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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.