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PAGE TWO
THE NEWS ARGUS
Southern Regional Report
The successful efforts of Memphis,
Tennessee, to desegregate its schools in
a peaceful manner during the past school
year are examined at length in a report
issued today by the Southern Regional
Council. The report is authored by John
Egerton, a Tennessee native and long
time education writer.
An introduction to the report notes that
the Memphis story is indicative of SRC's
long-term interest in matters relating not
only to school desegregation and edu
cation but to positive efforts by local
leadership to meet and try to solve some
of the most difficult administrative prob
lems facing all cities in the South and
the nation today.
Egerton chronicles the events leading
up to and through January 24, 1973,
when the country's tenth largest public
school system began implementing the
initial phase of a court-ordered desegre
gation plan, and 65 buses — the first
ever used in Memphis — rolled through
the city streets.
How did it happen that in a city
where there had iDeen organized resist
ance and organized support, threats of
disruption and rumors of violence, fever
ish strategy sessions, intensive planning,
meticulous preparation that the atmos
phere in Memphis on January 24, 1973,
can be described by Egerton as one of
‘■subdued anticlimax?”
About that day he writes, “Absentee
ism was high, but nobody bothered the
buses, or the kids, or the teachers." A
one-column headline in the afternoon
Memphis Press-Scimitar read “Quiet Day
As Busing Is Started.” “Absences, Calm
Mark Busing,'’ said the next morning’s
Commercial Appeal. The New York
Times and the Washington Post had
reporters in town for a couple of days,
and two of the television networks noted
the event briefly on their evening news
programs.
Egerton asks, “What is the significance
of the events of January 24 there? What
are the implications for urban school
systems elsewhere in the country? How
did Memphis do what it did, and why
did it do it? What has happened since
then, and what is likely to happen next?”
Egerton’s dominant impression and
tentative conclusions are these: “Mem
phis has started to bus children to school
in the face of strong opposition, and has
done it in a manner that is, on the
Book Corner
whole, impressive. The city is deeply and
seriously divided within itself on the is
sue of school integration. The hardest
phase of desegregation by busing still re
mains to be faced. The job of making in
tegration a success for individual stu
dents and teachers is just now beginning.
And the city's search for equity and
stability is still a long way from being
finished.”
In tracing the events leading up to and
through January 24, Egerton begins in
March, 1960, when the NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
(LDF) first filed a desegregation suit
against the Memphis school system. Then
there were just over 100,000 students in
the schools — about 55 per cent of them
white — and segregation was absolute.
Egerton points out that as the Memphis
school system has grown in the past
decade, so has its percentage of black
students. “As the black enrollment
grew,” he writes, “the city annexed
portions of surrounding Shelby County
and managed to retain a white majority
in the schools, but by tiie fall of 1970
the enrollment of more than 148,000 was
slightly over 50 per cent black.”
Today, after the implementation of the
court-ordered busing plan, blacks make
up 60 per cent of the total public school
enrollment.
But for Egerton, the real Memphis
story is not the “kaleidoscope of legal
maneuvers, pressure-group strategies
and statistical changes.” He maintains
that “A more complex and more illumi
nating story lies in the actions of power
ful and influential Memphians in the final
weeks and days leading up to January
24, when the city was finally faced with a
court order that could no longer be
avoided.”
In October, chamber of commerce of
ficials led in the formation of IMPACT —
Involved Memphis Parents Assisting
Children and Teachers — and with help
from the school board staff they got a
$90,000 grant from the federal Emerg
ency School Assistance Program to work
in earnest on community acceptance of
desegregation.
IMPACT was launched early in No
vember. Said its chairman, Rev. James
H. Holmes, “This program has been de
veloped over the past several weeks out
of a groundswell of interest from parents,
students, teachers, citizens generally,
and a number of organizations.”
By the time IMPACT was announced,
out: newspaper and television advertise
EDITOR - Ava Thomas
REPORTERS Kathy Keaton, Bessie Midgette, Wanda Smith,
Bettie McKinstry
FACULTY ADVISOR - Marie Denning
THE NEWS ARGUS is a student publication of Winston-Salem State University,
the contents of which are the sole responsibility of its students.
ments, fact sheets, a telephone rumor
control system, neighborhood meetings,
its plan of action was already mapped
a speaker's bureau, church and organiza
tional support, research and trouble
shooting were all included in the strat
egy-
The Southern Regional Council was in
vited by leaders of the Chamber, the
black community and the school system
to assist IMPACT in its program, and
three representatives of the Council were
in Memphis during December and Jan
uary as participant-observers.
In essence, the Memphis desegregation
story is one of how a classic conflict
developed between two powerful forces,
and how that conflict came to be peace
fully resolved.
Of the Memphis story. Council officials
observe: “In a very real sense the Mem
phis story is a success story, a success
hammered out in tough and realistic
sessions between opposing forces, a suc
cess brought about against a background
of much turmoil, citizen misunderstand
ing, all in a city which only five years
ago was almost prostrated by the as
sassination of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., all in a city which too often in the
past had seemed wedded to the past."
Laughing to Survive
From the irrepressible scholar of hum
or who claims that it is better to teach
English than Chemistry, since an in
correct mixture of authors will not blow
you up, comes a mini-anthology of light
verse and playful prose: It All Started
With Freshman English — A Survival
Kit for Students and Teachers of English
and a Relaxed Review for Those Who
Are Happily Past it All (McGraw-Hill,
$5.95).
Author Richard Armour — it could not
be anyone else! — gives the works to
works from Beowulf to The Forsyte Saga,
from the Bay Psalm Book to Allen Gins
berg's Howl. New material dominates a
few classic favorites.
In his 47th book Armour proves again
that his yoke is easy, his burden is
light. Weighty problems are not now and
have never been the province of this
emeritus English professor who pokes
good clean fun at his profession, and at
a host of writers both mighty and mitey.
As Armour notes, “Once you discover
parody and are willing to be a little
irreverent about books and authors
you really love, and once you learn how
good it feels to have students laughing
with you rather than at you, English is
better than anything. Anything, that is,
that you are hkely to do in a classroom.”
JULY, 1973
ALUMNUS (Continued from Page One)
constant remarks that Teachers’ College
was a triple A rated college.”
Mrs. Holmes has taught twelve years
in Los Angeles. She holds a master’s
degree from Pepperdine University. She
has done further study at the University
of the Pacific, Mount Saint Mary’s Col
lege, and the University at Los Angeles.
Mrs. Holmes who presently serves as
administrative coordinator in the Los
Angeles school system is married to
Robert Holmes. They have two children,
Valerie 9 and Robert, Jr. 4. When asked
how she felt about how TC has grown
from a teachers’ college to a liberal arts
institution Mrs. Holmes stated, “The
progress is beautiful.”
African Seminar Held
Twenty-two Houston Area educators are
in their first week of a six-week African
Seminar. They are getting first hand
knowledge of Africa in Africa.
Dr. Cynthia Shepard Perry, associate
professor of international education, is
director of the seminar, which includes
university professors, experienced school
personnel from HSD, and representatives
of Texas Education Agency.
The purpose of the project is to develop
more knowledgable, fully qualified teach
ers and curriculum developers in black
studies in Houston through a guided
academic and experiential exposure to
Africa. The dual goals are to strengthen
existing ethnic heritage programs in
the University and local district through
experienced, traveled teachers; and also
to extend those programs beyond local
ethnicity to the study of cultural unity
and diversity on an international scale.
The group is touring four African na
tions, and expects to spend at least one
week in each of them. They will visit
Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, and Ni
geria. While in each country, they will
participate in discussions and seminars
at a major university in the nation.
The project will help to strengthen
black studies offerings in the public
schools, and will result in instructional
modules for ethnic heritage programs
throughout the state and nation. More
importantly, the intent of the program
is to influence a stronger, more relevant
African Studies curriculum in the public
schools of Texas through the inservice
preparation of existing teachers.
Participants of the seminar will con
duct a two-day state-wide symposium for
Texas teachers tentatively scheduled for
mid-November.
The passenger list includes: James Alt
man. history teacher. HSD: Dr. J. Don
Boney, chief instructional officer. HSD:
Peggy Boney, teacher HSD: Dr. Harvey
Cormier, foreign language instructor.
TSU; Mary Louise Garcia, Chicano
studies teacher, HSD; Larry Garabaldi,
black studies teacher, HSD; George
Haynes, Associate Superintendent, HSD;
Joseph E. Lewis, black studies, HSD.
Also, Barbara Marshall, theater di
rector; Lawrence Marshall, area superin
tendent, HSD; Bernice McBeth, math
laboratory, HSD; Sylvia Perez, multicult
ural teacher, HSD: Dr. J. 0. Perry,
director, Teacher Corps/Peace Corps,
TSU; Dr. Cynthia S. Perry, associate
professor intercultural education, TSU;
Dr. E. C. Powell, head, department of
sociology, TSU; Iris Powell, graduate
student, business, TSU; Frances Ryan,
teacher, Austin; Thomas Ryan, teacher
certification, State of Texas, Texas Ed
ucation Agency; Jo Nell Sanders, multi
cultural teacher, HSD; Caroll Simms, as
sociate professor of art, TSU; Jeannie M.
Walker, black studies teacher, HSD; Dr.
Walker Zimarian, program specialist,
multicultural education, TSU.
They are scheduled to return August 5.
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