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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER, 1964—PAGE 7
MISSISSIPPI
Judge Considers Plea To Expand
Desegregation in Leake County
JACKSON
F ederal District Judge Sidney
]VIize took under advisement
) an NAACP Legal Defense Fund
’ r equest that he expand his Leake
i c 0 unty first-grade public-school
desegregation order to include
additional grades.
After hearing final arguments on the
i jujt, Mize told opposing lawers Oct. 6:
•‘It might be in the best interests of
| all children since there is not much
time between now and the date (Feb
ruary, when the order will be review-
' gd) and the county is moving on so
J smoothly . . . not to run considerable
! risk of incurring hostility by broaden
ing the order.”
Mize issued an order last summer
directing first-grade desegregation in
Leake County this fall. The order also
called for a review and possible broad
ening of desegregation in February.
Derrick Bell of New York, attorney
for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,
filed a motion for the hearing on Sept.
11. It sought “further relief” in the
court-ordered school desegregation
case.
Blames Pressures
Bell told the court last month that
threats and economic pressures had
resulted in only one Negro child enter
ing the first grade in September, in
stead of eight or nine as expected.
Bell said 58 children in higher grades
were interesetd in transferring from
Negro to white schools. Bell said he felt
that the pioneer efforts in desegregation
might fail unless additional pupils were
permitted to transfer.
Debra Lewis was the sole Negro to
enroll in the first grade at the previous
ly all-white Carthage Attendance Cen
ter. It was the only school in the county
which was desegregated. The four other
county schools did not receive any
applications from Negroes.
Debra’s father, A. J. Lewis, testified
at the hearing he was fired from his job
at a Carthage lumber company the day
after his daughter enrolled. But Judge
Mize said testimony failed to prove
Lewis lost the job because of the deseg
regation. Mize said Lewis rejected
another job “and made no effort to find
another one.”
Credit at Store
The judge refused to accept Lewis’
contention that he was unable to obtain
credit from a white grocer because of
me school case.
It’s routine that when a man is out
a job and not trying to find another
° ne that his credit might be cut off,”
Mize said.
He said there was “no actual evidence
anybody made a threat to Lewis or that
a°y threats had been carried out. .
The judge said it had not been proved
either school officials or other
citizens made an effort to interfere with
^segregation. Then he added: “I wish
o tell the good people of Leake County
mat the order of this court will be
ca j’ned out whether they like it or not.”
„ ,‘”ize said he would give the suit
deep study” and issue a ruling “in a
short while.”
f He no *ed a hearing was scheduled
°r February on his original desegrega-
°n order and indicated it might be
e n before he considers changing his
Previous directive.
Earlier Ruling
The earlier ruling gave tentative ap-
g.oval to plans to desegregate the first
t , this year in Jackson, Biloxi and
^ake County.
a/ Lurth Mississippi school system—
Clarksdale Municipal Separate
fed**” District also is under separate
orders to desegregate, but no
Sc ,®'° es applied to enter the white
Plant Negro leaders blamed a zoning
lip , blocking desegregation in pub-
alassrooms.
LoSh Coimt y School Supt. J. T.
°alv ?i t0 ^ bfize’s court in October that
Cartha °1108 white first-graders at the
tolled 6 sc b°°l had dropped out and
“g , at a segregated private school.
classes u° re topped out of the two
i bebra’ bad no Negroes than in
she b S f oom >” be testified. “Certainly
j ^ been accepted.”
Copjjj' ® m kh, counsel for the Leake
spe c ; Hoard of Supervisors and
kho-i att °mey for the county in the
ftoth ear ? a ,f e ’ sa fo that except for a “few
C °’ 1 ntia u ma j°rity of Leake
hop onH acce Pted the desegrega-
Wfo,, Jb e basis of no further changes
Tam Fe f 3ruar y-
>Pigb t ^ er fog with the order, he said,
Provoke disorder.
Mississippi Highlights
Federal District Judge Sidney
Mize took under advisement a re
quest from the NAACP Legal De
fense Fund to expand Leake County
public school desegregation.
Federal District Judge Sidney
Mize refused to grant an injunction
involving the wearing of “freedom”
buttons at a Negro school in Phila
delphia.
Gov. Paul B. Johnson and former
Gov. Ross R. Barnett will not go on
trial on federal contempt charges
before next year.
Mississippi schoolmen were com
mended by J. M. Tubb, state superin
tendent of education, for their
handling of public school desegrega
tion.
Twenty-four students attended a
new private school in Jackson,
reciting prayer and reading the Bi
ble.
A Brown University professor de
scribed Brown’s program to aid
predominantly Negro Tougaloo Col
lege as “immoral and a big mistake.”
Smith termed any acts of intimidation
against Negro parents as “isolated inci
dents.”
Mrs. W. E. Hudston, a Negro house
wife, testified the Bank of Carthage
foreclosed on her loan because of her
efforts to further desegregation. But
Smith produced bank records which he
said showed the loan was “in distress”
two years before it was foreclosed and
that she made no payments on the loan
for a full year before the foreclosure.
The Lewis child was enrolled quietly
and without incident.
Schoolmen
Administrators Get
Praise for Handling
Desegregation Issue
J. M. Tubb, state superintendent of
education commended the Mississippi
Association of School Administrators
for handling the desegregation issue
“in the finest way possible.”
“The public schools will endure,” he
told the fall meeting of the MASA in
Jackson on Oct. 20. “The people of
Mississippi appreciate the fine way
these cases have been carried out.”
Jackson, Biloxi and Leake County
desegregated their first grades this fall
under federal court orders. It was the
first school desegregation in Mississippi.
* There was no one who wanted to
be first,” said R. D. Brown, superinten
dent of the Biloxi schools—the first to
become biracial.
“You Can’t Win’
Fred McEwen, assistant superinten
dent of the Jackson school system, told
the group that carrying out classroom
desegregation is like “trying to win a
war you can’t win.”
He said that in accepting inevitable
desegregation “you can’t please all your
people—you can’t even make yourself
happy.”
I. V. Craig, superintendent of the
Quitman County schools, said a group
of Negroes who attempted to enter the
Marks High School this fall without
court orders were rejected because reg
istration had been previously completed.
“Of course,” he added, “the truth
of the matter was, none of these Negroes
are going to get into white schools with
out a court order, but we didn’t tell
them that.”
School Supt. D. M. Allen of Canton
said desegregation leaves school officials
in the position of “its hell if you do
and hell if you don’t.”
Clarksdale Supt. Gycelle Tynes dis
carded most of his prepared address
when he learned that newsmen were
present at the session. His schools are
under court orders to desegregate, but
have had no applications from Negroes.
Tynes warned that federal officials
acting under the new civil rights law
would visit “each one of you within
the next 20 days.”
Brown, the Biloxi school head, said
an official of the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare called him in
1962 and told him:
“In the morning it will be announced
that a suit has been filed against the
city of Biloxi.”
Brown said he decided to present the
problem first to the high-school stu
dents. He said he told them that
“violence is something the old folks are
starting. Don’t you do anything that will
get you in trouble.”
“I may have had tears in my eyes,”
he said. “But when the chips were
down, they were willing to obey the
law. Then we went to the administra
tors, and then to the faculty. We asked
that they not become involved in any
gossip.”
Lost One Teacher
Brown said Biloxi lost only one of 180
teachers because of the desegregation.
“Then we went to the City Council of
Parent-Teacher Associations,” he said,
“and this was our approach: This is
your school, your building, your tax
structure.
“It could be wiped out overnight if
the same thing happens here that has
happened in other communities. We did
not have anyone in the city who wanted
their schools destroyed.”
Brown said he and the school super
intendents agreed that press relations
were important and that it was nec
essary to “keep the news media off the
sidewalks and out of the buildings.”
For Continuing Schools
Concerted effort for the continuance
of a “system of free public schools for
Mississippi children” was urged in the
resolution’s report.
“We commend the state school boards
for their concerted effort to join hands
with school administrators to provide
the best education possible for Ml chil
dren of the state,” a resolution said,
“and ask them to stand firm in their
important place in education, especially
in the maintenance of a free public
school system.”
A resolution also pointed out:
“Public education must accept, along
with certain other agencies and institu
tions, the responsibility of imbuing this
great principle of democracy in the
character of all the people.”
A resolution also stressed the impor
tance of a citizenry “with proper res
pect for law and order.”
Population Shifts
Secretary of State Heber Ladner ad
dressed the MASA meeting, saying in
part:
“Another great problem is in the
shifting of population which has become
School Administrators at Meeting
C. A. Johnson, Starkville; Of/s W. Allen, LeFlore County, retiring president of
Mississippi Associaton of School Administrators; C. L. Morris, Avon, vice-
president elevated to the presidency.
a major influence confronting our edu
cational system. The phenomenal ac
complishments of our great nation came
as a result of a freedom of choice and
not conformity.
“We are today tasting the bitter dregs
of desegregation because of population
shifts and the ideological revolution
now going on in this country and the
result of pressure groups being con
centrated in metropolitan areas. It has
been 10 years since the desegregation
decision was rendered.
“During this time, about one per cent
of the Negro children have been forced
into all-white schools in 11 Southern
states through court actions. In many
instances, forced integration has re
sulted in resegregation.
“Take Baltimore for instance. Prior
to the Supreme Court decision, there
were 51,827 Negro students in all Negro
schools in this city. Ten years later, the
number had increased to 79,431 Negroes
in all Negro schools or in schools with
less than five per cent white enrollment.
“In Washington, D. C., between 1954
and 1963, the enrollment of Negro chil
dren increased 72 per cent while the
enrollment of white children declined
50 per cent.
“This is another example of that old
adage, ‘You can lead a horse to water,
but you cannot make him drink.’ ”
Economic Factor
Ladner said that “the economy of any
state is in direct proportion to the edu
cational opportunity of that state.”
“We have made tremendous progress
education-wise in Mississippi in the last
few decades,” he added, “and this has
been due in a large part to the fact that
Mississippians everywhere have shown
their willingness to meet this challenge
with their tax dollars.”
Some 500 Mississippi school adminis
trators attended the day-long sessions.
MASA is a department of the Missis
sippi Education Association.
Citizens’ Council School
Opens with 24 Enrolled
Twenty-four students attended class
es when the Jackson Citizens’ Council
opened its School No. 1 on Oct. 13.
William Simmons, executive director
of the Citizens’ Council, said the school
day was similar to public school routine
with the exception of a prayer which
was recited and the reading of the 21st
Psalm in the Bible.
Both compulsory Bible reading and
prayer have been banned in public
schools by the U. S. Supreme Court.
The school’s three instructors are
teaching the first six grades.
Three new private nonsectarian
schools are operating in Jackson this
year, bringing the total to six.
A law providing $185-a-year state
grants for children to attend private
nonsectarian schools as an alternative
to attending public schools was passed
by the legislature July 15.
Dr. Medford Evans, the councils’ edu
cational specialist, announced in Sep
tember that the tuition will be $375 a
year.
★ ★ ★
No dropouts have been reported
among the 58 Negro first-graders at
tending 13 previously all-white public
schools in three Mississippi school sys
tems under federal court orders.
Desegregation came to Mississippi
without incident this fall. The break
down:
• Jackson: 39 Negroes in eight
schools.
• Carthage: 1 Negro in one school.
• Biloxi: 18 Negroes in four schools.
Negroes failed to desegregate the
Clarksdale Municipal Separate School
District although it was under orders
to accept first-grade Negroes in prev
iously all-white schools in September
and second-grade pupils in January.
The Most Rev. R. O. Gerow, bishop
of the Catholic Mississippi Diocese, an
nounced on Aug. 9 that first-grade
(See MISSISSIPPI, Page 9)
Legal Action
Ban on ‘Freedom’ Buttons Upheld
Federal District Judge Sidney Mize
refused in October to grant an injunc
tion which would have restrained the
Philadelphia school board from enforc
ing a policy prohibiting students from
wearing “freedom” buttons to class.
In overruling a motion for the in
junction, Judge Mize left school officials
free to take disciplinary measures
against students who persist in wearing
the buttons.
The suit claimed the board’s policy
provided expulsion or suspension for
students “wearing any symbol, pin, tag,
button or piece of wearing apparel ad
vocating abolition of racial segregation
or identifying them with the Council
of Federated Organizations,” a civil
rights group.
Defendants were School Supt. J. E.
Hurdle, members of the school board
and Montgomery Moore, principal of
Booker T. Washington school, an all-
Negro schooL
Two Negro parents filed the suit on
behalf of Comzater and Martha Burn
side and Ajatha Morris, and as a class
action including other students sus
pended from the school in September.
Some 30 Suspended
Some 30 Negro students were sus
pended from attending classes after
they refused to remove the buttons.
Suspensions occured Sept. 21 and
Sept 24, when Moore gave the students
slips of paper informing their parents
they had been suspended because the
“freedom” buttons were not educational
and violated school policy.
One of the suspended students, 16-
year-old Linda Jordan, testified before
Mize that she acted in defiance of school
authorities and acknowledged that she
realized students were not allowed to
wear the buttons during class.
Moore said he made three announce
ments informing the student body the
buttons were outlawed.
‘Not Educational’
“We felt the buttons had no bearing
on education,” he testified. “They are
not educational and our teachers said
they were interfering with class work
because students were passing them
around and asking each other about
them.”
Mrs. Margaret Burnside said she
made no effort to return her children
to school after they were suspended
because she was busy “picking cotton.”
She said she was unaware her child
ren were wearing the buttons, but she
approved of them.
In denying the injunction, Mize said
Moore’s decision was “reasonable and
proper and should be upheld.”
“The wearing of the buttons,” Mize
said, “is unable to aid education, but
I can see where it would be a detri
ment to discipline.”
He said the court could find no argu
ment against wearing the buttons out
side of school.
The buttons said: “One Man, One
Vote. . .SNCC.” SNCC is the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee,
a member of COFO.
Johnson-Barnett Trial
Expected Next Year
Gov. Paul B. Johnson and former
Gov. Ross R. Barnett will not go on
trial before next year on federal con
tempt charges stemming from the Uni
versity of Mississippi desegregation in
the fall of 1962.
Judge Griffin Bell of the U.S. Court
of Appeals set these pre-trial deadlines
at a pre-trial conference in Atlanta:
• Lawyers for Johnson and Barnett
have until Nov. 30 to file further mo
tions in the case.
• The United States has until the
same date to file any additional motions.
• Reply briefs may be filed by both
sides on or before Dec. 31.
Bell ruled that the state of Mississippi,
in its role as “friend of the court,”
would follow the same schedule. Fol
lowing the preliminary steps, Bell said,
he would then issue an order setting
a date, place and manner of the actual
trial.
He said another pre-trial hearing
will be held before the case actually
goes to court.
Johnson and Barnett, who was gov
ernor on Sept. 30, 1962, when the ad
mission of Negro James Meredith
brought violence to the Oxford campus,
were accused by the government of
interfering with a federal court order
directing Meredith’s enrollment. Their
action, the government contends, placed
them in contempt of court.
Neither Johnson nor Barnett appear
ed at the pre-trial conference.