Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 14—MAY, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS SOUTH CAROLINA ost All COLUMBIA S outh Carolina, the last state to experience school desegrega tion in any form in this century, may have Negroes in school with whites in almost all its school dis tricts and most of its colleges by September. The turnabout has been enormously accelerated by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which may cut off vitally needed federal funds to non- conforming districts and institutions. The guidelines announced by the U.S. Office of Education April 29 prompted widespread comment and some criticism from the state’s educa tors and political leaders. Requirements for plans to desegre gate faculties in the future caused the greatest stir, although a number of schoolmen who had investigated closely were already aware of and working to meet the provisions of the guide lines. Letters to Districts In the wake of the guidelines came the disclosure from the U.S. Office of Education that U.S. Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel had written letters to 72 South Carolina school districts saying that plans submitted by them had been reviewed and found inadequate. Earlier, federal and state officials had refused to identify districts that had submitted plans of desegregation. Information had come only from local sources and it was far from complete. The list of districts that received Keppel’s letter added to those known to have attempted compliance. As April ended, 95 of the state’s 108 school districts and 20 of its public and private colleges reportedly had indicated they would comply with the provisions of Title VI of the act. Of the 95, five already are desegre gated under court order, 88 have sub mitted “freedom-of-choice” plans of desegregation and two have signed compliance forms, the last now consid ered probably fruitless in the light of comments by officials of the U.S. Office of Education. Rural Districts A number of rural districts, with heavy Negro population percentages, have agreed to desegregation plans. At month’s end, no plan submitted from the state had been accepted by the Office of Education, although both sides indicated the breakthrough was likely to come soon. State Supt. of Education Jesse T. Anderson indicated repeatedly that he believed the basic S.C. plan, almost identical to those approved by U.S. District Judge J. Robert Martin in sev eral cases, came close to meeting the requirements and faces no unsur- mountable difficulties. David S. Seeley, director of the fed eral Equal Educational Opportunities Program, has agreed. Facility Desegregation One major issue to be resolved is a firm promise of future faculty desegre gation. Individual notice to Negro par ents that they may transfer their chil dren to white schools, subject to specified administrative limitations, ap parently also will be required. It seemed likely that the first plan approved in the state would come from Richland County District 1 (Columbia). School board officials have conferred with Washington officials and on April 20 submitted additional information requested. The board refused to say what it was. But Supt. Anderson said he believed it would meet the test. The district did not receive Keppel’s letter. At a meeting of the State Board of Education April 16, Anderson showed some irritation at the slow pace of approval. “They say they’re working as hard as they can but don’t know when they’ll get around to us,” Anderson said. Anderson noted that approximate ly $1.9 million due South Carolina under the Voca tional Education Act and other sums due districts under the im pacted area plan were being held up pending ac ceptance. In the meantime a number of dis tricts are accepting transfer and initial assignment applications from Negroes. Districts May Be Desegregated in September Two presently segregated one-dis trict counties—Kershaw (Camden) and Aiken—have passed their deadlines and announced results. In Kershaw, two Negro children re quested initial assignment to the first grade and 58 others were seeking trans fer to white schools. Forty-four wanted to enter schools in Camden, the county seat. Another 11 made application at Bethune and five at Blaney School in Elgin. In Aiken, three of nine attendance areas received applications. The Gregg area, a textile region, got the most—44. They ranged from the first through the 12th grade. The City of Aiken got 32 from the first to the 10th grades. There were two in North Augusta. (The Aiken District announced last October that it would accept Negro students in its white schools in Sep tember, 1965.) There are many similarities between Aiken and Camden. Both are located on the state’s sandy Fall Line. Both are genteel centers of winter sport and recreation with numerous wealthy residents from the North. Fox-hunting, horse racing, polo and golf have been a way of life for generations. Of late, both communities have attracted major industry. 89 Compliances Reported A telephone survey of all 108 districts by Education Writer Jack Bass of The State newspaper of Columbia (printed on April 11) turned up 89 complying districts and a number of others who were working on plans. At that time, all districts in the fol lowing counties had indicated a desire to comply (number of districts in par entheses) : Abbeville (1), Aiken (1), Bamberg (3) , Beaufort (2), Berkeley (1), Charleston (8), Chester (1), Colleton (1) , Darlington (1), Dillon (3), Fair- eld (1), Florence (5), Greenville (1), Greenwood (3), Horry (1), Jasper (1), Kershaw (1), Lancaster (1), Lee (1), Lexington (5), McCormick (1), Marion (4) , Marlboro (1), Newberry (1), Oconee (1), Pickens (1), Richland (3), Saluda (1), Spartanburg (7), Sumter (2) , Union (1), Williamsburg (1), and York (4). Thus, from this survey it was learned that all 70 districts in these 33 counties (out of 46) had attempted compliance or were under court order. It also showed 19 additional districts in the same category. Gressette’s County Keppel’s letter noting inadequacies in submitted plans added slightly to this list. One of these additions, was the St. Matthews District in Calhoun County, home of State Sen. L. Marion Gressette, chairman of the state’s School (Gressette) Committee which was established a decade ago to fight desegregation moves. There was no indication yet that any of the three districts in Clarendon County had submitted forms, although the superintendents in all three told Reporter Bass they were working on plans. Clarendon’s Summerton District was involved in the 1954 Supreme Court decision but has taken no steps to comply with the court order. One of the major criteria laid down in Keppel’s guidelines offers no diffi- Legislative Action The Education and Public Works Committee of the South Carolina House reported out a limited compulsory school attendance bill April 21. With three dissenting votes, the com mittee approved a measure that would permit considerable local control. The state has been without a com pulsory attendance law for a decade. The previous one was repealed in the face of the 1954 Supreme Court decision on desegregation. Since then, laws against contributing to the delinquency of a minor have been used occasion ally to enforce school attendance. The bill, unanimously approved by a three-member subcommittee that stud ied the subject, falls short of the man datory measures sought by education associations. It provides that school officials re port to judges with jurisdiction over juvenile problems if a child between the ages of seven and 16 is not in at tendance. The court will investigate and can order the parent or guardian to South Carolina Highlights A reported 95 school districts had submitted evidence or plans of com pliance with the U.S. Civil Rights Act; 72 had received notice that their plans were inadequate; a faculty desegregation guideline stirred com ment. A vocational school with desegre gated faculty and student body was announced. A federal judge modified his order against Sumter District 2 to provide greater flexibility in its administra tion. Schoolmen answered a suit against the state’s tuition grants program. A legislative committee approved a limited compulsory school attend ance bill. culty in South Carolina. He said that, at the very least, four grades must be desegregated next fall. All S.C. plans submitted offer free choice to all grades. There also was evidence that re quirements concerning transportation and individual notice to parents will be met by a number of districts. But the faculty desegregation mat ter, although not an immediate re quirement, is likely to become thorny. The order of full desegregation by 1967 has also drawn fire. Thurmond Objects Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-SC, wired Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Anthony Celebreeze, expres sing shock and urging him to rescind the order. He said this attempt to “force” total mixing of students, buses and faculties within two years is “im practical and unwise.” In a subsequent statement, Thur mond said the guidelines illustrate “just how far these federal bureaucrats are going to go in trying to run the lives of the people.” Democratic Sen. Donald S. Russell, the state’s governor until his April 21 resignation, said the Office of Education went beyond what the law requires in setting up compliance rules and, as he has done before, urged S.C. schoolmen to go to the federal courts to seek relief from “harrassment and hardship” caused by the rules. New Gov. Robert E. McNair turned the guidelines over to Attorney Gen eral Daniel R. McLeod and said he would withhold comment until he had McLeod’s opinion. Finance Director P. H. Bomar said he was “discouraged” by the guidelines. enroll a child if it considers this to be in the best interests of the child. Education Committee Chairman Har old D. Breazeale said the bill “provides machinery to get at those you’re really after.” He predicted it would pass the House. ★ ★ ★ Education Leader Scored On Floor of State Senate Dr. Carlos W. Gibbons, executive secretary of the South Carolina Educa tion Association, was attacked on the floor of the State Senate April 7 for “wrongfully” leading South Carolina public-school teachers down the road to “integration and unionism.” The accuser was Dorchester County Sen. H. H. Jessen, an ex-sheriff. The senator was riled, he said, by a petition sent by teachers from two schools in his county to Gibbons. It said that since “the legislature ob- From state NAACP President J. Ar thur Brown came an indication that Negroes would return to the federal courts in an at tempt to add fac ulty desegrega tion to plans or dered by the courts in five state districts. Voluntary plans have been pat terned after these approved by the courts. Russell, in urging school dis tricts to seek de claratory judgments, said districts de segregating voluntarily should not be required to do more than those under court order. A survey of state education leaders, published May 2, sought to determine the effect of faculty desegregation. It indicated three likely prospects: • Some Negro teachers will lose their jobs. • A small number of white teachers will quit. • Most teachers will stay on the job. To Seek Minimum Walker E. Solomon, Negro executive secretary of the predominantly Negro Palmetto Education Association, said: “I imagine some Negro teachers will lose their jobs, but we’ll do our best to be certain it is kept at a minimum.” He produced statistics to support his statement that the average Negro teacher in the state is better qualified than the average white teacher. Printed in the 1963-65 annual report of the State Department of Education, the figures show that 98.1 per cent of 8,820 Negro teachers have college de grees as opposed to 94.4 per cent of the state’s 14,871 white teachers. Solomon said more than half of the Negro teachers with masters degrees obtained them out-of-state, often at major universities. This, he argued, refutes suggestions that Negroes often get bachelor degrees at inferior col leges. Dr. Carlos Gibbons, executive secre tary of the presently all-white S.C. Education Association, said he knew of one white teacher in desegregated Charleston who quit rather than teach mixed classes there. Sees Few Resignations He said he believes, however, that the majority of professional teachers, although “somewhat displeased with the impact and rapidity of desegrega tion,” will continue to teach. He thinks a “very small percentage” will quit. Dr. George Hopkins, director of teacher education and certification for the State Department of Education, agreed. Both Drs. Hopkins and Gibbons be lieved teachers could reasonably ex pect more attention to be given their salary status because of the additional stress created by social change. Mrs. Carolyn Brown, a Columbia teacher and former SCEA official, said she thought most white teachers would rebel if assigned to an almost all-Negro school, but doubted many would object strenuously to a half-and-half situa tion or less. “A person who is a professional classroom teacher is going to approach viously will do nothing to alleviate our economic plight, (we) feel you . . . should lead the teachers of South Caro lina in some sort of positive action.” Sen. Jessen said in a Senate speech that Gibbons had secretly inspired the petition. Charges “Engineering’ Jessen also accused Gibbons of “en gineering” the March vote of the SCEA in which the organization dropped its racial barriers. “. . . When he did that,” Jessen charged, “he integrated the school or ganizations at the local level, as well as the state level. I will tax my people through the nose before I will freely say we must integrate. I will give the (U.S.) government back every dime be fore I will do that.” Gibbons said after an earlier attack in a similar vein in the House that he was merely acting on behalf of the SCEA board when he made statements concerning the desegregation resolution before the SCEA’s March convention. this thing in a reasonable way,” she added. Federal Funds Needed Richland County District 5 Supt. John W. Baucum, who announced that a new vocational school in his district would have a desegregated faculty and student body, said: ‘We have had some adverse reaction, but people in general understand that we are trying to provide training for teenagers to enter the labor market and a district with the financial ability of ours must have federal funds to help us build such a school.” A veteran white teacher, who has worked with Negro teachers in work shops, thinks most are far better quali fied than most people think. Almost everyone interviewed agreed that the greatest difficulties are likely to come in rural areas of large Negro populations and generally lower salary schedules. One superintendent summed the sit uation up this way: “People are going to be forced to do things against their will and they are going to feel, rightly so, that some of their freedoms are taken from them. Federal control is here. “But people will adjust. It’s human nature.” ★ ★ ★ Richland District Plans Unsegregated Vocational School What is believed to be South Caro lina’s first public school with a biracial faculty as well as student body is planned by Richland County School District 5. Supt. John W. Baucum said April 14 an area vocational school will be built on a centrally located 30-acre tract to serve students at the district’s three high schools, two of which are all-Negro at present. Baucum said the school would have both white and Negro instructors. The district, commonly known as Lower Richland, sprawls over the southeastern part of the county that has its seat in Columbia, the state’s capital city. It is largely rural but contains a fast-growing suburban area. In 1963-64, it had 3,616 Negro and 1,987 white students in average daily at tendance. No Desegregation Yet To date, there has been no desegre gation in the district, but during April Baucum submitted a “freedom-of- choice” plan of desegregation to the U.S. Office of Education in an effort to comply with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Half of the cost of the vocational school will come from federal funds. The school, to be known as Lower Richland Vocational Center, will cost $210,000. The site was purchased for $16,000 and equipment will add another $55,000. Construction will begin in June, with completion expected by the end of the year. The faculty will consist of nine in structors and a director. Courses will be offered in auto mechanics, auto body repair, general electricity, plumbing, commercial cook ing, masonry, carpentry, air condition ing-refrigeration and farm machinery mechanics. Adult classes will be offered in the evenings. Legal Action U. S. Judge Allows More Flexibility In Sumter Action Federal Judge Robert W. HempWh modifying a previous desegregation der against Sumter School District 2 on April 26, gave the schoo ^ greater administrative flexibility^^ carrying out his 1964 order f° r gg desegregation” during the school term. e „ In a lengthy order that simul ^ ously chastised overly eager N e g rc | _ n tivists and threatened white sc ^ 0< ^ ijgd with contempt citations if they ^ to carry out his orders, Judge HefflP ^ agreed to a “freedom-of-choice ^ for the Sumter district similar t0 - u( jge approved by his senior colleague, (See OFFICIALS, Page 15) Limited Attendance Bill Recommended THURMOND CELEBREZZE