National Affairs: REPORT CARD

Progress of the States Toward School Desegregation

As the new school year began, 17 Southern and border states had widely varying records of compliance with the Supreme Court’s order to enforce desegregation with “all deliberate speed.” The states’ report cards:

ALABAMA: Grade F. “Not one of the school boards has made any move to try to work out anything,” a top Negro attorney correctly reports. The Alabama state legislature recently enacted a “Placement Bill,” over the veto of Governor James (“Kissin’ Jim”) Folsom, empowering local school boards to place pupils in schools upon such considerations as “the psychological qualifications of the pupil for the type of teaching and associations involved . . . the possibility of breaches of peace or ill will or economic retaliation within the community.”

ARKANSAS: Grade C Plus. “It is a problem that must be left to the people of the local districts to solve,” said Governor Orval E. Faubus. Four of the state’s 228 interracial school districts are integrating this fall, moving 49 Negro children in, along with about 2,170 whites. Little Rock (pop. 102,213) will integrate its 24% Negro student population in the high schools in 1957, the junior high schools in 1958. The University of Arkansas held its first integrated summer session this year.

DELAWARE: Grade C. In Wilmington (pop. 110,356), 13 city schools will integrate this fall; 900 Negro students will attend formerly all-white schools, while 50 whites will attend all-Negro schools. In New Castle County (Wilmington), 14 out of 20 school boards intend to integrate. But in Kent and Sussex Counties, officials of only one (the city of Dover) out of 27 white school districts intend to heed the Supreme Court.

FLORIDA: Grade D. State law prohibits the mixing of races in schools, but on three bases of the U.S. Air Force, white and Negro pupils will integrate this fall. Negro parents have filed petitions for integration in four counties.

GEORGIA: Grade F. No desegregation anywhere.

KENTUCKY: Grade B Plus. Governor Lawrence Wetherby and his education officials promise to enact the Supreme Court mandate. Out of 224 school districts, including that of Lexington, 20 or 25 will integrate this fall. Louisville (pop. 369,129), where Jim Crow barriers are fast crumbling, will integrate in 1956. Segregation bars are down at all the state colleges and most private colleges and universities.

LOUISIANA: Grade F. State schools will not be integrated this fall, or in the foreseeable future. New Orleans Catholic authorities will not integrate their parochial schools “this year.” The Louisiana state legislature voted $100,000 to hire attorneys to contest integration lawsuits at every level.

MARYLAND: Grade B Minus. In Baltimore (pop. 949,708), formal integration of the city schools is one year old, although only about 4% of Negro pupils are actually in mixed schools. Statewide, eight out of 22 counties with mixed populations plan to integrate this fall; several others will integrate next year. Maryland will also integrate its five state teachers’ colleges before the end of 1955. Last week in Washington County, where the Union won the victory at Antietam that encouraged President Lincoln to publish his Emancipation Proclamation, 73 Negro children registered for all-white schools. Maryland’s Eastern Shore, however, contrives to preserve segregation by devious means; e.g., two counties run school buses only along last year’s routes so that Negroes have to attend their old segregated schools or walk.

MISSISSIPPI: Grade F. No move to desegregate.

MISSOURI: Grade A. State education authorities estimate that 55,000 (80%) of Missouri’s Negro children are now studying alongside 550,000 whites; there has been no friction.

NORTH CAROLINA: Grade C Minus. Governor Luther Hodges’ idea is that whites and Negroes should combine to make what he calls “a voluntary choice of separate schools”; he threatens to close public schools rather than desegregate them. Some industrial cities—Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham —have appointed committees to study the Supreme Court decision. A federal court ruled last week that the University of North Carolina must process the applications of three Negro undergraduates.

OKLAHOMA: Grade B Plus. “I think without question we are in advance of any other [Southern] state,” said a Negro newspaper editor in Oklahoma City, adding: “I am utterly surprised . . .” At least 88 out of 1,802 school districts will integrate in Oklahoma this week, including Oklahoma City and Tulsa. All 18 of the state universities and colleges plan to integrate this fall. Much of this impetus comes from Governor Raymond Gary, who insists that his state will not defy the Supreme Court, and from Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Oliver Hodge. Says Hodge: “Our attitude is that they’re all just children . . .” One Oklahoma problem: most integrated classes are awarded to white teachers, throwing about 200 Negro teachers out of work.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Grade F. South Carolina’s general assembly is on record to the effect that 1) school districts permitting integration will be denied state funds, 2) races must not intermingle in public buildings. The N.A.A.C.P. has filed 17 petitions asking school districts to “carry out the full intent of the U.S. Supreme Court decree.”

TENNESSEE: Grade C. On Oct. 17 a federal court in Memphis (pop. 396,000) will try an N.A.A.C.P. test lawsuit designed to admit five Negro undergraduates to Memphis State College—about 85% of whose students are said to favor the move. Tennessee intends gradually to integrate all six of its state-supported colleges. Nashville has a committee studying integration; Chattanooga recently voted for integration, but not this year. Federal-run Oak Ridge (pop. 30,229) has the only integrated school system in the state.

TEXAS: Grade C Plus. San Antonio (pop. 408,442), where two Negro slaves survived the siege of the Alamo, opened its 94 schools to 5.995 Negro children this week. More than 60 out of the state’s 2,000 school districts—including El Paso, Corpus Christi and Austin—will begin to integrate this fall; Dallas (pop. 434,462) plans to integrate at an “indefinite” date. Houston (pop. 596,163) indicates an intent to comply. Every branch of the University of Texas will be open to Negroes in the fall of 1956.

VIRGINIA: Grade D Plus. Governor Thomas B. Stanley says that he will “use every legal power at my command to continue segregated schools.” His State Commission on Public Education is examining legal ways of preventing integration. Prince Edward County operates white schools on a month-to-month funding basis, ready to shut down rather than desegregate. Norfolk (pop. 213,513) proclaims that it intends to uphold the Supreme Court decision, but state law forbids it.

Richmond recently dropped a pilot plan to integrate a few Negroes into white junior high schools.

WEST VIRGINIA: Grade A Minus. About 35 of the state’s 55 counties will begin to integrate this fall. Ten counties have no Negroes, and nine continue to run segregated all-white and all-Negro schools. Charleston (pop. 73,501) integrated its schools’ first, second and seventh grades last week, reported that all went well.