Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1965—PAGE i
Tennessee
GEORGIA
(Continued from Page 2)
plaints against Frank had been sug
gested by the students.
The attorney said the children testi
fied they “knew that Mr. Frank was
not trying to influence their thinking.”
The lawyer also criticized the board
f or releasing its reprimand statement
jo the press without first notifying
prank or his counsel.
Public Informaion
Dr. Phillipp Sottong, a psychiatrist,
meanwhile protested the lack of in
formation released to the public in the
case.
Supt. Sam McConnell told Sottong
that the incident had been made public
as much as possible, adding:
“We try to be sure and keep things
of this nature open and not go into
them with opinionated ideas and force
those ideas on the children in the Ham
ilton County schools.”
Frank, formerly of Erie, Pa., was ac
cused of making the controversial
comments during a seventh-grade
“student enrichment” program.
★ ★ ★
Rights Commission Opening
Field Office in Memphis
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission
has established its first field office in
Memphis.
“Our job is fact-finding and fact-
dissemination,” Jacques E. Wilmore,
newly-appointed director of the office,
said on a visit to Memphis in April.
The office is scheduled to begin op
erations June 1.
Wilmore, a 38-year-old Negro from
Philadelphia, Pa., will be assisted by
John W. Spence, 46, a former reporter
for the Memphis Press-Scimitar.
Wilmore said the field office staff
“will study the broad patterns of dis
crimination in areas covered by the
Civil Rights Act. The information we
gather will be sent to the commission
in Washington which will recommend
legislation or policy changes to the
President and Congress.
No Mediation
While Wilmore expressed the hope
that the staff will be able to work with
federal, state and local officials, he
said the office would not “mediate any
disputes.”
If the Memphis office finds evidence
of alleged discrimination in other gov
ernment agencies, he said, the infor
mation will be turned over to the
, agency involved. Matters requiring en
forcement of provisions of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, he continued, will
jo relayed to the Justice Department
1 or other appropriate agency.
Working with the field office will be
the Tennessee Civil Rights Advisory
Committee to the Civil Rights Commis
sion. H. O. Forgy Jr. of Jackson is
chairman of the state advisory com
mittee.
★ ★ ★
Hr. Vivian W. Henderson, chairman
°f the Department of Economics and
Business at Fisk University at Nash-
'ille since 1952, has been elected presi
dent of Clark College in Atlanta.
Widely identified with civil rights ef-
; orts, Dr. Henderson has served as di-
r “ctor of the summer session and of the
Boce Relations Department at Fisk.
A former vice president and chair-
V the U - S -
1 RPortunity.
man of the Nash
ville branch of
the National As
sociation for the
Advancement of
Colored People,
D r. Henderson
was vice-presi
dent of the Nash
ville Community
Relations Council
for three years
and has been in
volved in the work
Office of Economic
^r. Henderson recently completed
^‘cles on “Race, Religion and Jobs”
Ijj* 1 "The Economic Status of Negroes.”
6 collaborated with three other writ-
- k° n Human Resources in the South,
^°°k to be released in the near fu-
e > as well as co-authoring other
^°k s .
fl
'ey
6 'will succeed Dr. James P. Braw-
38 head of the college in June.
State Board Urges District Plans by May 15
MACON
he State Board of Education
on April 21 urged all local
school systems in Georgia to sub
mit desegregation plans by May
15 to prevent the federal govern
ment from cutting off funds for
education.
In a resolution, the board said fur
ther delay would not only jeopardize
needed funds but still would leave
systems liable to desegregation under
court decisions and the 1964 Civil
Rights Act. The resolution was unani
mously approved.
Meanwhile, some confusion still ex
isted over exactly what had to be done
for a school system to receive federal
funds, but educators took note of the
statement of James M. Quigley, assist
ant secretary of the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare, at a
meeting held in Atlanta April 14 among
government officials and school author
ities on how the Civil Rights Act af
fected federal funds. The act meant an
end of discrimination in federal pro
grams, Quigley said, and “you are
wasting your time if you try to read it
any other way.”
A Southern School News survey of
steps taken to comply with federal
criteria for eligibility for federal funds
at all educational levels in Georgia was
completed April 23. It showed seven
systems—the county systems of Bibb,
Chatham, Dougherty, Glynn, Muscogee
and Richmond, and the city system of
Atlanta—had submitted copies of court
orders. Unofficially, the State Depart
ment of Education learned that Bibb,
Muscogee and Atlanta were regarded
by the U.S. Office of Education, as in
compliance.
15 Submit Plans
Fifteen systems had submitted dese
gregation plans. They were Cobb, Col
quitt, Cook, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall,
Houston, Lee, Newton, Peach and
Terrell county systems, and Carters-
ville, Marietta, Moultrie and Thomas-
ville city systems.
One hundred and seventy systems
had submitted assurances of compliance
through Form 441 to HEW. Included
were Dawson, Forsyth and Gilmer
county systems, which have no Negro
students and which have been officially
ruled in compliance by the U.S. Office
of Education.
On March 26, Gov. Carl E. Sanders
told delegates to a Georgia Education
Association convention in Atlanta that
these signed certificates of compliance
will be accepted by the federal govern
ment, according to Frances Keppel, U.S.
Commissioner of education. Keppel said
Legal Action
Oby Brewer Jr., president of the At
lanta Board of Education, said “no
doubt” there will be compliance with a
new federal court order to speed up
school desegregation in the system.
U.S. District Court Judge Frank A.
Hooper issued an order April 1 saying
that desegregating at a grade-a-year
pace, as the board has been doing since
1961, is not enough, and that starting
this fall the board must desegregate
two grades a year.
This would mean complete desegre
gation of all 12 grades in the city sys
tem, the largest in Georgia, by the be
ginning of the 1968-69 term.
Judge Hooper also said that the board
must desegregate from the bottom up
in grades, instead of from the top down,
as it has been doing.
Under the order, kindergarten and
first grades would be desegregated with
the start of school this September.
Five Grades
As of last fall when the eighth grade
w»s desegregated, Negroes were ad
mitted to all five junior and senior high
grades in white schools.
Under the plan as it stood prior to
the latest federal court action, the
seventh grade would have been deseg
regated in September of 1965, the sixth
grade in the fall of 1966, and so on, un
til 1972, when desegregation would be
completed.
Hooper’s order contemplates desegre
gation of kindergartens and first grades
in 1965, second and third grades in
1966, fourth and fifth grades in 1967,
and sixth and seventh grades in 1968.
Brewer said the order gives the board
more flexibility as well as reasonable
time in which to accelerate the deseg
regation plan.
. . Stop Crowing
and Go to Cackling! ’
‘-—-'iiidq
Atlanta Constitution
in some instances additional informa
tion would be needed.
Twelve systems had submitted such
supplemental information to accompany
Form 441, or had submitted desegrega
tion plans to complement signed state
ments of compliance.
Two systems—Baker and Toombs
counties—had taken no action to com
ply-
There are 196 school systems in
Georgia.
Higher Education
At the higher education level, all 20
of the colleges and universities in the
University System had submitted
Form 441, which is all that is required
of them.
There are 31 private colleges in the
state and as of March 30, the latest date
on which data was available, 18 had
submitted Form 441.
Federal funds will be stopped June
30, 1965, for all school systems “which
have not filed acceptable plans of de
segregation or supplementary plans for
implementing HEW Forms 441 filed
previously,” the State Board of Edu
cation said. This reportedly could
amount to as much as $75 million in
federal money next year for Georgia
schools and colleges. Dr. Zach Hender
son, newly elected president of the
Georgia Education Association and
president of Georgia Southern College
at Statesboro, has said that the growing
needs of education are outdistancing
the available money.
Most local school boards in Georgia
currently are working out desegrega
tion plans to comply with the 1964 Civil
Rights Act, state educators say. Dr.
Allen Smith, associate state school su-
Hooper refused to order any accele
ration in 1963 and was upheld by the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in
1964, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the
case back to Hooper and ordered it re
heard in light of several recent high
court rulings.
On April 19, attorneys for the Legal
Defense Fund of the National Associa
tion for the Advancement of Colored
People filed notice that they would ask
the appellate court to order desegrega
tion of Atlanta schools faster than the
two-grades-a-year pace outlined in
Hooper's order.
“Desegregation at the rate of two
grades per year is no longer consti
tutionally adequate,” they said. A
statement added that the new plan also
fails to provide for desegregation of
teachers, supervisors and other profes
sional personnel, and criteria employed
are vague and their administration
subjective. It called for a system based
on nonracial, geographic capacity-re
lated school zone lines.
★ ★ ★
Desegregation Suit Filed
Against Houston County
Fifty-three Negro students acting
through their parents filed a school de
segregation suit in federal court April
9 against the Houston County Board of
Education.
The board adopted a plan for starting
desegregation with the 12th grade in
January, 1965, but said no Negro stu
dents applied before the deadline. The
suit said the desegregation plan is
wholly inadequate and that the board
failed to provide adequate notice of the
perintendent, said he had conferred
with dozens of local school superin
tendents and “I haven’t talked to a one
who wasn’t completely realistic about
it.”
Many superintendents have obtained
copies of a recent federal court ruling
on desegregation in Bibb and Muscogee
school systems, he said, adding that this
court order (SSN, March, 1965) seems
“about as good a guideline” as there is
available. The rulings indicate that any
acceptable desegregation plan must be
gin with both the upper and lower
grades and must be completed by 1968.
Jack Acree, executive secretary of
the Georgia School Boards Association,
said: “We are faced with the prospect
of desegregation whether we get the
funds or not.” He added that “Every
board ought to go ahead and develop
a plan of its own to fit its local situa
tion.”
W. L. Robinson of Atlanta, outgoing
president of the National School
Boards Association and president of the
Fulton County
Board of Educa
tion, told the an
nual convention
of the NSBA in
Boston April 4
that like it or not,
the federal gov
ernment is be-,
coming increas
ingly involved in
education and lo
cal school board
members may as
well face up to it. He said such bodies
should accept federal goals in educa
tion, but work to achieve them locally
by assuming greater responsibility.
‘Meaningful Reality’
At the regional conference called by
the Civil Rights Commission to explain
to personnel in a six-state Southern
area how discrimination must be ended
in all federally-financed programs,
Quigley acknowledged that there are
“extremely difficult problems but we
mean to translate the act into mean
ingful reality.” Continuing his refer
ence to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he
said, “We will enforce this law if we
are forced to do it, but we will make
every reasonable effort to obtain vol
untary compliance.”
Allen Lesser, a federal official in
charge of obtaining compliance, said, of
the South: “Every state is making an
effort to comply but some are finding
it difficult.”
But a federal field worker described
the attitude on the matter in the South
as one of “horse trading to see how
much they can get and how little they
have to give up.”
time in which transfer applications
would be received.
Meanwhile, construction of a new
elementary school, to be owned and op
erated by the federal government, was
planned on Warner Robins Air Force
Base property in Houston County. The
property is inside the municipal limits
of the city of Warner Robins.
The Department of Health, Educa
tion and Welfare ordered the first
school built on base property in 1963
after the Houston County school board
failed to guarantee that education
would be furnished base dependents
without regard to color.
★ ★ ★
U. S. District Judge William A.
Bootle on April 27 approved an acce
lerated desegregation plan for all Bibb
County (Macon) schools. The original
plan called for complete desegregation
by 1972. The Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals ordered a speedup and the new
plan will see desegregation completed
in September, 1968.
The 12th grade was desegregated last
year. The plan approved by Bootle will
desegregate the first, ninth, 10th and
11th grades this year; the second, third,
seventh and eighth grades next year
and the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in
the fall of 1968.
All new and transfer students may
go to any school chosen, with the only
restrictions depending on proximity and
space available.
First-graders already registered may
change schools by applying to the board
of education between May 10-25. The
same applies to students entering the
ninth, tenth, eleventh or twelfth grades
in September.
Georgia Highlights
A Southern School News survey
of steps taken to comply with de
segregation requirements in order to
keep federal funds coming to
Georgia schools showed seven sys
tems had submitted court orders, 15
had submitted desegregation plans,
170 had signed and submitted Form
441 (and 12 of these had since
furnished supplemental informa
tion), and two systems had taken no
action. All 20 colleges and universi
ties in public higher education had
signed Form 441, and so had 18 of
31 private colleges in the state.
The State Board of Education
urged compliance by all systems by
May 15.
A federal court ordered a speedup
in Atlanta school desegregation, but
Negroes said it still was not fast
enough and said the ruling would be
appealed.
An accelerated desegregation plan
for Bibb County (Macon) schools
was approved by a federal district
court.
A school desegregation suit was
filed in Houston County.
In Manchester, James S. Peters,
chairman of the State Board of Educa
tion, said on April 15 that he does not
believe federal officials will require
Georgia school systems to achieve full
desegregation before 1968. Nor does he
believe faculty desegregation will be
demanded, initially at least, despite a
ruling by Keppel that staffs must be
desegregated.
Faculty Issue
A member of the State Law Depart
ment has issued an opinion that the act
which is the basis for HEW standards,
does not require faculty desegregation.
Peters said he thought this interpreta
tion is correct.
Gov. Sanders agreed and said, “I
don’t think any group in Georgia is
pushing for that, either Negro or
white.” If this is Keppel’s regulation,
Sanders said, he considers it “unwise
and unnecessary.”
In another matter to come before the
April 21 State Board of Education
meeting, a spokesman for a Negro
group, the Georgia Teachers and Edu
cation Association, urged the board to
stop local systems from paying salary
supplement based on race. Dr. Horace
E. Tate, executive secretary, said that
in many systems white teachers, but
not Negro teachers, received such sup
plements. Board member Don Payton
said such payments are illegal and ask
ed that names of systems guilty of the
practice be furnished the state board.
Dr. Tate also asked that Negroes be
employed in top-echelon positions
within the State Department of Educa
tion, and as faculty members in the
Governor’s Honors Program for out
standing students this summer.
Plans Announced
Although desegregation plans may
not have reached the stage of submis
sion and acceptance, announcements of
such plans were made in a number of
instances. They included:
Muscogee—Approved applications of
94 Negro children to white schools next
fall. Two Negro pupils now attend for
mer white schools.
Americus—Will accept applications
without regard to race for the school
of each student’s choice during a five-
day registration period for the 1965-66
school term May 17-21.
Rome—Registered two Negro girls in
a first grade. Some time ago adopted
plan for desegregation of first three
grades in September.
Richmond—Heard a recommendation
by a special study committee of the
board of education that desegregation
next fall include the 12th as well as the
first six grades.
Hall—Planned to open grades one,
two and 12 to Negroes in the fall and
studied request of a lone Negro appli
cant to transfer to a white school now.
Baldwin—Proposed 12th-grade dese
gregation next fall and desegregation of
other grades by 1973.
Polk—Would desegregate all schools
in the county next fall.
Waycross—Will accept applications of
Negro students to transfer to white
schools next fall as of May 1.
Dalton—Will desegregate first, 11th
and 12th grades at the opening of the
new school term in the fall of 1965 and
will open all to Negroes by 1968.
(See GEORGIA, Page 9)
Atlanta To Comply with Court Order
ROBINSON