One Road, Two Buses

In King George County, Virginia, flat, poor and sparsely settled, whites outnumber Negroes 2 to 1. As Virginia's constitution requires, education is "separate"; despite the U.S. Constitution, it is also unequal. King George High School (for whites only) is a modern, red brick building with central heating and inside toilets. King George Training School (for Negroes) is a frame building with stoves and outhouses. The white school taught chemistry, physics, biology, geometry and intermediate algebra; the Negro school had none of these subjects.

Negro Attorney Martin A. Martin (and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) went to court last year, got a federal judge to order the two schools "substantially equalized" by fall. As a result, the local board bought a new pump and $480 worth of books for the Negro school, and added a stenography course. That wasn't enough to satisfy Attorney Martin; he went to court again.

A local judge had an idea: let the whites abandon their science courses, thus dropping their curriculum to the level of the Negro school. The school board was satisfied with this expedient, but not some of the white parents. At an open meeting in the high school gym, Mrs. Arthur Farrell protested: "We are being discriminated against just as much as our colored friends ... I have a child in the high school who planned to be an engineer. What's going to happen to him?" Replied School Board Member A. W. Walker: "Just take it as a stroke of bad luck that couldn't be helped. [Anyway] your son may be drafted into the Army."

Last week the whites and Negro Attorney Martin agreed on a truce: restore the science courses to the white school, float a special bond issue to build a new $150,000 Negro school with all courses and conveniences. Superintendent T. Benton Gayle admitted: "It's terribly wasteful--even transportation is segregated, and we have two buses going down the same road. But as a taxpayer, I would rather pay higher taxes and have segregation."

Last week the national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity (25,000 members) suspended its Amherst chapter for "unfraternal conduct." Reason: the Amherst Phi Psis had pledged Tom Gibbs, who is a good student, a member of the cross-country team, and on Amherst's Student Council--but a Negro.

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