The Press FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1955. Colour Bar In U.S. Schools

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1955. Colour Bar In U.S. Schools

The temporising decision of the j United States Supreme Court on the ' abolition of the colour bar in i American public schools is not :surprising. To have insisted that; should end this year or j next would have caused discontent; i and violence in the Southern States.' • and almost as certainly have put! • back the whole reform for many ■ years. By asking the South to make J“ a prompt and reasonable start ” on opening its schools to children of any colour and leaving it to the Federal District Courts (subject to ■ right of appeal) to decide what is prompt and w’hat is reasonable, the : Supreme Court will take advantage iof a tide flowing against segregation in the South. The tide is almost i imperceptible in the Deep South, and | not very strong in some other States, but it has made surprising gains in I the border regions since the j Supreme Court declared a year ago [that the doctrine of “separate but “ equal ” schools was unconstitutional. Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, West Virginia, and Delaware, and the District of Columbia are already moving quickly towards integration of schools and integration of teaching staffs. Most other Southern States have been waiting to see how the Supreme Court intended to apply last year’s ruling. Only South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana have been srongly resisting any application of the new principle. Even where a start has been made progress has not been over-rapid, but, considering the emotions and fears aroused, it is no mean achievement that in one year 500 schools with 250,000 pupils are open tn both black and white children.

Much slower progress must be expected further south, although it is doubtful whether segregation will last for 100 years in some communities, as has been suggested. It is at the community level that the problems have to be solved, because of the marked decentralisation of education control in the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that State laws requiring segregation are unconstitutional; it has not ruled that the States must enact laws requiring the thousands of education authorities, big and small, to adopt integrated schools. The reason is obvious enough. Along the border and in industrial cities where black and white work together at their machines, integration is not the problem that it is in smaller, more remote communities, where both peoples have maintained their separate existence in the tradition of centuries. Again, a locality where white and black have separate residential areas does not offer the difficulties that occur in localities that now have a white school beside a coloured one. In some localities, negroes will not need much social adjustment to fit in with white children. In others, the gap between the races is still intimidating. If the Court’s new ruling is accepted as the “ guide to justice ” sought by negro reformers, rather than the "formula for evasion” they fear, it does offer hope for steady progress towards the ideal set by the Court a year ago. It is worth recalling that the New York “ Herald-Tribune ”, a liberal newspaper, described last year’s decision in the following words: “ A “ beacon that lights the direction in “ which the nation—including the “ South—already has been moving ”. That was not saying much more than the principle urged by a great constitutional lawyer, Mr John W. Davis, in speaking for the South. He believed that the States should separately have the " right to see “ the light in their own way ”, and that the best men of the South were ias humane and just as any other Americans. The Supreme Court, by refusing the applications for a fixed time limit, has come close to accepting his views. The onus is now on the South to prove that this trust is not misplaced.