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

A desegregation suit against the Greensboro City Board of Education
was dismissed as moot by a Federal district court in January 1960 because
the plaintiffs had been assigned to the white school to which they
sought admission. 90 However at the time of assignment the school was
consolidated with the Negro school located on the same site and all
of the white pupils were subsequently granted transfers to other schools.
The school in effect had been converted into a segregated school for
Negroes. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the
decision with instruction to the lower court to retain jurisdiction to see
that the plaintiffs were sent to appropriate schools. 81 On May 12, <strong>1961</strong>,
the district court ordered the Greensboro School Board to reassign the
plaintiffs, for the school year <strong>1961</strong>-62, to "an appropriate school in
accordance with their constitutional rights." The students have been
directed to make their school choices known. 92
Raleigh (where a desegregation suit was pending) 98 experienced desegregation
for the first time during the 1960-61 school year when a
Negro boy was assigned to an elementary school with some 400 white
pupils. 9 * The boy's parents had requested assignment of three children
to white schools, but the applications of two junior high school pupils
were rejected. 95 Another second-grader has been assigned to the school
desegregated in September 1960 for the year i96i-62. 9Ba A new suit
was filed on June 10, <strong>1961</strong>, on behalf of 66 Negro pupils seeking an
immediate end of racial segregation in Raleigh's public schools and
asking an injunction against the use of race as a criterion in pupil
assignment. 951 *
Chapel Hill (where desegregation suits were pending) 98 desegregated
its public schools in August 1960, when the school board reassigned 3
Negro pupils (out of 12 requests) 97 to attend an elementary school
enrolling 400 white pupils. 98 The school board had received a request
from a Negro for transfer to a white school the year before but it had
been denied. At the beginning of the 1960-61 term the board announced
that upon request it would admit first-grade students to schools
nearest their homes without regard to race. 99 This meant that Chapel
Hill, like all other school districts in North Carolina, would make initial
assignments on the basis of race. Any desegregation would be on a
reassignment basis only. On July 3, <strong>1961</strong>, however, the school board
announced a change of policy effective for the school year <strong>1961</strong>-62.
All elementary schools will be rezoned without regard to race and all
first grade pupils assigned to the school of their residential zone. Parents
will have "right or privilege to request transfers" of their children. 99 *
Thus, Chapel Hill is the first school district in North Carolina to abandon
initial assignments by race. However, after complaints from patrons
of the Carrboro School, the school board "gerrymandered the new district
lines in order to reduce the number of Negroes who would be|
assigned to Carrboro from about 30 to about 10." 99b