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About The voice. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1946-195? | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1950)
Vol. 4, No. 34 Lincoln, 3, Nebraska Thursday, June 15, 1950 Court Gives V /iric Decisions CHOOSE KEY STATE OFFICIALS—These girls Thursday were elected key state officials of Girls State. Left to right, starting with the first row, they are Lt. Gov. Elva Mae Thomas, Tekamah; Secre tary of State Claudette Neal, Omaha; Chief Justice Pat Bradley, Scottsbluff; Atty. Gen. Dorothy Sand, Beatrice; ^uditor Rita A1 Goding, Alliance, and Pat Brt, treasurer, Norfolk. (Courtesy The Lincoln Journal.) Whitney Young Lists Three Criteria of Maturity and Responsibility For Our Time In these times of so much concern about foreign-isms we find “the greatest defense of democracy is its practice,” Whitney Young, executive secretary of the Omaha Urban League, told Lincolnites Sunday as he addressed the men of Quinn Chapel church. Today, more important than physical maturity, is man’s mental maturity, which he proves by his actions. One mark of maturity is willingness to accept re sponsibility, the vision of what is right and the courage to stand for it. He pointed to areas of re sponsibility: (1) For prepared ness to do the skilled and pro fessional tasks and for paving the way for equal opportunities in employment, (2) for better hous ing facilities through improve ment of present properties and by opposing segregation, which al ways brings discriminations and (3) for interest in political activ ity. He challenged men to use the ballot to help preserve his birthright. The objective of such a program is simply the recog nition of Negroes as Americans like any other Americans. Furnishing music for Men’s day at the chapel was a men’s choir | of 20 voices which featured some I of the more robust spirituals and hymns. The day began with a g» breakfast in the basement pre fe pared by the men. i Clyde Malone was chairman of | j^he day and Clayton P. Lewis was « in charge of arrangements. Also present was Sen. John Adams, »r.. Omaha, who made a brief talk. Sunday afternoon Mrs. Jennie Edwards, Women’s day chairman, announced plans for the Ladies’ day in early July. Mrs. Golden Brooks will be in charge of ar rangements but speaker for the occasion was not made known.. Sen. Taylor Takes Case to High Court WASHINGTON. (ANP). Sen. Glen H. Taylor (d., Ida.) an nounced last Tuesday that his attorneys have filed a petition re questing the Supreme Court to re view the case in which he was convicted for disorderly conduct in 1948 by the Circuit Court of Jef ferson county in Alabama. The case grew out of'the sena tor’s arrest and prosecution when, in response to an invitation to address a meeting of the South ern Negro Youth congress in Bir mingham, Ala., on May 1, 1948, he attempted to enter the church where the meeting was being held through the door marked “Negro entrance.” His case is being pre sented to the Supreme Court for the purpose of testing the consti tutionality of the Birmingham or dinance requiring separate en Railroads To Comply With Court’s Action WASHINGTON. (ANP). Al though southern railway firms made ‘no positive statements they indicated that they would com ply with the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision in which segrega tion on dining cars was outlawed in a case filed by Elmer Hender son. Most of the railroads said they would await an order from the interstate commerce commission before establishing a definite pol icy. Defendant in the case, the Southern Railway, indicated it would obey the ruling by a state ment of Sidney S. Alderman, vice president and general counsel. He said: “The railway will of course comply with whatever order is ultimately entered by the ICC.” A spokesman for the Chesa peake and Ohio railroad said this ruling only agreed with its pres ent practices. It segregates pas sengers on interstate travel, and it does not on interstate policy. He said the program would con tinue. For Seaboard railway, an of ficial said, “If the law stops seg regating Negroes, then we’ll do it. The president of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis rail road said his trains would obey the decision soon. Women Open Bowling Group To Negroes ST. PAUL, Minn. (ANP). Fol lowing the lead of the American Bowling congress male group, the Women’s International Bowling congress dropped its racial restric tion clause from its by-laws last week. A meeting of 70 delegates voted unanimously to drop the “whites only” requirement from its mem bership rules. Although the WIBC discussed the rules changes a month ago, it awaited the action of the ABC before going to the voting stage. Cong. Dawson’s Committee Opens Burget Hearings WASHINGTON. (ANP). The House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive departments, which is headed by Congressman William L. Dawson, opened hear ings last Thursday on the Budg etary Practices Reorganization act of 1950. The bill, H.R. 504, was introduced by Rep. Franklin D. Roosevelt, jr. (d.-lib., N.Y.), who is a member of the committee. trances, exits and seating ar rangements for Negroes and whites at all meetings, theaters, entertainments, etc. Mr. Young in Hospital It is reported that Walter Young is very ill at St. Elizabeth hos pital. Mr. Young returned to work only recently after being at Vet erans’ Hospital for several weeks. Unanimous Votes Ban Segregation in Oklahoma Texas Schools; On Diners WASHINGTON, D. C.—The United States Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation is illegal in higher education and on railroad dining cars. In unanimous 8 to 0 decisions in three major civil rights cases, the justices upheld Heman Sweatt’s right to enter the University of Texas, ordered the University of Okla homa not to segregate G. W. McLaurin and other Negro students in classrooms and ruled out the curtain and par tition used to separate Negro dining car passengers from white diners. Justice Clark, who was attorney general when the railway case was brought, took no part in the decision. Eight Supreme Court justices in a unanimous decision ruled that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. con stitution requires that Sweatt be admitted to the University of Texas law school. The court pointed out that de spite the excellence of promised improvements to the Negro law school established at Austin, Ne gro students would be isolated^ from the persons with whom they would later associate in the prac tice of law. In effect, the /Supreme Court ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine is outmoded. In two other cases ruled upon on the same day, the Supreme Court ordered the University of Oklahoma to end the segregation of Negroes in classrooms in its graduate schools and ordered an end to the segregation of Negro passengers on railway dining cars. These rulings were made in the case filed by G. W. McLaurin, graduate student at the University of Oklahoma, and Elqper C. Hen derson, director of the American Council on Human Rights, against the Southern Railroad. Sweatt, who since May 16, 1946, has fought to enter Texas U., re fusing to attend the Jim Crow law school established by the state at Houston, was backed by the Su preme Court in his contention that the Jim Crow school was not equal to the law school at the University of Texas. Chief Justice Vinson, who read the unanimous opinion, said that Sweatt may rightfully claim “a legal education equivalent to that offered by the state to students of other races.” The Sweatt case was taken to the Supreme Court by the NAACP with Thurgood Marshall as the chief counsel. The case was ar gued before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 3-4 along with the McLaurin and the Henderson cases. Sweatt filed a petition for a writ of mandamus on May 16, 1946, seeking admittance to the University of Texas school of law from which he had been excluded because of his race. On June 17, 1946, a hearing was held in Travis county in Austin, Texas, and 10 days later the court* de clared that the state’s refusal to admit Sweatt to the University of Texas was a denial of his constitu tional rights since it was the only law school within the state. The court refused, however, to grant the writ and gave the state six months to provide a course of legal instruction “substantially equivalent” to that provided at the University of Texas. In December of 1946, a second hearing was held and the court dismissed Sweatt’s case on the ground that the state had made available another law school pro viding legal training “substantial ly equivalent” to that offered at Texas U., therefore complying with the order of June 26. This judgment was entered although the record showed that no such law school had been established for Negroes. The state of Texas had only promised to provide separate legal educational facili ties. On March 26, 1947, the court of civil appeals set aside the judgment of the trial court and remanded the cause for further proceedings. Another trial was held on May 12-18, 1947, with the court dismissing Sweatt’s petition for writ of mandamus. The court of civil appeals affirmed this de cision in February, 1948, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Texas, which a so af firmed the lower court. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme court on Nov. 7, 1949. Lawyers associated with Thur good Marshall in the Sweatt case are Robert L. Carter, W. J. Bur ham, William R. Ming, jr., James M. Nabrit, U. Simpson Tate and Franklin H. Williams. Demand for dining car facilities by Negro passengers justifies the regulations. But it is no answer to the particular passenger who is denied service at an unoccupied place in a dining car that, on the average, persons like him are served. . . “That the regulations may im pose on white passengers, in pro portion to their numbers, disad vantages similar to those imposed on Negro passengers is not an answer to the requirements. Dis criminations that operate to the disadvantage o£ two groups are not the less to be condemned be cause their impact is broader than if only one were affected." The Justice department in the Henderson case brief asked the Supreme Court to overturn the 54-year-old “separate but equal" facilities doctrine which is based on an 1896 Supreme Court decision that states may require segrega tion if the races are provided sub stantially equal facilities. The 1896 decision said that such seg regation—provided Negroes are otherwise treated the same as whites—does not violate the 14th amendment that no state shall deny any person the equal pro tection of the laws. The Supreme Court did not di rectly declare segregation uncon stitutional.