Courage in Van Buren

Egged on by the local police chief, the leading toughs of the Van Buren, Ark. High School staged a 45-man school "strike" and managed to scare away the 13 Negro youngsters trying to return to school at term's beginning. Last week the Van Buren school board, wavering before pressure to revise the integration plan that worked last year, announced a public hearing for the anti-integration White Citizens' Council. Up before the meeting that night, to the general astonishment, stood Jessie Angeline Evans, 15, grocer's daughter, straight A student and one of the rare juniors to be elected president of the high school student council. Angie's message: in the three hours before the meeting she and her friends polled 160 of the school's 635 students on the integration question in its bluntest form ("Should Negro students attend Van Buren High School?"). Their tally: 45 opposed, 30 undecided, 85 in favor.

Speaking for "the majority of the school," the pretty Ozark Joan of Arc added: "We think it is only fair that the Negroes be permitted to attend this high school . . . Have you thought what you make those Negro children feel like, running them out of school?"

After the stunned silence Angie stood off angry questioners; the meeting broke up without taking any action. The duck-tailed haircut set soon drifted back to classes, and the N.A.A.C.P. pressed suit to force the school board to carry out the provisions of its integration plan. But Angie Evans was the center of most attention. Why did she do it? "Someone had to speak up." said Methodist Angie. "I just don't think segregation is a Christian thing."

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