Hoxie School District No. 46 of Lawrence Co., Ark. v. Brewer, J-918.

• Decision Date: 09 January 1956
• Docket Number: No. J-918.,J-918.
• Citation: 137 F. Supp. 364
• Parties: HOXIE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 46 OF LAWRENCE COUNTY, ARKANSAS, a body corporate under the laws of the State of Arkansas, L. R. Howell, L. L. Cochran, Howard Vance, Guy Floyd and Leo Robert, individually and as Directors of Hoxie School District No. 46 of Lawrence County, Arkansas, and K. E. Vance, Plaintiffs, v. Herbert BREWER; Amis Guthridge, White America, Inc., a corporation organized and operating under the laws of the State of Arkansas, Citizens Committee Representing Segregation in the Hoxie Schools, an unincorporated association, James D. Johnson, Curt Copeland, and White Citizens Council of Arkansas, an unincorporated association, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

137 F. Supp. 364

HOXIE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 46 OF LAWRENCE COUNTY, ARKANSAS, a body corporate under the laws of the State of Arkansas, L. R. Howell, L. L. Cochran, Howard Vance, Guy Floyd and Leo Robert, individually and as Directors of Hoxie School District No. 46 of Lawrence County, Arkansas, and K. E. Vance, Plaintiffs, v. Herbert BREWER; Amis Guthridge, White America, Inc., a corporation organized and operating under the laws of the State of Arkansas, Citizens Committee Representing Segregation in the Hoxie Schools, an unincorporated association, James D. Johnson, Curt Copeland, and White Citizens Council of Arkansas, an unincorporated association, Defendants.

No. J-918.

United States District Court E. D. Arkansas, Jonesboro Division.

January 9, 1956.

James Sloan, III, Walnut Ridge, Ark., Edwin E. Dunaway, Little Rock, Ark., Penix & Penix, Jonesboro, Ark., for plaintiffs.

M. V. Moody, Little Rock, Ark., James D. Johnson, Crossett, Ark., for defendants.

REEVES, District Judge.

After the two decisions of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, and 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, the co-plaintiff, Hoxie School District No. 46 of Lawrence County, Arkansas, through its Board of Directors, L. R. Howell, L. L. Cochran, Howard Vance, Guy Floyd and Leo Robert, seasonably took administrative and executive action to desegregate the races in the school attendance in the public schools of said district. Formal order was made in June, 1955. For economic and other reasons the public schools opened in July, with a plan to interrupt their continuance or sessions for a brief period during crop gathering, or harvesting time, and then to resume their sessions.

The pupils and patrons of the school district agreeably accepted and abided by the action of the Board of Directors in providing for the admission of colored and white children to the study rooms and classes of said schools without discrimination. At that time and previously, according to the undisputed evidence, there had not been provided "separate, but equal" facilities in said district for colored children. The laws of Arkansas required segregation of the races in all public schools of that state.

The Board of Directors, conscious as well as sensitive to the constitutionally imposed obligations of their oaths to support the Constitution of the United States, and, because of the clear and definite doctrine announced in the cases mentioned, felt obliged to admit colored pupils into the public schools attended by white children. Moreover, they were aware, entirely apart from the new doctrine of the law, that there was not and had not been a compliance with the law in the district affording "separate, but equal" facilities to colored children. In addition to this, the expense of segregation was a heavy and costly one, aggregating several thousand dollars, and therefore economic reasons were added to the new as well as to the old requirements of the law, as set forth in the Fourteenth Amendment to the national Constitution.

This action of the Board and the proceedings thereunder were without untoward event or even the cause of friction for a period of approximately three weeks. There were mutterings, however, and expressions of dissatisfaction on the part of a few persons inside and outside the district, and particularly on the part of the named defendants, both as individuals and as representatives of the corporation entitled "White America, Inc.," and named associations through their membership.

This culminated in a mass meeting early in August of 1955 in the city hall of the City of Hoxie, Arkansas. The defendants were present or represented at said meeting. Inflammatory and inciting speeches were made. Petitions were circulated, literature was handed out, and through it all there ran an undercurrent of menace and threat of harm to those responsible for desegregation and for those who might have aided or even approved the act and practice of desegregation of the races.

Among other results that flowed from this mass meeting was the withdrawal of hundreds of white pupils from attendance in the several schools. This decreased the attendance in some rooms as much as sixty percent. The falling off in attendance was occasioned by fear and intimidation from the propaganda of the mass meeting and individual utterances and actions of the defendants after said meeting. The sentiments engendered in the mass meeting by the incitement and stimulus of inflammatory speeches resulted in specific menace to individual members of the school board, including the Superintendent of Schools, K. E. Vance. Other meetings were held at sundry places, both in and out of the district, for discussion of the act of the Board and the practice of desegregation of the races in the Hoxie schools. All of this caused increasing tension and incited individuals among the defendants, and others, to indulge in menacing and covert threats as well as demands for the resignation of the members of the school board. Because of the decline in attendance and other supposed hazards the board, at the request of the Superintendent of Schools ordered a suspension of the sessions. This was done because of the fear of harm and bodily injury that might accrue to the school officials as well as to pupils who might be in attendance at the sessions.

Pursuant to these undisputed facts, the plaintiffs instituted this action, the members of the Board of Directors appearing as plaintiffs both individually and officially as members of the Board. The Superintendent appeared as plaintiff in his own proper person because of threats of bodily harm against him.

In the complaint and prayer for a declaratory judgment substantially the above facts were set forth. The plaintiffs ask for sundry rulings and statutory interpretations, but the prime object was to secure an injunction against the several defendants to prevent their further interference with the operation of the Hoxie schools on a desegregated basis.

At the outset the defendants, through their able counsel, challenged the jurisdiction of the national courts and, when their motion to dismiss was overruled, they filed their answer specifically denying the averments of the complaint and renewing their challenge to the jurisdiction of the national courts.

Upon filing the complaint, supported by affidavits, Judge Trimble granted a temporary restraining order. This was made effective until a hearing could be had on the question of a temporary or interlocutory injunction. When such hearing was had the evidence before Judge Trimble was substantially the same as that above set forth and as that heard in the trial on the merits by the writer. Judge Trimble granted a temporary or interlocutory injunction. The case was then heard by the writer on the question of a permanent or perpetual injunction.

Other facts, if they may become pertinent, will be stated in the course of this memorandum opinion.

1. The defendants renewed their challenge to the jurisdiction of the court in the amended answer filed by them. Since the evidence before Judge Trimble was substantially the same as that before the writer, the ruling of Judge Trimble as to the jurisdiction of the court has become the law of the case and is binding upon all other judges or any judge who might preside in the trial of the issues on final hearing.

2. It may seem proper, however, to supplement and repeat the reasoning as well as the authorities upholding the jurisdiction of the court.

In the first place, in the several cases of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, supra, the Supreme Court not only nullified, in effect, the segregation laws of the State of Arkansas, but it specifically retained jurisdiction in the national courts to make effective the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment as it became pertinent in the cases. In practical effect the Court retained jurisdiction, not only in the cases before the Court (being class actions) but in all similar cases, to the end that the decision of the Supreme Court might be fully implemented. This, of course, follows the well-known maxim that equity will do justice, and not by halves. It is to be noted, among other things, that members of the Board of Directors with Professor Vance joined as plaintiffs in their individual capacities. They did this because they were not only menaced, but they were advised (and doubtlessly felt) that there was a threat to deprive them of rights vouchsafed to them by the Constitution of the United States. The defendants, or some of them, had expressed to the Board, or individual members thereof, the view that any orderly change in the law was too slow a process and that the defendants would compel a rescission of the order of desegregation by intimidation and force, if necessary.

In this situation plaintiffs became entitled to invoke the provisions of Section 4, Article IV, of the national Constitution, as follows:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, * * *."

It was their sacred right to function their offices, and to live as citizens under a government of laws and not of men, and they logically appealed to the national courts for protection under the federal law.

The Supreme Court intimated jurisdiction if, in the adjustment to the new order, members of the school board did not act in good faith. To show their good faith it became necessary for the Board of Directors of Hoxie schools (and their duty) to institute and maintain this action so that they might demonstrate their good faith and carry out the orders of the Supreme Court.

In the second place, the Civil Rights statutes are very broad. This is particularly true of Section 1343, Title 28 U.S.C.A. This statute specifically confers upon the district courts "original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by law to be commenced by any person."

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