Briefing Session; 509; With All Deliberate Speed

From New York City National Educational Television presents briefing session and the facts behind the issues in the world today. The funds for the production of this program have been provided equally by the AFL CIO and the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Your host, the noted Washington correspondent of the American Broadcasting Company Edward P. Morgan. Welcome to another edition of briefing session. Seven years ago this very spring, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation of the schools is unconstitutional and it ordered that all public schools be desegregated with all deliberate speed. Today, however, in

four southern states, that is to say Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi, not a single school district has yet been desegregated and in six others, less than 1% of the Negro children are now attending school with white youngsters. This edition of briefing session is going to study desegregation of public schools and whether the courts' edict is being obeyed. We have two guests with us who are involved directly with the problem, Mr. Harold C. Fleming, Executive Director of the Southern Regional Council and Mr. Everett Tucker, Jr., the president of the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'd like to begin with a question to you both, gentlemen. Is federal law on this matter being complied with or defied? Mr. Tucker, will you give your answer first? Mr. Morgan, I think it depends in great part on your point of view and the scope of your responsibility with respect to this compliance. What about you, Mr. Fleming?

Well, both things are true. Mr. Morgan, depending on what part of the South you're in, but there is a posity, I think, of really whole-hearted compliance in the South. We've got much more material to develop on this and we'll go further into it. But first, with the facts of school desegregation as they now stand, here is briefing session's news analyst, John McVain. This year, more than 13 million children were enrolled in public schools in the District of Columbia and the 17 states most affected by the Supreme Court's 1954 decision. Upwards of 10 million of those youngsters are white, 3 million are negro. Of that total, according to the Southern School News, only 200,000 negro children are now attending school with whites. That means that only one out of 15 negro children has felt the impact of the Supreme Court decision. This is a map of the South which has 6,664 school

districts. Only in the shaded areas has school desegregation become a fact. Nearly all of them, as you can see, are in the northern border states or west Texas. The deep South has yet to become involved. And as a sidelight, two of the counties in the original cases brought before the Supreme Court, Clarendon in South Carolina and Prince Edward in Virginia, have no desegregated schools. Desegregation thus far has had three phases. The first was that of voluntary compliance with the court decision and involved most of the shaded area you just saw. The border states, the District of Columbia and parts of Texas and Arkansas. In some big school systems like Louis Wilkins-Tucky, a special one-year period of community preparation preceded actual integration of classes. This phase was largely over the end of 1956, although some voluntary token desegregation

has continued in North Carolina. The second phase came in 1956 with compulsory court orders to desegregate communities in the Upper South. At this time, Little Rock put forward a desegregation plan of its own, which was later approved by the courts. In other areas, in so-called token integration was the rule. For example, in the entire state of Florida, only 27 Negro students are now attending white schools. This time also saw the rise of the pupil placement acts, now enforced in nine states. They permit school boards to assign pupils to specific schools after considering such factors as effect on programs, adequacy of preparation, aptitude, and the possibility of resulting friction. The 1961 school year marked the beginning of the third phase involving the great cities of the deep south. Last fall, Houston, which had maintained the largest

segregated school system in the nation, began a greater year desegregation program at the first grade level. It has to continue for 12 years until the process is complete. The first step passed off without incident, white and Negro children moving into the same classrooms quietly. But in New Orleans, the other deep south city ordered to desegregate last year, it was a much different story. On November 14, 1960, four Negro children were admitted to William France and McDonough 19 elementary schools in New Orleans to the accompaniment of the most violent segregationist outbreak since the Little Rock Disorders of 1957. Howling crowds of teenagers and segregationist mothers staged near riots outside the schools involved, refused to send their own children in the classrooms with the Negro youngsters. Louisiana Governor Jimmy Davis led the state's legal opposition to the desegregation move. Davis and the state legislature first attempted to seize

control of the schools, then withheld funds from the New Orleans school board, then rushed through a massive resistance program to inter-oppose the state between the schools and the federal government. Each act was knocked down in the federal courts, but the fight went on. Private schools were set up outside New Orleans for white students, and only a handful went back into the desegregated McDonough and William France grade schools. The few white children who have gone back up and harassed, threatened with violence ostracized by the white community. Two more big southern cities are now under federal court orders to begin desegregation in the fall of 1961, Dallas, and Atlanta. The main drama of desegregation has taken place in the south, but there have also been instances north of the Mason Dixon line. Within the last two years, white parents in both Chicago and Detroit have staged demonstrations, protesting the assignment of Negro children to predominantly white schools. The same thing happened

in New York City in 1960, when a number of Negro students were transferred to a predominantly white school because of crowding in their own school district. And in wealthy New Rochelle, a suburb of New York, the federal judge in January ordered Lincoln Public School desegregated. Its attendance was 94 percent Negro, allegedly by manipulation of school district lines and behind the scenes transfers of white students. The Lincoln school case was brought by the parents of 11 Negro students who had tried to transfer their children to predominantly white schools outside the district. District Court Judge Irving Kaufman gave the New Rochelle school board until the beginning of the 1961-62 school year to begin desegregating the school. It was the first northern case to win widespread attention since the Supreme Court decision. Undoubtedly, it won't be the last since gentleman's agreement's gerrymandering school districts are not uncommon in the north. And now back to our

guests for their opinions on this vital issue and Ed Morgan. It's interesting to know, I think, that you don't have to be in the south to have a racial problem in the schools. And I want to ask you this, Mr. Fleming, do you think that north and south alike are fully aware enough that this really is a national and not just a regional issue and problem? Well, I think the answer is clearly no. Not only is there too little awareness that it's a national problem and that what is done in one part of the country grievously affects the other parts of the country and indeed the reputation of this country throughout the world. There also isn't enough understanding that this is a total problem, the problem of a whole group of people and their opportunities in every field, of which housing and employment have a very large effect on education. Mr. Tucker following that up, do you think that the people of Little Rock

when the awful crisis broke in 57 and subsequently resented more bitterly than they might have otherwise the crisis in their midst if the country as a whole had considered the problem a national one? Well, I think that people in Little Rock do realize that it's a national problem. I think they are prone to resent the fact, perhaps, that the south has been compelled by force of circumstances to bear the brunt or the problem of the stigma that may have attached itself to the south in this connection. We are aware that these things go on. I'm advised even to greater extent in the north in many cases than they do in the south but we did resent the fact that Little Rock was singled out the by of the brunt of it. Do you think anything could be gained in that connection, Mr. Tucker? If

there was more communication between say the school boards of the south and the school boards of the north, is there anything to be gained by Little Rock telling New Rochelle some of its previous problems in vice versa? Perhaps I think even more importantly there's a lack of communication between school boards within the south. I think perhaps there could be a great deal of sharing of experiences and ways and means of coping with this problem that we don't take advantage of and certainly I believe it would also be true as between the north and the south. Is this a stone wall, Mr. Fleming? Your southern regional council anchored in Atlanta, do you find yourself constantly running up against barriers of communication of all kinds? Yes, it is a problem. However, I don't think it's a stone wall. There is evidence that slowly and much too slowly one community is learning from another's. I say for example that Little Rock's

tragic and bruising experiences have certainly had their effect in other cities, positive effect and gradually people are learning from other situations. I think we have to agree at least on the fact that the progress, the change from 57 until now, 54 until now I mean, has indeed been slow. Do you think Mr. Fleming that the next seven years will be as slow as the last seven? No, I don't think so and certainly I hope not. Why do you? I think that for the very reason that there has been some learning from experience, it has been pretty well driven home in the south that to defy cold autos in this field is to risk a community's whole well-being, economic, social, cultural. It's also been learned, I think, that desegregation is not the nightmare-ish experience that many southerners, white southerners

thought it was when the Supreme Court decision was first handed down. Inevitability has grown, a Gallup poll recently found that 76 percent of southerners now accept the fact that desegregation of the schools is inevitable. This is a marked change in attitudes. Is that true? A little rock, Mr. Tucker? I think maybe they respond one way to a Gallup poll interrogator and a different way when they're talking to people locally and the doctrine of inevitability, I think creates something of a problem. I think you can approach the problem more practically and more effectively without waving that red flag of the inevitability. Certainly, I'm a realist and I think more people in the south are becoming to be classified in that category, but I think you can approach it more effectively by laying out ways to say comply with existing court decisions

rather than holding out the brute force of the federal government against individual school board in some small town. I guess you could say that resentment in some cases is like an iceberg that it's greatly submerged until maybe some violent upheaval comes. It's been my experience as a reporter that your answer to the question about polls is quite true that people are not necessarily inclined to say their deepest feelings, but it does seem to me that in the extreme example of Prince Edward County, Virginia, for example, you've got an extreme situation where in the defiance of the court order, they have suspended all public education. The white children are going to privately finance schools and the Negro children are going virtually to none unless they're exported. Would you give us your thinking on that, Mr. Tucker? Is that something that's going to be

increasingly tried? Is that futility obvious and won't be tried? Well, based on experience, we had a little rock on private schools as opposed to public schools. I think it was pretty graphically demonstrated there that private schools can't do the job. I think certainly that's true in cities the size of Little Rock and even smaller cities. If the plan, as I understand it in Prince Edward County, of the states making tuition grants to pupils on application, if that withstands attacks in the courts, I dare say that will be the solution that is resulted to in a number of southern communities, particularly smaller ones and particularly those areas where the Negro people constitute a large proportion of the population. I'd like to put a proposition to you both and see if you feel that it's true or false. It's been speculated a good deal that the problem in a given community can be eased or intensified depending on the leadership

in that community and depending on the quality of its information media. Now, by that argument, Mr. Tucker, the situation in Little Rock could have been even more grievous if you hadn't had say an Arkansas Gazette to take not necessarily the stand in favor of desegregation but presumably in favor of public welfare. Perhaps a more vivid example of this particular hypothesis which I simply put out for you each to examine is the city of New Orleans versus the city of Atlanta. Now, it's been said by people more familiar with the situation than I that if the newspapers and the broadcasting media in New Orleans had been more anticipatory and been more inclined to prepare the public for what may have been the inevitable, there would have been less chance for violence in Atlanta and in Athens where you do have the influence of the Atlanta Constitution up to now

or up until very recently at least you had virtually no serious outbreaks. What about it, Mr. Fleming? Is that a valid hypothesis or is that just an accident? Well, I think there's no question at all about it. The mass media for newspapers and television and radio stations are after all the means through which most people get their information and to a large extent get their view of the situation that's occurring. I think it's made a lot of difference in comparing Atlanta and New Orleans as no question at all that that's been one major factor. Another one at least equally important of course is the position taken by political leadership. Of course, Mr. Tucker is an expert on this. In Arkansas I think most informed observers would agree that Little Rock would not have had the tragic situation it had if the political leadership had taken a different position and in

Georgia and in Atlanta we've had very encouraging developments recently that indicate that this great problem that often leads to violence of a recalcitrant political leadership is encouraging people to resist and defy is not going to exist comes September in Atlanta. Mr. Tucker on the basis of your experience in Little Rock much of it bitter would you say that it's possible or foolish to think that this problem can be kept away from becoming a political issue? Under present circumstances I hardly see how it can. I have enough to do with looking after the school system without getting out on any political limbs but unquestionably the political overtones have had certainly have had effects on the problem. I was interested in discussion on the news media. I think the news

media has done a splendid job in some instances in preparing the people and in the anticipatory coverage as you praised it. I think also however the press has been guilty of over coverage of the problem and I think that has aggravated and accentuated the controversy certainly in Little Rock and I would assume in other cities as well. Let's get on to another aspect of the problem assuming that and this may be assuming a great deal. Assuming that Congress passes some kind of federal aid to education this year that has aid to classrooms and possibly aid to teachers in salary rises. Would you gentlemen think that this is going to improve in the long run the racial question in the school system? Is it going to ease some problems which in turn will ease the emotional problem of racial adjustment? Well why just because of the additional funds or

because of the source and the strings it might be tied? Not the source or the strings necessarily. I was what I was getting at rather cumbersomely was whether assuming that the education situation in the country needed to be helped and assuming that it got some additional help both in terms of plant and in terms of better teachers and more qualified teachers. Is this a help to solving your other problem or do they have no connection? I don't see that it would happen particularly in Little Rock where we have what we think is adequate funds for our educational program and absent the overtones that are usually connected with federal aid to education. I can't I don't see any particular. I infer from what you say that Little Rock perhaps is not enthusiastic about federal aid. I wouldn't say that no sir. I'm not really well enough informed to state of positive opinion on the school district's attitude toward federal aid. Certainly we could use additional funds

that don't misunderstand me. We could but up until the present we have been able to maintain our educational program and standard commensurate with our economic status. In my all-fun and false hypothesis here Mr. Fleming do you think? I think there's one way in which this could have quite a bearing on the future of school integration. One of the problems here on the human level on the educational level is to overcome a gap of many decades lag on the part of Negro children because of inadequate schooling, unequal facilities and because of a deprived or disadvantaged home life all of the factors of the results in products of discrimination and of a low economic status are reflected in the schools. These funds used to or rapid and educationally sound programs of advancement for these children who've been disadvantaged could overcome many of the fears and helped to overcome many of the practical

educational obstacles to true integration. Mr. Tucker in Washington where I work a good deal of the time we seem to be preoccupied perhaps too much on the point that our problems with desegregation in the public schools are causing a lot of damage to the American image of broad making it more difficult for us to enforce a consistent foreign policy where we're dealing with Asia and African nations particularly. Do people in Little Rock themselves on the school board, parent teachers associations have the remotest kinship with this problem or is it completely out of their realm of thinking? I think they have an awareness for the problem but I can't say that it has any particular effect on policies that the school board might adopt and that may be misleading to beg the question that way. Certainly I'm aware of it and I think I'm speaking

for the other members of the school board and that they are aware of the problem but when you're wrapped up in the day-to-day activities it may be vaguely in the background but you're too much concerned with what you're doing locally to be affected too much by what effect that might have in the Congo somewhere else abroad. Maybe in your particular bail awake Mr Fleming of gathering news and statistics and facts about the application of desegregated schooling particularly in the southern area you've got something else to add to that assuming that it is a problem this image business. Have you found ways in which to discuss it with local leaders? It's a very difficult thing as Mr Tucker suggests to make this a really important factor in local considerations. I think we must keep trying however to do this. We got a great many visitors from other countries some of

them non-white in our offices in Atlanta in southern regional council and I feel that if there were more exposure of this kind on the part of local and state policy makers that it would help to bring home the really life or death urgency of these problems in international terms none of us can afford to be blind to them and there's no question at all in my mind that this is having a very heavy effect on the image of the United States abroad. We shouldn't run our domestic policies shouldn't govern them by the attitudes of people in other countries but it is an added practical argument to all the others for urgent attention to progress in this field. We're rapidly running out of time and I hate to hesitate to bring up a new question but could you just in one sentence while you're both the gathering information for your 60 second recap give me a one sentence answer as

to whether you think the temper and quality of Negro leadership on a community level in the south is improved. I think it's improving I think there too you've got to that it's taking a good wall overcome the the lags and disadvantages of the past. We have only scratched the surface of this extremely important and emotionally involved problem and now we come to that recap time you've got 60 seconds Mr. Tucker to make the main points. Well first the subject of this discussion I believe is with all deliberate speed and I don't believe it anybody has ever defined what constitutes deliberate speed and as we have discussed here it probably varies from community to community as far as we in Little Rock are concerned it is our judgment that we are applying with applicable court orders and certainly we intend to continue this policy. It should be remembered that the Supreme Court

did not decree affirmative integration of schools it merely said that schools should not remain segregated purely on a racial basis and lastly no community is in a vacuum certainly we have found at Little Rock that events over which we have absolutely no control sometimes tend to interfere with some of our plans on the desegregation front times up Mr. Fleming 60 seconds. We've been through seven years of very trying experience with this question since the Supreme Court's decision was rendered progress has been very slow and it's been fraught with conflict seems to me very clear that we have got to find ways to move faster I think we are gradually finding them think national leadership is going to be crucial in this and that the political changes of the next few years are going to make a lot of difference you've got to worry about housing and employment recreation and all the areas of public life as well as education in order for this to be

a total and successful human experience that will vindicate America's position and ideals and system throughout the world. Thank you gentlemen. Perhaps a couple of things could be kept in mind on both sides of the Mason and Dixon line if I may be presumptuous and one is that it's occurred to me as these gentlemen have discussed the matter is that the north must not adopt a holier than thou attitude because as Mr. McVane showed we've got problems all over the country on this same subject on the other hand perhaps it could be respectfully suggested that people in the south try to remind themselves that the civil war is over and it doesn't matter so much who won if anybody did but the future. Next week briefing session will take up our foreign aid program there is a dangerous gap between the advanced industrial nations of the world and the many many underdeveloped countries how this affects us and what can

be done about it our questions will take up with the subject aid for 100 countries we hope to see you that. Briefing session was produced by Joel O'Brien. Associate producer Joan Siegel. Film supervisor Bill Buckley production assistant Barbara Sherman our guests today were Mr. Harold C Fleming executive director of the Southern Regional Council Mr. Everett Tucka Jr. president of the Little Rock Arkansas School Board your host Edward P Morgan of ABC news analyst John McVane funds for the production of this program have been provided equally by the AFL CIO and the National Educational Television and Radio Center this is NET National Educational Television