FAILURE In Little Rock
CARTWRIGHT, COLBERT S.
FAILURE In Little Rock by COLBERT S. CARTWRIGHT when you check into a hotel in Little Rock a clerk graciously hands you a copy of "Metropolitan Little Rock Today," which sets forth a Chamber of...
...White persons hearing a presentation of the school plan by Dr...
...He explained that by the conversion of an already proposed Negro junior high school building into a Negro senior high school, the speedy erection of a new senior high school building in a white residential area, and the conversion of the present Negro high school to a junior high school, attendance areas could be developed which would result in maximum avoidance of the mixing of the races...
...He told the students the school board had assured the principal of its support in the expulsion of students guilty of misconduct, and when such misconduct was considered a violation of the injunction, the case would be turned over to the FBI for investigation...
...The segregationists were demonstrating that they had a better means "within the law" to keep Negroes out of white schools...
...Complained the school board: "The District now finds itself in a most difficult position in providing satisfactory education for its pupils...
...Student leaders believed they could themselves create a climate of peace and order within their school...
...They successfully persuaded Governor Orval E. Faubus to call out the state militia to surround Central High School...
...After the school board's ineffective coping with turmoil for several months the students were finally called together in the auditorium for an assembly...
...It was an injunction that forced Governor Faubus to remove troops from Central High...
...Negro students report incidents which they say occurred before the "unseeing" eyes of school personnel...
...An energetic minister sent members of his congregation out to ring doorbells to secure signatures of support for the school officials...
...Although the school board sought to ban the cards, it could not argue with this logic built upon its own premises...
...They had heard nothing from the superintendent as to the best means of facing the challenge of the Supreme Court's decree that racially "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal...
...A frequent contributor to both the religious and secular press, his articles have appeared in the Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, and The Reporter...
...This was -the context in which Superintendent of Schools Virgil T. Blossom tirelessly interpreted the school board's three-stage plan for meeting the Supreme Court decree to some 200 groups of Little Rock citizens...
...Leaders of the PTA sought ways to help...
...no school board likes outside interference...
...The most effective means the school board has had from the beginning to recreate order at Central High has been the power to secure federal court injunctions against specific adults or pupils who were interfering with its plan...
...The board's own plan had been carried to its logical conclusion by militant segregationists...
...They know that America's federal courts have declared that racial designations are no longer relevant in describing Little Rock's high schools...
...Sixteen-year-old Minnijean Brown described the harassment like this: "They throw rocks, they spill ink on your clothes, they call you 'nigger,' they just keep bothering you every five minutes...
...Little Rock is a portent of things to come in the South when an approach to the school integration problem is made on the basis of maximum avoidance...
...Why aren't they satisfied...
...School officials would never get specific as to the number, but "off-therecord" figures steadily dwindled from a possible 190 to 100 to 68 to 40 to 15, till on September 4 the school board's irreducible minimum turned out to be nine...
...In making the distinction between "white" and "colored" schools the governor had learned his lesson well from the school board...
...They overlook the fact that Governor Faubus has not directly interfered with the operation of the schools since September 20 when he obeyed a federal court order to cease...
...If you are curious to discover how Little Rock-ians interpret their city's Number One sightseeing attraction, racially strife-torn Central High School, you will find that there is no recognition that Negro students have ever entered its doors...
...In reality, when the governor moved into the Little Rock situation the school board was in no position whatsoever to protest...
...Other Negro students report being tripped on the stairs, banged against their lockers, showered with sharpened pencils, hit by rubberband-propelled paper clips, beaned by metal objects wrapped as paper wads, kicked, showered with soup, and threatened...
...The order was for the PTA to keep hands off...
...From the beginning of its attempt to cope with the U.S...
...Devout segregationists insisted that if the number could be pared down to nine, there was no reason why it could not be further cut down to none...
...No thought was ever given by the Little Rock school board to the possibility of eliminating a dual school system for the two races and the integrating of all pupils regardless of race into a single nondiscriminatory educational program...
...The trouble was that to follow this course would have been to deny the whole basis of their approach to the school problem: maximum avoidance...
...They further overlook the fact that civic, business, and student leaders have consistently been rebuffed by the school officials in every attempt to furnish leadership...
...He said the injunction was "enforceable in unmistakable language, whether you are a minor or an adult, whether you are inside or outside the building...
...It would be reasonable to assume that the school board would now have regarded its primary educational responsibility to be that of using every means at its disposal to create order so that federal troops would no longer be needed...
...Of course headlines around the world have declared that this is not so...
...It has the responsibility of operating under the phase plan of integration as directed by this Court, and yet it has no power to enforce the provisions of the plan...
...The racial make-up of the various high school faculties would remain as they were—either all-Negro or all-white...
...The federal judge termed the school board's petition "anemic," orderd the governor to cease interference, and told the school board to continue with its program...
...Their minds had been set to work in another direction...
...Joyce then read the federal judge's injunction in full and explained it to the students...
...Apart from denying its whole approach to the Supreme Court decision it could only im-potently submit...
...A tribesman in the jungles of the Congo or a Bedouin in the deserts of Arabia can tell you that for nine months both Negro and white students have been attending classes at Central High School...
...Order came to Clinton...
...Both Negro and white pupils were upon occasion temporarily suspended...
...Human relations groups such as the Arkansas Council on Human Relations and the Urban League of Greater Little Rock were ready to aid in any possible way, but long before September Dr...
...He says he suggested to Blossom that by their silence it appeared that business and civic leaders of Little Rock were letting school officials carry the load alone...
...This was not the case...
...The words of the hotel greeter brochure stand as an honest, if ingenuous, reflection of the outlook of the vast majority of Little Rock's white citizens...
...The Little Rock school officials were aware of this procedure...
...Neither within the student body nor in the community as a whole did school authorities seek to rally support for creating order within the school so as to secure the expeditious removal of troops...
...In the last analysis the school board took action to suspend permanently one Negro pupil, Minnijean Brown, and no white pupil...
...Although reporters generally have not been permitted to observe conditions within Central High, there is no reason to suppose that the reports Negro students have given of conditions is not substantially accurate...
...In spite of all of its means of paring down the number of Negroes, the school board as it approached the opening of school last fall insisted that no way could be devised to prevent a few Negro pupils entering at least one school—Central High...
...It could only acquiesce...
...One for each of the Supreme Court Justices," someone has observed...
...Other Negroes who had expressed a desire to attend Central High School had been blocked by various pressures exerted directly or indirectly by school officials— including the obvious use of a school assignment law...
...She reported 42 incidents of substantial significance directed toward the Negro students from October 2 to February 6. School authorities did not take a firm disciplinary hand...
...The second phase of the hectic Little Rock school situation began September 24 when President Eisenhower ordered troops of the 101st Airborne Division onto the grounds and into the corridors of Central High to escort and protect the nine Negro pupils...
...A staff reporter for the Washington Post and Times Herald, Richard L. Lyons, last September 30 reported an interview with Superintendent Blossom...
...The logic that the board had followed from the beginning encouraged anyone having a means of further reducing the number of Negro pupils entering white schools to lend a helping hand...
...Thus every assurance was given that the pattern of a dual school system would be continued...
...Strangely overlooked is the fact that the primary responsibility and means for creating order have always been in the hands of the school board itself...
...Blossom produced charts, maps, and statistics describing where Negro and white high school pupils lived...
...There Anderson County Attorney Eugene L. Joyce told the students he was "here in my official capacity to tell you how you must act as long as you are a student in this school, but not to tell you how to think or what to believe...
...This is the key to understanding the chaotic state of affairs that continued to exist at Central High throughout the school year...
...Any discussion of LitCOLBERT S. CARTWRIGHT grew up in the South and spent most of his adult life there...
...Nor did it publicly do so...
...Having had the school problem placed for them in the context of maximum avoidance of racial mixing, there were those who went away to ponder how the number of Negroes entering white schools might more efficiently be pared down...
...Once an injunction was secured, contempt of court charges could be placed against anyone disrupting the school by racial incidents...
...The school board did not like the governor's action...
...This they could not bring themselves to do...
...He is pastor of the Pulaski Heights Christian Church in Little Rock and earlier served a four-year pastorate in Lynchburg, Va...
...Minnijean reported that after being the object of a continuous stream of abuse which was not handled by school officials, she had finally broken down and called a girl "petty white trash...
...Blossom had made it clear their help was not wanted...
...Three days after the governor ordered his troops onto the grounds of Central High the school board used the governor's interference as an excuse to petition the court to suspend "temporarily" its plan...
...The school board, having from the beginning committed itself to seeking to keep as many Negroes from attending white schools as possible, could not stand firmly against the militant segregationists...
...But it could not rise in righteous indignation against the governor...
...The response was enthusiastic...
...For nine long weary months the school officials indulged in this strange form of flagellation...
...The same procedure was successful in bringing peace to the high school at Clinton, Tennessee, when it was faced with racial disorders in the fall of 1956...
...The result has been the fantastic phenomena of school officials being continually harassed in their work by militant segregationist pupils and adults, with the officials taking no firm action to stop it...
...Indeed the school board was in a most difficult position, but it was not due to lack of power...
...The student council was ordered not to discuss the matter...
...The Little Rock school board, having developed discussion of its school problem in terms of keeping a maximum number of Negroes out of white schools, should not have been surprised when some Little Rock residents thought the school board could have acted more efficiently...
...He said," Lyons wrote, "he had received offers of supporting resolutions or supporting statements from Little Rock organizations, but suggested they be withheld...
...Little Rock is the logical conclusion of an approach which translates a court decision that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" into the question of how to maintain a dual school system in which the fewest number of Negroes will be required to enter white schools...
...Cartwright is chairman of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations and a member of the board of the Southern Regional Council...
...He further told the students that "uncalled for provocations will be dealt with swiftly and harshly...
...Little Rock should remind the South that a school board which from the beginning asks itself the wrong question should not be expected in the end to come up with the right answer...
...FAILURE In Little Rock by COLBERT S. CARTWRIGHT when you check into a hotel in Little Rock a clerk graciously hands you a copy of "Metropolitan Little Rock Today," which sets forth a Chamber of Commerce view of the capital of Arkansas...
...Having presented its program to the community on the basis of maximum avoidance of having Negro pupils in white schools, the Little Rock school board again found itself helpless to stand against the tactics of the extremist segregationists...
...It appears that action was taken only when incidents occurred which could not be concealed from the public...
...The plan would take effect on the senior high level in the fall of 1957...
...The day after Minnijean was expelled extremist segregation pupils began donning printed cards, "One Down, Eight to Go...
...Caught in their own web of maximum avoidance of the law, they were prey to any segregationists who insisted that by systematic harassment they could either reduce the number of Negroes at Central High or prove that desegregation in any form at Little Rock would not work...
...However, it was not long until the minister received a phone call from a high-ranking school official firmly ordering him to "slow down...
...Among them were members of Little Rock's White Citizens Council who at the beginning expressed approval of the school board's general approach to the racial problem...
...By separate stages the junior high and elementary schools would later be involved...
...Supreme Court school decision the Little Rock school board translated the law into terms of how many, if any, Negro pupils would be required by the federal government to enter the corridors and classrooms of white schools...
...At no time in Little Rock has there been a serious discussion among persons of leadership concerning the possibility of implementing or accepting the U.S...
...Having interpreted its task from the beginning as one of avoiding as far as possible the necessity of allowing Negro pupils to enter white schools, it was as defenseless against those who sought within the school building to find ways of forcing the Negroes out as it had been against Governor Faubus...
...Were not the militant segregationists aiding the school board in attempting to cut down the number of Negroes at Central High...
...They had been urged to begin seeking injunctions against specific individuals as early as the spring of 1957 when open defiance became apparent...
...The position of the school board is clearly seen in the fact that although Minnijean was permanently expelled, when white Sammie Dean Parker, who had figured prominently in racial incidents since September, was expelled, she was shortly thereafter reinstated...
...When the question is one of avoidance, then the most satisfactory answer is one which would eliminate all Negroes from white schools...
...Minnijean Brown was removed, according to an expulsion letter, because she had broken her agreement not to retaliate either verbally or physically to any harassment but to leave that to school authorities to handle...
...On February 20 the board once more bowed to the disrupters of its plan by asking the United States District Court to postpone integration in Little Rock public schools...
...When the nine Negro students sought entry to the school, the state adjutant general, Maj...
...Daisy Bates, head of the NAACP in Arkansas, received daily reports from all Negro students...
...Supreme Court's 1954 school decision that racially "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal...
...Business men sought to help, but were told not to meddle...
...With the confident air of a high pressure salesman, Dr...
...There are those who seek to blame Little Rock's school troubles this past school year either on the bete noire Orval E. Faubus, or on that nebulously defined thing called "lack of leadership...
...They were sure they could help the school board achieve its aim at the appropriate time...
...This was exactly what Governor Faubus had been clamoring for...
...A suggestion that pupils, just because they are Americans, have a right to attend the school in their attendance area, is met not so often with anger as blank incomprehension: "But the Negroes have a beautiful new high school...
...Blossom left well-assured that every effort was being made to keep the number of Negroes entering white schools to a minimum...
...Leaders of the Chamber of Commerce proffered their assistance, but were put off...
...They, too, sought maximum avoidance of the effects of the Supreme Court decision...
...In addition students could avail themselves of transfer regulations which would assure Negro and white students that they could continue to attend a school with a majority of their race...
...The Little Rock school board and Superintendent Blossom found that they were in no position even to solicit or accept proffers of assistance from others to establish a climate for discipline and order...
...Blossom said this wasn't so...
...tie Rock's racial troubles is automatically placed in the context of Negro students leaving "their schools" to invade "our schools...
...It was this procedure which the school board at Hoxie, Arkansas, successfully used in the summer of 1955 to halt interference with its desegregation plan...
...Sherman T. Clinger, turned them away by repeating to them the governor's orders: "White schools are off limits to Negro students and colored schools are off limits to white students...
...With a blindness equalled only by its tenacity to the past the booklet tells you, "The Little Rock Public Schools include three white senior high schools and one Negro senior high school...
Vol. 22 • June 1958 • No. 6
