Citizens (White) .Unite!

In Jackson, Miss, the state legislature assembled in special session last week to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court ban on segregated public schools. Governor Hugh White's formal call had listed the most important item of business: the long-proposed constitutional amendment to preserve Mississippi's "separate but equal" public-school facilities for 225,000 Negro and 239,000 white children.

The amendment would permit the legislature to 1) abolish all public schools "as a last resort" by two-thirds vote; 2) allow individual localities to abolish public schools as they choose; 3) sell, lease or rent school property to private individuals, then pay each "educable" child's tuition to what would then be private, segregated schools.

Despite the prospect of losing sorely needed federal subsidies (for free school lunches, vocational courses), the Mississippi house of representatives nevertheless passed the amendment on three successive days as required by state law. Final vote: 105-14. The state senate prepared to follow suit; already the measure had been endorsed by 33 of 49 senators. On Dec. 21 the amendment will be submitted to the state's voters in a special election.

In urging passage of the amendment, Governor Hugh White blamed the "crisis" in part on Mississippi's Negro leaders, who are reluctant to approve continued segregation. But he insisted that "there is no intention to 'defy' the Supreme Court; we are simply exercising the same legal right to resist this most unfortunate decision that the [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] exercised in contesting the [pro-segregation] court decisions of over a half century . . . We shall now resist ... by every legal means at our command."

Elsewhere in Mississippi, resistance to desegregation was taking on an extra-legal hue. Throughout the state, white businessmen and farmers have begun to organize local "Citizens' Councils" to prevent Negro children from entering white schools, "by legal means if possible." Negro leaders are quietly urged not to challenge the status quo; otherwise, as one councillor put it: "The good feeling and harmony that have been building here for many years could all be wiped away."

The "C.C." has used no high-pressure tactics, but economic and political retaliation for noncooperation is in the offing. White politicos who seem to favor desegregation may be cautioned by special committees; blocs of white voters will be organized against the stubborn. To date, the Citizens' Councils have exerted no concerted effort; they have no statewide organization, no overall policy. At one small-town Rotary meeting Citizens' Councillors present were asked for a show of hands. More than two-thirds of the Rotarians admitted membership in the C.C. Said William J. Caraway, mayor of upstate Leland (pop. 5,000): "We are trying a peaceful and intelligent approach to a very difficult problem. We aren't Ku Kluxers, but if we fail, a Klan-type group will surely follow ..."

Outside Mississippi, local school officials and pressure groups tried, with varying success, to implement or resist the Supreme Court decision against segregation. Items:

P: In Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Henry A. Schweinhaut turned down the white Federation of Citizens Associations plea for an order restraining local school desegregation already well under way. Said the court: "You are asking me to stop the wheels when the Supreme Court could have but did not."

P: Only at Army-supervised schools at Ft. Meyer and Ft. Belvoir did Negro children crack Virginia's ban on public-school desegregation. Roman Catholic parochial schools in the state accepted about 60 Negro pupils without incident.

P: In Four States, W.Va., mothers of about 60 white pupils at the Annabelle grade school kept their children home in protest against the admission of 13 Negroes, said they would demand the dismissal of Principal Lloyd Seccuro. P: In Hutchins, Texas, four Negro pupils unsuccessfully tried to register at the "white" Linfield elementary school, learned the state would maintain a ban on desegregation for at least another year.

P: In Nashville, Tenn., the desegregation effort took a reverse twist. Three children of white professors at Fisk University were refused admission to the Pearl elementary school (for Negroes). A Negro city councilman, Alexander Looby, promptly announced that he would file suit to compel the school board to admit them.

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