1961 US Commission on Civil Rights Report Book 2 - University of ...

imately 16 percent of whom are Negro; 5 its principal city is Miami.
Dade County was the first and is still the only one of Florida's 67 districts
to operate schools attended by Negroes and whites. It began
desegregation voluntarily in September 1959 at schools located in Miami
and Naranja. At that time, however, a suit seeking desegregation was
pending in a Federal court. 6
Orchard Villa Elementary School is located in a Miami neighborhood
that changed from predominantly white to predominantly Negro in a
3-year period. In September 1958 the Dade County Board of Public
Instruction received a number of applications from Negro pupils for
assignment to Orchard Villa. Four of the applicants appeared for a
hearing before the board late in September 1958. Their requests were
denied. 7
The school board, however, initiated a survey of the community
around Orchard Villa in October 1958 and found that most white
residents planned to move regardless of the possibility of school desegregation.
Interviews indicated that a majority of the teachers and staff
would not stay if more than four Negro pupils were admitted. 8
On the basis of this study the board unanimously approved the assignment
of the four Negro applicants to Orchard Villa on February 18,
1959. When the school opened in September, only 18 pupils enrolled
(14 white and 4 Negro). It operated on that basis until October 12,
1959, when 150 Negro children who had applied for transfer during
the summer were admitted. Some 300 additional Negroes from nearby
overcrowded schools were also assigned to the school. At the end of
the 1959-60 school year, only 5 whites still attended with about 450
Negroes. 9
When Orchard Villa opened in September 1960, i white child remained
with some 802 Negro children. Two weeks later the Negro
enrollment had increased to more than 1,000 and the parents of the
i remaining white pupil moved to another neighborhood and removed
their child from the school. 10 Thus, within a period of i year the segregated
school for white students had desegregated and then become a
"segregated" school for Negroes.
The second school in Dade County to desegregate during the 1959-60
school year was Air Base Elementary School, adjacent to Homestead Air
Force Base in Naranja, Fla. ia The school opened for the first time in
September 1959, with 17 Negro and 764 white pupils—all children of
airbase personnel. Federal funds for the construction of this school were
obtained under Public Law 815 12 due to the influx of "unhoused" pupils
occasioned by Federal activities. The school, however, is located on
county-owned property and is under the exclusive control of the county
board. It is open to all children living in the school attendance zone 13
and has continued to operate without incidents attributable to its biracial
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