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undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule againsts the Negro plaintiffs:

"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system.'

"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs *** are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th amendment."

In a separate decision handed down at the same time on the fifth case arising in the District of Columbia, the Court said:

"In view of our decision that the Constitution prohibits the States from maintaining racially segregated public schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government. We hold that racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia is a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the Constitution."

Because of the far-reaching implications of these rulings, the Court invited the legal representatives of all parties, and the Attorney General of the United States, to submit additional briefs and to make oral arguments at the next session of the Court.

2. REACTION TO THE DECISION

Reaction to the Supreme Court decision was immediate and worldwide. Within the Nation, leaders in all walks of life and in all sections of the country had their say. Public discussion in the District of Columbia and the 21 States most affected by the decision was most vigorous. Opinions expressed ranged all the way from forthright and enthusiastic approval to outright defiance of the law of the land, as affirmed in the decision. Many counseled calmness, caution, and commonsense.

Political leaders and school authorities

The reaction and opinions of political leaders and school authorities in States most affected by the decision are of crucial importance. They primarily are responsible for the maintenance of law and order, and for working out practical ways of compliance with the decision.

Six months after the decision was announced, the picture was somewhat as follows: At the 20th annual meeting of the Conference of Southern Governors, in mid-November, the Governors of seven States-Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma-issued a signed statement in which they declared that integration of public schools would "engender dissensions that do not now exist." They further asserted that they would "exercise every proper prerogative" to keep segregated public schools. The Governor of Mississippi was not present at that time but is known to be in accord with these sentiments.

The Governors of six States-Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, and Alabama-who were also present, but did not sign the statement, may be presumed to be disposed toward a more moderate position, if not that of full compliance.

Four States-Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi-have enacted legislation designed to maintain segregated public schools (New York Times, Sept. 17, 1954). In North Carolina, the Governor appointed a citizens commission to study the implications of the Court's decision and to make recommendations.

In Tennessee State officials proposed gradual desegregation beginning with the first grade. The solicitor general stated: "As we see it now the question of whether there will be segregation was settled by the decision last May. We see no point in further arguing that point. Instead we will present our ideas about how the ending of segregation can be carried out with a minimum

of disturbance to our school system." The attorney general of the State and the commission of education generally agreed with the solicitor general (N.Y. Times, Aug. 19, 1954).

The Governor of Alabama is reported to have resisted increasing political pressure to call a special session of the legislature to enact an amendment to the State constitution to make possible the abolition of public education (Southern School News, vol. I, No. 3, Nov. 4, 1954, p. 1).

In Virginia the Governor appointed the Virginia Commission on Public Education, to study the matter and to make recommendations. This commission is scheduled to hold public hearings.

In contrast to the foregoing, voluntary compliance with the Court's decision was the order of the day in a number of States and cities.

4

Shortly after the decision the attorney general of Missouri ruled that State segregation laws were nullified by the decision, but held that compliance with the decision was voluntary until the Court announced its implementation decrees. However, school authorities announced their intention to comply with the decision in all of the schools of the 69 counties affected by the decision INS September-October 1954, vol, 25, No. 5, p. 1). The other 35 counties in the State were not affected by the decision. At the end of October the Southern School News reported that 289 of the 466 school districts in Missouri have no Negro pupils. "Of the remaining 177 with Negro pupils, 110 have begun some form of desegregation. In no case has desegregation caused any incident."

In Kansas, where segregation was permitted but not required by law, officials announced voluntary compliance shortly after the decision was announced.

In Kentucky, Republican and Democratic leaders agreed in announcing their intention to support voluntary compliance and thus kept the issue of desegregation out of the election campaign this year.

In West Virginia, where voluntary compliance was undertaken in three counties, there was opposition from some parents and some picketing. State officials, however, continued to make plans for voluntary compliance with the Court's decision. The State board of education opened the nine colleges under its jurisdiction to all qualified students. As a result, West Virginia State College, which until this year, has been open only to Negro students, has admitted more than 180 white students on a coeducational basis. This shows that the desegregation movement is working not only in the previously allwhite schools, but, also, in the previously all-Negro schools.

Several other isolated events indicate that the problem of public school segregation is a national as well as a southern problem. Shortly after the Supreme Court's decision, the school board of Hobbs, N. Mex., voted to comply with the decision. Despite agitation by a Baptist minister against desegregation, the schools opened in the fall fully desegregated and without inciden. Times, Aug. 31. 1954.)

(New York

In New York State segregation of Indian children was ended for the first time in 100 years. One thousand five hundred and thirty-five Indian schoolchildren were transferred from out-of-date schools on reservations, some of which had been used since 1846, to neighboring public schools. (New York Times, Sept. 24, 1954.)

In Pasadena, Calif., the school authorities abolished a system of neutral zones, which had been in effect since 1927, and which represented an indirect method of racial segregation. (New York Times, June 27, 1954.)

In New York City and Englewood, N.J., Negro leaders charged that indirect racial segregation in the public schools had been discovered in certain districts. Political leaders have advanced several proposals to meet the popular demand, in certain parts of States such as South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, for measures to circumvent the decision. These proposals range from withdrawal of State support of gerrymandering of school districts. They may be classified under five broad headings: (1) transfer of existing schools to a system of private schools; (2) assignment of all students on an individual basis to particular schools; (3) right to transfer without cause from school to school; (4) gerrymandering of school districts; (5) to create a third school system of integrated schools, in addition to existing dual ones.

Interracial News Service.

The Federal Government

The present administration has given active and constructive leadership to the broad and increasing process of desegregation of public life and affairs. With its consistent support and under directives of the President, (1) the process of desegregation of the armed services has been pushed close to completion; (2) schools on Army installations which receive Federal funds have been integrated; and (3) the U.S. Department of Justice filed supporting briefs against segregation at the invitation of the Court, when the cases were argued before the Court.

On November 24, 1954, the Justice Department filed and made public its brief, submitted at the invitation of the Court on the question of implementing decrees That brief advanced five "ground rules" for a gradual ending of public school segregation:

(1) The lower courts shall direct school authorities to submit a desegregation plan within 90 days.

(2) In the absence of satisfactory plans, the lower courts shall direct the school authorities to end segregation at the beginning of the next school year.

(3) Where plans are submitted, the lower courts shall hold hearings to determine acceptability and to fix the earliest practicable date for completing the desegregation.

(4) The lower courts should require progress reports, to guard against unnecessary delays.

(5) The Supreme Court should retain jurisdiction, in order to make further orders necessary to effect its ruling.

Some communities undertake integration voluntarily

School authorities in several cities have already successfully undertaken voluntary compliance with the Supreme Court's decision. The most notable and celebrated examples are Washington, D.C., Wilmington and Milford, Del., and Baltimore, Md. Shortly after the decision was announced, the school board of Greensboro, N.C., voted 6 to 1 to direct the superintendent of schools "to work out a system for an orderly changeover" from segregated to integrated schools. This was perhaps the first school board in the South to take steps to comply voluntarily with the Court's decision.

Protests against programs of integration in Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington and Milford, Del., captured the headlines and tended to obscure the more important fact that such protests involved only a small percentage of the affected schools and persons.

Desegregation of the schools in the District of Columbia was undertaken with the open support of the President of the United States, who expressed a hope that it would set an example and be a model for other affected areas. The program proceeded smoothly and without overt incidents for 3 full weeks, until, on October 4, students at one high school in Anacostia began demonstrations against desegregation. Students from two other formerly all-white high schools and six junior high schools joined in these demonstrations which followed. These actions clearly were suggested by similar protests which had been made by parents and students in Milford, Del., and in Baltimore, Md.

As a result of the combined efforts of Washington school and police authori ties, religious and civic leaders and other private citizens, order was restored by the fourth day and since that time enrollment and school attendance has been normal and without overt incidents. At the height of the demonstrations, which were classified by the school authorities as truancy, only 2,500 students, or 2 percent of the city's 104,000 school population, were involved in the organized class cutting.

The experience of Baltimore was somewhat comparable to that of Washington. Fifty-two out of Baltimore's 186 public schools were involved in the integration program. From the beginning of the school year on September 7, through September 29, the program was put into effect peacefully and smoothly. On the last day of September picketing began in one of the integrated schools in which were only 12 Negro pupils and 575 white students. The development of the protests and the public demonstrations have been fully reported in the press. Reports of these incidents tended to overshadow the much more significant and truly headline news, that not more than 6 of the 52 integrated schools were involved in the demonstrations, and that all of these 6 were schools in which there were only a few Negro students and an overwhelming majority of white students. In Baltimore, as in Washington, the coordinated efforts of school authorities, political leaders, law-enforcement officials, civic and religious organizations and private

citizens, peace, law, and order were restored within a short time. The Southern School News reports: "The student march was a noisy one, but the hard facts were that 97 percent of Baltimore's public school boys and girls were not drawn out and continued classes without interruption." (Southern School News, vol. I, No. 3, Nov. 4, 1954, p. 7.)

Two different communities in Delaware undertook desegregation with contrasting experience. The city of Wilmington undertook desegregation on a voluntary basis and without incident involving several thousand pupils. Milford, Del., at the opposite end of the State undertook integration of its high school involving only 12 Negro students and the opposition and protests made headline news throughout the world. The bitter controversy, which developed in Milford and the surrounding Sussex County, appears to have been touched off and organized by leaders of the recently formed National Association for the Advancement of White People. The Milford incident, as it is now called, started a chain reaction of protests which quickly spread to Baltimore and to Washington. To counteract the activities of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, leaders of religious and civic organizations throughout Delaware, and particularly in the affected areas, supported the efforts of school authorities to comply voluntarily with the Supreme Court decision. The bishops of the Episcopal Church and the clergy were among leaders in the effort to win the support of the people to the integration program.

Desegregation programs prior to the decision

These efforts of local and county school authorities to integrate public schools following the Supreme Court decision, are neither new nor isolated. A volume recently published by the University of North Carolina Press (Nov. 10, 1954), entitled "Schools in Transition," reports the experiences of 24 communities, in 6 States bordering the South, as they have sought to move from racially segregated public schools toward integrated systems prior to the decision.

The 6 States, involved in a study conducted by 45 scholars under the auspices of the Fund for the Advancement of Education, ranged from New Jersey to the East through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to New Mexico and Arizona in the West. All these may be considered border Southern States.

The 24 communities included in this study varied from large industrial cities, such as Cincinnati, to small towns, such as Nogales, Ariz. Their population range was from 8,500 to 3,600,000. They included such industrial cities as Camden, N.J., and nonindustrial areas, such as Cairo, Ill. The size of the Negro population varied from large to small. The pattern of housing varied from highly segregated districts to a rather random and scattered arrangement. The material in the study was gathered during the period of August and September 1953.

In addition to these communities, Paden City, W. Va., voluntarily integrated its schools in 1953. The Negro school was closed and its pupils transferred to the previously all-white elementary and high schools. The high cost of dual schools is indicated by the fact that the closed Negro school served only four elementary and four high school pupils.

As may be expected, the experiences of these communities varied greatly. In general, it may be said that they offer convincing evidence of the successful possibilities of voluntary integration. They point, also, to certain common pitfalls.

The most outstanding example of voluntary school desegregation prior to the Supreme Court decision is that of the State of New Jersey. In the period 1947-52 New Jersey successfully completed integration of thousands of school children and their teachers "with a minimum of resistance. It took 5 years, despite some hostility and threats of resistance." (George Cable Wright, New York Times, May 23, 1954.)

Also prior to the Supreme Court decision, the Federal Government undertook to end segregation in schools operated by the Army, with Federal funds, for children of Army personnel in all Army installations throughout the country. (New York Times, March 25, 1954.)

Educational, social welfare, civic, and labor groups

The National Education Association, perhaps the most influential professional organization in that field, meeting in July, adopted a resolution in support of the Supreme Court decision. The conference was made up of 48 State delegations comprising 20,000 teachers, college officials, superintendents, and prominent

educators. Voting as State groups, only 2 State delegations out of the entire 28 opposed the resolution, namely, South Carolina and Mississippi.

Representatives of some of the principal social welfare agencies of the country, both public and private, expressed their support of the Court's decision at a conference on school segregation, which was in session at the time the decision was announced. The conference had been convened by the National Social Welfare Assembly, the central social welfare agency of the country, and was attended by 75 representatives of 22 national social welfare agencies. The assembly is comprised of 67 national agencies of social welfare.

The statement, adopted by the conference on May 18, said:

"The Supreme Court decision in regard to segregation in the public schools served to heighten and to pinpoint this area of the agency's interest and concern ***. It is recogized that not all social agencies are at the same point in the integration of board, staff, membership, and services. Moreover, practices differ from locality to locality even within the same agency. Few, if any, were satisfied that their agencies had done all they should or could. But all were united on the goal and expressed determination to press forward. All were convinced that this is an area in which social agencies had a fundamental responsibility and an obligation to take the leadership.

"In this light, each individual agency should ask itself the question: (1) Has this agency taken all the steps it should to prepare for a leadership role in the desegregation of America*** on its board, its committees, its staff, its membership, and in the extension of services on an equal basis to all? (2) Are all free to participate in programing, in policy decisions, and in conferences?"

The August issue of the Intergroup Relations Bulletin of the assembly reported on desegregation projects underway in five member agencies:

The Camp Fire Girls.-The leadership of this agency has discussed the implications of the Supreme Court ruling for the organization of Camp Fire councils and groups, and, also, the ways in which local Camp Fire councils might bring their practices in line with the membership policies of the National Camp Fire Girls, Inc., and the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling. The agency also is publishing a study pamphlet on this issue.

Girl Scouts of the United States of America.-The national office sent to each of its regional offices in Southern States, a list of the branch offices of agencies which might be able to assist in local desegregation programs. This list of consultative agencies includes the American Jewish Committee, the Antidefamation League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the National Urban League. The national personnel department of the Girl Scouts has explored the implications of the Supreme Court decision for its work. The national executive committee approved the statement adopted by the National Social Welfare Assembly and sent it with a covering memorandum entitled "Relation of Girl Scouts to Desegregation in the Public Schools" to the field staff and unit directors of the Girl Scouts.

National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers.-The president of the federation sent letters of commendation to Governors and school authorities in areas affected by the decision, who had expressed the desire and willingness to comply with the Court's decision. National staff members of the federation will be participating in institutes during the coming year in local communities dealing specifically with methods of desegregation.

YMCA National Council.-The 28th Annual Meeting of the National Council of the YMCA adopted a resolution on interracial policies for the 1950's in which it urged all member associations to work earnestly toward the elimination of segregation and other forms of racial discrimination, by dealing with them at the area, State, and local levels.

YWCA National Board.--The national board established an ad hoc committee to study the implications of the Court's decision as they apply to the total YWCA movement, and to explore areas for immediate and long-range concern and program activities. Educational materials have been made available to branches of the YWCA to assist them in study and action on the local level.

In addition to these, the National Urban League, with affiliated organizations in some 60 communities throughout the Nation, has called upon the leadership of its local groups to give special attention to opportunities for community organizations to act before any community opposition has developed, where desegregation programs are underway or contemplated. Based upon the participation of the Baltimore Urban League in the happy and successful control of the recent

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