applied to Wade Hampton but
were not accepted.
“The use of state funds for a segre
gated institution is prohibited by the
Constitution,” the spokesman contend
ed.
Nineteen Negroes entered four
Orangeburg schools at the beginning
of the present term. Sumter District 2,
which contains the state’s other new
private school, had 11.
★ ★ ★
Aiken County schools, faced with a
minor Negro boycott and suit threats
from the NAACP, will desegregate vol
untarily, beginning in September, 1965.
The decision, made by the board of
trustees of the one-district county on
Sept. 8, still may not satisfy Negro
leaders in the area.
The Rev. A. W. Holman, president
of the Aiken NAACP chapter, said
shortly after the announcement that
legal action may be taken to seek ad
mission of Negroes to presently all-
white schools before that date.
Holman said Negro children in Gran-
iteville, site of one of the South’s oldest
textile mills, had had their applications
to white schools rejected during the
first week of September on the grounds
that they did not comply with the
school board’s four-month waiting
period for transfers.
Overcrowding
The applications, the Rev. Mr. Hol
man said, were filed because of over
crowding at Freedman Elementary,
the Graniteville area’s only grammar
school for Negroes.
The NAACP leader said that fifth-
and sixth-graders at Freedman had
boycotted classes for several days after
they were forced to attend “make
shift” classes in the school auditorium
due to overcrowded conditions. The
boycotters returned to school after the
school board released its desegregation
plan.
(See SOUTH CAROLINA, Page 12)
Furman Issue Confronts Baptists
The South Carolina Baptist Conven
tion, which meets in Columbia Nov. 10,
will have to decide whether Furman
University can proceed with its plan to
desegregate.
The board of trustees of the Green
ville institution announced last October
that the school would admit all quali
fied students. But the State Baptist
Convention, meeting in Charleston a
month later, asked the denomination-
backed school to delay implementation
of its policy pending a year-long study
by the executive committee of the State
Baptist General Board. Furman did so.
The executive committee of the Gen
eral Board held a public meeting last
spring, during which all but nine of 53
ministers and laymen speaking suggest
ed that segregation be maintained in
all Baptist-supported schools in the
state.
The nine-member committee met in
Columbia Sept. 28 to settle on its re
commendations to the State Conven
tion. The Rev. Cooper Patrick of Green
ville, an executive committee member,
reported that the group “reached no
final decision.” This will have to be
relayed to the full General Board,
which must present the issue to the full
convention.
A leading Charleston-area layman
reported it was “possible” but not prob
able that the state convention would
free the Furman board to proceed with
desegregation.
Charleston sources said that a bi-
racial policy at Furman would be so
distasteful to laymen in the area that
funds might be cut off the Greenville
university, which actually receives a
minor portion of its total income from
convention sources.
Plans are progressing to start another
Baptist college—the Baptist College of
Lower South Carolina—in the Charles
ton area. Some Baptists in the coastal
Carolina area said Furman’s desegre
gation move might interfere with fund
rasing efforts on behalf of the new
school.
★ ★ ★
A poll by a church publication shows
that at least 87 of South Carolina’s 785
Methodist churches have cut off funds
to church-supported Wofford College
because of its voluntary desegregation
program.
The South Carolina Methodist Advo
cate made the report in its September
issue.
The board of trustees of Wofford, a
college for men in Spartanburg with a
student body of about 1,000, voted last
spring to admit students without regard
to race. One Negro, 18-year-old Albert
Gray of Spartanburg, entered the
school for this semester.
The Advocate gave the following
breakdown of funds withdrawals by
Methodist districts:
Orangeburg, 22 churches; Hartsville
and Charleston, 11 each; Lake City, 19;
Marion and Columbia, eight each; Rock
Hill, Spartanburg and Greenwood, two
each; and Anderson and Sumter, one
each.