Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16—MAY, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ALABAMA
State Superintendent Confers with Keppel
Alabama Highlights
MONTGOMERY
labama Supt. of Education
Austin R. Meadows said after
a conference with the U.S. Com
missioner of Education April 21
that he had a fuller understanding
of what is expected of schools in
compliance requirements under
the Civil Rights Act.
Meadows and two aides talked with
Commissioner Francis Keppel in an
effort to reach some understanding on
the compliance issue which would en
able the state systems to receive more
than $52 million in annual federal aid.
On April 2 (SSN, April), Keppel had
written to Meadows expressing “grave
concern as to whether this office can
continue legally to provide funds to
your department under the several pro
grams which we administer.”
In that strongly worded letter, Kep
pel told Meadows that Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act, which bars federal
aid to segregated state and local ac
tivities, “makes it clear that the opera
tion of segregated schools—a dual
school system for white and Negro
pupils — constitutes discrimination
which is prohibited by law.”
Although 111 of Alabama’s 118
school districts have signed pledges of
compliance or otherwise responded,
from the persistence of segregation in
most of them, Keppel said, “we can
only conclude that they did not realize
they were committing themselves to
full and immediate compliance or they
did not understand what full compli
ance means.”
Not Sufficient
The signing of the assurance form is
not sufficient in itself, Keppel said.
After the April 21 conference with
Keppel, Meadows said:
“We talked over the controversial
issues and we are going to continue
to discuss and explore possible solu
tions to the problem to keep the door
open for the school children of Ala
bama to benefit from federal funds.”
Keppel had warned that desegrega
tion plans must be submitted by early
May “at the latest” for next fall.
One point in the Meadows-Keppel
discussion was whether the State De
partment of Education could obtain
and distribute federal aid when the
State Board of Education had refused
to sign the compliance form. Meadows
personally signed the form after the
board’s refusal (SSN, March and
April).
In mid-April, local and city school
superintendents were warned, in an
explanation prepared by a consultant
to the U.S. Office of Education, to sub
mit plans to desegregate beginning at
both the top and bottom grades this
faU.
Meadows mailed the advisory, pre
pared by G. W. Foster Jr., a law pro
fessor in a consultant capacity with
the U.S. Office of Education, with a
brief explanatory note pointing out
that Foster himself could not give as
surances his “GuideHnes for Southern
School Desegregation” would suffice in
complying with the Civil Rights Act.
Meadows advised local school of
ficials that the information was “for
your use or non-use as you see fit.”
Foster pointed out that the U.S. Of
fice of Education had not adopted court
rulings as the standard for voluntary
desegregation plans under Title VI of
the Civil Rights Act. But, he added,
“It would appear unlikely the com
missioner of education will accept less
than required by judicial standards in
passing on voluntary plans.”
Independent Judgment
The guidelines warned, that the ed
ucation commissioner is free to reach
an independent judgment on compli
ance by all other school systems. (SSN,
April.)
“He is certainly not bound to follow
lower court rulings which call for the
most minimal amounts of desegrega
tion,” Foster said. “It can be said with
certainty that no plan will be approved
which works exclusively from the top
down. It will be essential for approval
that there be in all instances desegrega
tion which begins without restriction
on the lowest grade levels in the school
systems.”
Beyond that, Foster said, any district
which has a desegregation program that
works from the first grade up “must
either apply the policy to pre-school
clinics and kindergartens or state that
classes at these levels are not held.”
Clearly, he said, the surest course “is
to make the desegregation program
available generally to all grades for
the faU of 1965.”
If less than this is done, Foster’s ad
vice continued, “desegregation should
Alabama Supt. of Education Aus
tin R. Meadows reported, after a
conference with the U.S. Commis
sioner of Education, that he had
acquired a better understanding of
compliance requirements under the
Civil Rights Act.
Muscle Shoals City, Florence,
Tuscumbia and Russellville an
nounced plans to desegregate their
city school systems completely by
next fall. Total desegregation was
also expected in the three county
systems of Colbert, Franklin and
Lauderdale by next fall.
The Alabama Chamber of Com
merce and 21 other business and
professional groups advertised in
all state papers, and in two na
tional publications, enunciating a
belief in obeying federal laws. Other
state leaders also spoke out against
“futile defiance.”
be installed from the bottom of the
system upward and from the top
down.”
Plans should emphasize, he added,
provisions of notice of administrative
details on initial assignment, reassign
ment and lateral transfer.
In a prepared statement April 7,
Meadows insisted that Alabama had
complied with the Civil Rights Act, but
that the U.S. Office of Education had
changed its original instructions to the
state on how to qualify for continued
federal aid.
Keppel’s letter to him, he said,
“specifically reverses his original in
structions and Title VI itself in insist
ing on a ‘desegregation plan’ from each
and every Alabama school system be-
What They Say
Incidents, violence and state policy,
as reflected in recent voter protests in
Alabama, brought comments from state
business, professional and political
leaders which, while not directly in
volving school desegregation, had
broad application.
The most important of these was an
advertisement printed in every daily
newspaper in the state, in the Wall
Street Journal and in U.S. News and
World Report, entitled “What We Be
lieve And Where We Stand.”
Signed by the Alabama State Cham
ber of Commerce, the Alabama Bankers
Association, Associated Industries of
Alabama, Alabama Textile Manufac
turers Association and a number of
local Chambers of Commerce—22 sign
ers in all—the ad called for law and
order. Some excerpts:
“We believe in the full protection
and opportunity under the law of all
our citizens, both Negro and White. . .
We believe in the basic American
heritage of voting and in the right of
every eligible citizen to register and
to cast his ballot. . . We believe in
obedience to the law, even though some
may question the wisdom of particu
lar laws. . . We believe that communi
cation between different elements of
our society must be maintained. We
urge leaders of both races to improve
avenues of communication and under
standing. While this has been done
successfully in many local communi
ties, we suggest that consideration be
given to the establishment of positive
new vehicles for communications be
tween the races through all the
state. . . We believe that an ever in
creasing level of education is an im
portant objective. . .”
The ad also declared belief “in the
basic human dignity of all people of
all races.”
It was the first such declaration by
such a united group of business and
professional leaders in the state.
★ ★ ★
Winton M. Blount, immediate past
president of the Alabama State Cham
ber of Commerce, said in a speech at
Birmingham April 21 that “for too
long, too many of us have permitted
our region’s worst enemies to speak for
Alabama.”
He said the appearance of the ad,
(above) “represents the most vital and
significant statement which has come
forth to date in response to the critical
conditions with which Alabama has
been faced.”
He described Alabama as one of the
fore such school system can receive
federal funds.”
Meadows said Title VI “nowhere uses
the words ‘desegregation’ or ‘integra
tion’ or any other synonym of similar
meaning.”
Alabama compliance agreements were
signed, Meadows added, “in full faith
and intent to comply with Title VI
of the Civil Rights Act.”
Target Date
No school systems were listed as not
being in compliance in the March 4
plan, he continued, because it was
understood that the March 4 date was
a target date and not a final deadline
date.
Only three county boards of educa
tion—those of Bibb, Conecuh and
Marengo counties—and only four city
school systems—Bessemer (which filed
suit March 11 challenging the HEW
directive — SSN, April), Demopolis,
Mountain Brook and Tarrant City—
declined or failed to submit the agree
ments, court order or a plan.
“The systems that do not submit
compliance agreements prior to July 1,
the beginning of the federal fiscal year,
will,” Meadows said, “be properly listed
with the U.S. Commissioner of Educa
tion as a part of the state compliance
agreement and such systems will be
required to submit desegregation plans
before ever receiving any federal funds
or submit a federal court order on de
segregation.”
★ ★ ★
School Boards Planning
Total Desegregation
The city boards of education of
Muscle Shoals, Florence, Tuscumbia
and Russellville revealed plans in late
April for total desegregation of their
schools next fall.
The Sheffield board of education also
was prepared to do the same, along
‘I Think I May Be Beginning
To See It. .
“last bastions of resistance to the
changes that have swept the country
in the last several years.”
Without mentioning Gov. George
Wallace by name, he criticized political
symbols of defiance. He said Alabama
must understand its problems and deal
with them effectively or suffer the
consequences.
★ ★ ★
Attorney General Flowers
Explains His Position
State Attorney General Richmond
Flowers, long at odds with Gov. George
Wallace’s campaign of all-out resistance
in racial matters (SSN, April), ex
plained his position in a Tuscaloosa
speech April 22:
“Just because I choose to speak
factually and with reason and mod
eration, and strongly disagree with
the methods used by the governor of
Alabama in his resistance to school
integration, does not mean I am not a
strong segregationist—I am.
“The time has come, however, for
someone to face all facts realistically
and speak frankly and practically.”
Flowers again attacked the Gov
ernor’s “stand in the schoolhouse door”
at the University of Alabama two
years ago as “sheer demagoguery.” He
continued:
“We must face the fact that Alabama
leadership and Alabama’s defiant at-
ALABAMA O HIGHWAY DEPT.
It-J eMetMApvr
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
with the Colbert, Franklin and Lauder
dale county boards.
All of the systems were reported to
have embraced plans to desegregate on
the basis of zoning or freedom-of-
choice or both.
City schools in Florence and Sheffield
had token desegregation, it was re
vealed, at the beginning of the last
school term.
Supt. Rufus R. Hibbett of the Flor
ence board of education said:
“The issue posed for Southern
schools, including the Florence city
system, by Title VI of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act, is not whether they will
desegregate. It is whether they will de
segregate with or without continuing
federal assistance.”
The Tuscumbia announcement was
made by Supt. R. E. Moore. Supt.
James F. Moore Jr., of Muscle Shoals
announced that the board there had
agreed to comply with the law, be
coming the first Colbert County school
titude is painting us into a comer. If
you will just look about you and ex
amine the leadership ... of every state
in the nation except our own, you must
decide that everyone else in the coun
try is wrong and we are right, and all
you have to do is hate long enough
and hate hard enough and all this will
disappear and we will return to the
days of complete segregation that our
Southland once knew. . .
“If we are going to survive as any
thing but bitter, belligerent individuals,
always looking back and never for
ward, we must practice understanding,
tolerance, moderation, and, above all,
self-control.”
In a statement earlier in the month,
Flowers said Alabama “apparently
stands alone in hopeless defiance,”
while leaders in Mississippi and Lou
isiana are “sparing their state what
Alabama is going through. They are
speaking out for moderation. They are
profiting from Alabama’s mistakes
where Alabama once could have prof
ited from theirs . . . Segregation as we
know it is gone. . .”
★ ★ ★
The Alabama Council on Human Re
lations, in a release April 21, called
for “one great month of progress” in
racial relations in Alabama, to obtain
equal opportunities for all.
The proposal was prefaced with the
observation that the “great majority
of white citizens of Alabama are now
ready to accept and facilitate change
but are afraid to advocate it because
the climate of opinion is determined by
a vociferous minority which makes
bold a lunatic and criminal fringe who
commit acts of violence and intimida
tion.”
The 850-member council urged lead
ership by office holders, law enforce
ment agencies, churches, business, in
dustry, labor groups and others.
★ ★ ★
Alabama Republican leader John
Grenier, responding to U.S. Commis
sioner of Education Francis Keppel’s
compliance directives to Alabama (see
Schoolmen), said all Alabamians should
take a stand against accepting federal
aid to education.
“We should recognize (from Keppel’s
letter to School Supt. Meadows) that
federal controls will not stop with in
tegration of schools, but will descend to
individual members of local school
boards to matters of textbook content,
teacher qualification, school construc
tion and many other matters.”
Business Leaders Urge Law and Order
on Funds
system to announce plans for total
desegregation.
★ ★ ★
Gov. George C. Wallace met with
Negro educators April 16 to discuss a
“war on dropouts.” The governor said
he was appreciative of the interest of
the Negro educators in seeing their
institutions grow and flourish.
Dr. R. D. Morrison, president of Ala
bama A&M, in Huntsville, said he was
“most pleased” at the governor’s inter
est not only in the dropout problem
but in the financial needs of Negro
education generally in Alabama.
School desegregation, according to
reports, was not discussed. Representa
tives included presidents of the major
Negro state colleges, trade school direc
tors and others.
On the same day of the meeting, 13
civil rights demonstrators picketed in
front of the offices of the State Depart
ment of Education, protesting the fact
that there are no Negroes on the State
Board of Education and claiming that
Negroes have no voice in educational
policy.
Legal Action
Negroes Appeal
Court’s Denial
Negroes seeking total desegregation
of Mobile public schools appealed, in
April, U.S. District Judge Daniel H.
Thomas’s denial of their request for
“further relief’ and of their claim of
a right to desegregated education.
Judge Thomas refused March 31 to
expand further the desegregation of
Mobile schools he has ordered for the
fall term (SSN, April). Negroes seek
more rapid desegregation and assign
ment to schools on the basis of near
ness only. They also seek to relieve
parents of the direct and personal re
sponsibilities of requesting transfers
from one school to another, a procedure
approved by Judge Thomas.
★ ★ ★
Desegregation of Bullock County’s
schools was expanded by two grades in
the board’s plan for further desegrega
tion in September. The county deseg
regated grades nine, 10 and 12 in 1964
and had proposed to add only the 11th
grade this fall.
The Justice Department objected and
the board offered to add grades seven
and eight in September. A scheduled
court hearing on the Justice Depart
ment’s objections April 12 was can
celled. However, objections remained
on the exclusion of the first grade and
the pace of desegregation.
★ ★ ★
A hearing on objections to the pace
of desegregation in Montgomery
schools, which began desegregation last
fall, was continued from April 28 to
May 5.
★ ★ ★
In Mobile, the Justice Department
moved April 15 for dismissal of a 1964
suit brought by the government to
force “instant” desegregation of Mobile
schools because of the presence °
large numbers of federally connected
children.
Similar suits were filed against Birm
ingham and Huntsville boards an
other school systems in the South,
the motion for dismissal, U.S. Attorney
Vernol R. Jansen Jr. noted that the
Supreme Court last December rul
adversely on the government’s eflor
to force desegregation as an exercise o
inherent military powers.
‘Let’s Just Say You and I
Are Segregated’
Chicago
1
l
d<
is
S(
5]
4
19
i0
b
it
t
5(
51
I
I