"Miracle" on the Potomac

Of the big Southern cities that have ended segregation in their public schools, none have attracted more attention--or produced more controversy--than the nation's capital. Last December a House subcommittee headed by Georgia's James Davis declared that integration had "seriously damaged-the public-school system," and recommended that it be stopped. Last week a more reasonable judgment came from Washington's Assistant School Superintendent Carl F. Hansen. Integration, says he in a study published by B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, has been nothing less than a "miracle of social adjustment."

Introduction via TV. When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in May 1954, Washington's tall (6 ft. 5 in.), intense Superintendent Hobart Corning lost no time in putting through a plan for wholesale desegregation. "Transition," he told his teachers, "will not be easy," but he had already done much to pave the way. Among other things, the school system had produced a series of broadcasts that brought Negro teachers into white classrooms and white teachers into Negro classrooms via TV. In 1953 teachers began holding a series of interracial conferences on the problems that integration would produce. Finally, after opening day in September 1954, the Washington Daily News reported: SCHOOL INTEGRATION GETS SMOOTH START.

What effect has integration had since then? It is quite true, says Superintendent Hansen, that the number of white pupils in the schools dropped 10% in one year (67.9% were Negroes last year). But part of the reason for this could well be the nationwide migration of families into the suburbs. It is also true that the Negroes have, on the whole, scored below their white classmates in IQ tests, but the inferiority of the all-Negro schools, rather than the pupils themselves, is to blame. Between 1945 and 1953, a total of 45,000 pupils had been on a half-day schedule because of overcrowding; of these, 80% were Negroes. Now all but about 1,500 can go to school a full day. As for disciplinary problems, eleven integrated high schools reported 410 serious offenses last year but these cases involved only 3.1% of the total high-school population. One school reported no cases, two others with a combined enrollment of 2,378 reported only 35.

"One of Us." Many reported incidents of violence between Negro and white students have proved totally false. One irate grandmother, for instance, declared that a Negro boy had slashed her granddaughter's dress with a knife, had to back down when she found that the girl had torn her clothes while playing during recess, with no Negro boys around. Though there have been student fights and parental protests, says Hansen, none have amounted to much.

Perhaps the best illustration of how integration is working in Washington lies in dozens of anecdotes cited by Hansen. In September 1954 a white mother tried to transfer her child to another school because of the child's Negro teacher. Persuaded to postpone action for a two-or three-week trial period, the mother became so fond of the teacher--and so proud of her child's progress--that she happily decided to leave him where he was. In a junior high school, a group of boys decided to join an anti-integration demonstration going on in front of their school. But on the way outside the building, they passed a Negro classmate, promptly proved that they had actually accepted integration without knowing it. "Hey, you," shouted a white boy at the Negro, "come on!" "Who--me?" asked the startled Negro. "Yes, you!" said the white boy. "You're one of us, aren't you?"

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