State Board of Education may seem best suited to the needs of the students and the area which it will serve. (All courses offered under the provisions of this section are to meet the normal standards set by the State Board of Education.)

West Virginia

Constitution, Art XII; § 8. White and colored persons shall not be taught in the same school.

Code of 1943: § 1775. Schools for Colored Pupils.-White and colored pupils shall not receive instruction in the same school, or in the same building. The board shall establish one free school, or more if necessary, in any part of the county where there are ten or more colored children of school age living within two miles of a point where a school might be established. And when such schools are established for colored children, the teacher thereof shall be supplied from members of their own race. The board may, if practical, establish a school in a part of the county where there are less than ten colored children of school age.

The board, for the purpose of carrying out the provision of this section, may transfer pupils from one county to another as provided in section sixteen (§ 1777) of this article.

Whenever, in any district, the benefit of a free school education is not secured to the colored children of school age residing therein in the manner mentioned in this section, the funds applicable to the support of the free schools in the district shall be divided by the board in the proportion which the number of colored children bears to the number of white children therein, according to the last enumeration made for school purposes, and the share of the former shall be set apart for the education of colored children of school age in the district, and applied for the purpose from time to time in such manner as the board may deem best.

§ 1893. Continuation and Management; Four-H Camp.-The institution for the instruction of colored students heretofore established and located at Institute, in Kanawha county, shall be continued and shall be known as the "West Virginia State College." The educational affairs of said college shall be under the control, supervision and management of the state board of education and the negro board of education, as provided in sections thirteen and sixteen [§§ 1738, 1740 (1)], article two of this chapter, and its financial and business affairs shall be under the charge and control of the state board of control as provided in section four (§ 2581), article one, chapter twenty-five of the Code.

The said joint boards of education shall establish and maintain in the West Virginia State College, in addition to the departments already established, such professional and graduate schools and college courses of study as may be expedient and practicable, and shall prescribe the conditions for graduation therefrom and make rules for the conferring of degrees and for issuing the proper diplomas to those who complete such courses.

The rules and regulations made by the president and faculty of said college for its general government for the admission of students thereto, the standards of scholarship to be maintained therein, and the graduation of students therefrom, shall be submitted to the said joint boards of education for their approval.

The West Virginia State College shall have the power and authority to do extension work in agriculture, home economics, mining, and such other subjects as the said joint boards of education may direct among the negro population of West Virginia. For the purpose of teaching negro boys and girls the Four-H standards of living and to inspire them to lift themselves toward these standards, and to discover and train negro boys and girls for leadership, and for the purpose of teachng standards of excellence in agriculture and home ecomics, a Four-H camp, institute, and state exhibit for negroes is hereby established. It shall be the duty of the state board of control to secure a site for the aforesaid camp, institute, and state exhibit at some suitable place and to erect the necessary buildings and provide necessary and suitable equipment for carrying out the purposes aforesaid. It shall be the duty of the state board of control, when such grounds and buildings are provided and equipped, as above stated, to turn same over to the department of agriculture of the West Virginia State College, to be operated by the extension division of said college in carrying out the purposes and intents herein set forth, and in the same manner as at the Four-H camp at Jackson's Mill. When not in use by the extension division of said college and under its regulation, this equipment may be rented to other organizations for convention use, and the funds received as rent or other collections shall be by such extension division turned over to the board of control for deposit in the state treasury to the credit of collections from said state college as required by section two (§ 1014), article two, chapter twelve, for special funds mentioned in subsection (b) of said section

two. Any appropriations hereafter made to carry out the provisions and purposes of this section shall be expended through the state board of control. The county court may appropriate money from the county fund to erect county buildings on such Four-H camp property as mentioned in this section, and such buildings shall be operated so as to carry out the provisions and purposes set forth in this section.

Wyoming

Rev. Stat. 1931: § 99-332. Separate school for colored children. When there are fifteen or more colored children within any school district, the board of trustees thereof, with the approval of the county superintendent of schools, may provide a separate school for the instruction of such colored children.

Mr. JENKINS. I have a statement here, Senator, from the American Teachers' Association, prepared by the chairman of their legislative committee, Howard H. Long, and he asked me to request your permission to have this inserted in the record, as to their opposition to this legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. These are Negro teachers?

Mr. JENKINS. Chiefly. They are teachers of Negro children, but chiefly Negro teachers.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be placed in the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

THE AMERICAN TEACHERS ASSOCIATION,

Washington 9, D. C.

To Senator Alexander Wiley and Representative Earl C. Michener, Chairmen, respectively of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees:

GENTLEMEN: I wish to submit, on behalf of the American Teachers Association which has membership and affiliates of approximately 25,000, the following statement with references to the regional universities proposed by the governors of several Southern States. The American Teachers Association opposes the proposed plan of higher education for the following reasons:

1. It tends to fix and extend a plan of segregation on the higher educational level which we think ought to be receding as a practice in American institutions. It has been conceded, from a legal point of view, that the State has the right under our Federal Constitution to segregate on the basis of race with the unproductive provision that there should be substantial equality of facilities and opportunities. A group of States, well entrenched behind this admitted right, are now attempting to project their intrastate plan into the field of interstate relations which are properly the subject for legislation by the Congress of the United States. They are seeking to have the Congress of the United States approve this interstate arrangement and thus have the Federal Government, at a time when the current trend is in the other direction, to place its stamp of approval upon an extension of a segregated pattern and thus fix the status of second class citizenship for years to come. It seems to us that if the Congress of the United States approves this plan it will violate the nobler spirit of our Federal institutions and offend the enlightened conscience of mankind.

Because the plan itself is in line with the persuasive desire of offering more and better higher education to the youth of our times, it is likely to sneak through without adequate recognition of the intrinsic violence it does to the larger body of Federal practices and principles and to the ever increasing conscience of the American people. The project would seem definitely loaded. Statesmanship requires that it be viewed in the light of its remote as well as its near significance. 2. Although the theory of separate but equal facilities and opportunities has had judicial sanction for many decades, so far as we are informed, it has never worked with substantial satisfaction. It is the practice and results flowing from attempted implementation of a theory which are important matters of this sort. It turns out that in the main the will to segregate is precisely the same will to further discriminate after segregation, and one follows the other as night the day. It is time that the American people, through their elected representatives, look this and similar problems squarely in the face. For in a higher sense than is contemplated in a mere dollar-cent material evaluation, there can be no equality in absolute separation. The institution of enforced segregation in education impairs the personality of those who are segregated at the very source of the

lifeblood of citizenship and the climate of segregation has never been benign enough to allow the early lacerations to heal. Instead the wounds are continually irritated until they become running sores on the body politic.

The American Teachers Association, therefore, urges the Congress of the United States to give this plan or any similar plan very careful consideration in order to avoid a grand historical blunder. We urge defeat of the plan.

MARCH 12, 1948.

HOWARD H. LONG, Chairman of the Legislative Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Russell Smith?
James B. Cobb?

STATEMENT OF JAMES B. COBB, REPRESENTING NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. COBB. My name is James B. Cobb, 469 Luray Place NW., Washington 10, D. C. I am secretary of the education committee of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, and I speak for the 20,000 members of our organization in the major cities of the United States, predominantly composed of minority groups in the postal service.

We believe that America at this time is foolishly afraid, not of other nations, but of her own weakness, in spite of all of her resources, well-fed people, well-tooled, and almost unlimited powers.

We in the postal service are well acquainted with segregation in all its subtle forms. We find it is a chasm which cuts us away from each other, and from much that is right and creative in our lives. It is a mechanism which cowardly human beings use to shut themselves away from the realities when they do not feel strong enough to come face to face with it. We feel that to develop in a people a conscience. an ideal, or to have them attain emotional maturity and then to send them back to a world which denies the very values they have been taught to hold dear is profoundly disturbing. Thus it creates concepts that tear their personality to pieces, and splits their integrity wide open. We have come to the logical conclusion that as sure as it can split the integrity of a people it can split a nation. It will develop those groundless fears that will destroy her more surely than those nations or combination of nations which we may fear.

We agree that education is a local matter. In fact, education can be denied, but once the State assumes the obligation of education it. must promulgate that education within the scope of that clause of the fourteenth amendment which guarantees equal protection of the law. Since that State cannot deny those rights afforded by this clause, we reason that a federation of States could not deny those rights and be within the United States Constitution which protects her citizenship. If so, a federation of States could organize for any purpose to circumvent not only the United States Constitution but the very spirit of our democracy, thereby creating a greater chasm.

Aside from this questionable constitutional limitation on the proposed regional schools plan, there are definite objections which are, in effect, an extension of the inadequate and unworkable system of dual education; a system perpetuating segregation and second-class citizenship, and not capable of equal facilities.

Specifically the objections are

1. Nonaccessibility which imposes a burden upon the student and which by definition of the terms destroys the separate but equal

theory. If this is a prohibition on the State, we reason the same prohibition extends to a federation of States.

2. A substantial lack of protection by the State as regards education, in that it is the duty of the State to its citizenship to protect this right and not to be shared with or relegated to any other State. A citizen is the burden of his State of citizenship by virtue of the payment of taxes, amenability to its laws, and the franchise, and not that of any other State.

3. Differences in the degree of liberality sanctioned by one State as contrasted with that of another State may create a burden. One State may by law exclude some area of knowledge from its curricula which the State of citizenship does not, and such consequences may tend to prevent the State of citizenship from meeting its obligation. 4. A decrease in the number of cultural centers in Negro communities as contrasted with white communities, in that universities serve functions beyond that of education.

In conclusion the National Alliance of Postal Employees wants America to become strong; feeling that it can be accomplished only by erasing those groundless fears which this bill tends to perpetuate; by the process of a sound wholesome education and practice in democracy, which would bring her people together so that they will know one another, love one another with mutual intelligence and respect, as fellow Americans and brother patriots.

Therefore, we urge that this august body instead of recommending a bill of this type, giving Federal sanction to the extension of those theories which perpetuate such fears, to lend its weight to those Federal sanctions we have which guarantee civil liberties to all men, so that America may grow strong, remain strong, and continue to be the ray of hope to civilized society.

This statement is submitted by James B. Cobb, as secretary of the educational committee of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, and I present it for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not your own statement then?

Mr. COBB. It is my statement on the authority of the national president of the organization.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is a very well-thought-out statement. There is just one possible bug in it. That bug is this: that we Americans for the last 15 years have been educated into the general concept that by and through legislation we can accomplish almost anything. We know that we can pass a law that two times two is five, and it will still be four. We can pass a law that John Jones, an immoral man, is going to be moral; but he will still be immoral.

This statement presents a great light and sings a great song, because it is an ideal hope. It speaks of the time when, as the Good Book says, there is neither gentile nor Jew, neither Negro nor white, when the race will evolve to a point where there is the light in the eye and the song in the heart that speaks of man as having come into his own as a spiritual

creature.

Mr. COBB. Mr. Senator, I think that is more realistic than it sounds. We think the sanction by Congress of this sort of thing will perpetuate this disunity that makes us vulnerable to the various fears that are spreading through this country at this day. If we keep people sepa

rated, they cannot learn about one another. And the passing of this bill perpetuates that separation.

In fact, we feel that the white man of the South needs education more than the Negro of the South. Because he is preaching the same theory that destroyed the nation that this country has just conquered: the master race. He has been indoctrinated into that thinking. It has been economically profitable for him to preach that and practice it. Now, that can only be counteracted by some device whereby they, as a people, can learn about the other people. So we feel that this is not theory. It is a reality that America has got to face and face immediately.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir. Thank you.

Is Reverend Jernagin present?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. JERNAGIN, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON BUREAU, NATIONAL FRATERNAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO CHURCHES OF AMERICA

Mr. JERNAGIN. My name is William H. Jernagin. I am director of the Washington bureau of the National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches in America. The council represents 7,000,000 church members in 11 denominations throughout the country.

I am not here to discuss this resolution in the light of mounting costs of discrimination in this country. I am not here to protest the passage of this resolution in the light of the fact that undemocratic practices of discrimination against Negro citizens and other minorities in our midst will soon have to be answered decisively by the Supreme Court.

Nor do I appear here to discuss the insult which this resolution imposes upon the Negro citizen, and the majority of democracyloving white citizens who are asked as taxpayers to support a further tightening of the bonds around the necks of a tenth of America's population, who have proved themselves among the best Americans, and thus keep them from playing their full part in the growth and development of democracy in our country. These issues will, no doubt, be ably discussed by others.

I am here, as a religious leader, speaking in the name of millions of believers in the teachings of Christ, who are astounded and thoroughly alarmed at the implications of this resolution. I am here to speak out against this resolution in terms of the moral standards which we are attempting to strengthen in our country, moral standards which we are proclaiming throughout the world as the only bulwark to peace, security, and good will among all nations and peoples of the earth.

For make no mistake about it, this resolution is not only a further step in the direction of undermining the long struggle of our people to win full citizenship rights; it is not only an unmoral attempt to circumvent the Constitution and the Supreme Court, it is not only an attempt to circumvent the United Nations Charter, which we helped to draft. It is a naked attempt to undermine the Christian religion and therefore the whole moral fabric upon which our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our democratic heritage rest.