NO RACIAL VIOLENCE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29363, 16 November 1960, Page 17

NO RACIAL VIOLENCE

New Orleans Integration

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 14.

Four little negro girls attended previously all-white schools in New Orleans today as State officials bowed to a Federal Court order against racial segregation. Four United States marshals accompanied the girls into two different school buildings, as whites in the watching crowds booed.

But there was no violence, as had been feared, although the Governor of Louisiana (Mr Jimmie Davis) had sworn in campaign speeches to go to gaol rather than let a single Louisiana school be integrated. About 75 State policemen came to New Orleans under orders of the State legislature, which is solidly against integration but did not appear at either school.

About 140 New Orleans city policemen ringed McDonogh 19 School when three negro girls joined a class of seven white girls, and William Frantz School, which one negro entered. The New Orleans School Board, which went along with the ruling of United States District Judge T. Skelly Wright to integrate the whole school system, a grade a year, beginning with the first grade, refused to identify the negro girls. While integration took place in New Orleans—for the first time in 90 years—the State Legislature met in special session in the capital, Baton Rouge. It was an uproarious session, highlighted by an apparent determination to continue to fight the mixing of races, according to American Associated Press.