Senator MURRAY. That concludes the testimony. Thank you very much for your statement.

The next witness will be Clarence Mitchell, director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. Mitchell.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you Senator Murray and Senator Allot for giving me this opportunity to present my statement.

STATEMENT OF CLARENCE MITCHELL, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON BUREAU OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would like to begin my testimony by offering a news story for the record. It is an Associated Press dispatch, dated February 28, 1958, and comes from Lakeland, Ga.

The story relates that Mrs. A. B. Baskin, a 64-year-old white teacher is accused of jeopardizing State aid for Lanier County schools because she let a white pupil ride home in a school bus for colored children. John Crum, a school board member, is quoted as saying:

After all, she desegregated school buses in this county *** if the point were pushed, Gov. Marvin Griffin would cut off our money fast.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer that newspaper clipping for the record.

Senator MURRAY. It will be placed in the record. (Newspaper clipping follows:)

[Baltimore Sun, February 28, 1958]

INTEGRATION BY TEACHER STIRS COUNTY

WHITE PUPIL'S RIDE ON NEGRO BUS AROUSES GEORGIANS

LAKELAND, GA., FEBRUARY 28 (AP)—A white-haired schoolteacher has unintentionally stirred up what some view as a school segregation crisis in Lanier County. Mrs. A. B. Baskin, 64, in an emergency just before the Christmas holidays, allowed a white pupil, Pat Taylor, 9, to ride home in a Negro school bus.

Pat's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Taylor of the Knight community, complained and soon the county was in foment over the incident.

The upshot was that Mrs. Baskin, a veteran of 21 or 22 years in the teaching profession, resigned. But, she announced later, she has reconsidered and will ask the school board to reinstate her.

SERIOUS MISTAKE SEEN

The board and county superintendent J. W. Threatte, held that, whatever her intentions, she made a serious mistake one that could cost the county all of its State school aid.

This would be under State law automatically withholding funds from any county abandoning school segregation for any cause.

"After all, she desegregated the school buses in this county just like that," said John Crum, board member. He asserted that if the point were pushed he is sure Gov. Marvin Griffin would "cut off our money fast."

Threatte and Morris Thigpen, board chairman, emphasize that they do not consider Mrs. Baskin an integrationist.

Mrs. Baskin is a farm wife and mother of five grown children. One point disturbing her is whether her retirement benefits will be impaired. She has been assured, she said, that she will still receive retirement pay but not in the amount that she would if she continues teaching.

The incident occurred in December when school was dismissed early to allow some teachers to attend a funeral. Mrs. Baskin inadvertently kept her fourth

graders until the school buses had left. Two other teachers took some of the children home in their cars and Mrs. Baskin planned to take the remaining three in hers. But her car had a flat tire.

Mr. MITCHELL. Unfortunately, the Governor of Georgia has both the power and the inclination to do just what Mr. Crum said. Equally incredible is the fact that the political leaders of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia have the same power and the same intention as the Governor of Georgia.

STATE LAWS PREVENTING INTEGRATION

I have with me a summary of the various laws that have been passed in the States for the purpose of trying to prevent integration in the schools. That has been submitted. I would like to point out specifically with reference to the State of Georgia the reason why this incident was a serious thing under the Georgia law.

The law provides that it is a felony, punishable by 2 years imprisonment for any school official or State or municipal or county official to spend tax money for public schools attended by colored and white children.

What is worse, the State patrol and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have been given not merely the authority but the duty of entering any county or municipality for the purpose of making arrests and otherwise enforcing any law requiring segregation.

Florida has a law which provides that they can ignore the tenure of teachers if there is an attempt to desegregate the schools of Florida. Louisiana has a fantastic law which provides that State funds may be withdrawn if schools are integrated. Free textbooks will be halted. It even provides for taking away the school-lunch program if a public school admits white and colored children. The law provides for criminal penalties of 90 days to 6 months in jail and fines of $500 to $1,000 for persons who attempt to have integration in the public schools or attend integrated schools.

Under the Mississippi law persons of the Caucasian race who attend public schools that admit colored children-here if a white person voluntarily decides to go to school where colored children are in attendance the white person would be subject to a fine of $25 and a sentence of 6 months in prison.

Under the South Carolina law the sheriff of a county may go into a schoolroom for the purpose of removing children if they are admitted to integrated classes.

Under the Virginia law, of course, that has gotten a lot of publicity in our local papers. I guess you gentlemen may have noticed some of it. It is possible for the Government to close the schools and take away State aid.

STATES DISREGARD LAW

My whole point in bringing that up, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, is that as Senator Allott pointed out a while ago, the States which are most interested in trying to get some of these grants and really need them are the States which apparently have the greatest disregard for obeying the law. On the one hand they take as much as they can get out of the Treasury, and on the other hand, they are passing these fantastic laws. Senator Allott, if you moved to

Virginia and intended to obey the law, you would be subject to penalties which would interfere with your right of decision to obey the law. We have pointed out that under some of the existing legislation the States have gotten about $192 million out of the Federal Treasury for the purpose of operating segretated schools.

RELATIVE STATE CONTRIBUTIONS

The question arises who pays for that. There was some exchange with Senator Smith about New Jersey tax revenue. I have some figures which show that every time the State of New Jersey gets a dollar out the Federal Treasury for a grant it has already put in $2.40, whereas Alabama has only put in 36 cents every time it gets a dollar out of the Treasury. I am sure none of us would quarrel with wanting to spend the New Jersey money to help Alabama, but it does seem that when Alabama gets that money it ought to make it available to all children and without unfair restrictions.

Senator ALLOTT. May I interrupt you here? Would you say that some criterion such as was contained in the administration's school bill introduced in the Senate by I believe Senator Smith. I know I was the cosponsor last year-which took into consideration the number of school children, the number of average daily attendance, and the amount spent per capita, as compared with the per capita income of the State would be fairly good index as to the effort that State was making toward its school children?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, Senator Allott; I think that is true, and I believe there are figures that would support it. For example, I have been trying to get the latest figures on expenditures by States for colored and white children. The latest figures that I have were published by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare but they are for the years 1952 through 1954. This shows, for example, with reference to the State of Mississippi that it spends for instruction of white children per pupil about $98.15 cents and for the instruction of colored children per pupil about $43.17.

REDUCTION OF STATE NEEDS

I cannot help but believe even if I were not a colored person and even if I were not interested as a representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, I cannot help but believe that Mississippi could substantially reduce its need for Federal help if it obeyed the Supreme Court decision and made education available to children without regard to race in the same schools.

I think that when we start applying the formula that Senator Allott mentioned, it is very essential that that factor be taken into consideraion because as long as they maintain separate schools I think they cannot come to Congress and say that they have made the maximum effort to try to make the best use of the tax dollars in the education of their children.

I would like to call the committee's attention to the fact that we have sent a letter to Mr. Marion Folsom, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, urging that the scholarship program be administered on a nondiscriminatory basis which, of course, gives rise to the question: Can officials of the States that I have mentioned be trusted to

handle any kind of Federal assistance for the education of all our citizens without firm antisegregation safeguards?

I think the answer to that question is "No." We ask that no State be given any funds unless it's appropriate officials pledge that it will be spent in conformity with the requirements of the United States Supreme Court decisions of May 17, 1954, and May 31, 1955, in the school desegregation cases.

LETTER TO SECRETARY FOLSOM

In a letter to the Honorable Marion B. Folsom, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, dated January 3, 1958, Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, said:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has noted your memorandum of December 30 announcing an emergency program of aid to American education in the amount of $1 billion over a period of 4 years.

We renew our request that in any plan for the allocation of Federal funds to the States for education, the Government recognize that several of the States have refused since 1954 to plan or to begin the desegregation of public school systems in accordance with the ruling of the United States Supreme Court.

As a consequence of this defiance, 2 million Negro children continue to be deprived of their right to equal access to the best training their communities provide. Education and training in the sciences for the generality of students are now deemed inadequate to meet the challenge to national security, and the shameful inadequacies of the illegally segregated Negro schools impose an even more severe handicap upon the national effort.

Any Government plan for assistance to the States in the form of grants for scholarships, teacher training, and other methods of reducing the waste of talent should not subsidize a system which has stifled talent among the children and youth of 4 million American families, except for a handful of hardy, persistent, and fortunately placed individuals.

One billion dollars or $10 billion for education will have no meaning for onetenth of the Nation's citizens, and will not secure the maximum return to the Nation as a whole, if grants are allocated as though segregated school systems were legal, for the funds would be used by the affected States to perpetuate inequalities and to widen the gaps which now exist.

Negro citizens love their country and wish it to regain its preeminence in the world of nations, but they protest most vigorously that their children should not be continued in the role of doormats over which other American children march to education, service, and reward.

To justify continued discrimination on grounds of emergency would be to miscalculate completely the nature of the current crisis, in which any waste of potential whatever is an intolerable luxury. Especially is it unthinkable that the Government of all the people should participate in this discrimination and furnish the funds to assist in the continued impairment of the national potential. This is the position of our organization.

I would like to offer for the record the attached testimony which was presented on January 31, 1958, to the House Subcommittee on General Education when it was holding hearings on Public Laws 815 and 874.

PUBLIC LAWS 815 AND 874

When I said a minute ago, Mr. Chairman and Senator Allott, that $192 million had been spent by the States for promoting segregation, I had reference to the so-called defiance States, and I had reference also to the money that they had received under Public Laws 815 and 874.

For example, Virginia, which is the leader of the program of defiance, has gotten about $70 million out of that program. A lot of the representatives of the State of Virginia have been opposed to Federal

aid per se, but they came in in a considerable number headed by Congressman Broyhill, urging that these laws, 815 and 874, be extended beyond the expiration date of June 15, 1958.

We say that is wonderful and we think if they really want this money they ought to spend it in accordance with Federal requirements. We have asked that an amendment so requiring be offered. That amendment as I understand it is being offered today in the House Committee on Education and Labor where it is considering the full bill. But whether we win in the committee or not, we certainly earnestly hope that this matter will be pressed in both the House and the Senate until some satisfactory solution has been reached.

Please keep in mind that since this testimony was presented the school in Little Rock, Ark., has gone into court to halt its modest program of desegregation. The State of Virginia has added a few more rivets to its cast-iron, brassbound program of defiance.

TESTIMONY BEFORE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE

At some point, the Congress must decide that it must call a halt to the wanton program of using Federal money to promote illegal school programs of racial segregation. Now is the time to act.

If the country needed any further evidence that the opponents of school desegregation are charting a course of reckless defiance of law, that evidence was furnished in the fall of 1957 when the Governor of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent colored children from attending Central High School.

Surely now, the Congress must accept its responsibility to join in protecting the constitutional rights of all of our citizens in the field of education. The Congress has a clear obligation to require that States seeking money under Public Laws 815 and 874 must show that they are in compliance with the requirements of the May 17, 1954, and May 31, 1955, decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the matter of school desegregation.

We propose that the present laws be amended to require that plans submitted to the Federal Government by the States must contain a commitment that "school facilities of the State are open to all children without regard to race, in conformity with the requirements of the United States Supreme Court decisions; except that if a State plan does not so provide, it shall not prevent payment of funds authorized under this act to such State for use in counties or other political subdivisions within the State that are operating their schools in conformity with the said Supreme Court decisions."

Four years have passed since the first historic pronouncement of the Supreme Court declaring that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The country has had ample opportunity to determine which States are making an honest, although halting, attempt to obey the lawful court decrees and which States are using all of their resources to prevent compliance with the law.

The Little Rock demonstration is a good illustration of the fact that the problem of school desegregation will not be solved if Congress ignores it. On the contrary, the chances are that those who successfully evade the law are so intoxicated with their success that they embark on a crusade to get others to do likewise. Arkansas was not a symbol of defiance prior to the opening of the fall school term at Little Rock. There was official resistance to desegregation, but most of the resistance was based on timing rather than a refusal to take any action. In order that the record may be clear, we point out that the plan of integration that was put into effect in Little Rock was a very modest proposal developed by the local school authorities. It was not the plant of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The real fomenters of trouble in Arkansas were those who have openly and militantly fought against orderly compliance in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina. They have made it stylish and politically profitable to preach defiance and to practice obstruction.

Those who cry that they want no Federal interference when they are called upon to uphold the United States Constitution do not have any reservations about accepting money out of the United States Treasury.