Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 20—JUNE, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
i
Desegregation Cited In Loss Of
THE REGION
(Continued from Page 1)
preventing the dismissal of Negro
teachers. “Federal funds are not used
to employ teachers,” the spokesman
said, adding:
“Under the law as written there is |
nothing that we can do about it. We
know that it is bad.”
Legal Aid Promised
Both the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund and the National Education As
sociation have promised legal aid to
dismissed Negro teachers. The fund
already has filed one suit in North
Carolina, and a spokesman of the or
ganization reported plans to raise the
issue of dismissals in 20 to 30 integra
tion suits pending in North Carolina.
Dr. William G. Carr, executive sec
retary of the NEA, which is the na
tion’s largest teacher organization, said
his group also would offer job loca
tion assistance to the Negro teachers.
NEA will compile a list of displaced
Negro teachers and make it available
to school boards throughout the nation.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap
peals and federal District Courts in
Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ten
nessee in recent years have ordered
public school districts to end the as
signment of teachers on a racial basis.
A case now pending in a federal Dis
trict Court in Virginia contests the fir
ing of all seven Negro teachers last
year when Giles County closed its
Negro schools and sent all the students
to white schools. The NEA and the
Virginia Teachers Association are
joined in the suit against the county
school board.
During the recent school year, the 11
Southern states had 317,640 white
teachers and 104,770 Negro teachers.
Public school teachers remained com
pletely segregated in five states—Ala
bama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi
and South Carolina. Some desegrega
tion was begem in six Southern states—
Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Alabama
Two Negro leaders in Alabama
backed the state school superinten
dent’s denial that Negro teachers were
losing their jobs.
State Superintendent of Education
Austin Meadows said the suggestion
that the Negroes were being dismissed
was a “big lie.”
Dr. John Nixon, Birmingham, presi
dent of the Alabama NAACP, said,
“There have been no such dismissals
reported here. I know of no instance
where a white teacher has replaced a
Negro teacher.”
Joe Reed, executive secretary of the
Alabama State Teachers Association,
for Negroes, also said he had not heard
of Negro teachers losing their jobs to
whites.
Arkansas
The executive secretary of the
Negro teachers’ organization in Ar
kansas reported knowledge of only two
communities where Negro teachers
were losing their jobs. T. E. Patterson
of the Arkansas Teachers Association
said four Negro teachers had been
asked to resign in Monticello and six
Negro teachers in Searcy did not have
their contracts renewed for the next
school year.
Patterson said he had advised the
Monticello Negroes to delay their resig
nation while an effort was made to
resolve the situation some other way.
The Negro teachers being dropped at
Searcy had been assigned to a school
educating 141 Negro students from five
other districts. Beginning in Septem
ber, all five districts will keep their
Negro students, Patterson said.
Florida
Negro teachers in Florida reportedly
fear the prospect of wholesale dismis
sals when desegregation plans take ef
fect next fall, although only two
“trouble spots” are known so far.
Dr. Gilbert L. Porter, executive sec
retary of the Florida State Teachers
Association, for Negroes, said, “I
wouldn’t call it a trend yet, but I see
a beginning.” Porter also believes
“there is far more resistance in Florida
to teacher integration than to student
integration.”
Porter said Monroe County (Key
West) plans to phase out three Negro
schools next school year, eliminating
the jobs of about 30 teachers. Six Negro
teachers already have lost their jobs
because they failed to pass the National
Teacher Examination, and another
Negro teacher who resigned will not be
replaced, Porter said.
The transfer of 135 Negro children
from the only Negro school to predom
inantly white schools in Holmes County
(Bonifay) in September will eliminate
the jobs of 10 Negro teachers, Porter
said. The FSTA executive asked the
state to investigate and suggested pos
sible court action to preserve the jobs.
“Some of the 10 are on continuing
contracts and some have been there 10
or 20 years,” Porter said. “I believe this
is discrimination.
“If the teachers are willing, we may
have to make a test case of it.”
The state school superintendent,
Thomas D. Bailey, said that most
Negro teachers who were dismissed
had failed to pass their national ex
amination. Bailey, who ordered an in
formal inquiry of the Holmes County
situation, said:
“I don’t know if anything can be
done about it. Any teacher, regard
less of race, who doesn’t make 500 on
the examination, cannot be issued a
continuing contract.
“Insofar as I know I have seen no
evidence of any attempt to bring about
mass dismissals. In the first place, I
don’t think there is going to be that
much integration involved to make that
possible.”
Several district superintendents in
Florida reported efforts to retain their
Negro teachers in a desegregated sys
tem.
Supt. Floyd T. Christian of Pinellas
County (St. Petersburg) said a “grad
ual program ... to upgrade our Negro
staff members will enable us to retain
our Negro staff members with the ex
ception of a few.” He said “the losses
we have were not due to integration.”
Christian said that about 15 of every
100 Pinellas teachers were Negro.
“With a little retraining and a little
work on their part, we should be able
South Carolina
(Continued from Page 19)
$5 per week per student and that books
would cost about $14 a year. A fund
raising committee noted that it had al
ready raised $9,415. The school was
tentatively named Jefferson Davis
Academy.
Applications from approximately 60
parents were received. Dr. Tumipseed
said he had received a number of calls
from qualified teachers.
Barnwell, long a center of political
power in the state as home of Sen. Ed
gar A. Brown, Senate president pro
tempore and finance committee chair
man, and Rep. Solomon Blatt, speaker
of the House, has about a 50-50 Negro-
white school population. Sen. Brown
was widely credited with helping bring
about peaceful acceptance of the state’s
first college desegregation in 1963.
Cameron Meeting
Some 150 Cameron area residents
met May 26 to discuss a private school
in the tiny but rich farming commun
ity. They heard Dr. Elliott Wanna-
i maker, president of private Wade
Hampton Academy in Orangeburg,
speak. Named chairman of the organ
izing committee was Hugh W. Perrow,
a well-to-do farmer. Among those on
his committee was Orangeburg Rep.
Hall Yarborough from Jamison, just
across the Calhoun-Orangeburg County
line.
Calhoun District 2, centered at Cam
eron, has a Negro edge in school pop
ulation of 1,443 to 577.
On May 27, the Marion County Pri
vate School Association named Bruce
Brown of Mullins as president. All the
officers were from Mullins, the state’s
largest tobacco market.
Brown said the association “intends
to promote a sound educational system
in private schools.” He said 36 families
had paid initial, token dues of $25 to get
the project started.
In the 1963-64 reporting period, Mar
ion County had 5,304 Negro and 3,590
white students in average daily attend
ance.
to work them into our total educa
tional program,” he said.
Three Sarasota County school offi
cials declared their intent to select
teachers without discrimination. They
were Supt. Russell Wiley, board chair
man Herb Field, and board member
Dorothy Skuse.
“We are very willing to give employ
ment to a teacher, white or colored, if
he is properly accredited and if he is
the person for this job ... I don’t see
where this will affect us at all,” Mrs.
Skuse said.
Manatee County’s superintendent, J.
Hartley Blackburn, reported that his
district would have “at least as many
Negro teachers next year as this and
probably a few more because of growth
of the system. We are not going to fire
any Negro teachers because of deseg
regation.”
Georgia
Dr. Allen Smith of Georgia’s State
Education Department said some
teachers may lose their jobs if there is
a wholesale reorganization because of
desegregation. But he said that even
under consolidation, the state will need
about 42,000 teachers because they are
allotted under a formula based on pu
pil enrollment.
Dr. H. E. Tate, executive director of
the Georgia Teachers and Education
Association, which represents most
Negro teachers in the state, said that if
Negro teachers begin losing their jobs
in wholesale lots, it would be because
of discrimination and not because of
lack of ability. Tate said his organiza
tion would take full legal action to pre
vent members from losing jobs through
discrimination.
“So far, we haven’t had enough stu
dent desegregation to have a problem
with teacher desegregation, but we are
concerned that it is coming,” Tate said.
The Negro association has received
some complaints from members who
have lost their jobs, Tate said, “but
we cannot at this moment attribute it
to desegregation.”
Mississippi
The University of Mississippi Medical
Center in Jackson has announced that
Negro faculty members and students
will be accepted “within weeks and
months.” This would be the first fac
ulty desegregation at any public school
level in the state.
In a statement to faculty and stu
dents, Dr. Robert Q. Martson said that
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires
that “we eliminate discrimination on
the basis of race in the entire Medical
Center comprehensively and without
exception.” He added:
“Our purpose and our responsibility
is to abolish all—not some—discrimina
tion . . . The college board, the chan
cellor and I are totally and completely
obligated to achieve early, total and
complete compliance with the letter and
spirit of the law.”
Martson said the center already has
hired and contracted to hire people at
the professional level, the secretarial
level and in other areas on the basis
of qualification without regard to race.
Earlier the U.S. Department of
Health, Education and Welfare in
Washington had told the center to end
discrimination or lose federal hospital
funds. Assistant HEW Secretary James
M. Quigley announced on May 29 sat
isfaction with the hospital’s “corrective
actions.”
North Carolina
In the debate over Negro teacher
dismissals in North Carolina, the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund and the North Carolina Teachers
Association, for Negroes, joined sides
against the State Department of Public
Instruction and local school districts.
The two Negro organizations contended
that 500 of the state’s 12,500 Negro
teachers would lose employment as the
pace of school desegregation increased.
State education officials denied that as
many as 500 jobs would be involved,
but said that some Negro teachers
might be displaced.
The NCTA’s executive secretary, E.
B. Palmer, announced:
“Cases of the dismissal of Negro
teachers have continuously been re
ported to the headquarters of the
NCTA since February . . . Should the
emerging pattern of Negro dismissals
continue, many more will be dis
placed . . .
“This leaves the NCTA no alternative
but to call upon the National Educa
tion Association, the NAACP, the office
of the attorney general, the U.S. Com-
Negro Teachers’ Jobs
missioner of Education and the White
House to cope with this problem.”
The state superintendent of public
instruction, Dr. Charles Carroll, said
he felt that “all competent teachers will
be able to find employment in North
Carolina.” Dr. Carroll said there would
be some teacher reshuffling with the
reshuffling of students but he believed
that displaced teachers could find em
ployment somewhere else.
“I cannot understand,” Dr. Carroll
said, “how anyone could estimate that
500 or more teachers would lose em
ployment because of desegregation of
schools in North Carolina. I have no
information to substantiate such an
estimate.”
The president of the NCTA, Dr. S. E.
Duncan, went to New York City to
seek aid in blocking the teacher dis
missals. Duncan said that since 1954,
North Carolina teachers had been em
ployed under one-year contracts, with
out tenure. As the Negro students be
gan requesting transfers to white
schools, Duncan said, North Carolina
communities began informing the Ne
gro teachers they would not be re-em
ployed.
“Negro teachers were dismissed and
in some instances white teachers were
hired to replace them,” he said.
Duncan noted that the dismissals of
Negro teachers apparently reflected a
faster pace in North Carolina than other
Southern states.
Morganton Supt. M. S. Parham re
ported that nine Negro teachers would
lose their jobs because of the transfer
of 207 students but he attributed this
to the teachers’ subject specialization,
not race. “Teachers are allotted to us
on the basis of average daily attend
ance,” he said.
The Asheboro school system an
nounced May 23 that 12 Negro teachers
would not be rehired for the 1965-66
term because of school desegregation.
Supt. Guy B. Teachey said the city’s
decision to close its Central High and
not to accept students from outside the
district caused the dismissal of 12
teachers.
“We are perhaps undergoing the
greatest social revolution of all times
and in any revolution someone is al
ways hurt,” Teachey said. “In this in
stance, perhaps the Negro school teach
ers will suffer the greatest hardships
as they compete for positions in our
educational system, not only with peo
ple of their own race, but with teachers
with degrees from some of our most
renowned colleges and universities.”
Asheboro rehired 10 of its 24 Negro
teachers and two resigned. Supt. Lacy
Presnell Jr. of surrounding Randolph
County said his system may employ
some of the discharged teachers, but he
made no specific statement.
The NAACP Fund began legal action
May 27 to retain the job of a Pitt
County Negro teacher who lost her job
after 12 years. The NAACP charged
in the federal court suit that Mrs.
Martha Moore, 44, was advised she
SPECIAL REPORT
would not be rehired because the trans
fer of Negro students from her elemen
tary school to previously white schools
was expected to decrease enrollment. ■
The superintendent-elect of Pitt
County, A. S. Alford, said that approx
imately 160 Negro students had re
quested transfers to predominantly '
white schools. “This may cause some
changes in personnel at the Negro
schools,” Alford said, “but we plan to
utilize these people if at all possible.” <
Asked specifically about placing Ne
gro teachers in white schools, Alford
said “this will be done if they are
needed.”
Chapel Hill’s school board, which
plans a single high school to replace
its one predominantly white and one
predominantly Negro highs, annouced •
that when the consolidation occurs,
“such consolidation, in and of itself,
would not constitute cause for failure
to reappoint a teacher.”
Texas
About 10 Negro teachers in Texas
are reported losing their jobs because
of desegregation, according to Vernon
McDaniel, of the Texas Negro Teach
ers Association. Clarence Laws, south
west regional director for the NAACP,
said he had received complaints about
several small North Texas school dis
tricts, which have abolished separate
units for Negroes.
“We know of half a dozen more dis
tricts that are going to let teachers
out without any prospect of employ
ment,” he said. He threatened to lodge
complaints with the federal government
and “if the superintendent does not
hire on an equal basis, we will see that
federal funds are taken away.”
Texas experienced an unemployment
problem for Negro teachers several
years ago but this was reported to have
improved in recent years because of
rising student enrollments. About five
years ago, more than 1,000 Negro
teachers were reported seeking teach
ing positions without success.
Virginia
In Virginia, the Virginia head of the
Negro teachers group reported “some
instances” of teacher dismissals but
said it was “not wholesale.”
Executive Secretary J. Rupert Picott
said that Wise County, which plans to
colse all its Negro schools, will use 10
of its 16 Negro teachers as “teacher
helpers.” The other six are retiring or
receiving special jobs, such as librarian.
“Most of our problems are occurring
in counties with small Negro popula
tions and only one or two Negro
schools,” Picott said.
“The county school boards colse down
the Negro schools and accept the Ne
gro students into white schools. But
they don’t want to accept the Negro
teachers. They either fail to offer them 1
contracts or they offer them jobs as
helpers to white teachers.”
Warning Given Against
Teacher Discrimination
ST. LOUIS
T he Missouri Commission on
Human Rights sent a letter
April 24 to 512 school superin
tendents in the state pointing out
that school boards may not dis
criminate because of race or re
ligion when they hire and assign
teachers.
Forrest P. Carson, chairman of the
commission, said the reminder was be
ing sent at this time because school
districts were offering contracts for
next term.
He said a survey of the larger school
districts in the state “indicates con
siderable misunderstanding and a few
violations” of the Missouri Fair Em
ployment Practices Act. The act is ad
ministered by the commission.
“Because private businessmen have
alleged that we would be unfair to en
force the law against private business
without making sure that the law was
obeyed by tax-supported agencies, we
have undertaken to survey the employ
ment practices and policies of a num
ber of tax-supported agencies, includ
ing school boards,” Carson wrote.
He said the questionnaire sent to
schools had not been fully tabulated
but that it indicated a need for clari
fication. A copy of the law was en "
closed with the letters.
The letter said: “The law prohibit
discrimination because of race, creeo.
religion or national origin or ancestry
in hiring, firing, rates of pay 3X1
teacher assignments.
“These provisions apply uniformly t0
all school districts and all schools, re *
gardless of the number of Negroes
members of other ethnic groups loca
or resident in the school, school distnc >
county or city. .
“Specifically, this means that a sc J 10 ° r
district cannot consider the racial ^
religious composition of the distnc ^
a particular school in hiring teach
paying them, assigning them or
charging them.
“It does not mean that a cer *^
quota or minimum number of an -^_
ligious or racial group must be * ^
ployed, but it does prohibit y° u a
requiring higher qualifications fro®
Negro applicant.”
The letter said the law prohibits
jppbca
school board from having on ap
tion blanks “or otherwise asking ^
question which seeks information,^^
rectly or indirectly, considering
or creed, color or ancestry of an 1
vidual.”