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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—OCTOBER, 1964—PAGE 9
GEORGIA
Federal Judge
To Reconsider
Atlanta Plan
MACON
T he possibility of a speedup
in Atlanta’s grade - a - year
school desegregation plan arose
after U.S. District Judge Frank
Hooper on Sept. 29 granted a plea
by Negro parents for further
hearings on the issue.
Judge Hooper said his ruling earlier
this summer upholds the grade-a-year
plan but applies only to the current
academic year.
Atlanta is desegregated from the
eighth through the 12th grade. School
officials will not give exact enrollment
figures by race, but Supt. John W.
Letson has estimated that there are
“more than 800” Negro students in
formerly white schools in the Atlanta
system.
Hooper said he refused to approve
an accelerated desegregated schedule
after a hearing last July “because of
the imminence of the opening of the
schools on Aug. 24,” and that his de
cree applied only to the 1964-65 term
with the intention of further examina
tion “as to further terms.”
Negro attorneys argued at the July
hearing for total and immediate de
segregation of classes, faculties and
extracurricular activities. A. C. (Pete)
Latimer, school board attorney, said
educational and social problems of ad
justment to desegregated education
required a phased program toward
desegegation. The school board’s argu
ments were upheld by Judge Hooper.
Some Tension
Some tension was caused by large-
scale transfers of Negro students to
formerly all-white schools this fall and
a number of white families sought to
transfer their children to other still
all-white schools or to move entirely
out of the desegregated school neigh
borhood (See Schoolmen).
A motion for further hearings was
filed by the National Asociation for
the Advancement of Colored People
lawyers on Sept. 25 with the conten
tion that more information on space
availability and pupil distribution
would be known by the board of edu
cation now that the schools have been
operating approximately one month.
Hooper said he will grant the re
quest but will not hear the motion
until the Negroes have “exhausted
discovery” and obtained from the
board any information they feel will
bolster their arguments.
I
Utilization Issues
Specifically, the judge said, he will
consider the Negro allegation that
there are under-utilized white schools
* the Atlanta system. He observed
that at the July hearing, school officials
testified they anticipated some vacan
cies in white schools, even though Ne-
Sco schools were expected to be heavily
Overcrowded.
A difficulty heretofore faced by this
court,” Judge Hooper said, “has been
the unwillingness of plaintiffs’ counsel
attorneys for the Negroes) to suggest
details concerning a modification
? speeding up of the present plan,
taintiffs’ prayers Eire always in favor
°nly of immediate all -out integration
**th too little regsird for the problems
acing every school board under such
Cu 'cumstances.”
hk added: “In similar fsishion the
““tool board has not come forward
■th any suggestion to the court show-
m what manner acceleration could
^n huh i
Georgia Highlights
A hearing on speeding up the de
segregation pace in Atlanta schools
was granted by a federal court
judge.
Racial tension was noted at a
heavily desegregated Atlanta school.
The board of education rejected
the transfer requests of about 50
white students who wanted to move
to another school.
Thirty Negroes enrolled in newly
desegregated schools in Dougherty
County and two Negroes attended
formerly white schools in Muscogee
County for the first time.
Negroes outnumber white students
in 51 of Georgia’s 196 public school
systems, the State Department of Ed
ucation reported.
be applied in the event the court find
acceleration required.”
In the Colleges
New Junior College
Opens With Six
Negro Students
A new junior college opened at
Brunswick with six Negro students in
an estimated enrollment of 250 stu
dents. Brunswick College, which began
Sept. 25, is the ninth public college
in Georgia to accept both races.
A branch of the already desegregated
Georgia Institute of Technology has
accepted its first Negroes. Southern
Technical Institute at Marietta enrolled
three Negroes for the fall term.
Georgia State University in Atlanta
reported the most Negro students (25)
of any formerly all-white public col
lege. Georgia Tech, which had six
Negroes last year, reports 12 Negroes
in its approximate enrollment of
6,900. The University of Georgia at
Athens also has 12 Negro students, in
an enrollment that numbers about
11,300.
Negro enrollments at other schools
include: Armstrong College, Savannah,
five; Valdosta State, Valdosta, two;
West Georgia, Carrolton, one (its first
in the regular academic year); and
Columbus College, Columbus, one.
Georgia Southern at Statesboro ex
pected one Negro but the student did
not appeEir.
Schoolmen
Appeals by Whites
For Transfers
Denied by Board
The Atlanta Board of Education re
jected the appeals of about 50 white
parents to have their children trans
ferred away from heavily-desegregated
West Fulton High School. The Negro
enrollment currently is about 720 out
of 1,040 students.
The school was the scene of fighting
between whites and Negroes and other
racial incidents early in September.
More than 100 white parents withdrew
their children from West Fulton with
out authorization and about 200 re
quests for transfers were received by
the board.
All of the transfers except “25 to 30,”
which Supt. John W. Letson said con
formed to restrictions imposed by a
federal court order, and “another 25”
who indicated they and their parents
(See GEORGIA, Page 11)
Two More of State’s Districts
Desegregate Public Schools
more Georgia school systems
gutted Negroes to schools with
lQ h Sept. 8. This makes a total of
^esegregated systems in the state,
total of 30 Negroes were reported
with whites in Dougherty
0r de y (Albany) schools under a court
the c requires desegregation of
second and 12 th grades this
!o r ' Eighty-one Negroes had applied
admission.
s^Ugherty has 18 white and 10 Negro
^tat» r,* n * ts system, according to the
Mar,,, ^PaUment of Education. As of
shoy,- j the latest figures available
Celled 632 whites 311(1 7 - 685 Negroes
T
Uftd e ° Negro students were admitted
lc olu C ? Urt order to Muscogee County
for schools. Four had applied
-Admission.
^ are 41 white and 17 Negro
schools in Muscogee, with 25,914 white
students and 10,150 Negro students.
★ ★ ★
J. R. Trippe of Vidalia, president of
the Georgia Education Association,
made up of white teachers only, said
Sept. 19 that the GEA should not with
drew from the National Education As
sociation over a desegregation resolu
tion facing the state organization.
The NEA at its convention this year
adopted a resolution requiring local and
state affiliates to desegregate their
memberships by July 1, 1966.
Trippe told a GEA regional meeting
he did not intend to withdraw from
his life membership in the NEA. He
said, however, he was not directly ad
vocating GEA compliance with the
NEA resolution.
The resolution has been under dis
cussion by GEA officials and an official
MISSISSIPPI
Jackson Desegregates Peacefully
(Continued From Page 8)
Cleve McDowell was admitted to the
law school lor the 1963 summer term
under federal court orders. But Mc
Dowell was expelled alter a pistol he
was carrying tell from a pocket as he
was rushing to a class on Sept. 22,
1963. He has twice asked the Board of
Trustees of State Institutions of High
er Learning (State College Board) to
reconsider his dismissal. The board,
however, supported the decision of the
Student Judiciary CounciL
U.S. District Judge Sidney Mize has
under advisement McDowell’s request
to order him re-admitted to the uni
versity. Mize concluded a two-day
hearing on the case in Meridian on
July 21. McDowell testified he carried
the weapon for off-campus protection.
Meredith was enrolled at the Uni
versity of Ibadan in West Africa in
September. He is a guest of the
Nigerian government.
“I had applied at the University of
Mississippi law school,” he SEiid in an
interview, “but they didn’t reply.”
Meredith said he was not disap
pointed.
‘Value as Symbol’
“Perhaps my value as a symbol in
Mississippi was wearing thin,” he
said. “Anyway, I always wanted to
study abroad, preferably in Africa.”
His wife and four-year-old son Eire
with him. Mere
dith plans to
study there three
years for a doc
torate in political
science. He is also
completing a book
on his participa
tion in the civil
rights movement.
He has a house
a mile from the
campus and a
small office in the
political science department.
★ ★ ★
George A. Owens has been named
acting president of predominantly
Negro Tougaloo College near Jackson.
He will serve pending the appointment
of a president to succeed Dr. A. D.
Beittel, who retired Sept. 1.
Owens, business manager at the col
lege, is a graduate of Tougaloo and of
Columbia University’s graduate busi
ness school, and has done additional
study at the University of Omaha.
Legal Action
NAACP Attorney
Charges Pressure
In Leake County
Derrick Bell of New York, Negro
attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, has asked a federal court in
Jackson for a hearing to halt persons
from interfering with public school
desegregation in Leake County.
He filed a motion for the hearing on
Sept. 11. It seeks further relief in the
court-ordered school desegregation
case. Bell charged that through
“house to house visits to Leake County
individuals” Negro plaintiffs were pres
sured to have no part in school de
segregation plans.
He said “most parents declined to
enroll their children in white schools,
indicating concern for their safety and
their homes, if they attempted to enroll
their children . . .”
Debra Lewis was the sole Negro
child to enroll in the first grade at the
previously all-white Carthage At
tendance Center. Bell said her father,
A. D. Lewis, was dismissed from his
of the Georgia Teachers and Education
Association (all Negro teachers) has
questioned the wisdom of merging the
white and Negro teacher organizations.
★ ★ ★
State Department of Education fig
ures show that Negroes outnumber
whites in 51 of Georgia’s 196 public
school systems.
Hancock County, with 2,573 Negro
and 566 white students, has the highest
percentage—82—of Negroes enrolled.
There is no school desegregation in
Hancock and no litigation has been
filed in the rural north central Georgia
county.
Educators said Georgia has the 12th
largest state school system in the na
tion, and projected enrollment for the
1963-64 school year at 1,119,754, with
an average daily attendance of more
than one million pupils.
‘Well, Hello There’
Basset, Knoxville News-Sentinel
lumber company job. The firing, ac
cording to the motion, came the day
after the child entered school on
Sept. 2.
Bell said it was “unlikely the Lewis
family can withstEind this much with
out help of the court.”
Bell said the court should “make
clear to insure to those elements in
Leake County who seek to actively
interfere with the
school desegrega
tion plans, that
such efforts will
not be condoned
nor ignored, but
will be considered
in determining the
nature and speed
of the Leake
County desegre
gation order.”
The suit said
“we are hopeful
that the court will find it advisable to
issue a strong statement concerning
importance of abiding by, and not in
terfering with, the order of this court.”
Bell noted that 38 Negroes originEilly
petitioned to order desegregation of
the county schools Eind intimidations
and threats have forced many to step
out.
He charged “the then Negro princi
pal of the Negro school in Carthage
personally wrote each parent who
signed the initisil petition and urged
them not to take further action to de
segregate the schools because the white
community would react adversely to
such efforts.”
Parents Visited
Bell said that “one day before
schools were slated to open on a non-
racial basis many of the parents who
had planned on enrolling their chil
dren in a desegregated school received
visits from persons in the white com
munity who are opposed to school
desegregation as ordered by this
court.”
“The parents were advised that it
would not be wise for them to enroll
their children in a white school,” the
suit said.
Miscellaneous
A Clarksdale Negro woman has
charged that school district zoning has
continued public school segregation in
Clarksdale despite federal court orders
to desegregate.
“There were no Negro first-graders
to enter the schools,” said Mrs. Vera
Pigee, secretary of the Clarksdale
branch of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People.
“We know this rezoning is the cause
of it.”
She made her statement before the
Mississippi Advisory Committee to the
Civil Rights Commission, which met
in Greenville on Sept. 23.
U.S. District Judge Claude Clayton
ruled on Aug. 19 that Clarksdale must
desegregate the first grades of its pub
lic schools in September and the sec
ond grades in January. He accepted
a school district system based on
“natural boundaries” formed by the
Sunflower River and a railroad that
bisects the city. Three of the city’s four
white elementary schools are north of
the railroad in predominantly white
neighborhoods. The fourth is south of
the tracks along the three Negro
schools.
And, it added, the “advice appeared
to come from persons who are em
ployers and creditors of these people.”
The petition did not elaborate on
the “individuals” mentioned as re
sponsible for harassment and intimida
tion against the Negro plaintiffs.
The Carthage school was the only
one in the county which was desegre
gated. The four other county schools
did not receive any Negroes.
The original desegregation order was
issued by U.S. District Judge Sidney
Mize.
★ ★ ★
Federal Marshal immune
To inuictment Dy state
A leaerai juuge in Oxiora nas ruled
that Quel U.S. iviarsnal jEimes B. Mc
Shane does not have to go on trial in
Mississippi on an indictment stemming
from the desegregation of the Uni
versity of Mississippi in 1962.
U.S. District Juuge Claude F. Clay
ton referred to a 1J1-year-old law that
said "the state has no jurisdiction over
a person when he is acting under the
authority of the United States.”
The ruling made it clear, however,
no federal official is “absolutely im
mune merely because of his officisd
standing and his official purpose.”
A Daiayette county Uranu Jury
indicted ivfcoiiane on a charge of
breach of the peace and inciting to
not. iVfcSfiane sougnt a writ of haoeas
corpus.
i he indictment referred to McShane’s
order to hre tear gas tne mgnt of sept.
30, 1962, as U.S. marshals secured the
university administration Buuduig prior
to the enrollment the following day of
Negro James Meredith. The tear gas
was fired at 7:50 pm. as Mississippi
highway paironnen attempted to move
rock-throwing Ole Miss students away
from the marshals, who had encircled
the Lyceum Building.
Before the night ended, two men
were killed and scores injured.
Based On Circumstances
Judge Clayton said his opinion was
based on the circumstances of the
night as they appeared to McShane.
Judge Clayton's opinion said:
“Situated as he was, it must be said
. . . that he (McShane) had reasonable
cause to believe that drastic action was
necessary to carry out his duties, and
that he had reasonable cause to be
lieve the use of tear gas . . . was a
proper measure to be taken.”
Judge Clayton said that was so
“even though his belief was mistaken
or his judgment poor.” The ruling
noted that McShane was urged by some
of his marshals to use tear gas as early
as 6:30 pm., some 80 minutes before
the gas was fired.
The judge commented on aspects of
the riots in footnotes. In response to
charges the marshals were not pre
pared with riot equipment, he wrote:
“It must be said that neither did the
highway patrol and they came to the
campus to prevent crowds and dis
order. Obviously, planning and prepa
ration by no one was adequate to deal
with the problems which arose that
day.”
Mostly Negroes live south of the rail
road, but there are a few pockets of
whites living in the area.
Mrs. Pigee said that “practically
every Clarksdale school zone has had
Negroes living there, but they have
been condemning and moving houses.”
She did not identify who “they” were
by either name or profession.
“Now less than one-half of the
school zones have Negroes,” she said.
Mrs. Pigee told the committee that
an Eirea in which both whites and
Negroes lived was sold “just before the
opening of school . . . and every Negro
who lived there had to move.”
“I feel all of this was an effort to
keep from bringing about integration,”
she said.
She also contended that a group of 20
to 25 Negro homes in another area was
acquired “to build a park” after own
ers were given “a number of days to
sell.”
“The Coahoma County NAACP feels
this was to keep school segregation in
Clarksdale,” Mrs. Pigee said. “All
these years Negroes have lived in those
neighborhoods.”
Clarksdale Negro Attacks
Zoning of School Districts
BELL