European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 08, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Busing is like the Ohio River we Are assuming it s Here to stay school 20 years after Little Rock by David l. Langford United press International o ride a bus to school once was the special privilege of White children in much of the Rural South. Blacks for the most part walked to their was a time of social paranoia a time in the mid-1950s when a presbyterian preacher told a group of students at Mississippi state College that segregation is incompatible with that made front Page headlines in the Jackson daily news. The president of the College promptly cancelled religious emphasis week and sent the preachers Home. Then 20 years ago this month a Force of 350 paratroop ers of the 101st airborne landed in Little Rock Ark. And held Back an angry mob with bayonets As Ernie Greenland eight other Black students filed into Central High Federal government was demonstrating for the first time that it meant business in enforcing the desegregation edicts of the . Supreme court. The country had started moving however shakily toward equal educational opportunities for All. The familiar yellow school bus would become the main vehicle for achieving that end. It also would become the catalyst in some of the most violent pro tests the United states has Ever known. Today the school bus is hated no less in Boston where integration has met its Nastiest resistance in recent years than in Lamar s.c., where two buses carrying Lack students were overturned in 1970 by a mob of Whites knocking Heads with pick handles. As students Settle into classes this month two decade since the paratroopers landed in Little Rock parents objecting to Chicago s new voluntary school busing plan Are carrying signs which say i m White and i will groups in Boston and Louisville and else where Are plotting renewed resistance while Congress i moving to ban busing and the supreme court is softening its in the tiny Alabama Black Belt Community of Boykin 180 Black students Are boarding buses at 6 30 . To ride round trip 107 Miles to a school in Pine Hill which has no White students. All the Whites withdrew and entered private schools after a Federal court ordered the Boykin Blacks Are just As mad As the Chicago Whites. But for the most part school buses As routed by Federal judges have served their purpose Well in Many communities on both sides of the Mason Dix online where schools have been peacefully integrated for years. It s interesting to note that Ernie Green of Little Rock was sworn in this Spring As an assistant Secretary of labor an office once considered out of reach for a Black youth from the former Arkansas gov. Orval Faubus whose Defi Ance provoked president Eisenhower to Send in the troops recently took a Job As a Teller in a Small Bank in his Hometown of Huntsville notwithstanding the buses keep rolling the parents eventually go Home and the students Are left Socope in a new and sometimes hostile environment. A Young Black gym instructor spoke recently of what it Slike inside a recently desegregated school in Boston. Sometimes i happen to grab a White kid s hand while we re playing Ball and hell Jerk away she said. Ill pull him aside and try to find out what the problem is and we 11 talk about it. It May take a while but eventually hell hold my hand without 1963, Alabama gov. George Wallace was standing in a schoolhouse door proclaiming segregation in the past segregation today and segregation 1970, Florida gov. Claude Kirk was bodily occupy ing the Manatee county school offices saying forced busing is in 1977, former Kentucky governor Bert t. Combs was heading a task Force to upgrade Louisville schools and saying busing is like the Ohio River we re assuming it will stay the rhetoric of politicians usually reflects the senti ment of their constituency. The late Earl Warren who As chief Justice of the United states was architect of the historic 1954 decision in the Brown desegregation Case tells in his memoirs How Eisenhower earlier had invited him to a White House dinner with some segregationist leaders from the South. After dinner Warren wrote the group was filing out of the dining room to another room where Coffee and after dinner drinks were being served when the president took him by the and said these Are not bad people. All they Are concerned about is to see that their Sweet Little girls Are not require to sit in school alongside some big overgrown negroes.1 in the 1970s sentiments came to be couched in phrases As forced busing and preserve neigh boyhood when the supreme court in 1973 ruled in a Denver Case that courts could order desegregation pro Grams through busing in Northern cities the racial Battleground shifted. And it s in cities As los Angeles Chicago Mil Waukee and Dayton Ohio that new or expanded desegregation plans Are being drawn up or put into operation this in new York City the department of health education and welfare is threatening to Cut off $300 million in Federal funds unless some reforms Are made in the racial distribution of integration programs in some cities will include the Transfer and busing of teachers As Well As students and Magnet schools Are being established to attract students with special interests. There s nothing tougher than desegregation i la Tell you that said Lee Mcmurrin superintendent of schools in Milwaukee which is going into its second year of Athree year integration program. Busing is a code word Mcmurrin added. What i Means across the country is that the courts have ordered busing without any planning to speak of without any input from parents without any educational incentives without any kinds of positive outcomes to just we re not doing that he said. We re transporting children to the school of their Chicago where a voluntary busing plan went into effect with the opening of school the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders have asked for police pro i wish we could have met under different paratroopers and National guard troops faced crowd at Little Rock in september 1957, escorting Blacks to integrate Central High. Up Testim for Black students transferring to schools in White neighbourhoods on the City s Southwest school superintendent Joseph p. Hannon after Rne eting with police officials proposed that protes ters a dealt with firmly to nip things in the this is Chicago not Boston or Little Rock Hainon said. We re going to make it tension seems to have eased somewhat in Boston which became a Citadel of violent resistance to desegregation in the mid-1970s. The City s 15-member City wide coordinating commit tee was optimistic in a report to . District judge Garrity As Boston began its fourth year of busing. The Long standing pattern of abuse of the constitutional rights of Black children which the . District court found in 1974 has by no Means been removed Root and Branch the report said. Yet it added we believe there is cause for optimism cautious and guarded but optimism Kelly of the South Boston information Center would think that it resistance is going to be stronger than Ever he said. On the other hand Kelly said Many of the anti busing leaders see Hope for a constitutional Amend ment outlawing busing and Are encouraged by three recent supreme court decisions suggesting busing May not be the Best Way to achieve desegregation. The supreme court in june ruled in a Case out of Dayton Ohio that the lower courts had no warrant to impose a system wide busing plan without proof of intentional segregation throughout the system. The court was saying the remedy was greater than needed. While leaving in effect the order calling for the busing of 18,000 students this year it sent the plan Back to the lower courts for review. At the same time the justices upheld a court ordered plan for remedial education programs in Detroit to Hel children recover from the effects of attending segregated schools and said the state should help fund the program. The court said school reassignment alone May not cure the results of past discrimination. Civil rights leaders had feared the supreme court under chief Justice Warren Burger would use the Dayton Case to Retreat from the vigorous implementation of desegregation orders and to reconsider busing As a tool for achieving could have been a disaster but it s not said one lawyer for the american civil liberties Union. On Capitol Hill however the Carter administration is worried about new anti using legislation it feels would impede school desegregation. Congress has passed a measure sponsored by demo cratic Sens. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri and Joseph Biden of Delaware which would bar the use of Federal funds for direct or indirect transportation of student beyond the school nearest their Home. The Eagleton Biden plan came As an amendment to a funding Bill for the department of health education an welfare. While the hew Bill is tied up in conference on other matters the Carter administration has told Congress that the anti using legislation would have significant Impact on the enforcement of civil rights Laws in school sin the North and West. The Eagleton Biden amendment would close a Loop Hole under which the administration believes it can re quire limited busing through pairing or clustering of schools. But the amendment would affect Only busing plans negotiated by hew directly with the school districts and not court ordered plans which account for More than 90 per cent of the present busing. As for the court plans the Dayton directive is a Pivotal Point. The court cite Dayton in ordering reviews of desegregation programs in Milwaukee and Omaha and gave a Federal appeals court a Cue for a new look at it has Many officials in Dayton somewhat puzzled mainly because the busing of 22,000 students which began last year brought no year it worked beautifully said Judith Bogart a coordinator of the project involvement volunteers who visited 10,000 Homes explaining the busing fact there were fewer incidents at the beginning of school than in other years without busing actually the court did not throw out the Dayton plan it simply sent it Back asking for More evidence that busing throughout the system was justified. We re still really not too sure what the supreme court decision Means said school superintendent John Maxwell. But we know one thing for sure fighting it out in the courts is a lot better than fight ing it out on the on the other hand system wide busing which began in Tor the most part school buses As routed by Federal judges have served their purpose Well 1 Louisville by. Two years ago touched off rioting mass protest marches and classroom quieted Down a Little last year As anti using groups took a More moderate course and violence is no anticipated this fall. We be built up credibility by education and lobbying and printing newspapers and holding seminars and Nobby blowing up buses said Robert Deprez Leader of the National organization to restore and preserve our free Dom. Several other cities Are waiting for desegregation plans to be put into effect knowing it is coming sooner or later. For example in los Angeles the nation s second larg est school District the Issue has been in the courts 14 years and still is not settled. Wilmington del., which Wasset to begin desegregation this fall was Given a year s re Prieve by a Federal Milwaukee is waiting for a circuit court of appeals to Rule on its plan in Light of the Dayton decision school leaders say there was no organized opposition when the first phase of a gradual three year desegregation program went into effect last year. I have a sense that if the courts would just leave Milwaukee alone the people of Milwaukee will have accomplished what will be a Model for the nation said John Gronouski former . Ambassador to Poland and onetime postmaster general who is a special master in Milwaukee s desegregation Effort. Anti busing groups often have argued that massive using would be extremely costly to the taxpayers. But manufacturers in Detroit report that production of school buses today is the same As it was 10 years ago about 30,000 units a Market for the regular yellow school bus that most people know has t grown a bit since 1967," said Don Ball a Ford marketing reason is that Public school enrolments have declined. But Ball offers another have to remember that a lot of school District Al ready had Large fleets when the integration orders comedown he said. They rearranged their route schedules and Are utilizing their buses much better assistant labor Secretary Ernest Green one of students who integrated Little Rock school. 14 the stars and stripes the Ridey the stars and stripes Page 15
