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PAGE 8—JUNE, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Little Rock
Policy, West Memphis Proposal At Issue
(Continued from Page 7)
Legal Action
Plaintiffs Attack
Free-Choice Policy
And Board Attitude
Negro plaintiffs in the newest Little
Rock school case (Clark v. Matson)
filed a strongly-worded 13-page attack
May 21 in federal court at Little Rock
on the school board’s new freedom-of-
choice plan and its general attitude.
After the board’s voluntary shift from
pupil placement to freedom of choice
on April 22, there was a meeting of
counsel for both sides with Federal
Judge Gordon E. Young on May 6,
according to the filing, at which time
the plaintiffs stated the following ob
jections to the new plan:
• It does not meet the requirements
of the Supreme Court because “the
Board has not borne the ‘heavy’ burden
of justifying any additional delay” and
because the choice plan is not adequate
to reorganize the school system on a
nonracial basis.
• The lateral transfer provisions are
too vague and work only to perpetuate
segregation.
• There is no provision for setting
school zone lines on a nonracial basis.
• It does not eliminate the use of
budgets, new facilities or disbursement
racial factors in planning curricula,
of funds.
• It does not say how faculty and
staff will be desegregated.
• The notice to Negro parents is in
adequate.
• The choice forms should be modi
fied to include both first and second
choices and “to modify the requirement
that the student and both parents sign
the form.”
• Not enough time was allowed for
pre-registration and filling out prefer -
ene forms.
Three Questions
Now, the document says, three basic
questions are presented by the position
of the Little Rock School Board. They
are:
“1. May defendants continue to op
erate a dual set of public schools for
Negro pupils and white pupils?
“2. Is defendants’ plan as amended
capable of affording plaintiffs and other
Negro pupils in the Little Rock school
system the relief to which they are now
entitled?
“3. If defendants’ plan as amended is
constitutionally inadequate, what im
mediate steps are required of defend
ants to comply with the Brown case?”
The plaintiffs prepared to answer
the third question with these sugges
tions: That the board set up nonracial
attendance zones so that generally all
pupils would attend the school nearest
home; that all teachers be assigned on
a nonracial basis; that no more facilities
be created on the basis of race (“this
is a relevant to the Ish Elementary
School now under construction”); that
student-teacher, substitute and visiting
teacher programs be desegregated; that
competent Negro persons be employed
or promoted to responsible staff posi
tions; and that interschool extra-cur
ricular activities be started between all
schools.
They discussed the other two ques
tions at length. They used numerous
citations from Aaron v. Cooper and
Norwood v. Tucker (both of which are
the original Little Rock case) to show
that the board was under court order
to end segregation in its school system,
and to show that the Appeals Court had
twice questioned the good faith of the
board. It then described the present
system in detail to show that segrega
tion still existed.
‘Vigorously Object’
A discussion of the second question
included the following:
“Plaintiffs vigorously object to the
institution of a ‘freedom of choice’ plan
for the Little Rock Public School Sys
tem. First, inasmuch as the schools re
main segregated in violation of appro
priate court orders, defendants are
required to immediately rectify this
system by affirmative action taken un
der this court’s supervision. . . .
“Second, we again emphasize that
the court approved plan contemplated
geographic assignments of all pupils.
The school district in 1956 committed
itself to develop school attendance areas
with respect to present and future
physical facilities and to make school
assignments pursuant thereto. The
Board has never developed one set of
school attendance areas; instead, the
Board has squirmed away from the at
tendance area plan asserting no at
tendance areas for the purpose of re
taining segregated schools. But as
testified . . . the Board retains its 1956
school zone lines. Moreover, almost all
pupils in the city attend public schools
on the basis of these previously drawn
lines. Plaintiffs submit that since de
fendants maintain these dual school
zone lines, defendants are required to
redraw school lines in accordance with
their court approved plan and effectu
ate a general reassignment of pupils on
the basis of those lines.
“Third, defendants’ proposed ‘free
dom of choice’ plan demonstrates their
continued determination to retain as
much segregation as possible. In the
past they operated a system where a
pupil’s ‘choice’ was unthinkable. The
pupil attended the school in his racial
zone unless he could convince the
Board that there were compelling rea
sons why this was impracticable. . . .
One has to query why a pupil’s choice
has suddenly become so popular. The
reason is obvious, as adduced from
abundant trial testimony and reinforced
in the statement by Mr. (Everett)
Tucker. The Board believes that most
white people prefer segregated schools
and most Negroes also prefer segre
gated schools. The Board thus has a
policy of wanting to retain segrega
tion. . . .
‘Two Kinds of Schools’
“The only practical result possible
under defendants’ plan is two kinds of
schools: Tokenly mixed schools and
segregated all-Negro schools. And we
again emphasize that the Supreme
Court has condemned all-Negro schools,
especially those operated in a histori
cally segregated context, as being un
equal. Brown requires that this system
created by this corporate defendant be
disestablished by it and the present
Board members.”
But if the choice plan be upheld, the
document went on, then the least that
should be granted the plaintiffs is the
right to make new choices for 1965-66,
with the Negro parents amply notified,
and that those choices be granted as a
matter of course.
Harold B. Anderson of Little Rock
and Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabritt
HI and John W. Walker of New York
signed as attorneys for the plaintiffs.
A hearing date had not been set by
Judge Young at the end of May.
★ ★ ★
West Memphis Lawsuit
Taken Under Advisement
Federal Judge Gordon E. Young
heard testimony May 26 at Little Rock
in the West Memphis desegregation
lawsuit (Yarbrough v. Weaver) and
took it under advisement. This was on
the objections of the Negro plaintiffs
to the freedom-of-choice plan filed
April 20 by the school board. It covers
tides on a variety of ideas and devel
opments in education. Programs re
ported will be placed in their com
munity settings. While the publication
will not urge the adoption or rejection
of any program, evidence of success or
failure, of problems and pitfalls, will be
reported.
Part-time correspondents, each a
newspaperman in his own state, have
done most of the writing for Southern
School News. Full-time staff members
will do the bulk of the writing for
Southern Education Report, although
the publication may make extensive use
of articles written by contributors.
Received Three Awards
In the 11 years of its publication,
Southern School News has received
three awards. The first was the Russ-
wurm Award, presented in 1956 by the
National Newspaper Publishers Asso
ciation “in recognition of outstanding
achievement.” From Texas Southern
University the paper in 1962 received
the “layman’s citation for distinguished
service in the public journals.” The
Lincoln University Board of Curators
in 1963 selected Southern School News
for its annual award for “significant
contributions to better human rela
tions.”
In addition to Southern School
News, Southern Education Reporting
the first six grades this year, three
more grades in 1966 and the top three
grades in 1967. The plaintiffs want all 12
grades desegregated according to school
attendance zones.
The witnesses were B. J. Yarbrough,
father of two of the plaintiffs, Supt.
O. M. Shultz Jr. and Harold E. Weaver,
president of the school board.
Yarbrough said the plan placed the
burden on the Negroes because they
would have to state a preference in or
der to get into a white school, while
white children would go to those schools
without doing anything. He also said
Negroes would be afraid to ask for
admission to white schools for fear of
economic reprisals, that Negroes would
be “locked in” segregated schools be
cause only pupils entering the first,
seventh and ninth grades, after this
year, would have a preference, and that
some of the plaintiffs who are in high
school would be graduated before the
plan reached them.
Shultz testified that every pupil, white
and Negro, entering the first grade in
September would have to state a pref
erence. He said the reasons against
lateral transfers were educational, not
racial. He said that to attempt to de
segregate all 12 grades at once would
“demoralize” the district.
★ ★ ★
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
at St. Louis upheld May 7 the latest
ruling of Judge John E. Miller of Fort
Smith in the Fort Smith school deseg
regation case (Rogers v. Paul). Miller’s
ruling had been to dismiss the com
plaint except for the part relating to
faculty and staff, thus denying the
principal request of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs were a Negro high-
school girl and her parents who wanted
her transferred from Lincoln High
School, for Negroes, to Northside High
School, for whites. But Fort Smith is
following a grade-a-year desegrega
tion plan, started in 1957 and now in
the eighth grade, and Judge Miller re
fused to break outside of it to accom
modate the Rogers girl. The appeals
court agreed.
“We are satisfied that the action of
the school authorities in their desegre
gation effort constitutes good faith and
implementation of the governing con
stitutional principles,” the appeals court
said. “Desegregation in Fort Smith
schools stands out in bold contrast to
desegregation efforts in some biracial
districts where there has been a hard
core of opposition to any semblance
of integration. ’
The court also noted that Lincoln
High School for Negroes is fully ac
credited. “The transfer would constitute
a discriminatory action in her favor,
would open the door to other similar
requests and would weaken the stability
of the entire geographic attendance
system,” the court said.
★ ★ ★
The contest over the election of
Arthur H. Miller, Negro college pro-
Service has published an annual sum
mary of school desegregation statistics.
The summary has included cumulative
lists of court cases and legislative acts.
SERS will continue to publish an an
nual statistical summary, but its con
tent will be limited to the figures on
enrollment by race in public schools
and colleges.
Grants From Ford
Since 1959 SERS has administered
funds, included in grants from the Ford
Foundation, for the publication of Race
Relations Law Reporter, edited in the
School of Law of Vanderbilt Univer
sity. In March the Ford Foundation
made a direct grant to Vanderbilt to
support the legal publication for two
more years, beginning July 1. SERS
will continue to handle the circulation
of the Law Reporter.
With its establishment in 1954, SERS
began to compile a library of current
materials on race relations in the
United States. The collection now con
tains approximately one million items
from newspapers, periodicals and other
sources. Each item is classified and
cataloged. Under the new SERS pro
gram the library will collect only ma
terial dealing specifically with educa
tion.
Annually the additions to the library
are microfilmed. Sold under the title
“Facts on Film,” this microfilm is lo
cated in some 60 libraries in 25 states.
fessor, to the Dollarway School Board,
ended May 10 at Pine Bluff when Rob
W. Bryant, white, conceded defeat.
In the election last September, Miller
won, 602 to 595, over Bryant, the in
cumbent, while a third candidate, W.
C. Hosman, white, got 80 votes. Bryant
sued in Circuit Court and Miller
counter-sued. Bryant challenged the
votes in Dollarway School box, pre
dominantly Negro, which went heavily
for Miller.
When the Dollarway ballots were
checked in court, enough of them were
thrown out to leave Bryant leading
by 10 votes. Then under Bryant’s coun
tersuit, the votes from the Townsend
Park and Hardin School boxes, pre
dominantly white, and which went
heavily for Bryant, were checked, and
Bryant lost votes. He conceded that he
had lost the election by about three
votes.
Community Action
North Little Rock
Relations Council
Objects to Plan
In a letter dated May 21, the North
Little Rock Council on Human Rela
tions spurned the North Little Rock
School Board’s new freedom-of-choice
desegregation plan. John W. Smith,
chairman of the council’s Committee
on Education, said the council's objec
tion also had been sent to the U. S.
Office of Education.
Smith, when the board first an
nounced its plans for 1965-66, said
he thought they might be acceptable
even though they fell far short of what
the Negro community had requested.
The board plans to change from pupil
assignment to freedom of choice and
expand its desegregation from grades
one and two through the first six grades.
Now the Human Relations Council
has gone back to its original request-
full desegregation of all grades and of
faculty and staff.
It is the responsibility of the school
board to desegregate the system, the
letter said, but the new plan places the
burden squarely on the Negro parents.
‘Second Choice’
The letter also accused the school
board of not even following its own
plan by making “second choice” assign
ments without consulting the Negro
students or parents. Deputy Supt.
George Miller said the only instances
in which that had happened were when
sixth-graders were requesting seventh
grade in white junior highs that already
were crowded and when the only un
crowded seventh grade was in a Negro
school. Normally, if a student’s first
request cannot be granted, he gets to
make another choice.
The letter, which also covered other
The collection for the decade 1954-64
having been filmed, SERS will discon
tinue its microfilming program. How
ever, an agreement has been reached
with Tennessee Microfilms, which has
done all the filming to date, giving it
the privilege of microfilming materials
added to the collection but not yet
filmed. The firm also will be the ex
clusive sales agent for all of the micro
film produced or yet to be produced.
SERS still will operate an informa
tion service. The library will remain
open to the public. Requests for infor
mation will be filled to the extent that
resources and staff time permit. Xerox
reproductions of materials collected
will be available for purchase.
SERS has issued monthly press re
leases based on Southern School
News. Press releases will be issued
periodically in the future.
Two books have been published un
der SERS auspices, and the manuscript
for a third is almost complete. Harper
and Brothers in 1957 published the first
of these books, With All Deliberate
Speed, edited by Don Shoemaker, then
executive director of SERS. Edward D.
Ball and Patrick McCauley, as execu
tive director and assistant director,
edited Southern Schools: Progress and
Problems, which SERS published in
1959. Harper and Row will publish
The Ordeal of Desegregation: The First
Decade by Reed Sarratt, present SERS
executive director.
This Is Final Issue Of SSN
(Continued from Page I)
complaints about the schools, ended
“We feel that no millage increase will
be granted unless representatives from
all parts of our city can sit down with
the school board and decide what is
best for our district. We strongly urge
the school board to exert its tremendous
knowledge, influence, and moral sup.
port of an integrated school system, in
stead of using the advice of lawyers
and others who would minimize com
pliance, almost to the point of defi
ance.”
★ ★ ★
Jacques E. Wilmore, director of the
Memphis regional office of the U. S.
Commission on Civil Rights, expressed
serious doubts at Little Rock May 22
about the workability of the freedom-
of-choice desegregation plans. This was
at a conference sponsored by the Ar
kansas Council on Human Relations to
study Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
and the Economic Opportunity Act.
Wilmore said he did not see how
there could be complete desegregation
under the choice plans but that he
understood they were to be only temp
orary and transitional, anyway.
He said they could become a farce,
depending on how much choice Negroes
really have. He asked that a close watch
be kept to see whether Negroes’ rights
were being protected under the choice
plans and that if they were not the
Civil Rights Commission in Washing
ton should be notified.
Wilmore said he had little confidence
in the choice plans. “I know the law
says total desegregation in 1967 but if
there are going to be freedom-of-choice
plans in 1967, there are going to be
segregated schools,” he said.
With James Forman of Atlanta at
tending, the Student Non-violent Co
ordinating Committee held a statewide
meeting attended
by about 50 per
sons May 22-23 at
Ferncliff, a Pres
byterian camp a
few miles outside
of Little Rock-
Forman, the ex
ecutive secretary
of SNCC, held a
press conference
in town but oth
erwise the meeting
was closed to the
press.
Afterward, James O. Jones, SNCC
project director for Arkansas, released
a report on what the meeting had done
toward outlining a civil rights program
for Arkansas. Among other objectives
it included these:
• To challenge school districts that
try to evade complying with the 1964
Civil Rights Act;
• To show that freedom-of-choice
desegregation plans hold no advantages
for Negroes in Arkansas. Such a plan
“really offers neither freedom nor choice
when the facilities of segregated Negro
schools are overwhelmingly inferior to
those of white schools,” the statement
said. ..
Forman at his press conference sai
that Arkansas had been neglected by
SNCC, but that from now on more
workers would spend more time in the
state.
★ ★ ★
The Drew County Citizens’ Council
held a “mobilization meeting” ° n
night of May 14 at Monticello atten ?l t
by about 55 persons. It was the nrs
public Citizens’ Council meeting in Ar
kansas in several years. j
Lewis Fox, Monticello grocer an
chairman, had sent out 2,000 letters
invitation. Fifteen of the audience joj®
the council after the meeting and
said this made the membership
One of those who attended was S
Sen. Jim Raney of Warren. He ^
he was forming a Citizens’ Counc
Bradley County and that was why
was at the meeting. wans
The speakers were Medford
of Jackson, Miss., and Amis Guthri .
of Little Rock, both longtime Ci
Council leaders. Gutbridge’s me i B .
was that the segregationists are ^
ning the battle against integration ^
that the news and press service
not tell the truth about it. ruth'
The next day in Little Rock, ^
ridge said he had heard from P®
in four Arkansas school distric ^. vate
were thinking about setting UP P g {
schools to keep their children ^ gj.
desegregated public schools. S a
ucation Commissioner A. _ 0 thin£
commented that he had hear ^,
on that line and doubted that
trict in the state would attemP