Desegregation in the South

By May 1959, 733 out of a total of 2,839 biracial school districts inthe 17 Southern States (25.8 percent) were desegregated in some degree. 1 In the next 2 years 44 additional districts initiated desegregationfor the first time and 2 desegregated districts in each of 2 States merged.Thus, at the close of the 1960-61 school year, 775 out of 2,837 biracialSouthern school districts, or 27.3 percent, were desegregated at least inpart2014an increase of only i .5 percent.

The 44 school districts that initiated desegregation in 1959-61 include31 that voluntarily admitted Negroes to formerly all-white school and13 that did so under Federal court order. Two States that had beencompletely segregated, Florida and Louisiana, were added during thisperiod to those having some school desegregation. In the former, onedistrict voluntarily desegregated; 2 in the latter, one desegregated underFederal court order. 3 Four Southern States remained completely segregated on the elementary and secondary level in 1959-61, and threeof these have no public educational institutions at any level attendedby members of both races. Appendix IV, table i, shows the breakdownby States.*

This chapter will consider significant developments in the States thatinitiated, and those that expanded, their desegregation programs in1959-61. Special mention will be made of the desegregation of schoolsattended predominantly, or exclusively, by dependents of United Statesmilitary personnel. The remainder of the chapter will be devoted to asummary of the official attitudes of those States in which there is noschool desegregation. Prospects for the future will be indicated.

INITIAL DESEGREGATION 1959-61 Florida

Dade County is located at the southern tip of Florida. It is a metropolitan community with a population of about 900,000 people, approx-39

imately 16 percent of whom are Negro; 5 its principal city is Miami.Dade County was the first and is still the only one of Florida's 67 districts to operate schools attended by Negroes and whites. It begandesegregation voluntarily in September 1959 at schools located in Miamiand Naranja. At that time, however, a suit seeking desegregation waspending in a Federal court. 6

Orchard Villa Elementary School is located in a Miami neighborhood

that changed from predominantly white to predominantly Negro in a3-year period. In September 1958 the Dade County Board of PublicInstruction received a number of applications from Negro pupils forassignment to Orchard Villa. Four of the applicants appeared for ahearing before the board late in September 1958. Their requests weredenied. 7

The school board, however, initiated a survey of the community

around Orchard Villa in October 1958 and found that most whiteresidents planned to move regardless of the possibility of school desegregation. Interviews indicated that a majority of the teachers and staffwould not stay if more than four Negro pupils were admitted. 8

On the basis of this study the board unanimously approved the assignment of the four Negro applicants to Orchard Villa on February 18,1959. When the school opened in September, only 18 pupils enrolled(14 white and 4 Negro). It operated on that basis until October 12,1959, when 150 Negro children who had applied for transfer duringthe summer were admitted. Some 300 additional Negroes from nearbyovercrowded schools were also assigned to the school. At the end ofthe 1959-60 school year, only 5 whites still attended with about 450Negroes. 9

When Orchard Villa opened in September 1960, i white child remained with some 802 Negro children. Two weeks later the Negroenrollment had increased to more than 1,000 and the parents of thei remaining white pupil moved to another neighborhood and removedtheir child from the school. 10 Thus, within a period of i year the segregated school for white students had desegregated and then become a"segregated" school for Negroes.

The second school in Dade County to desegregate during the 1959-60school year was Air Base Elementary School, adjacent to Homestead AirForce Base in Naranja, Fla. ia The school opened for the first time inSeptember 1959, with 17 Negro and 764 white pupils2014all children ofairbase personnel. Federal funds for the construction of this school wereobtained under Public Law 815 12 due to the influx of "unhoused" pupilsoccasioned by Federal activities. The school, however, is located oncounty-owned property and is under the exclusive control of the countyboard. It is open to all children living in the school attendance zone 13

and has continued to operate without incidents attributable to its biracial

enrollment. In September 1960, Air Base School enrolled 25 Negro and771 white students. u

Dr. Joe Hall, Superintendent of Schools of Bade County, Fla., testified

at the Commission's Gatlinburg conference that there are four airbases inFlorida with desegregated schools within their confines. Some of themat one time were operated by county school boards, but Dr. Hall reported that when they desegregated the counties turned them over to theFederal Government. 15

Two additional schools were desegregated in Miami during the 1960-61 school year when one Negro was assigned to a formerly white elementary school and another to a junior high school. There were about i ,633white pupils in attendance at the 2 schools. 16

Louisiana

Before the school year 1960-61 there were no instances of public schooldesegregation in any of Louisiana's 67 parish school districts, although 3suits were pending before the United States District Court for the EasternDistrict of Louisiana, seeking desegregation in the parishes of Orleans,St. Helena, and East Baton Rouge. 17 When it appeared in the summerof 1960 that the Federal court order to desegregate the first grades of theNew Orleans schools in the fall of 1960 would be enforced, the Governorand General Assembly of Louisiana resisted by every means at their command. The chronology of events leading up to the admission of fourfirst-grade Negro girls to two formerly white New Orleans schools onNovember 14, 1960, is recounted in detail in a report of the Commission's Louisiana Advisory Committee. 18

Mrs. N. H. Sand, president, S.O.S. (Save Our Schools, Inc.), New

Orleans, testified at the Commission's Williamsburg conference that theGovernor called the legislature into the first special session in 1960 onNovember 4, and that in 5 days of "hysteria," 21 emergency bills werepassed to preserve segregation. (For details see chapter 5.) Mrs.Sand reported: 19

Save Our Schools appeared at the hearings before the House committee and before the Senate committee. We opposed every bill thatwould lead to closing even one school in the State of Louisiana. Weprepared a summary and legal analysis of the bills on the spot andhad copies of these in the hands of the legislators before they votedon the bills, but the legislature voted in favor of all 21 bills. Evenlegal minds found it difficult to keep up with the spate of legislativeactivity that began with these bills and has flowed ever since or withthe Federal injunctions that were used to counter some of them.

The General Assembly was called into such special sessions five times during 1960-61 (at a total cost to the taxpayers of $934,000) 20 in a vain

attempt to prevent the admission of Negro children to the white schools.

New Orleans has a total population of 627,525, of whom 233,514 areNegroes. 21 The violence that occurred there in conjunction with schooldesegregation stands out in striking contrast to the city's reputation forgaiety. The court order provided merely that the first grade shouldbe desegregated in the fall of 1960. To implement the order, the schoolboard voted to use the recently enacted Louisiana pupil placement law ^to select the first-grade Negro pupils to be admitted to formerly whiteschools. This law establishes the same criteria as the Alabama lawwhich the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled was not unconstitutional on its face 2 years before. 83

The registration of first-grade pupils in the city was 6,482 Negroes

and 3,335 whites 2 * (the majority of public school pupils in New Orleansare Negro). Only 137 Negro children had applied for admission towhite schools. 25 After more than 2 weeks of testing, the school superintendent announced on October 27, 1960, that five Negro children hadmet all the criteria for admission, and that the two first-grade classesscheduled for racial desegregation would be segregated on the basis ofsex.

When the school opened, the legislature dispatched State policemen(hastily converted into sergeants-at-arms) to the city's 148 elementaryschools to implement a new statute giving control of the New Orleanspublic schools to the State general assembly. The school principals,however, refused to comply with the demands of policemen and proceeded to carry out instructions from the president of the Orleans ParishSchool Board to open school as usual. On November 14, four 6-yearold Negro girls, accompanied by U.S. marshals, enrolled in WilliamFrantz and McDonough 19 elementary schools. The schools werepromptly boycotted by most white pupils. Mrs. Sand reported to theCommission: 26

What happened after November 14 is widely familiar in this country and probably also abroad2014the day of rioting by white highschool students who, thwarted in their ambitions to "get the mayor"and march on Frantz, nevertheless succeeded in burning the American flag; the screaming mobs of women in front of the two schools;the heroism of Mrs. James Gabrielle and Rev. Lloyd A. Foreman inbringing their daughters to Frantz in defiance of these mobs.

A few white pupils finally returned to William Frantz, but the majority(about 675) transferred to public schools in the adjoining St. BernardParish. 27 The school board estimated that nearly 300 white childrenbelonging in these schools received no schooling whatsoever throughout

the school year. 88 While the number of white students attending...