Good No-News

John D. York, 31, father of six, is a quiet Negro who quit school after the fourth grade to work as a laborer in Pine Bluff, Ark. "Good education is important," says he. "My kids are going to graduate from high school." Last spring he heard incredible news: Dollarway School would accept Negro first-graders this fall under a complex placement test. John D. marched Delores, 6, straight to Dollarway. "Nigger," jeered a white crowd surrounding the pair, "why do you want to register her in a white school?" John D. answered quietly: "Because it is a public school." Then he took his child's hand and went about his business. Delores became the first--and only--Negro student accepted at Dollarway. All Pine Bluff waited to see what would happen when school opened.

Pine Bluff (pop. 43,000) is a town that has its share of night riders and racism. John D. York was soon fired from the factory job that he had held for twelve years. And as school opening loomed last week, the entire Sunday service at his Galilee Baptist Church was built around Delores. Peering down at the child, the Negro minister intoned: "But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified" (Matthew 27: 23). For three minutes the weeping congregation stood in silent prayer for her safety.

But bitterly segregationist Pine Bluff had learned a lesson from Little Rock, 45 miles away. And lean, responsible Lee Parham, president of the Dollarway school board, had pounded it home. "This is the only thing we can do," said he all over town. "Any violence over it will only hurt us in the future." Even the Citizens' Council agreed. As one Pine Bluffer put it: "It's awful hard to be a brave fighter when your opponent is a six-year-old girl."

When the opponent arrived at Dollar-way's yellow brick buildings one steamy morning last week, carloads of whites lurked near by. Trouble never came: police had the place surrounded. John D. York was met by Board President Parham and the scho.ol superintendent, who escorted Delores to the first-grade class and a second-row seat. She spent the morning coloring clowns, apples and horses, played and lunched with her classmates. She came home happy. "I believe I'm going to like it there," she said gravely. "It's a nice big school and some of the children said 'Hi!"

Throughout the South last week, only a handful of Negroes broke the prevailing barriers, but they did so without disturbance. In Little Rock, twelve Negro students peacefully entered Central and Hall High Schools. In Richmond, two Negro girls entered Chandler Junior High School --first integration in the Confederacy's onetime capital. In Houston, the nation's biggest segregated school district, six-year-old Tyronne Day was the first Negro to enter a white school. Houston could hardly believe how easy it was. "This is a real achievement," said School Superintendent John W. McFarland. "I don't believe anybody in the United States expected us to integrate our schools without incident, including ourselves." Added one white mother: "God put us all here. We all live here, all help one another. Why shouldn't we go to school together?"

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