Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Feb. 19, 1970, edition 1 / Page 1
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SCHOOL DESEGREGATION CRISIS MAY NOW BE REACHING CUMAX LARKINS PREDICTED by Jack,Ritter Five years ago when Federal Judge John Larkina signed his first highly controversial and loudly criticized school deseg regation order he explained this action by saying, in substance: “this has got to get a lot worse before people really rise up and reject it; white and color alike, and the sooner that conies the better.” Larkins freely admitted that the whole basis of these orders which had been sent to him by the Fourth Circuit Court of Ap eals for his signature, was repug nant to him as an individual, as a lawyer and as a firm believer in the United States Constitution. But Larkins felt then, as now, that he is bound to foQow the rulings of the higher echelons of the federal judiciary; much as a soldier is bound to obey tbe orders of a superior officer. Now there is growing evi dence that things are getting “a lot worse” and that the time of rejection is near at hand. Last week when card-carrying 24-carat liberal Senator Abra ham Ribicoff of Connecticutt said: “Let us not kid ourselves, wherever we go across this land, when blacks move in, the whites move out, and if they have chil dren, they move as far away as they can. What shall we do? Shall we chase the whites with busses, with helicopters, or with airplanes, to try to get an equita ble distribution?” he was say ing nothing new, but he was saying it at a time when the is-' sue was more nearly crystalized than at any time since the su preme court opened this Pan dorean Box on May 17, 1954. Later Ribicoff confessed that his liberal friends were confirm ing their hypocrisy by calling him to say: “They agree with what I’ve said, but that it’s too avanttgarde and they have to oppose me because of tactics.” Ribicoff states his belief sim ply: That if its wrong to segre gate in the South it is wrong to segregate in the north and it is THE JONES COUNTY JOURNAL NUMBER 49 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19,1970 VOLUME XVD Grant and Loan Totalling $465,000 Approved for Maysville for New Sewage Disposal System for Area First District Congressman Walter B. Jones announced this week, the approval of a $279,000 grant and a $186,000 loan by the Economic Development Adminis tration to' the Town of Mays ville. The money is to be used to construct a sewer system to serve the town of Maysville and surrounding community includ ing a 30 acre industrial site and which also will include a waste (treatment facility. Jones stated further that the town of Maysville in coopera tion with the Maysville Develop ment Corporation is developing the industrial site in connection with the town’s long-range plans to make the community attrac tive to industry seeking loca tions for new plants. The total cost of the project wil be $465,000 and is the result of dedicated citizens working and planning together for the future economic development of Maysville and Jones County in an effort to provide perma nent new job opportunities, Jones added. Land Transfers Jones County Register of Deeds Bill Parker reports re cording the following land trans fers in his office during the past week: From Roy M. Booth, trustee for Jarmon and Emma Fonville to Mid-State Homes, Inc. one lot in White Oak Township. From J. L. Cheston to M. E. Cheston and wife two tracts in Chinquapin Township. Jones Candidates SHERIFF W. Brown Yates* Dan Killingsworth Joe Monette Osborne Coward COURT CLERK F. Rogers Pollock* Harold Hargett Jr. COMMISSIONER Osborne Mallard SENATE Charlie Larkins Jr.* HOUSE Guy Elliott* Fitzhugh Wallace Red Tingen Dan Lilley* * Denotes Incumbent Republicans in bold type Osborne Coward Becomes Fourth Man Filinq for Jones County Sheriff Osborne Coward of Pollocks ville became Jones County’s fourth candidate for sheriff on the Democratic ticket by pay ing his filing fee this week. The 30 year-old candidate is a lifetime resident of the Pol locksville community and at present is employed at the Du five Civil Suites Filed During Post Week in Jones County Court System / I Jones County Court Clerk Rog ers Pollock reports receiving five civil actions in his court during the past week. In the suit involving the most money Carl Shivar has brought suit against the North Carolina Lime Company, alleging that the company owes Mm $9,414:32 for lime he delivered and for wMch the company has not made pay ment. Gatlin Brothers of Bayboro in another action seeks to collect $120 from Viola Kornegay;0f Trenton route 1 and in the third suit for collection Bruce Koonce, trading as Koonce Tire Compa ny, is seeking to collect $222.44 from Allen Spence of Dover route 2. Two divorce suits were in cluded among the five suits fil ed. In one Lloyd Lee Penuel divorce, on separation Isabel Pannyl, al Septem tion on March 15, 1965 and in the other Carol Foy asks divorce from Enoch Randolph Foy, alleg ing their marriage on July 30, 1966 and their separation on November 1, 1968. Jones Veterans Get $234,233 from VA During 1969 W. R. Phillips, Manager of the North Carolina Veterans Ad ministration Regional Office, dis closed today that the VA spent $234,612 in Jones County to aid veterans during Fiscal Year 1969. This includes $194,233 in compensation and pensions. Administrator of Veterans Af fairs Donald E. Johnson reveal ed at the same time that the total VA funds expended in the State of North Carolina during the same period amounted to / ^ Continued on page 8 '' Pont plant near Kinston. The other sheriff candidates include incombuent Brown Yat es, former deputy Dan Killings worth and Maysville grocer Joe Monette. No official action has been taken by the County Democratic Executive Committee to fill the post of county election board chairman, which was vacated by the death recently of John C. B. Koonce, who had held the job for many years. In the interim Koonce’s daugh ter, Mrs. Kaye Koonce King has been authorized by State Elec tion Board Executive Director Alex Brock to accept filing fees andi keep necessary records. Mrs. Koonce was familiar with the procedure, having worked with her father during the years he held the poet. wrong for the federal govern ment to first force the south to swallow this bitter pill in the hope that the forced Southern example will somehow cause Northern communities to volun tarily end their segregation. Southern governors, educa tors, a few Southern editors and nearly all of the Southern dele gation in congress has been say ing this for a long time, but they each and all were held up as racists by northern spokesmen who had their children in seg regated school, either public or private. What a growing number of ed ucators now belatedly are begin ning to recognize is that the pub lic will not support totally de segregated schools in any com munity where there is as much as 25 per cent colored school enrollment. The educators eager to grab all the money in sight from what ever source made the mistake of assuming that the public was just as greedy and would accept federal dictation in this realm rather than burden themselves with the costs of building private schools. Private School Threat The announcement this week that a well-heeled Raleigh group was opening up a $5.8 million building program for a private school, coupled with less ambit ious private school building programs in every part of the South has rudely awakened these public school administrators who underestimated their constitu encies. They see situations such as New York City where the tax paying whites have fled to the surburbs and left the central city rotting with over 1.2 million Ne groes on welfare, using up tax money rather than paying it in. They are beginning to under stand, too, that the lavish sup port the publics schools have received in the South depends upon the white majority levying and paying the taxes, and they know that in North Carolina there are only nine counties in which there is a numerical ma jority of Negroes and, worse, they are now beginning to un derstand that even the Negroes are souring on rigidly dictated integration measures coming from Washington or their re spective state capitals. In Kinston, as an example; there is hardly a family, white or colored that views with favor a suggested plan that will force colored children on the one hand to walk by a beautiful new school building and travel nearly two miles to another school, and at the same time force white stu dents to reverse this procedure. This would not be acceptable to a majority of parents even if free public transportation were provided to implement this sug gested plan and when there is no plan, and no money in sight, to provide such transportation the--scheme falls on-even more deaf ears. Negro Rejection Just last week in an effort to sell this bill of goods in a group meeting in Grainger High School auditorium the most violent kind of disagreement — short of bloodshed — took place between colored students, some of whom preferred their own schools and others who insisted that mix ed schools were the only solu tion. The arguments were not between white and colored stu dents, but between colored stu dents. Negro parents who understand ably fought for and believed in the “Freedom of Choke” con cept are now bitter to learn that this thing that they fought for and won is being ignored by federal judges and federal bureaucrats. The fire lighted by black mil itants has inspired a new pride in Negroes, many of whom are now becoming more segregation ist than the most rabid white segregationists. They are in the minority still in their race, but the largest numbers of those who feel this way are in the school-age groups, and they are the ones school and college ad ministrators will have to cope with in one way or another. The Kent County Ruling In 1968 the supreme court ruled in Green Versus Kent County, Virginia, that “Freedom of Choice” was all right if it brings about desegregation but not all right if it does not bring about desegregation. The Harvard Law Review in commenting on this ruling said: “The court struck down free choice in Kent County without commenting on the genuineness of the expressed ‘preferences’ of most of the county’s Negroes for separation. Has the court taken judicial notice that ‘free choice’ by Southern Negroes is a myth? Or has it merely plac ed the burden on school boards — at least in the South — to show that the choice was truly free? Or has the court resolved to ignore even strong prefer ences of black nationalists on the theory that school boards must eliminate segregated schools even if Negro parents wish them to survive? Once again ‘Green’ raises more questions than it answers.” And North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin put it succinctly when he declared, “Children can have freedom in a manner pleasing to a majority of the supreme court, but they cannot have Freedom of Choice if they ex ercise their freedom in a man ner displeasing to a majority of the supreme court justices.” Whether sufficient votes can be mustered in congress to muz zle the supreme court’s thin ma jority on this issue remains to be seen, but some other bona fide liberals are preparing rec ommendations to the Nixon Ad ministration under a govern men grant that would bypass the issue by permitting parents to withdraw children from pub lic schools and then issue fed eral vouchers that could be us ed by that parent to pay tui tion for his child in any school of his choice even if it is a racial ly segregated private school. Ths notion of course gives public school administrators a serious case of panic, because they fear competition that might expose the vast wastefullness of the program over which they presently preside. But a Harvard liberal has with in the month come up with the liberal quote of the century: “Freedom also includes the free dom of parents to send their children to segregated schools!” Who would have thought that such a simple truth could escape from the lips of a Harvardian? Perhaps John Larkins may find some small consolation in con templating the educational scene and saying an occasional, “I told you so!” This may be a small consolation for one who has been the target of the slings and arrows of many an outraged citizen, who was unable to ap preciate the foresight of Lar kins in this category. like some other phenomenon, it 'had to get worse before it could get any better, and it now appears to be reaching that point.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Feb. 19, 1970, edition 1
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