An Atlanta newspaper reader could use the headlines as a barometer in the current school crisis affecting the school board, the Community Relations’ Commission and thousands of Negro parents.

“SCHOOL BOARD TOLD OF NEGRO GRIEVANCES ON SCHOOLS” (Sept.15)

“TOO BUSY TO TALK, SCHOOL BOARD SAYS” (Sept. 15)

“BOARD TO ANSWER NEGRO CHARGES; NO TIME TO TALK WITH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSION” (Sept. 16)

“COOK ASKS DELAY ON COMMUNITY RELATIONS’ MEETING” (Sept. 17)

The main issues are crowded schools and alleged discrimination in pupil and administration matters. The hottest problem presented to the school board is why “extended sessions” are still used in five large all-Negro high schools; while only one of sixteen white high schools is on these double sessions. Double sessions mean that the children go only 4 ½ hours, sometimes as early as 7:30 a.m., and ending at noon. In regular sessions, the pupils go the normal day of 6 ½.

Typical comments from Negro parents at the Thursday meeting of the Community Relations’ Commission were: “If I work only a half-day, I’m not employed as a full-time employee” and from a mother who strongly objected to her daughters having to go to school in the dark morning hours, “Besides, when the young children come home at noon, there is no one to supervise them. The older children are still at school, and the parents at work.”

Headlines have pinpointed not just the Negroes’ protest but even more the failure of the school board to gain and hold the confidence of the Negro community. Since the small integration in 1961, the Negro leaders and parents have been pointing out that six years is too long to wait. Most of the large schools are predominately white or Negro. The abuse of “extended sessions” hits mainly the Negro schools.

And the future holds in minds of Negroes no relief--Northside (White) has 1,285 students in 42 classrooms. Turner (Negro) has 2,039 attending double classrooms.

Yet Northside is undergoing an expansion to cost a million and a half dollars. No plans for Turner expansion are contemplated. Dr. John Letson, school superintendent, said that Turner and Harper (both Negro) will get some relief when Simpson-Hightower is completed. But that’s not due until September of 1968.

Sept. 11, the Negro leaders presented a series of protest to the school board. The board said it would answer five demands “very soon”, and the others in about six weeks. This did not satisfy one group which conducted sit-ins at Dr. Letson’s office, and 13 persons were arrested. Letson met with about 15 others the next night.

The Community Relations Commission was authorized early this year by Mayor Ivan Allen and the Board of Alderman to work with Atlantans for racial justice and harmony. After an ugly attack by Ku Klux Klan members in February, the members got down to work. They visited every poor area in Atlanta, listening to complaints, helping them be answered, and have met with public officials, the police, housing authority, the school board and many private agencies. In the Dixie Hills crisis, the Community Relations’ Commission’s executive committee spent hours in the work of mediation and follow-up, and won the praise of both white and Negro leaders.

In the new preventative phase of their work, the Community Relations Commission invited Dr. Letson, Chairman Cook, and representatives of the School Board by telegram, to meet with Negro leaders Thursday, Sept 14. About 15 Negroes presented the list of grievances dealing especially with the “extended sessions”. No school board members appeared—they sent word through an attorney that they were sitting on the case of a retired teacher.

The Community Relations Commission and the Negroes expressed the opinion that the present grievances affecting thousands of children were of higher priority than the case of a single teacher. Chairman Irving Kaler, by the unanimous vote of the Commission, sent another telegram. Proposed by Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan, it states that “the Commission is convinced that the board of education fails to grasp the urgency of this educational situation”, and insisted upon another meeting.

The Atlanta Constitution in an editorial, Sept. 15, called the present situation “a crisis almost as monumental” as that of 1961. “Since the Board faces massive problems, it should come up with massive solutions”. Kaler, Community Relations Commission chairman, has warned: “It is too late for promises: firm action and immediate commitments are needed now.”

A meeting of Negro leaders, after the frustrating “no meeting” Thursday was called for a Hunter Street restaurant that night “to speed up action”.

One Community Relations Commission member, a clergyman, Thursday asked this question: “A child’s education is a mighty big thing to a father or mother. With more than 60 American cities burnt, pillaged and weakened, sometimes for less cause than this, can Atlanta allow our school board to treat these issues of Negro discrimination as if they were technical or procedural matters.?” Our community is faced with a real crisis, a genuine danger that frustrated citizens are fed up with delays. It is hardly the time for the chairman of our school board to say: “We don’t have need em’ (the Community Relations Commission) in order to answer these questions.”

The Board of Education wants until after Sept. 25 to meet with the Commission. This date apparently was confused by Chairman Cook with that on which he said he had promised answers to some of the questions of the Negro leaders. He added that he doubted if the answers would be entirely satisfactory.

The Community Relations Commission, confident that it is more representative of the community and aware of its racial tensions, is convinced that the time for mediation is now, not Sept. 25.