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? ? > * ? MAY 29, 1960 FEDERAL LAWSUIT CALLS FDR I ~ . ONE COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM , a groap of Robeson County parents (Ued tail here Wednes dqr in U.S. District Court in an effort to pot aa end to what they coo aider to be: the poor quality at public education avaMaMo to their children; the dupli cative and inefficient use of tax dollars earmarked for the schools; the perpetu ation of racial segregation, especially through the planned construction of two new Ugh schools; artificatty contrived school district boundary lines; and "Tokenism" in the place at true integration of school students and faculty populations. Named aa defendants are five Robe son County school systems, the Robeson County Board of Commission ers, the N.C. Superintendet of Public Instruction, the State Board of Bderaltnn, and the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human " ~ is i ris n enssisnni Services and the Department of Educa tion. A sixth Robeson school system, Maxton. is slated to merge with the < county system and is, therefore, excluded from the suit. Concentrating on the federal statutes that equal educational oppor tunity for all students, the suit avoids mention of the quality of education provided in Robeson County and deals only with tax dollars as they are used to support segregation. However, a spokes mans for the parents, who are repre sented by Raeford attorney Philip A. Diehl, said that both quality of education and its cost are at die heart of the suit. "We believe that our children are being denied the kind of education they deserve and for this we, the taxpayers of Robeson County, are paying far in " * " * nan^iiaiisii aa^as^ i? 1 Ill ? I excess of what good management would require," commented one of the parents. "Yon cannot operate five separate school systems in a county of about 90,000 without duplicating many of the costs." The parents back up their claims regarding the quality of education by pointing to statistics compiled by the State. In 1978-79, for example, competency testing for 11th grade students resulted in the following failure rates: Robeson County System, 23 precent reading, 31 percent math; St. Pauls System, 14 percent reading, 24 percent math; Fairmont System, 19 percent -reading, 25 percent math; Lumberton System, 10 percent reading, 16 percent math; Red Springs System, IS percent reading, 17 percent math. For the same year, the average dropout rate for all systems in die county was 9.25 percent, representing a \ range from Fairmont's high of 11.5 pwnat to Bed Springs' low of 7.8 peroral. These figures, among the worst In the State, are to be compared with the total per student expenditures by each of the school systems, say the parents. "Our schools are reasonably well funded. There were only three systems in the State that rerelvrdmorr federal money than the Robeson County sdnfnhtrative unit last year. Yet they cnntinue to turn out students who are among the most poorly education. We want to know why." The plaintiffs point to at least one possible answer, local contributions to school funds. In the 1977-78 school year, while ranking fourth in federal funds, the Robeson County unit ranked near die bottom of the list (132nd) in local contributions. "Local interest must be backed by local dollars," they say. "Perhaps no inrai dollars uwu or no local ! ?? interest. FIRST FAIRMONT WAREHOUSE The first tobacco warehouse in Fairmont was the Union City Warehouse. It was located where the A.D. Lewis Stoie now stands. There are now ten warehouses in Fairmont. PROCTOR LAW BUILDING Proctor Law Building is one i A the oldest buildings in Lum- r berton. It was built in 1830 and is | located at the comer of Elm and J 16th Streets, ddwntown Lum berton. The Proctor Law Building was restored by Historic Robeson. Inc. Mr. Woodrow Pruitt is the president. FAMOUS PLANK ROAD The belief, tradMoaaUy, bee bridge which gave Leather Brid tofl boose she where travelers paid fifty carts Is sees Little Mash Swsap mmd trsvcf mm the Plaak Bead la Feyettevllle. The lei heaee sad Pbok Bead woe isaaliaittid la 1848. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE The Chamber... Is the Better Bureau For the County The Chamber,,, is the Only Full Time Professional Business Organization in Robeson County The Chamber... Provides Specialized Training for Your Business ?Join the Other Businesses in Robeson County And Join The Chamber! ?Congratulations Carolina Indian Voice, We Are Proud To Have You As A Member of THE LUMBfiRTON CHAMBER of COMMERCE i If you aren't a member: * m . . the lumberton area Jrkin trki\a\r f chamber of commerce J Ulf t H/WU T ? 800 North Chestnut *? *" ** Lumberton. Norlh Carolina 28358 105U (919) 739 4750 THREE NEW SCHOOLS . Contributing to the ur gency of the lawsuit, according . to the parents, are two pro posed high schoois-a new $4.5 million facility slated to serve as a consolidated school for the western section of the county and a consolidated school for the northwestern area to be housed in the Res- Rennert School. That facility would be renovated at an approximate cost of $1.5 million. The third is a consolidation of the Ashpole and Rowland High Schools. The plaintiffs contend that the three high schools have been proposed for locations that will maintain current racial identifications. The western and northwest ern consolidated high schools will have a predominantly Indian population, while the southern school will have a Black student majority. An outgrowth of these three high schools, says the suit, will be "to provide space for further expansion of predominantly White subdivision in the vicin ity of Lumberton..." Construction of the Pembroke area high school is scheduled to begin this summer. "These new high schools are important symbols." says a spokesman for the parent group. "They are strategically located in order to keep the racial lines just as they were ? prior to 1954. If they ever open their doors to students, we will have opened the doors for ' another fifty years of segre gation." Segregation, according to the plaintiffs, has been a matter of common practice in Robeson County involving all the vari ous Boards of Education. Each of the municipal school sys tems has been permitted to allow school attendance from select subdivisions and areas lying outside the town's geo graphic boundaries. The Rob eson County Board of Educa tion is involved in this since it establishes boundary lines for the county-and therefore for the municipal administrative units. Boundary manipulations in the various administrative units have resulted in clearly defined racial identities. For example, the Lumberton dis trict is predominantly White, even though there are within its boundaries schools that have Black and Indian major ities. Fairmont and Red Springs are predominantly Black and Robeson County administrative unit is pre dominantly Indian. Within each of the admin istrative units--regardless of their ultimate racial identifi cation-are schools with clear, and sometimes overwhelming racial majorities. For example; Tanglewood (Lumberton unit) ....: 92% White South Lumberton ....99% Black West Lumberton (Lumberton unit 99% Black West Lumberton (Lumberton unit) 78% Indian Southside (Robeson unit) 59% Black East Robeson (Robeson unit) 66% White Union Elementary (Robeson unit) 99% Indian The result of the various school attendance districts is that nowhere in Robeson County do school populations reflect the county's total stu dent population ratios: 30% Black. 28% White, and 42% Indian. The parents are concerned not only with itudent popu lations. but with faculty and staff ratio* as well. They contend that faculty and staff tend to reflect student popu lations in individual schools rather than the total student population, "...(only) under threat of sanction, have the Boards of Education...made any attempt to desegregate staff and faculty assign menu, and such attempts have only ' been accomplished on a token basis." A FEW TOO MANY The suit which was filed today does not contain the word ' merger"-that being a political, rather than legal, decision-but it does seek "a unitary and non-discrimina tory public school system" for all the county's students with out regard to the geographic boundaries of individual ad ministrative units. Historically, the concept of a single school program is one which has been bandied about policially for years. It was the recommendation of a blue ribbon study commission in 1970 and it has been variously fought for and warred against since the '60s. No ether county In North Carolina operates systems. In 1968. SOUTHERN EDU CATIONAL REPORT publish ed an article that looked at Robeson County's complex programs with an attitude approaching wide-eyed ama zement. Looking at the bus service provided to students, the article stated: "...For example, the county system operates a single bus service for all six districts, and each day 249 buses crisscross the county, covering 9,000 miles to serve 16.000 pupils. Even before desegregation, there was considerable move ment of students across the boundaries of the six districts, and that movement continues; the county system operates a few schools which are located inside the township districts, and those districts have some students whose homes are outside the township boun daries." The article continues to re port that a Florida county school system, "which is about 100 square miles larger than Robeson, operates 100 fewer buses in its consolidated school system, even though its iiirotl merit is almost four times as large as Robeson County's six school districts combined." Little has changed in the dozen years since that article was published, say the plain tiffs. The Robeson County Board of Education still oper ates a single bus service for the entire county. At present it operates 24S buses 4b trans port 16.260 students approxi mately 1.871.8S0 miles each year. "With today's fuel and maintenance costs. Hills borough County. Florida, is getting a real bargain," says a spokesman for the parents. Yet the parents who have filed this suit state loudly and clearly that it isn't just money that they want to save. "Our county has been divid ed racially by our schools. The Blacks have the south; the Indians have the northwest; the Whites have Lumberton and the east. Who made this arrangement and how does it affect our children? asks one parent. "We believe that the best education for our children will be the result of unified goals, of equal allocation of resour ces. and of a true integration of the best Robeson County has to offer-her people." MY NAME IS LUMBEE My name is Lumbee My perverters would say Liaber. Just a crooked little river. 44 miles in length. But I know many secrets. And I fathered a people. And few there should be who would harm me. My name is Lumbee. I join Drowning Creek At the one end. And the Little Peedee On the Other. Why do people deny I exist? I who have birtbed them? 1 who have nursed thee, Uke a mother from my bosom? ? Am I really unworthy of them? Or are they rsaljr unworthy of Ms? ' I Hwy^lMvw IJswwv in ii iy t uw "fvT?. J And they nave swum la my swiftf stream. J Yet they have despised me. C^J They have rejected me. And they have scorned the father, ) The father who fathered them. . / And they have heaped abuse upon mf*? name , For my name is Lumbee. I What have 1 done to deserve disfavor? ' Have I not harbored them? Have I not hidden them? Have 1 not kept their very lives safe In times at war and peace? And have 1 not lulled their Restless children to sleep at night With the gentle trickle of me. Oh, listen to my sad murmuring. And tell me, do tell me. For which of these things Do you now persecute me? -Lrar lartMl
The Carolina Indian Voice (Pembroke, N.C.)
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Jan. 20, 1983, edition 1
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