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PAGE 6—JANUARY, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ALABAMA
New Suit Asks
Mobile Schools
For Total Plan
MONTGOMERY
petition asking for total de
segregation of six grades in
the Mobile school system, together
with faculty desegregation, was
filed in U.S. District Court in Mo
bile Dec. 23.
The new suit was filed before U.S.
District Judge Daniel Thomas. It asked
for desegregation of the first and sec
ond grades in the city-county school
system and the desegregation of all
high-school grades, nine through 12.
The court was asked to enjoin the
school board “from continuing policies
designed, intended and having the ef
fect of minimizing school desegrega
tion.”
The petition noted that only seven of
15 Negro applicants for transfer were
accepted in previously all-white schools
last September and that only two of 20
applicants had been accepted the prev
ious fall, when the school system was
first desegregated.
The rejected Negro applicants, ac
cording to the suit filed by NAACP
Legal Defense Fund attorney Derrick
Bell Jr., were condemned to “Negro
schools which are inferior to white
schools.”
Critical of Board
Bell’s petition also was critical of the
board for allegedly failing to assure
parents of Negro students of their rights
and for not making it known that Ne
gro students will not be denied equal
treatment by teachers and other faculty
personnel in white schools.
The suit asked the court to require a
“reasonable start” in the 1965-66 school
term to “terminate the policy of assign
ing all teachers and other faculty per
sonnel on the basis of race or color.”
The school board already is under
federal court order to desegregate the
1st, 10th, 11th and 12th grades. The
order followed a formula for minimum
compliance laid down by the U.S. Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals June 18, 1964
(SSN, July, 1964).
The formula, calling for desegrega
tion of the first, 10th, 11th and 12th
grades this school year, followed by two
grades a year thereafter, from the
higher grades down and the lower
grades up, has been applied by all fed
eral judges in Alabama in their orders
to school boards. The formula calls for
desegregation of all grades by 1969.
Eight Districts
Desegregation began with four dis
tricts—Macon, Mobile, Birmingham and
Huntsville in the fall of 1963—joined by
four others last fall—Montgomery, Ma
dison County, Bullock County and
Gadsden. All desegregation was court-
ordered. (SSN, September and Oc
tober.) The total was 94 students in the
eight districts where desegregation
came for the first time last fall or was
expanded.
All districts are under orders to sub
mit plans for further desegregation to
the respective courts in January.
If the minimum formula is imple
mented, Mobile would desegregate the
grades mentioned in Bell’s suit next
fall. However, he sought a liberalized
admission policy, desegregation of fac
ulties, etc.
★ ★ ★
Alabama was directly affected by the
U.S. Supreme Court refusal Dec. 7 to
rule on Justice Department efforts to
compel desegregation of public schools
near military installations. The Ala
bama case involved schools in the
Huntsville area, site of vast federal
space and rocket installations. (See
Washington report.)
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals had ruled that “no occasion can
arise for the suggested unprecedented
and extremely dangerous exercise of
the war powers to effect the operation
of the public schools of the state.” The
Supreme Court let the appellate de
cision stand.
Miscellaneous
Tuskegee High
Again Accredited
Tuskegee High School—ordered de
segregated in the fall of 1963, then
closed in January of 1964 because of a
total boycott by white students—was
reaccredited Dec. 2 by the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools.
Alabama Highlights
A petition seeking total desegre
gation of six grades in the Mobile
school system was filed in U.S. Dis
trict Court. The new action also
sought faculty desegregation.
State Sen. Ryan deGraffenried of
Tuscaloosa, runner-up to George C.
Wallace in the 1962 gubernatorial
primary, said in a speech that public
excitement over the race issue seemed
to be subsiding.
Accreditation was withdrawn after
the school was closed. Only the Negroes
ordered admitted remained in attend
ance. The school reopened with de
segregated classes last September.
Enrollment was down from the previous
average of 250, but a substantial num
ber of white students went back to
class with 14 Negro students.
★ ★ ★
Gov. George C. Wallace sent a special
Christmas message to the founders of
Macon Academy, a private white school
organized in 1963 to accomodate the
students boycotting Tuskegee High. His
message read:
“I extend congratulations to the fine
people who founded and developed Ma
con Academy on their courage and
determination. These people refused to
surrender when their school system was
taken over by the federal court system.
It will take determination and spirit
such as that shown by these fine people
if we are to retain our individual li
berty and freedom.”
Wluil They Say
DeGraffenried Says
Race Issue Begins
To ‘Settle Down’
Former State Sen. Ryan deGraffen
ried of Tuscaloosa, runner-up to George
C. Wallace in the 1962 gubernatorial
contest and an unofficial candidate for
the 1966 race, said in a Montgomery
speech Dec. 11:
“. . . In the race field, things are be
ginning to settle down. I only hope that
both sides will refrain from influencing
people emotional
ly so that we can
accomplish some
thing.”
The race issue
is important, he
said, but it is not
the only issue.
The state cannot
afford to be
“bogged down in
race to the exclu
sion of all else.”
In the 1962 cam
paign, deGraffenried was generally re
garded as a moderate segregationist. He
warned against the danger and futility
of defiance. He has been outspoken in
his insistence on law and order.
Reflecting on the Nov. 3 defeat of the
Deomcratic Party in Alabama, the
chairman of the State Democratic Exe
cutive Committee told a Mobile audi
ence in December that Alabama has
“gotten out of the mainstream of
American political life.”
He said the reason was “the emo
tional issue of segregation,” which gave
Alabama to Sen. Barry Goldwater,
ousted five Democratic Congressmen
and defeated many Democratic office
holders on the local level.
“We have become more like a colony
than a state,” Judge Roy Mayhall of
Jasper said. “We need to get back into
the United States. This nation can’t
exist as 50 separate countries.”
He said that in the campaign before
the general election “the John Birch
Society and the Ku Klux Klan and
other organizations raised the segrega
tion issue for emotional effect.” Their
real purpose, he added, “is to control
the economic life of the country.”
Alabamians should know, Mayhall
declared, that “we are part of this
country and we can’t fight the federal
government.” Young people have been
led to feel that “they do not need to
respect our courts or our laws,” May
hall said. That attitude can lead to
trouble, he added.
★ ★ ★
Much of the same note was sounded
by outgoing Congressman Carl Elliott
of Jasper, loser in the Democratic pri
mary last June after 16 years in Con
gress. At a testimonial dinner in
Birmingham, he said he regretted not
having done more “to heal the breach
that is splitting our state from the rest
of the country.”
DE GRAFFENRIED
ARKANSAS
Rights Act
(Continued from Page 1)
court has approved. Mrs. Martin said it
could.
Whitmore said that desegregation
was moving smoothly in the Pine Bluff
and Dollarway districts because both
school boards had taken pains to edu
cate their patrons to the requirements
of their programs. This takes time, he
said, but “it’s much more important to
work with deliberation than it is to
have immediate compliance.”
Determan said it had been deter
mined that the school lunch and milk
programs were designed to furnish
nourishment, not as aids to education,
and so desegregation is not required to
take part in those programs. But this
aid still must be distributed “on an
equitable basis” among schools and pu
pils of different races, he noted.
To Smooth Desegregation
Federal programs under the Civil
Rights Act to smooth the desegregation
process in local school districts were
also described to the schoolmen. Mrs.
Martin said these programs could be
the most far-reaching under the act
and expressed disappointment that
they did not appear to generate much
excitement at the meeting.
There are three of the programs. One
is technical assistance, in which either
consultants are sent to the local dis
tricts or material such as reports, films
and other information is furnished to
the district for its information and
guidance. Another covers in-service
training of teachers in desegregation
problems or the employment of special
ists on these problems, for which fed
eral grants will be available. The third
is special training in desegregation
problems at colleges, for which teachers
may receive grants for their fees and
expenses.
★ ★ ★
Another request for relief of over
crowding of Jones Junior-Senior High,
for Negroes, at North Little Rock was
made Dec. 10 and was immediately
turned down.
Some of the Negro students could be
transferred to the white junior high
schools at mid-term, it was suggested
by John W. Smith, Negro building con
tractor. Leon Hoisted, board president,
answered, “You can’t burst into any
school in the middle of the year. The
white junior highs are crowded, too.”
The Jones School situation has been
a sore point with the Negro community
for several years, both because it is
crowded and because both junior and
senior students attend the same school.
‘Crowded Situation’
Smith said at a school board meeting:
“What plan does the board have to do
something about the crowded situation
at Jones? It was built for 600 and now
there are 1.300 students. I am asking the
board to look into this situation. I have
six children and if they are not getting
their share, then it is my duty as a
parent to counsel them to see that they
get their share. There are three junior
high schools for white children and
none for the colored children.”
Hoisted said the Negro community
was no more concerned about this than
was the school board. He said the board
had twice asked for higher taxes to
build a new Negro school and twice the
increase had been “turned down by
both the white and Negro communi
ties.”
Supt. F. B. Wright said the board had
needed the tax increase to build a new
Negro elementary school, and then
would have converted Lincoln Elemen
tary to a junior high for Negroes. The
last money from the 1960 construction
bond issue went to complete Crestwood
Provisions
Mrs. Ruby G. Martin
Civil rights lawyer.
Elementary, for whites, he explained,
and “we are at a standstill until we can
go back to the people again and ask for
more millage.”
What They Say
Newspaper Criticizes
Civil Rights Law
The Arkansas Democrat of Little
Rock has made plain before its disap
proval of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Two of the paper’s editorials in De
cember included the following:
On Dec. 1: “Burke Marshall, assistant
U. S. attorney general, who heads the
civil rights division in the Justice De
partment, calls the new civil rights act
an overwhelming success. It is a dismal
success in one respect. It writes into
free America’s law an act which be
longs in a Communist code. Look at the
following citation from Title VI of the
new act; ‘No person in the United States
shall, on the ground of race, color or
national origin, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any program or activity receiv
ing federal assistance.”
The Democrat then listed school dis
tricts among the agencies that will be
affected by that provision and con
cluded, “If it isn’t repealed, or sharply
Arkansas Highlights
How the new Civil Rights Act
will affect public schools was ex
plained Dec. 7 at a meeting of school
officials and others at Little Rock.
Negro plaintiffs in the new Little
Rock desegregation lawsuit filed 32
questions for the school board to
answer before the trial.
Legal Action
Explained
toned down, as we believe it will be a
blackjack should replace the torch
which the Statue of Liberty holds aloft ”
On Dec. 12: “Federal aid not only
will be used as bait for speeding inte.
gration but that assistance will give the
U. S. Office of Education under the civil
rights law direct entry into local school
matters. . . . Now it has a mandate from
Congress to take an active part in as
sisting desegregation of public educa
tion facilities. . . . Direct federal control
of education will start Jan. 4 when the
civil rights law goes into effect.”
Community Action
Citizens’ Council
Meets in Texarkana
A meeting was held the night of Dec.
10 at the Grim Hotel, the main down
town hotel in Texarkana, for what was
called the remobilization of the Tex
arkana Citizens’ Council. Thirty-eight
persons attended, and 35 signed mem
bership cards; 460 persons had been
invited.
The Citizens’ Councils appeared in
Arkansas in 1955 as a direct result of
the 1954 Supreme Court decision and
were active for several years, especially
in opposing school desegregation at
Hoxie, Little Rock and Dollarway-Pine
Bluff. But little has been heard from
them in the last four or five years.
The Texarkana meeting was organ
ized by W. V. Brown Sr., a lawyer; G.
A. Couch, owner of an electrical firm;
Weldon Glass, in the insurance busi
ness, and Robert Beeson, pharmacist.
The meeting was publicized in advance
in the local papers and one of the
speakers, Dr. Medford Evans of Jack-
son, Miss., consultant to the Citizens'
Councils of America, spoke the day
before the meeting to the Texarkana
Kiwanis Club. The other speaker was
Richard D. Morphew of Jackson, Miss.,
public relations director of the Citizens'
Councils of America.
Their theme was that Communists
are involved in a conspiracy to over
throw the existing order in the world
with racial agitation.
★ ★ ★
The Arkansas Project of the Student
Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee
(SNCC) announced that it would move
its headquarters in January from Pine
Bluff to Little Rock. SNCC now has
offices at Pine Bluff and Helena, and
plans to open offices at Camden, El
Dorado and Texarkana, in addition to
Little Rock.
James O. Jones, 21, Negro, heads
SNCC in Arkansas, assisted by William
W. Hansen Jr., 22, white, both of Pin e
Bluff. They said the Little Rock head
quarters would be maintained by Miss
Arlene Wilgoren, 22, of Boston, a grad
uate of Brandeis University, who was
sent to Arkansas in August from the
SNCC office in New York.
Negroes File List of Questions
For Board in Little Rock Suit
Negro plaintiffs in the new Little
Rock school desegregation lawsuit
(Clark v. Matson) filed 32 questions
Dec. 18 for the school board to answer
before trial which was scheduled for
Jan. 5.
This is done under a federal court
procedure designed to shorten the
amount of testimony to be given during
a trial. All the questions dealt with the
school board’s policies and record in
desegregation.
The school board says it stopped
using school attendance or registration
areas in 1959 and since then has as
signed pupils to schools according to the
criteria in the state pupil assignment
law. The Negroes contend that the
board has used the assignment law in
an unconstitutional way to limit the
amount of desegregation, and that the
board should have an attendance area
for each school with all pupils in that
area attending that school. This would
mean that whites would be in the
minority in some schools.
Some of the questions, which were
written by John W. Walker of
York and Little Rock, one of
tomeys for the Negro plaintiffs, to
• “Set out with particularity^
geographic registration areas of
school and attach a map which
such areas to your response.
• “List the names, addresses, set* *
attended and reason for assl *P" ar e
thereto of all white students w ^
presently enrolled in schools o
their ‘registration’ areas.” u
• “During the 1961-1964 sC ear -
years, what was the number, on a ^ er .
by-year basis, of Negroes whose p
ence for attending Horace
School [for Negroes] was deIU< T' eSS of
• “Set out the name and a *
each white student who has e jjjc
assigned to predominantly Negr
schools in Little Rock.” yob
• “Are there any obstacle
will prevent the racially »°^ dents 10
inatory assignment of alt _ . erl ibe r
the public schools for the „
1965 school term? If so, list tn