Newspapers / The Franklin Times (Louisburg, … / Aug. 21, 1969, edition 1 / Page 4
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The Fr ' ^?Wiih?d (>fr A TKwrUay In Times lf.M? AN 0? frwhta Cmtmty Your Award Winning CoOnty Newspaper LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENT Education , The Important Thing Parents of children attending the Franklinton City school system this fall will be facing the same period of adjustment as parents oi children who attended the County system last year. Needless to say, a period of greater adjustment will be faced by the children themselves. The announcement that HEW has approved and the Franklinton Board has adopted a plan of total integration came today. There is, as expected, a great deal of dissatisfaction among parents of school age children. Many have already or will soon enroll their offsprings in private schools. Parents of some first graders have expressed intentions of holding their children out of school at least for this year. This is the way of things in this country today. The County system has been plagued for years by the courts. The Franklinton system has had its prob lems with HEW. Although the two systems took different routes, both have now arrived at the same destina tion. Both have reached this point because of outside pressures. HEW bureaucrats have been as relentless in their pursuit of the Franklinton School Board as the Justice Depart ment has been in its efforts against the County Board. The end was inevitable for both. It is unnecessary to point out that total integration is the interpretation of the law. This has been widely publicized. And now in the Franklin top system- as in the past in the County unit-it is not so much that the people would defy the law. It is the fact that the laws seems to mean different things to different sections of the country. While Franklinton parents ponder the future of their children's education, parents in neigh .boring counties continue with free dom of choice and small tokenism. Just why freedom of choice is legal in some areas but not acceptable in Franklin remains one of the deep mysteries of life. Just why Franklin has come to the end of the integration wars well ahead of sister school sys tems in other areas few, if any, under stand. However, when schools open this fall. Franklin County will be one of the few counties in the country with all schools totally integrated. They say others will follow. Last year this was to happen this year. This year, they say, it is to happen by next year. Regardless, of what other systems might do, Franklin must face up to the realities. Neither School Board would have planned the transition from a dual system to a unitary one exactly as the courts and HEW have done. However, once done, the quicker Franklin parents accept it as a way of life; the sooner they show determination to make the best of it; and the sooner they and their children reach an adjustment to the new ways, the sooner education in the county will start the long trip back. And after all, education of the children is the important thing to parents here. A DAY IN ARKANSAS JOHN J. SYNON At my friend pushed him self under the steering wheel, hi* right heel brushed the big, black .45 strapped against the seat's upright My eye caught the move ment at his eye caught the startled expression on my face. "We don't go out any more without a gun," my friend aid, by way of ex planation. "Not in this part of Arkansas. "Hi ere have been several Incidents." The journey was to be a short one. a mile, from the Marveil fair grounds where a barbecue was in progress to the new school house I had asked to tee. "Things are really getting tight," my companion told me at we arrived. "Between the federal courts and the NASCP, they mean to crush us and we don't really know what to do exactly ? except resist" The school was no great shakes, not If one were to compare it to tax-bought, public schools. But the pride and love so evident in the timbre of my Mend's voice changed the one-story, 14 room brick building into a vvn la ble palace. This was their very own, they had built It for their children. Indepen dent of the public schools and (they hoped) indepen dent of the federal govern ment. And (they hoped) no body could tell them how to op<vat?lt. "We buHt It for a hun dred-thousand do Bars, all of It; land, equipment, every thing " "How much do you still owe?" My Mend seemed to savor hit reply: "Twenty-seven hundred more and she's dear." Marveil, Arkantat, it locat ed about 75 miles south and a bit west of Memphit. It It cotton country; no rain, no cotton; oo cotton, no life worth the Ihrlng. It it an elementary land. Itt people believe in God, and they be lieve in good and in evil, in the United States of America, and in the boll weevil. And they believe in social segre gation of the races; blacks as well as whites believe in that. "Ninety per cent of the people of this country, black and white, dont want the races mixed up in the schools ? but that doesnt matter. They are going to do it any way ? they say." I rather doubt they wlU, or if they do, not for long. And, I gather, the federal judge who rules the area is develop ing doubts, too. One suspects he has come to question the insistent counsel he has been getting from the NAACP. "Over in the next town", my friend went on, "they had a man ? a white man, think of that ? go around to aD the white parents, asking them please, wouldn't they send their children to integrated school, this tall. "And they got some to say they would. It costs (400. you know, to send a child here. "They told them not to worry, that the white child ren would be brought In se The Ffl^jggih Times TU Franklin Tlnm, | IBM. DWOHIM Lm cuwrruLum. NATIONAL IMTONIAL ?UMCMPTION RATH Ow Y?r, M Mt tk Mmik H.M OMirflMr Om Y?t. M M-, an Mm% M? "TWMiilu.ft.iO parate busies and would be taught in a wparate building. They told 'em the whitea and the cotoreda would have se parate recess times and that they would begin school and end school at different times of day. Not to worry. "That's what they are go ing to do in September, so they say. But you watch. The NAACP ain't going to put up with that. Once they get thoae white kids on the lot, they will lock the door on that whitea-only building and lump 'em all together". "And then what?" "You ever put six cats in the sack?" I said I had not but I thought I knew what he meant. "And that will spread". "How far?", I wanted to know. ' "Got me; It will be like aix lhouaand cats in a sack. That's the beat I can tell you. They can crush us, and we expect they will. And then the trouble will quiet down." "You think then. If they bring troops to Arkansas again, you wiU quit?" "No, sir. They will bring the, troops, all right, but we wont quit. They will just crush ua." "But iant that the same thing?" "No, sir. Quitting and be ing tied up are two different things. They are just going to have to hold us. They can do that but that's all they can do. Maybe, one day. they will get tired and turn us loose. But we will never quit". And they never will. Anti-submarine Planes The Navy has awarded the Lockheed Aircraft Corpora tion a potential $3.2bUIIon program to build a fleet of advanced antlaubmarine war fare planea capable of dejing with a growing Soviet sub marine threat It's the first new major aircraft program the Nixon Administration has pushed toward production. 'There They Are ? The Poor Men's Only Loophole' WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING Impeach President Nixon The (Southern Pines) Pilot That movement up around States ville to petition for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon is one of those exercises in futility that deserves notice only because it is a sign of a certain Southern frustration. Leaders of the movement are angry because the President has not halted desegregation of the schools as they were led to believe he would. These are people who voted for him in the belief that he would reverse the Su preme Court decision of 1954. Of course. President Nixon cannot do that We don't think he would if he could. But recalling some of his Southern campaign statements in 1968, especially those in Charlotte, and the ardent support he got from Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, one can perhaps understand how some people may have been led to believe that he would take that course. It is interesting that the story of the Statesville impeachment petition came the same day that the opinion pollsters reported a low ebb in the Nixon popularity. The disillusionment was sharpest in the South and East, clearly, however, for different reasons. The unpopular war in Vietnam, which Nixon obviously does not know how to bring to a satisfactory close, is a big reason for the waning popularity which always follows a presidential honeymoon period. In the South, however, the racial issue is surely the prevailing one. There are diehards who cannot as yet accept the fact that the Supreme Court safd that separate schools are inherently unequal, and cannot have the sanction of law. It may well be that some of the Nixon administrators are more con cerned with sociological factors than with the entire educational picture and have taken some very shortsighted positions in regard to local school situations. Nevertheless, neither they, nor Nixon, nor anyone else can return to the status quo of a quarter-century ago. The "Impeach Dick Nixon" move ment may be well grounded in frustra tion and disillusionment, but it's not likely to get far beyond the borders of Iredell or to generate much more than a raised ax handle salute from Lester Maddox. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES FRANKUNTON PLANT Apply During Employment Hours TUESDAY and THURSDAY . 9 to 11 a. m. ? ? An Equal Opportunity Employer COME 1 TO r THINK OF IT..." by frank count I'd been knocking on the blame door for seemed Ilk* a hour. I felt like folks passing by thought I was trying to break in. 1 won't. There wasn't nothing in Melvin Smudgen's house 1 wanted. Except that is maybe, to talk to old Mel awhile to while away some time. I hadn't seen him In nearly two week*. I banged away again after a car passed and slowed and the tail lights lit up. I thought for a time that the driver was gonna stop. I was glad when he didn't. It was a police car. j * I kept thinking 1 was hearing a voice from inside the houw but 1 couldn't be sure. I started to yell. "Cussit", I yelled. That's his nickname. I aint gonna tell you how he got K. "Cussit, you in there", 1 yelled again. I could a swore I heard a voice from inside. 1 banged again. Finally 1 tried the door knob. Dont know why I hadn't thought of that sooner. It worked. It opened the door. How about that. A door knob that opens the door. What won't ttxy think of next? I poked my head inside. "Cussit, you in here", I asked. | could still hear that wee voice coming from somewhere, j started to look around. I went in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen-all them was the same room, actually. I took a real chance. 1 peeped in the bathroom. No Cuait. I could still hear the voice. Finally I tapped on the bedroom door. I heard a noise. This time I didn't mess around. I turned the knob right away. Won't no sense wasting time. "Cussit, you in here in the dark", I asked. That wee small voice said, "Yeah, Frank, I'm over here". Over where I was wondering. "Where's the light cord, Cuaut", I asked. "Ain't got one", said the wee small voice, "You got to turn the bulb. It's hanging in the middle of the room. Bam. | found it. That is, my head found it. I screwed it In. It worked. But I still couldn't see no sign of Cussit. "Give me a clue. Cussit. Yell out. So's I can find you. Am I getting hot?" "No, Frank. I'm under here. Over this way. The bad, Frank". I looked under the bed. No Cussit. I was getting mighty peeved when I saw his big toe hanging from In between the covers. "Cussit, what in tar-nation are you doing hiding between them feather beds? Ain't nobody but me here. I ain't gonna hurt you. What 're you scared of, Cussit. Git out of there". "I can't, Frank. Ain't you heard the news? There's a storm, f rank. And I'm scared of storms. Dont stand in front of that door, Frank. Lightning might hit you". Lightning might hit nw inside the house cause I'm standing in front of a door? "Cusit, don't be silly. There aint no storm. The stars ait shining and it's a beautiful night. It don't even look like rain. Now come out from between them feather beds and take that silly wet rag off your head". He stuck just his head out. "Frank, I heard on the radio just awhile ago that a storm was expected to hit someplace and | f . ? I 'I 1 ' was gonna be ready. I close all the doors and windows and cat off the Ice box and unplugged all the light cords and got between the feather beds. And If you're smart, you II get la here with me". Smart, yes. Get between two feather beds with Cussit, I'm not. "Cussit, if you don't come out, I'm leaving. IH be hanged If I'm gonna stand here talking to a feather bed. Now git out of there." "Frank, I hope you won't think I'm unneighborly but | cant come out right now. I ain't coming out until the storm k* over. And I wish you'd either get in here with me or go home. It alnt a fit night out for nobody." "Cussit, I keep telling you, there aint no storm here. Wham did you hear such a report?" "The river, Frank. The radio said the winds would blow an4 the storm would come up the river". Just then a car whlzsa4 by and Cussit ducked back between the feather beds. "What river?", I asked him as if I was interested. "I dont know, Frank. It just said the river and we got ? river and now go on home and let me weather the storm alone" - I thought the least I could do was leave him to enjoy hit misery in peace. Try This One For A Few Laughs la n? Charlotte Observer "Don't try It," 15-yoar-old Nora Ruff corn of La Jolla, Calif., told a newsman. "Tell them what It'* Uka and tell them not to try anything." Nora and three other teen ager* tried something just for kick*. A/ter rolling up the, window* of their car, they opened ? container of nitron* oxide, better known a* the dentist'* pain killer, laughing (a*. Two *f Nora's companion* are deed. She waa la a coma for three weak*, and doctor* say she could be an invalid for life. Ei#it weak* after the incident, Nora la trying t* learn again1 how to eat and how to walk by heraelf. It began )wt la a lark, Nora s?id The four Hi ?g era didn't know that para ni trous oilda la lathal if inhalad for mora than It mhrataa. But nona bothered to rind out, juat as turn attar youngsters amllaMl to find out what will Uevae to their brain and narrow system when they sniff gh? or the contents of aai oooi Laughing gaa. But no body's laughing Not the fam ilies of the two who are dead. Not the invalided Ken. Not Nora'* boy friend, who wag made violently ill and who pleaded guilty to two count* of minalau0)ter. Soma kicks.
The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.)
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Aug. 21, 1969, edition 1
4
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