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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.”