ARKANSAS: Hope for September

The voters of Little Rock (pop. 126,300) took a lot of starch out of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus’ fight against school integration last month when they washed three Faubusites out of the school board in a recall election (TIME, June 8). Last week a three-judge federal court got on with the job by holding unconstitutional the Faubus-designed state laws that empowered Faubus to lock all four city high schools (2,900 white pupils, 750 Negroes) for the 1958-59 school year and transfer some of their funds to a private school for whites only. By reminding the school board, Faubus and other officials that they are still under a federal court mandate to move into an integration program, the court put Little Rock back where it was when Faubus used the National Guard to keep nine Negro students out of Central High School in September 1957. Said Board President Everett Tucker jr.: The board will be prepared to open all schools this September under the original 1957 integration plan.