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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1977)
Portland Observer damaging to Black children. In. this regard, Kenneth B. Clark, a Black psychologist and professor at the City College of New York, contributed a forceful statement to the brief. So. here again, blacks were instrumental in helping themselves by crushing the segregated public school policy through their social scien tists, psychologists and lawyers who studied primarily in Black colleges and universities and were to bring their knowledge to bear on the problem. Thus, they were able to foree on May 17th, 1964 the Supreme Court decision abolishing legal public school segregation in the South and the country. What did this decision actually mean in terms of the education of Black children? For once, it meant that border states com plied first because it was easier for them to do so. Also, with the exception of Baltimore, the Dis trict of Columbia and Wilming ton, Delaware, Black students comprised a relatively small pro portion of the student popula tion. In many instances, careful step-by-step plans were pre pared and implemented. Also, population shifts prevented serious problems, for whites scurried to the suburban areas to avoid sending their children to school with Black children. Likewise, free-choice policies in some communities like Baltimore left the system pretty much as segregated as before the Supreme Court decision. Many school districts avoided early compliance with the Court's decision by using various subterfuges allowed by its “all deliberate speed” doctrine. They delayed desegregation until a study of methods of complying was made. Some insisted on an upgrading of Black teachers. Others wanted to wait until building plans were completed. In some cases, violent actions on the part of whites were used as delaying tactics, including the dissemination of hate literature. More extreme action took the form of standing in the school house door as did Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus in Little Rock. South Carolina devised a pupil placem ent law assigning students to schools to which they were "best suited.” Georgia passed laws making it a felony for a school official to spend money for public schools in which the races were mixed. Mississip pi amended the state constitution to provide for the abolition of public schools. South Carolina also repealed compulsory school attendance laws. Alabama dis continued public schools to avoid friction or disorder. Prince Ed ward County, Virginia, in oom plete defiance of the court, dosed her schools in I960 and spent 12 million to support a white stu dents' private academy. I t was not until May 26th. 1964. ton years after the Court's decision, that Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black directed Prince Edward County to reopen its public schools. As far as higher education was concerned, most colleges and universities in southern states had opened their doors to Blacks by 1966. And bv 1961. over half of the 286 tax-supported institu tions of higher learning in the South were desegregated. Na turally, the principle worked in reverse at all Black colleges. For instance, one-half of the students enrolled at Lincoln University are white and West Virginia State College has a predominant ly white student body. As of 1963. Black Americans had spent over 30 years in court litigations m an effort to gain equality of educational opportun ity. Obviously, litigation was in adequate for the sustained resis tance of whites against desegre gation or equality of opportunity for Blacks. What it did reveal, however, was the weakness of the Federal Government's com mitment to support court deci sions. But a single act by a tired Black woman was to usher in a new era. Rosa Parks, a Black lady, got fed up with the effort and precipitated the Mont gomery bus boycott. Conse quently. non-violent direct action, street demonstrations and boycotts led by D r. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was edu cated at Morehouse, a Black college, became the order of the day. Black education became the leverage to change the American social order as students took the lead in moving from compromis« in education to one of confronta tion. Spontaneously, a sit-in was started in 1960 by four Black students from North Carolina s Agricultural and Technical College at Greensboro. Students sat in at a Woo I worth’s five-and- ten-cent store and refused to wave until they were served. The spontaneity of their action caught American society off guard and the movement quickly spread to other cities across the nation. On Easter Sunday in 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Student Non violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) came into being. This organization was a large, loose coalition of Black students form ed to keep Black students abreast of the movement in an effort to give support to the student activists fighting against segregation and discrimination. Some 70,000 students in 20 states across the nation partid- patod in the sit-in campaign. By the end of 1961, the freedom Section I I Thursday, February 17. 1977 Page 7 ¡Hen>u^ O. TANNER. 1 8 5 9 -1 9 3 7 How to give up doctor bills... without giving up your doctor. At Blue Cross of Oregon we give you help paying the bills when you go to the hospital. But we don’t ask you to give up your doctor. You can choose the doctor you want. Or keep the doctor you have. And keep the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your treatment will remain under the control of your doctor. And because that’s awfully important to some people ... it’s awfully important to us. Blue Cross of Oregon
