Parents protest admission of black students: 1956
Protesting white parents and students gather outside Poolesville Elementary school September 5, 1956 to call for a boycott on the first day of integration of Montgomery County’s Poolesville school.
Two years after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation of public schools by race, Montgomery County, Md. began a phased integration of its schools. In the upper county area this meant sending 14 select, upper grade black students to the K-12 school in Poolesville.
The integration effort went on without organized opposition throughout the rest of the county, but staunch segregationists organized a school boycott and a series of demonstrations and protest meetings in an attempt to halt black students from attending the all-white school in Poolesville.
On that first day of classes about 150 parents gathered outside the school to encourage the students and other parents to keep their children out of school. About 300 children were held out on the first day.
One woman in the crowd shouted out, “We oughta make so much noise that they can’t teach.”
School principal Robert T. Crawford estimated that about 173 of 340 elementary students were absent and 125 of the 260 pupils in the high school were not in class.
The 14 black students, all assigned to the seventh, eighth and ninth grades, were escorted into the school by police and teachers.
One of the organizers of the boycott was Everette Severe of the Maryland Petition Committee, a white supremacist group seeking a referendum vote to block integration of schools throughout the state.
Severe a well-known white supremacist having written letters to newspapers opposing integration and speaking at pro-segregation rallies. He lived in Kensington, Md. and did not have children.
Severe told the crowd outside the school, “We’re not supposed to send our kids to school until we have a hearing. Keep your kids out of school every day this week.”
Severe circulated a petition to demand a hearing on the issue. It said in part that the admission of the black students placed “in serious jeopardy” the “security and welfare” of their children.
Severe also helped organize a meeting of the segregationists at a Poolesville hall that night where they vowed to continue the fight.
Previous to the Poolesville boycott Severe on September 3rd told a Charlottesville, Va. rally opposed to integration that the people “are the law of the land, not the Supreme court.”
The day before Montgomery County schools opened, Severe attended a white supremacist meeting in Wayson’s Corner to urge a boycott of Anne Arundel County schools telling the crowd that the U.S. Supreme Court decision was invalid because, “Their total legal background hardly adds up to one good country lawyer.”
He called for an organization to halt integration adding, “God grant that it will happen quickly.”
The Poolesville group attempted to keep pressure on the school board to hold a hearing by staging a march on the county seat in Rockville.
On September 7, 1956, county police disbanded a gathering of about 60 people at 10:30 p.m. assembled at Jefferson Street beside the county courthouse. The march was called in an attempt to spread the school boycott beyond Poolesville.
The white supremacists kept up picketing at the school through the week, but attendance began to rise and by Friday had reached 70 percent. School superintendent Edward Norris warned that school officials' patience with the protesters was wearing thin and that Maryland law may be used against the parents.
The law called for a $20 fine, a 30-day jail term or both for disturbing public school sessions. Another section carried a $50 fine for inducing or trying to induce absenteeism.
By September 12th, attendance at the school had reached 582 students or about 90 percent when normal absenteeism was accounted for.
The county announced that three road workers had been suspended 10 days without pay for participating in the protests during working hours.
The school board, which had been resisting any meeting with the segregationists, agreed to grant an audience to hear specific objections to the integration policy, but not a challenge to the overall plan.
Meanwhile at a meeting at the Poolesville town hall that evening, 100 adults met and agreed to send their children back to school while they organized private schooling for their children.
Severe had problems of his own. He was suspended from his job by NBC radio over his public role in the protests and had his contract for part-time work for the Voice of America terminated.
There were more meetings of the dwindling number of parents participating in the boycott where calls were made to challenge the integration in court, but the boycott and organized opposition had largely dissipated.
The die-hards views were adequately expressed by parent Katherine Mills who wrote a letter to the Washington Post published October 3, 1956. Some excerpts follow.
Mills began by explaining that the segregationists “bitterly resent the treatment received at the hands of school and county authorities.”
“We resent the fact that our elected county school board not only permits Negroes to enter white schools, but actually encourages them to enter white schools.”
“I have no doubt that in the minds of some people we are pictured as a bunch of poor, ignorant yokels who’ve been carefully taught by “outside agitators” to fear and hate racial integration.”
“As a matter of fact, we do fear and hate racial integration, but our fear stems from our knowledge of local Negroes…”
“Negro parents as a whole are not so careful as their white neighbors in looking after the cleanliness and health of their children. We do not favor the joint use of school washrooms by colored and white. We just don’t want to take risks of any kind with our children.”
“The marital habits of some of our Maryland Negroes are, to say the least, very casual. They are like the marital habits of the often-divorced white persons in northern café society.”
“Of course some colored couples don’t bother with divorce, because there was no actual marriage in the first place.”
“We believe the morals of our own race are lax enough as it is without exposing our children to an even more primitive view of sex habits. Furthermore, we abhor any steps that might encourage interracial mating.”
“Until the cultural gaps between them are completely filled in, the white and colored races should not be mixed in the public schools of Montgomery County.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskquzhMu
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Parents protest admission of black students: 1956
Protesting white parents and students gather outside Poolesville Elementary school September 5, 1956 to call for a boycott on the first day of integration of Montgomery County’s Poolesville school.
Two years after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation of public schools by race, Montgomery County, Md. began a phased integration of its schools. In the upper county area this meant sending 14 select, upper grade black students to the K-12 school in Poolesville.
The integration effort went on without organized opposition throughout the rest of the county, but staunch segregationists organized a school boycott and a series of demonstrations and protest meetings in an attempt to halt black students from attending the all-white school in Poolesville.
On that first day of classes about 150 parents gathered outside the school to encourage the students and other parents to keep their children out of school. About 300 children were held out on the first day.
One woman in the crowd shouted out, “We oughta make so much noise that they can’t teach.”
School principal Robert T. Crawford estimated that about 173 of 340 elementary students were absent and 125 of the 260 pupils in the high school were not in class.
The 14 black students, all assigned to the seventh, eighth and ninth grades, were escorted into the school by police and teachers.
One of the organizers of the boycott was Everette Severe of the Maryland Petition Committee, a white supremacist group seeking a referendum vote to block integration of schools throughout the state.
Severe a well-known white supremacist having written letters to newspapers opposing integration and speaking at pro-segregation rallies. He lived in Kensington, Md. and did not have children.
Severe told the crowd outside the school, “We’re not supposed to send our kids to school until we have a hearing. Keep your kids out of school every day this week.”
Severe circulated a petition to demand a hearing on the issue. It said in part that the admission of the black students placed “in serious jeopardy” the “security and welfare” of their children.
Severe also helped organize a meeting of the segregationists at a Poolesville hall that night where they vowed to continue the fight.
Previous to the Poolesville boycott Severe on September 3rd told a Charlottesville, Va. rally opposed to integration that the people “are the law of the land, not the Supreme court.”
The day before Montgomery County schools opened, Severe attended a white supremacist meeting in Wayson’s Corner to urge a boycott of Anne Arundel County schools telling the crowd that the U.S. Supreme Court decision was invalid because, “Their total legal background hardly adds up to one good country lawyer.”
He called for an organization to halt integration adding, “God grant that it will happen quickly.”
The Poolesville group attempted to keep pressure on the school board to hold a hearing by staging a march on the county seat in Rockville.
On September 7, 1956, county police disbanded a gathering of about 60 people at 10:30 p.m. assembled at Jefferson Street beside the county courthouse. The march was called in an attempt to spread the school boycott beyond Poolesville.
The white supremacists kept up picketing at the school through the week, but attendance began to rise and by Friday had reached 70 percent. School superintendent Edward Norris warned that school officials' patience with the protesters was wearing thin and that Maryland law may be used against the parents.
The law called for a $20 fine, a 30-day jail term or both for disturbing public school sessions. Another section carried a $50 fine for inducing or trying to induce absenteeism.
By September 12th, attendance at the school had reached 582 students or about 90 percent when normal absenteeism was accounted for.
The county announced that three road workers had been suspended 10 days without pay for participating in the protests during working hours.
The school board, which had been resisting any meeting with the segregationists, agreed to grant an audience to hear specific objections to the integration policy, but not a challenge to the overall plan.
Meanwhile at a meeting at the Poolesville town hall that evening, 100 adults met and agreed to send their children back to school while they organized private schooling for their children.
Severe had problems of his own. He was suspended from his job by NBC radio over his public role in the protests and had his contract for part-time work for the Voice of America terminated.
There were more meetings of the dwindling number of parents participating in the boycott where calls were made to challenge the integration in court, but the boycott and organized opposition had largely dissipated.
The die-hards views were adequately expressed by parent Katherine Mills who wrote a letter to the Washington Post published October 3, 1956. Some excerpts follow.
Mills began by explaining that the segregationists “bitterly resent the treatment received at the hands of school and county authorities.”
“We resent the fact that our elected county school board not only permits Negroes to enter white schools, but actually encourages them to enter white schools.”
“I have no doubt that in the minds of some people we are pictured as a bunch of poor, ignorant yokels who’ve been carefully taught by “outside agitators” to fear and hate racial integration.”
“As a matter of fact, we do fear and hate racial integration, but our fear stems from our knowledge of local Negroes…”
“Negro parents as a whole are not so careful as their white neighbors in looking after the cleanliness and health of their children. We do not favor the joint use of school washrooms by colored and white. We just don’t want to take risks of any kind with our children.”
“The marital habits of some of our Maryland Negroes are, to say the least, very casual. They are like the marital habits of the often-divorced white persons in northern café society.”
“Of course some colored couples don’t bother with divorce, because there was no actual marriage in the first place.”
“We believe the morals of our own race are lax enough as it is without exposing our children to an even more primitive view of sex habits. Furthermore, we abhor any steps that might encourage interracial mating.”
“Until the cultural gaps between them are completely filled in, the white and colored races should not be mixed in the public schools of Montgomery County.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskquzhMu
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.