School truths partly told

Paul Greenberg
Paul Greenberg

Editor's note: Paul Greenberg, former editorial page editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial and retired editorial page editor and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a series of editorials he wrote in 1968 on civil rights. Greenberg described the editorials during an interview once as being about the "need for understanding and the respect for the rights of others." We believe those sensibilities are worthy of review again, considering the racial protests and other turmoil in the country today. For that reason, we are republishing each of Mr. Greenberg's award-winning editorials over the next several days. He died April 6 at age 84.

In all, Greenberg submitted seven "exhibits" to be considered for the Pulitzer. This segment, which was submitted as "EXHIBIT 7," said: "The Commercial devoted a number of editorials in 1968 to examining the case and appeal of Freedom, Inc., which launched a campaign to oppose the local school board. Three members of Freedom, Inc., have filed for the school board election coming up soon, and the controversy shows no sign of cooling. Neither, we hope, will the Commercial's vigilance."

EXHIBIT 7 (Part 2)

Dec. 2, 1968

Quasi-Information

(Compliments of Freedom, Inc.)

It wasn't easy to sell Freedom, Inc., as a moderate organization once the papers started reporting what its national president, Mitchell Young, has been saying: "A vote for Humphrey is a vote for Breshnev." "The NAACP is a Communist-front organization." The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is "infiltrated by Communists."

Mitchell Young could be classed as a moderate only if one's idea of the American political perspective were bounded on the Left by the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and on the Right, by the kind of Kluxer who wears his sheet to the office.

WHAT MITCHELL YOUNG did for Freedom, Inc.'s reputation as a moderate organization, Elmer Lybrand now has accomplished for its reputation as an accurate source of information. Mr. Lybrand, a board member of Freedom, Inc., made a speech last week at Watson Chapel in which he generously dispersed more quasi-information than we had thought even Freedom, Inc. was capable of:

Mr. Lybrand, caught up in the Waiting-for-Nixon Syndrome, mentioned that the president-elect had criticized, during his barely successful campaign, busing and assignment of students to achieve racial balance in the school system. What Mr. Lybrand did not mention is that Mr. Nixon studiously ignored the near-desperate attempts by Freedom, Inc., to get him committed to preserving the Freedom-of-Choice plan for ever and ever.

Nor did Mr. Lybrand mention this choice quote from Richard Nixon: "I would enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." This is the part of the law under which HEW is right now moving to deprive the Watson Chapel school district of $150,000 a year in federal aid. Anyway, Mr. Lybrand's philippics against busing have an abstract ring in Watson Chapel. About 37 per cent of its students are now bused to school and nobody seemed much riled about it either before or after Mr. Lybrand's appearance.

MR. LYBRAND'S contention that Freedom, Inc., somehow represents a majority of the Negro race is arresting. At last report, Freedom, Inc., didn't have a single Negro member in the immediate vicinity, though the press is often told that someplace, somewhere, there is one. We would very much like to see this fabulous curiosity turn up at a Freedom, Inc., meeting one of these days, if only to note whether he arrives bound and gagged.

Mr. Lybrand mentioned a Louisiana decision sanctioning Freedom-of-Choice. He did not mention another Louisiana decision against it. Or that those judges who upheld Freedom-of-Choice for the time being said they were doing so on the ground that it has "real prospects for dismantling the segregated system at the earliest practicable date. Which is much the same criterion put down by the Supreme Court in its landmark decision last May, another decision Mr. Lybrand skipped over.

SPOKESMEN FOR Freedom, Inc., tend to be myopic about rulings of the federal courts, betraying a rapt fascination for those of carefully selected lower courts while blissfully ignoring rulings on the appellate level. Even in citing lower court opinions, Freedom, Inc., tends to edit out unpalatable items. Mr. Lybrand praised a federal judge in Memphis without mentioning that the judge displayed a definitely non-Freedom, Inc., interest in racial balance. Said the judge:

I can't find any evidence of bad faith on the part of the school board, but I'm also of the impression that a 1 through 12 grade school such as Trezevant, where there are two Negro students and 2,983 whites, does not meet the standard of effectiveness that the opinions (of the United States Supreme Court) talked about.

The judge in Memphis came out against "busing people across town" but for pairing, consolidation, transfer or something else that would help "improve the situation." It's even conceivable that bus routes other than crosstown ones would fit into the judge's criteria. (A lot of school districts beside Watson Chapel bus some of their students to school without much fuss; transportation is now the highest item--next to teachers [sic] salaries--in this state's aid to local school districts.)

Even if the Memphis case were relevant, and even if Mr. Lybrand had quoted it in full, no decision has even been rendered in it. Which makes any judgment about its significance premature.

AS A SPOKESMAN for Freedom Inc., Elmer Lybrand demonstrates a mild genius for the irrelevant, mixing up judgments not yet made in Memphis with widely scattered speculation and misinformation about Ohio, New York, Maryland, North Carolina... all of whose problems Mr. Lybrand, from his key listening post in Arkansas, blames on the absence of a Freedom-of-Choice plan. The danger of relying on Mr. Lybrand's intelligence from these trouble spots is illustrated by his interpretation of what is going on in New York, where Mr. Lybrand castigates the Ford Foundation for installing a "tremendously centralized school district" and sending kids by the "tens of thousands... to one big school." Actually, it is a project by the Ford Foundation aimed at decentralizing the schools and insuring local control that sent the teachers union there out on strike. The kids of course went to the same various schools before and after the strike.

This is also the first we've heard of Freedom-of-Choice being an issue in those schools that had to close in Ohio; we (as well as a lot of folks in Youngstown) are under the impression that the schools closed there because the voters refused to pass taxes for them. Mr. Lybrand's exotic interpretation of events in Maryland and North Carolina is equally interesting and about as reliable.

And we suspect that Mr. Lybrand's assurance, uttered Monday night in Watson Chapel, that HEW is so prejudiced against the South that it didn't intend to enforce its guidelines against the North may not be much comfort to folks in South Holland, Illinois-a suburb of Chicago where HEW has obtained a court order compelling the establishment of a unitary, non-racial school system.

IT IS NOTEWORTHY, we think, that Mr. Lybrand has so much to say about what is happening several states away and so little comment on what's going on right around him. Speaking at Watson Chapel, he didn't mention that its school district is now engaged in proceedings, begun by HEW, aimed at depriving the district of its $150,000 a year in federal aid. Or that Freedom-of-Choice has been ruled out by the courts at Dollarway, Gould, Little Rock... and has just about been ruled out in Altheimer and Warren. These Arkansas cases being highly relevant, they may not have excited Mr. Lybrand's interest. It is always easier to acknowledge distant problems than those closest to home. Some newspapers--the kind that will take a stand only against evils outside their circulation area--have been doing it for years. There's even a name for it: Afghanistanism.

To those who have long wanted Freedom, Inc., to lay bare its inaccuracies, Mr. Lybrand's speech last Monday night qualifies as a public service. He couldn't have done a better job of displaying Freedom, Inc.'s misconceptions if he were a double agent.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --7/24/15-- Paul Greenberg (left), the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, speaks in the newsroom following the  announcement by WEHCO Media President and Chief Operating Officer Nat Lea (middle) that he is stepping down from that position as Eliza Gaines, vice president of Audience Development for WEHCO Media, listens. Editorial writer David Barham will succeed Greenberg beginning Aug. 1.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --7/24/15-- Paul Greenberg (left), the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, speaks in the newsroom following the announcement by WEHCO Media President and Chief Operating Officer Nat Lea (middle) that he is stepping down from that position as Eliza Gaines, vice president of Audience Development for WEHCO Media, listens. Editorial writer David Barham will succeed Greenberg beginning Aug. 1.

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