School year 1958-59 There were no new instances of desegregation in Tennessee in this school year. However, the peaceful opening of the State's few desegregated schools was a welcome relief from the violence and disorders that accompanied such school openings in the two preceding years. School year 1954-55 NORTH CAROLINA Governor William B. Umstead on May 18, 1954, stated that he was "terribly disappointed" by the decision in the School Segregation Cases, but he later asserted: "This is no time for rash statements or the proposal of impossible schemes." The Governor immediately asked the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina to study the implications of the decision." In the absence of an implementation decree from the United States Supreme Court, the State Board of Education voted to continue segregation in the public schools in the school year 1954–55.78 79 On August 4, 1954, the Governor turned over the report of the Institute of Government to a 19-member biracial advisory committee, known as the Pearsall Committee, which he had appointed to deal with the problem of finding a policy and a program that would "preserve the State public school system by having the support of the people." 80 No school desegregation occurred in North Carolina the first school year after the Brown decision. Segregation, required by State law, was almost universal throughout North Carolina. Local ordinances and custom completed the pattern in areas of life not specifically covered by statute. However, the State was known generally as being more liberal and progressive than most of her Deep South neighbors. Race relations were considered relatively good, and the exercise of the franchise by the Negro was an important factor in political affairs in many sections. In 1951, the University of North Carolina had admitted Negroes to its graduate school as the result of litigation.$1 The most concentrated Negro population in North Carolina is in the northeastern portion of the State along the Virginia border. The Negro population is also relatively large in the central counties, ranging between 20 and 30 percent. The average in the mountain counties of the west is about 5 percent. There are a total of 172 school districts in North Carolina, all biracial. Of these, 100 are county administrative units, and 72 are city administrative units. 82 S.S.N., Sept. 1954, p. 10. 78 Ibid. "University of North Carolina Institute of Government, Law and Government, a Series: The School Segregation Decision (A Report to the Governor of North Carolina.. .), Univ. of N.C., 1954. S.S.N., Sept. 1954, p. 10. 81 McKissick v. Carmichael, 187 F. 2d 949 (4th Cir. 1951). S.S.N., Sept. 1954, p. 10. School year 1955-56 Although locally there were at least two attempts to register Negro children in formerly all-white schools in North Carolina, there were no instances of their actual enrollment.83 In an August 1955 radio and television broadcast, Governor Luther H. Hodges asked the races to attend separate schools voluntarily in order to insure the continuance of the public school system in the State.84 The University of North Carolina became the first "white" public college in the South to enroll Negro students in its undergraduate school. This was the result of a court order that required the university to process applications without regard to race or color.85 The North Carolina General Assembly in March, 1955, and July, 1956, revised the State's school laws to eliminate mention of race and to vest all transfer authority in the local school districts.86 School year 1956-57 This was another year without an instance of desegregation at the public school level. The most important event, on September 8, 1956, was the overwhelming popular vote in favor of the "Pearsall Committee Plan" for amending the State constitution to authorize tuition grants for children who object to attending desegregated schools, and to permit localities to close public schools.87 School year 1957-58 This was a significant year for desegregation activity in the State. In three principal cities, Negroes were admitted to formerly all-white schools. To prepare for desegregation, school officials from Greensboro, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem met jointly three times. With existing legislation offering no hinderance, these three communities decided to move individually toward desegregation. They acted simultaneously and similarly, but independently.88 In Charlotte, some 40 Negroes applied for transfer to all-white schools. The School Board granted 5 and rejected 35, emphasizing that it had decided on the merits of each application in accordance with State law. Winston-Salem received six applications for transfer. Two were withdrawn, three were denied, and one was granted. 83 S.S.N., Oct. 1955, p. 16. 84 S.S.N., Sept. 1955, p. 14. 85 Frasier v. Board of Trustees, 134 F. Supp. 589 (M.D.N.C. 1955), aff'd, 350 U.S. 979 (1956). se Act of March 30, 1955, N.C. Laws 1955, ch. 366, p. 309 as amended by Act of July 27, 1956, N.C. Ex. Sess. 1956, ch. 7, p. 14. 87 Act of July 27, 1956, N.C. Ex. Sess. 1956, ch. 1, p 88 Nashville Conference, pp. 104-05. Greensboro received nine applications, of which six were approved. One was denied, one withdrawn, and one transferred elsewhere.89 The Greensboro Board used the rule, "If the child were white and similarly qualified, where would he go?" 90 In implementing this rule, the school district lines were not considered, but rather the distance from the child's home to the nearest school. This was on July 23, 1957. "In August," Ben L. Smith, Superintendent of Schools Emeritus of Greensboro, told the Nashville Conference, "an injunction was sought to prevent the Board from enrolling Negro pupils." However, the Board's action was sustained, first by the Superior Court of North Carolina, and on appeal, by the Supreme Court of the State.91 ... Mr. Smith related that there was very little difficulty actually connected with the opening of schools. "As was expected and as will always happen, the Superintendent of Schools, the Principal of the school . . ., and the Board of Education . . . [bore] the impact of the opposition . . . . . . We . . . [also had] Kasper visit the community. . . . [He] organized a group which later apparently turned into a Ku Klux Klan group." 92 Groups were free to express dissent, but police officers in plain clothes attended such gatherings. ... At the end of Greensboro's first year of desegregation, the Associated Press summarized the experiences of the Negro students as follows: Mostly disregarded, occasionally welcomed, insulted by a few, they finished in a calm that contrasted sharply with the storm aroused by their entry last year." In explaining the changes that had been brought about in the school system of Greensboro and in its community attitudes to make desegregation possible in that city, Superintendent Smith gave credit to the city's enlightened and liberal-minded atmosphere, its extraordinary School Board and attorney, its resolute school personnel, its favorable press, its intelligent, alert and courageous police force, headed by a chief who believed in law and order, its long history of devotion to public education, and its excellent record of race relations.94 Negro citizens had for some time served on the police force. A prominent Negro educator, Dr. David P. Johns, had for several years served as a member of the Board of Education and upon final illness had been succeeded by a prominent Negro physician. This Negro physician had formerly been elected a member of the City Council, and he had led the ticket in the election in which he was offered as a candidate. It is said that if all of the pre S.S.N., Aug. 1957, p. 3. 0 Herbert Wey and John Corey, Action Patterns in School Desegregation, Bloomington, Ind., 1959, p. 124. Nashville Conference, p. 105; in re Applications for Reassignment, 101 S.E. 2d 359 (N.C. 1958). Id. at 107, 108. 3 S.S.N., July 1958, p. 13. Nashville Conference, pp. 105, 106. 517016-59-16 dominantly Negro ballot boxes had been thrown out, he still would have been elected by a majority of the citizens of Greensboro." When polio struck the community, Superintendent Smith reported, all who had been stricken were accepted into the hospital, and a school was set up there for all invalided pupils regardless of race. A recently established Cerebral Palsy School was being administered on a nonsegregated basis. The Woman's College of the University of North Carolina had accepted some Negro students, and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, a Negro institution, has offered some courses to white students. The Catholic parochial school had admitted Negro pupils. The city was influenced by the liberal views of the Friends and by members of the Jewish community, which includes many of Greensboro's prominent business men and civic leaders.96 "While a minority opposed vigorously the action of the Board of Education," said Superintendent Smith, "and many regretted the necessity, the majority felt that it was the best course that could be taken. Most felt that it was the least for the longest As to how fast further desegregation might occur, Superintendent Smith remarked: 99.97 The School Board has taken the position that pupils should not be forced against their will into an inhospitable situation. . [It has] . . accepted only pupils who have made application . . . I would hope that there would be a gradual changeover . . . I certainly should not like to see Negro pupils forced against their will, the will of their parents, into a situation that might prove to be inhospitable for them. I think the fact that we have made a beginning and did it voluntarily . . . has been pleasing, greatly pleasing, to the Negro population, and there has been definite appreciation, and their leaders have said to us from time to time that they are not so much concerned about where we are now, but the direction in which we are going. 98 Negro parents whose children were excluded from Gillespie Park School in Greensboro in 1958-59 filed suit in the Federal District Court.99 School year 1958-59 Schools opened with Negro pupils attending schools with whites only in the three cities that had desegregated the preceding year. In actual numbers, only eleven Negroes were in white schools in these cities, one more than had finished the year before. In Winston-Salem, where desegregation extended to an additional school, more than two hundred white pupils 25 Id. at 106. 06 Ibid. Ibid. 0 Id. at 109, 110, 111. Id. at 111, 112. asked for transfers. Protest meetings, harassment, picketing, and general unpleasantness accompanied the opening of schools to some extent in all the cities.' Late in the school year, the first instance of desegregation in the eastern part of the State occurred when the son of a Negro Air Force Sergeant was enrolled in a white elementary school in Wayne County, adjacent to the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. The county designated the school to be for children of air base personnel only, beginning in September, 1959, a decision expected to result in considerable desegregation.2 School year 1954-55 VIRGINIA Immediately after the 1954 Supreme Court decision Governor Thomas B. Stanley expressed confidence that the people of Virginia would receive the ruling "calmly” and would "take time to carefully and dispassionately consider the situation before coming to conclusions on steps which should be taken." On June 11, 1954, Attorney General J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., declared: "Negro teachers are not going to be engaged in Virginia to teach white children. No child of any race is going to be compelled to attend a mixed school." Dowell J. Howard, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said: "There will be no defiance of the Supreme Court decision as far as I am concerned. We are trying to teach school children the law of the land, and we will abide by it."5 But before the year was out, at least 52 of the governing bodies of Virginia's 98 counties were on record against school desegregation. The largest concentration of Negro population is in the southeastern agricultural section of the State, known as "southside" Virginia. The populations of these counties are generally 50 percent or more Negro. The western mountain counties, on the other hand, average only about 5 percent Negro population. The school system in 1954 consisted of 98 county and 29 city school divisions or districts. With the possible exception of one or two districts, all were presumed to have Negro school children residing within their boundaries.' Racial segregation was the way of life in the State, either by State law or by custom and practice. At the time of the Brown decision, few inroads had been made in this pattern. As the result of court actions some desegregation had occurred in public transportation facilities, and Negroes had gained admission to the graduate schools of a few formerly all-white public institutions of higher education.* 1 S.S.N., Oct. 1958, p. 12. S.S.N., April 1959, p. 4. S.S.N., Sept. 1954, p. 13. • Ibid. Ibid. S.S.N., Dec. 1954, p. 15. 7 S.S.N., Sept. 1954, p. 3. See J. Rupert Picott, "Desegregation of Public Education in Virginia," 24 J. Negro Ed. 361, 363 (1955). |