NEGRO SCHOOLS ARE 'BULGING AT SEAMS'
By OTIS N. THOMPSON, Argus Staff Writer

This week, in the little city of Jeffersonville, Kentucky, children are sharing a greater realization of Democracy resulting from the recent opening of white grade schools to all. They have equal education. Quite in contrast, the great city of St. Louis maintains a dual education system which shows a difference of approximately 18 million dollars assessed value, of lands and improvements, between white and colored schools.

In Jeffersonville, colored children may go to either of the previously all white elementary schools in their district or to the colored schools. In St. Louis, however, colored children may go to but 23 of the 107 such schools in the city, regardless of the fact that these 23 are literally bulging at the seams.

In South St. Louis in the Carondelet area colored children must pass eight schools, some in the neighborhoods, and travel as far as five miles to get to segregated schools. At one time there was a school in the area for them, but it was taken away an designated for white children.

Despite the mass overcrowding in all colored schools as against the relatively comfortable conditions in white schools, a Veterans Training Program has spread to all colored high schools resulting from lack at Washington Technical school, thereby placing a greater strain on already overburdened facilities. These schools also have Adult Evening Classes.

There is no Veterans Training Program in the high schools. All white veterans attend classes at the Hadley Technical School which has a total of 123 rooms. Washington Tech has only 29.

As pointed out by Dr. John J Kessler in his report on St. Louis Public Schools, it has been the policy not to build new schools for colored, but to convert old ones, thereby giving whites the advantage of modern facilities while colored must use inferior. This in itself constitutes inequality of education which has reached an intolerable stage.

An outstanding example of the differences in white and colored schools in the Soldan-Blewett school at 918 Union as compared with the Sumner high school in the 4200 block of Cottage Avenue.

Soldan-Blewett, with 70 rooms, has an enrollment of 1323 for this semester. Last year the same school had an enrollment of 1602 while Sumner had 1729. According to the Kessler Report, conditions at Soldan-Blewett were not considered as crowded last year.

However, Sumner was considered quite over crowded. The school was built to accommodate only 750 students. Later it was enlarged to take care of 1200. THE ENROLLMENT AT SUMNER TODAY IS 2053, A TOTAL OF 853 STUDENTS OVER AND ABOVE THE CAPACITY. Soldan-Blewett has 337 students less than were enrolled in 1948. thus it has 15 rooms more than Sumner and 730 students less than Sumner.

According to enrollment figures obtained from the office of the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction J. S. Nants, five of the seven white high schools have fewer students than they had in 1948-49. Thus if these schools were not overcrowded in 1948, they are far from being so today.

THERE HAS BEEN A TOTAL DECREASE OF 702 STUDENTS IN ALL WHITE HIGH SCHOOLS IN CONTRAST TO THE TOTAL INCREASE OF 726 IN THE ONLY TWO COLORED HIGH SCHOOLS.

The same deplorable conditions holding forth in the high schools are evident in the elementary schools. In some instances children must sit two to a desk throughout the day because of the large number crowded into one room.

Source: St. Louis Argus, Friday, September 22, 1950