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PAGE 2—NOVEMBER, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TEXAS
At Least 51 Tax-Supported Colleges Are Desegregated
AUSTIN
A t least 51 of the state’s 54
tax-supported colleges have
adopted policies of admitting all
races, eight more than last year.
Tarleton State and some junior
colleges have expressed willing
ness to accept all races, but have
no qualified Negro applicants.
A survey showed that enrollment in
Texas senior colleges is up about 10 per
cent over 1963-1964, while public junior
colleges have added about 20 per cent
to their student totals this fall. Negro
enrollment in formerly all-white in
stitutions appears to be increasing
somewhat faster than the growth of
student bodies generally, although the
University of Texas and some others
appear to have stabilized their Negro
enrollment in recent years.
The University of Texas total enroll
ment rose from 22,196 a year ago to
24,001 this year, while the unofficial
estimate of Negro students remains at
175, about the same as for nine years of
undergraduate desegregation.
Heaviest Concentration
With an estimated 300 Negroes
among its 7,771 students, Lamar Tech
at Beaumont apparently has the
heaviest concentration of Negroes in
any formerly all-white institution of
Texas. Last year, an estimated 250 Ne
groes were enrolled with 7,066 whites.
North Texas State, desegregated
since 1956, increased enrollment of Ne
groes from an estimated 175 among
10,802 students last year to 220 Negroes
of 11,878 total registration this fall.
Texas Western at El Paso enrolled
an estimated 200 Negroes with 6,632
students in September, down from 300
Negroes among 6,154 Negroes a year
ago.
East Texas State, which started de
segregation last summer, had an esti
mated 19 Negroes enrolled this fall,
among 5,330 students. A year ago, its
enrollment totaled 4,502.
Texas Woman’s University’s students
increased from 3,196 to 3,380 this fall,
with Negro students estimated at 60, up
from 20 last year.
Texas Southern University has an es
timated 16 white pupils among 4,198
students, compared to 37 non-Negroes
among 4,037 students last year. Prairie
View A&M’s enrollment rose from 3,000
to 3,234 this fall, It has a non-racial
policy, but no white pupils reported so
far.
Negroes Increasing
Public junior colleges are drawing
increasing numbers of Negroes as well
as whites. Estimates of Negroes this fall
include Amarillo College, 175 among
2,300 students; Henderson, 33 and 725;
Lee (near Houston) 96 and 1,786; San
Antonio 200 and 9,200; Texarkana 60
and 1,020; and Wharton 100 and 1,513.
St. Philip’s, once an all-Negro branch
of San Antonio Junior College, this fall
has about 160 Anglo- and Latin-Amer-
icans among its 800 students. San An
tonio College has an estimated 200 Ne
groes in a student body of 9,200.
Texas Commission on Higher Educa
tion voted to phase out the law school
at Texas Southern University, set up
primarily for Negroes, but some whites
have enrolled. Students enrolled there
will be allowed to continue until grad
uation, but the law program will be
ended in 1967. Properties of the law
school will be transferred to the Univer
sity of Houston, one of three law schools
in the city.
Texas Southern will concentrate on
trying to prepare its students for de
segregated legal education. Thirty-eight
of its 4,198 students are in law school.
Texas Commission on Higher Education,
acting on advice of its staff, found that
lawyers can be trained more cheaply
in formerly all-white schools. The staff
also contended that law students at
TSU should be required to match those
elsewhere on a competitive basis, lest
their clients suffer later.
Persons urging continuation of the
law school said it serves best the needs
of “culturally deprived” Negroes, whose
educational deficiencies need special
consideration. John Gero, a white law
student at TSU who urged continuing
the department, said “washouts” from
other universities sometimes come to
Texas Southern and do well, passing
state bar exams after graduation.
The state commission also recommen
ded increasing college tuition by $50
per semester, making it $100 for Texas
residents and $250 for others. This
would net about $17,000,000 more annu
ally, part of a recommended $70,000,000
increase in spending on senior colleges
and professional education.
★ ★ ★
The Texas Board of Examiners for
Teacher Education recommended that
accreditation for teacher training pro
grams at three Negro colleges be ended
in 1967 unless substantial improve
ments are made in academic programs.
These are Texas College at Tyler,
Jarvis Christian College at Hawkins
and Paul Quinn College at Waco. The
board commended teacher training at
three other predominantly Negro in
stitutions—Texas Southern, Prairie
View and Wiley College—as having
taken steps to remedy their deficiencies.
The board asked State Education
Commissioner J. W. Edgar to investi
gate possibility of setting up a study
to see what can be done to upgrade
Negro college education in Texas.
Dr. John D. Moseley, president of
Austin College and member of the ex
amining board, said the action taken
against the three colleges “should wake
up some of the educators in Negro col
leges, but also the community leader
ship and educators in white colleges to
do something about it.”
Political Action
Civil Rights Views
Seem No Factor
In State Voting
Civil rights views apparently made
little difference to Texas voters in the
Democrats’ smashing statewide victory
Nov. 3. Gov. John Connally, who in
curred animosity of many Negroes by
criticizing the federal civil rights law’s
public accommodations provision, led
the ticket among major contested races.
His opponent, Republican Jack Crich
ton, had called for an effective state
anti-riot act.
U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, who
voted for the civil rights bill while most
Texas congressmen opposed it, won
handily over Republican George Bush,
who criticized the federal law. Political
observers had predicted a segregation
ist “backlash” against Yarborough in
East Texas and elsewhere, but this did
not develop to any important extent.
Congressman-at-large Joe Pool
(Democrat), an opponent of the civil
rights act and sponsor of pro-segrega
tion bills several years ago as a state
Texas Highlights
Racial segregation in 54 tax-
supported colleges in Texas has
virtually disappeared, a new survey
disclosed. Enrollment of all races in
creased, and growing numbers of
Negroes attended colleges formerly
designated separately for whites and
Negroes.
Texas Commission on Higher Edu
cation ordered discontinuance of
Texas Southern University’s law
school, operated mainly for Negroes,
on the ground that better training
was available cheaper at other places
in the state.
The Texas State Teachers Associa
tion voted to admit Negro members.
Negro spokesmen said there would
be a long-time need for their separate
association.
representative, scored a big victory
over his Republican opponent, Bill
Hayes.
Asberry Butler Jr., 31, attorney, be
came the second Negro elected to
Houston’s school board when he de
feated two opponents, including in
cumbent L. L. Walker Jr., on Nov. 3.
Mrs. Charles White, Negro, has been
serving on the board for six years.
★ ★ ★
The woes of city government in Crys
tal City, a South Texas spinach-grow
ing center where Latin-American
laborers took control from Anglo-
American conservatives in a 1963
election, were reported by Carlos
Conde in the Dallas News.
Five Latin-Americans were elected
to the City Council in 1963. Two of the
new council members have been ousted
for failure to pay their utility bills. The
council also has had trouble over em
ploying a city manager and chief of
police, and both of these officials have
been dismissed at least once during the
year.
Mayor Juan Cornejo, who helped to
organize the political drive for the
Latin-American takeover, was said to
be drawing unemployment checks after
breaking off with the Teamsters union
for which he formerly was an organizer.
Schoolmen
White Teachers
Group To Accept
Negro Members
With a scattering of “No” votes from
the convention floor, the Texas State
Teachers Association voted at San An
tonio to open its membership to Ne
groes.
Most of the state’s 83,546 white teach
ers and 15,000 administrators belong to
the association. Most of the 14,000 Ne
gro teachers and administrators are
members of the Teachers State Asso
ciation of Texas.
Local teacher organizations still will
determine whether they wish to abolish
racial restrictions.
Mrs. Elizabeth Little of Corpus Chris-
ti, retiring president of TSTA, made
desegregation a main goal of her ad
ministration. She said it would not
mean dissolving the Negro-controlled
TSAT.
Dr. Vernon McDaniel, executive di
rector of TSAT, said it must continue
to operate as a separate entity for an
indefinite period.
“As desegregation progresses through
out the state, there will be an increasing
number of TSAT members displaced in
their teaching positions,” he wrote in
the September-October issue of its as
sociation magazine.
“The displaced teachers will need help
of an organization in several ways: to
find employment at other locations and,
sometimes, in different positions; to ar
bitrate grievances and to assist in pre
paring for new jobs; to promote pro
fessional growth activities which give
promise of developing competencies in
several areas of training.”
McDaniel added that the separate
Negro organization must continue to
MRS. LITTLE
McDaniel
help in the transition wrought by R<;
Supreme Court opinions on school de
segregation and the enactment of th'
federal Civil Rights Act.
Some Negroes will join the f onaef
all-white association, McDaniel predic
ted, but he urged Negroes to continue
to pay their dues in TSTA.
The Houston Post quoted Mrs. Mary
Lee Cooper of that city as saying that
she and some other conservative
teachers voted against desegrega
ting TSTA because she felt it should
merge with TSAT. Allowing Negroes to
belong to both associations “gives them
a double voice,” she said.
Dr. Lois Edinger, president of the Na
tional Education Association, said the
Texas group’s action complies with a
resolution of NEA demanding desegre
gation of all teacher organizations by
1966.
★ ★ ★
The Texas State Board or Education
called for the legislature to increase
teachers’ salaries in 1965. It did not rec
ommend an amount. The Texas State
Teachers Association is seeking a $405
raise for nine months, over the current
$4,004 minimum. Present salaries are
too low to attract and keep qualified
teachers, the board said.
★ ★ ★
At Dallas, Supt. W. T. White ex
pressed disappointment at the small
response from Negroes to a new voca
tional training program for adults
offered in a new $3 million high school.
Only 185 persons signed up for 27 vo
cational courses, which the school
offered this fall, and eight classes had
one student each.
Adult evening classes at Crozier Tech,
formerly all-white, have about 25 Ne
groes among 1,953 vocational students
this year, said Dr. White.
★ ★ ★
White Texans increasingly accept Ne
groes in public places, according to the
copyrighted “Texas Poll” by Joe Belden
of Dallas. Its interviewers said 52 per
cent of white persons contacted “accept
Negroes in school with white children,
compared to 41 per cent a year ago.
Fifty-nine per cent “accept” Negroes
in church gatherings, 54 per cent for
eating in restaurants, and smaller per
centages for most other joint gatherings.
Fifteen per cent would be willing f° r
their white child to have a Negro
roommate in college.
SOUTH CAROLINA
(Continued from Page 1)
“develop the record” in the event of
appeal. Sixteen days later, he ordered
Negro plaintiffs admitted to Charleston
schools.
The record of the Charleston case has
been used in lieu of testimony in other
South Carolina desegregation cases.
★ ★ ★
Schoolmen File Answer
In Teacher-Firing Case
Orangeburg school authorities, under
federal court attack by a dismissed Ne
gro teacher, denied in a pleading filed
Oct. 6 that the woman had been fired
solely because she is a member of the
NAACP.
The plaintiff in the case, Mrs. Gloria
B. Rackley, was discharged in October,
1963, after she had participated in pro
test demonstrations in both Orangeburg
and Charleston. On several occasions,
she was arrested.
In its answer, Orangeburg School
District 5 insisted she compromised her
usefulness as a teacher by advocating
the breaking of the law.
Letter Cited
The schoolmen said that District 5
Supt. Harris A. Marshall had written
Mrs. Rackley a letter reviewing her
racial picketing in downtown Orange
burg.
Quoted was the last paragraph of
that letter: “It would appear that you
have become so rabid in your desire
for social reform that you are advocat
ing breaking the law as a means of
calling attention to what you consider
your grievances.”
Mrs. Rackley had contended that her
rights under the 14th Amendment of the
Constitution had been violated by her
dismissal.
For three years prior to last October,
she was a third-grade teacher at Whit-
South Carolina Highlights
Charleston’s arguments that ethnic
differences should be a factor in
school placement were rejected
without comment by the U.S. Su
preme Court.
Orangeburg School District 5
denied that it had dismissed a Ne
gro teacher, who is seeking reinstate
ment in federal court, because of her
involvement in civil rights activities.
taker Elementary School in Orange
burg. She is a state officer of the
NAACP.
In the Colleges
Negro Students
At Clemson Wed
Clemson University’s first Negro stu
dents, Harvey B. Gantt and Lucinda
Brawley, were married Oct. 10 at the
bride’s home at Hopkins, near Colum
bia.
Gantt, an architectural major from
Charleston, was the center of nation
wide attention in January of 1963 when,
after a court fight, he became the first
Negro since Reconstruction to enroll in
a previously all-white South Carolina
college or public school. With his
peaceful entry, South Carolina became
the 50th and last state to have educa
tional desegregation. Gantt transferred
to Clemson from Iowa State.
Miss Brawley, an honor graduate of
Hopkins High School, became Clem-
son’s first Negro co-ed when she en
tered without court action in
September, 1963, as a freshman major
ing in mathematics.
Last year they were frequently seen
together on the Clemson campus. They
both attended the summer sessions
there this year and plan to continue
their educations at Clemson, where
they now have an apartment.
Schoolmen
Columbia Students
Apply for Grants
Richland District No. 1 School Dis
trict in Columbia received its first ap
plications for tuition grants Oct. 27.
The applications were submitted by
John R. Whalen Jr. on behalf of his two
sons. Whalen, a Columbia newsman,
has been driving his sons 45 miles daily
to private Wade Hampton Academy in
Orangeburg since Columbia schools ad
mitted 22 Negroes to its white schools
in September.
Wade Hampton Academy opened its
doors in a church and an old home
when Orangeburg’s schools were de
segregated at the opening of the present
term. Most of its students have applied
for tuition grants.
The grants program, instituted by
the General Assembly as a “safety
valve” against wholesale desegregation,
has not yet been used but several new
private schools in Charleston, Sumter
and Orangeburg are seeking to qualify
under its provisions in order that their
students can obtain grants.
Grants requests must be approved by
local school boards before they are sub
mitted to the State Department of Edu
cation.
When Whalen made his request,
Columbia trustees questioned whether
the Orangeburg private school had met
Ethnic Difference Contention Turned Down
state standards (it has not yet) i an
said they would take the appli c ab ons
under consideration for investigation
Community Action
White and Negro
Committees Named
To Seek Objectives
White and Negro executive corn ^ B
tees for the City of Columbia ^ iav ® )0n .
appointed and charged with the res P” c .
sibility of “determining definite o
tives” in a program to improve ^
relations in various areas w
Carolina’s largest city. ^
Mayor Lester L. Bates named s
members to both the white _ an __
committees—all coming * r ° lurn bia
equally divided 50-member 0
Community Relations Council. ^
The Negro executive committed £he
eludes two prominent leaders^
desegregation movement. One i j ea£ j.
M. Hinton, onetime state NAA ^ j a «'
er. Another is Lincoln C. Je ..
partner of NAACP attorney in
Perry and an associate wi gas 6
almost every school desegrega
in the state. group
Other members of the j) e ^ I T 0 j 1 nso n '
are T. J. Hanberry, Wffl* 3
John Northrup, John Whi th e
Walker Solomon, state he a ge-
Palmetto Education Association,
gro teachers organization. u p oi
The white committee is ™ eB) lab 0 ’’
textile lobbyist John K. *-' a , . s j ne ss Bie j
leader Sinway Young, £ a hn a* 1 "
David G. Ellison Jr., Irwm^ ^ vil liarr-
O. Stanley Smith Jr., arc (joIn® 5
Lyles and Dr. Frank Owe ,
bia mayor.