Trial In Tucson

When school opened in Tucson, Ariz, this fall, Superintendent Robert D. Morrow had reason to feel uneasy. He had never wanted to be "either a heel or a hero," but heel or hero he was destined to be. Morrow had been trying to get rid of Jim Crow in the city's public schools for the past six months--ever since the state legislature passed a law leaving the decision up to local communities.

Some parents protested hotly against the Morrow campaign, and some even called him up to tell him what a "Communist," "nigger-lover," or "Fascist" they thought he was. None of that bothered Morrow much. What did bother him was what Tucson's parents would say when they found out what he had done with the 19 Negro teachers from the city's Negro schools.

He had scattered them all through the school system. He left Morgan Maxwell, Negro principal of the junior high school for Negroes, where he was, even though Maxwell would now have white teachers and pupils under him. And Morrow had hired another Negro teacher, plus two Chinese, and a Navajo.

On opening day, Superintendent Morrow sat back and waited. For the first time, "African and Caucasian" pupils filed into classrooms together. For the first time, so did "African and Caucasian" teachers. Books were distributed, assignments given out, and the year began. By last week Superintendent Morrow, flummoxed but happy, knew how his campaign had come out. "Why, it's working!" he cried.

Elsewhere, the case against Jim Crow ran into some snags. P: On opening day in San Antonio, ten Negro boys & girls showed up at five different white schools, asked to be admitted because their own schools did not have equal facilities. The principals all refused. P: The University of North Carolina's first Negro students found that they were free to eat and study with whites, but not to cheer. At football games, they were barred from the cheering section, herded into special end-zone seats.

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