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PAGE 14—JUNE, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS LOUISIANA Segregation Ruled Out In Series Of Actions (Continued from Page 12) next fall, Bishop Robert E. Tracy an nounced on June 6. In a pastoral letter, he said all Cath olic schools at the first, second, ninth and 12th grades would be open for enrollment without regard to race. De segregation of parochial schools would be completed by the fall of 1967. Legal Action School Segregation Faces A Variety B. Ellis of New Orleans. It included approval of a plan to desegregate the school over a four-year period. Judge Ellis had ordered the school board to devise a plan by May 14. That proposal, which entailed desegregation of the first and 12th grades next fall and the two next grades each year thereafter, proved not satisfactory to the court or to attorneys for the plain tiffs. Judge Ellis said it would not meet standards indicated by the U.S. Su preme Court and courts of appeals. He directed the board to hold additional conferences to devise a plan acceptable to both parties in the case and to the court. variations exist between the two groups which necessarily include traits of temperament, thought patterns, learn ing capacities, and other elements di rectly affecting the educational poten tial of the group members.” A. P. Tureaud, representing the plaintiffs, objected that “such state ments were merely hearsay” and their “validity based on false premises” and therefore inadmissible under terms oi the Brown decision of 1954, “The two cases still rest upon the same considerations,” said Judge Put nam, “whether or not desegregation oi the two school systems should be con sidered in view of the law of the land. The court has no choice. It would be somewhat ridiculous for a district court to try to overrule a supreme court or a court of appeals.” Only two witnesses were called. Nelson Trahan, father of one of the plaintiff students, established that the plaintiffs were till Negroes residing in .Lafayette Parish. Acting Supt. Charles Delana said a segregated school system is in operation in Lafayette Parish. Of Legal Attacks The legal underpinning of segrega tion in several areas of public educa tion in Louisiana was attacked and fell during May. Desegregation of the last remaining segregated college was ordered May 5. Desegregation by next fall also was directed in cases involving 18 state- operated vocational-technical schools and in separate cases involving public schools of St. Tammany Parish, Lafay ette Parish and St. Landry Parish. Court actions seeking public school desegregation were filed against the school boards of Caddo Parish, Natchi toches Parish, Evangeline Parish, Liv ingston Parish and Tangipahoa Parish. Under consideration by U.S. District Judge E. Gordon West of Baton Rouge was a case seeking to end segregation of public schools statewide by halting distribution of state funds to segre gated school districts. In the Grambling College case (Jamieson v. State Board of Education) Judge West invalidated state laws des ignating the state-operated school as one exclusively for Negroes, but he termed the “class action” status of the case “a subterfuge.” The plaintiff, a white New Yorker who has been teaching at a Catholic convent in Lafayette for a year, had sought admission to Grambling for herself and other white students “too numerous to mention.” Unable To Name She was unable, however, when questioned by the judge, to name any other white person who had sought to enter the all-Negro college. Asked why she wanted to attend the Negro insti tution, two-thirds of the way across the state from her current residence, Miss Jamieson replied: “It is my understanding, it seems to tne Grambling should be open to any one. It does not seem farfetched at all that there are other white people who would like to go to Grambling.” In the case applying to the state vocational-technical schools, Judge West issued a permanent injunction on May 7 prohibiting discrimination against Negro applicants seeking to enroll at the 18 state-operated schools. Ten others previously were desegre gated in other court actions. Judge West issued his blanket ruling under terms of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He said state education officials re sponsible for the schools are finding themselves “on the horns of a dilem ma,’ unable to obey both state and federal laws, until a federal court order is issued. While ordering complete desegrega tion of the institutions, including five for Negroes, Judge West reserved to the schools the right to decide the qualifications of applicants so long as they do not include racial considera tions. The court then declined to hear a separate case brought by four Negro women seeking enrollment at the Avoyelles Vocational-Technical School, saying that the current ruling applies also to it. Judge West on June 2 directed the East Baton Rouge Parish school board to accelerate its grade-a-year desegre gation plan to complete the process by the beginning of the 1968-69 term. Desegregation was begun in East Ba ton Rouge in 1963 at the 12th-grade level, extended in 1964 to the 11th grade and was to cover the 10th grade in 1965. Judge West ordered the board to amend its plan to cover the first and second grades also next fall and to re vise its schedule to complete desegre gation in three years. He denied requests for desegregation of teaching and administrative staff. The order to desegregate the St. Tammany Parish schools was issued May 19 by U.S. District Judge Frank On May 19, the board offered a pro posal that would complete the deseg regation process in four years instead of six as envisioned under the original plan. The revised plan also would de segregate the first and 12th grades next fall, and the second and 11th in the 1966-67 school year. But it provided for acceleration of the process in 1967-68 when grades three, four, nine and 10 would be desegregated, with the re maining four grades desegregated dur ing 1968-69. The approved plan also provides for elimination of dual attendance zones as the plan becomes applicable in the various grades. Maps and plans for the nonracial attendance zones are to be submitted to the court for approval. ★ ★ ★ In the Lafayette and St. Landry Parish cases, U.S. District Judge Rich ard J. Putnam on May 12 ordered the boards to submit plans within 20 days for desegregation to begin next Sep tember. The court indicated that it looked favorably upon the plans sub mitted by the Lake Charles and the Calcasieu Parish school boards to an other division of the court, which set a timetable similar to that approved by Judge Ellis above. Both school boards resisted the de segregation moves. Both filed answers to the suit against them, admitting operation of “biracial” racially separate school systems but denying discrimina tion. Both contended the court lacked jurisdiction. Representing the Lafayette board, District Attorney Betrand DeBlanc ar gued that the school board “has the power to classify students providing there is a reasonable basis for the classification . . . Separation of the races by law or custom in and of itself is not proof of an unconstitutional dis crimination, unless it appears that there exists no valid ground for such separation.” And he said, white and Negro chil dren “have substantially different edu cational aptitudes and learning pat terns ... To mix both races would be highly injurious, from an educational standpoint . . . Physical and mental Miscellaneous ★ ★ ★ Halt in State Funds Asked If Schools Are Segregated A sweeping request that distribution of state funds be halted to segregated schools was taken under consideration by Judge E. Gordon West of Baton Rouge May 21. The suit, filed Feb. 17 on behalf of 25 St. Charles Parish Ne groes, was amended May 10 to name as defendants state Treasurer A. P. Tugwell and state Auditor Roy The riot, along with the State Board oi Education and state Supt. William E. Dodd. Defendants moved for dismiss al. During a hearing called on the mo tion to dismiss, Judge West noted that state law prohibits the state board from interfering with the local school boards over which it has no control. He said to the attorneys for the plaintiffs: “You may not like it and the U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t like it, but Louisiana does like it, and that’s the way it’s going to be . . . This court is bound by the law, even if some of the others are not. “There is no question that there are prohibitions against segregation in schools,” Judge West asserted. But, he added, the way to apply the laws “is to file the right suit, naming the right defendants.” Newly Filed The six newly filed desegregation suits were similar in language and method. All alleged that requests to enroll Negro children in white schools had been turned down or ignored. Injunctions were asked to prohibit the defendant school boards from op erating compulsory “biracial” (segre gated) school systems and from assigning students, teachers and other personnel on the basis of race. The petitions also asked that the defendants and their agents be prohibited from making fi nancial disbursements on the basis of race, planning school construction or conducting extracurricular activities along racial lines. As an alternative to the requested Bogulusa Mayor Announces End Of City Segregation Ordinances The search for racial peace in Lou isiana was punctuated by violence in several areas during May. In Bogalusa, negotiations between the city government and protesting Negroes resulted on May 23 in an announcement by Mayor Jesse Cutrer that all city ordinances requiring seg regation would be repealed and that Negroes would be hired for the police force and other city departments. White citizens moved for a recall elec tion. Bogalusa was the scene earlier in the month of a white demonstration staged by the United Conservatives of Louisiana. Estimates of the turnout ranged from 3,000 to 25,000. The march and rally were held May 7 despite the suggestion of Gov. John McKeithen and Mayor Cutrer that it not be held. Two of the prinicpal speakers, Leander Perez Sr. of Plaque mines Parish and Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma, Ala., withdrew at the request of the governor. Later in the month, a newspaper photographer assigned to cover a scheduled integration rally at a Bo galusa park was mauled by a group of about 30 white youths and some $2,000 of photo equipment was de stroyed. There was other sporadic violence involving the races in New Orleans. Sanity Signs t «is is no ■ Time fop ■DEMONSTRATIONS | * ( CREATING - /NC/DENTS’ pND trouble NTS itJfSc--:', Temple, New Orleans Times-Picayune City police and the FBI were investi gating a series of about a dozen fire bomb attacks on homes, automobiles and churches of persons involved in civil rights efforts. A 21-year-old man was stabbed to death in a street brawl between white and Negro groups, which fol lowed a brick-throwing incident by the Negroes. Four Negro youths have been charged with murder. TENNESSEE Vanderbilt Chancellor, NAACP Director Speak (Continued from Page 13) which attorneys for both sides had agreed upon in December. Sixty-two Negro students attended oiracial classes in the lower Middle Tennessee district during the past year. The Fayette County Board of Edu cation was accused of denying 38 Negro children access to white schools in a federal court suit filed in Memphis on June 2. Filed by the National Association for the Advancement ot Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the complaint contended that Negro children otherwise are eligible to at- cend white schools. U.S. District Court, which was ex pected to set a hearing date later, was asked to grant a temporary restraining order enjoining school officials from operating a segregated school system. Seven Fayette county white schools are involved in the suit. Thirteen of the Negro students are seeking admis sion to Fayette County High School and the other 25 expressed a desire to enroll at six elementary schools. The rural West Tennessee county has been the scene of civil rights demon- strations over an extended period of time. Miscellaneous Relations Group Chairman to Resign The Rev. Sam R. Dodson, chairman of Gov. Frank Clement’s Commission on Human Relations, has announced that he will resign soon. The Rev. Mr. Dodson, pastor of Cal vary Methodist Church in Nashville, said he plans to leave in July to become minister of the American Church of Athens, Greece. No successor has been appointed. During the month, the com mission an nounced the ap pointment of a di rector and assist ant director for the 17-month-old ad visory agency. Named as director was Mark Israel, now assistant director for the Ken tucky Human Relations Commission. Jerome Diamond, professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, was named Israel’s assistant. ★ ★ ★ The Hamilton County Board of Edu- , cation on May 13 rejected a request for a public hearing by George L. Frank, East Ridge Junior High School guid_ ance counselor who was reprimanded last month. Frank, who has notified the board he will not return to his post this fall, was cited by the board for failing to follow instructions from his principal and for 1 permitting subjects including desegre gation to be discussed in his classroom. Attorney Manly A. Watson had called for a public hearing for Frank, his { client, but the board announced a writ ten rejection of the plea. Watson said the case would be taken to the courts. I What They Say Race Distinctions Will Continue, Educator Says Chancellor Alexander Heard of Van derbilt University said in Nashville on May 23 that abolition of racial dis crimination will not remove socio-eco nomic differences between the races in the United States. Heard made the statement during a forum discussion at Calvary Methodist Church in Nashville. He analyzed the South as it has developed in the 100 years since the Civil War. “Even if we had in the United States the total elimination of discrimination,” Heard continued, “differences in status and achievement associated with color would remain.” He added: “The frontier for individual Negroes and for those concerned about a pros perous and healthy America moves be yond simply the matter of discrimina tion to matters affecting the general social and economic well-being of the country and its citizens. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is but another step in the social evolution of the Negro. The insistence on social and economic gains on the part of Negroes will not subside.” Heard said the legacy of many dec ades of discrimination and handicap would prevent an early solution to con flicts and differences based, directly or indirectly, on racial factors. Wilkins Urges ‘Pressure." DODSON injunctions, the plaintiffs asked for plans to reorganize the school systems on a desegregated basis. Three of the cases were filed in Shreveport May 4, one in Baton Rouge May 6 and one in New Orleans May 3. The case of Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board was accepted for the Shreveport division of the U.S. Court to be heard by Judge Ben Dawkins. The case of Robertson b. Natchitoches Par ish School Board was placed on the docket of the Alexandria division where Judge Edwin Hunter presides. And the case of Graham v. Evangeline Parish School Board went to the Opl- lousas division, where Judge Richard J. Putnam presides. The case of Dunn v. the Livingston Parish School Board is in the district court at Baton Rouge, and will be heard by Judge E. Gordon West. The case of Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish was filed in New Orleans and has been assigned to Judge Frank B. Ellis. ★ ★ ★ The U.S. attorney general on May 28 asked federal district court to ac celerate the desegregation process in St. Helena Parish. A suppVmental petition filed in the case charged that the parish school board has violated the desegregation order of Aug. 6, 1964. The petition asked that, in the fall, desegregation be introduced at the first and second grade levels as well as at the 9th and 10th, and that it proceed two grades upward and two grades downward each year thereafter until completed. The 11th and 12th grades received several Negro students last fall. The Department of Justice petition alleged that the school board has maintained dual attendance zones in violation of the court order and has set requirements for Negroes seeking transfers not applicable to white stu dents. The petition asked that all stu dents be given full access to all school (See LOUISIANA, Page 15) Replies to NAACP Critics Roy Wilkins, executive director of the National Association for the A - vancement of Colored People, declar in Memphis on May 16 that Negroes should “keep up the pressure” barriers to desegregation and criticiz “irresponsible” elements in the C1V1 Ights movement. , Addressing about 2,000 members a a rally observing the 11th anniversary of the U. » Supreme c ° urt school desegrega tion decision praisi ; ed Wilkins . Memphis f° “stepping ou ahead of areas in South, Part‘d' larly in voter reg istration and P°* tics.” a wilkins Referring ° statement re**« ly by Ed Hamlin, a member 0 Student Non-Violent Coor °!?»CP Committee, who charged that N- ^ leaders were “another generation another time,” Wilkins said: “There is a tendency for f^ e y oVer people, who must eventually ta ^ e from their elders, to relieve tha ing had been done until they aC . along. They lapse into irresponsi tions.” i960 “Somebody had to fight befor . so they could fight after 1965, 3 s0 “Somebody had to clear the or they could march.” ,, - of Wilkins pointed to the foun 1 ^7. the Memphis NAACP chapter in ^ a which he said came in protes 0 f “national wave of lynchings, as one 1 the accomplishments of the P as |:, n0 t Negro leaders, he said, sho “even be talking” now about desegregation. “They’ve had to- he said. “Let’s get them in sen ^ gether. We have to educate ° dren now.”