Purely Commentary
Racial Distribution in Detroit's Public Schools
Serious attention should be given the latest report of the Detroit
Public Schools on the racial distribution of students and staff. The
newest report shows a consistent increase in Negro student enrollment
in the past three years. It also shows that in the area of administration
Negroes are being placed with greater speed and that there is a gain
of students in the construction trades division's apprentice program.
In the latter there were 34 Negroes in 1964, 45 in 1965 and 62 in 1966.
In the manufacturing trades division's apprentice program the number
of Negroes increased from 82 in 1965 to 114 in 1966.
The report shows that in the administration area there is one
Negro assistant superintendent, one field executive, seven secondary
principals, two divisional directors, two directors, nine elementary
principals, three assistant directors, two supervisors, six secondary
assistant principals, three administrative assistants, 24 elementary
assistant principals, 10 junior administrative assistants, 35 depart-
ment heads and 81 counselors.
These facts undoubtedly are less important than the over-all pic-
ture of Negro students' enrollments. The report, as of Oct. 20, 1966,
presents a breakdown of Negro student enrollment as follows:
There was a 1.9 per cent gain this year compared to 1.8
per cent in 1965, and 1.7 per cent in , 1964. The total student enroll-
ment of 297,035—a gain of 2,213 students over the 1965 enroll-
ment—breaks down as follows:
126,354 or 42.5 per cent of total
White Students
168,299 or 56.7 per cent of total
Negro Students
.8 per cent of total
2,382 or
Others
School faculties now number 11,459. Of these there are '7,792
or 68 per cent white; and 3,628 or 31.7 per cent Negro. Classified
as "others" are 39 teachers or .3 per cent of total.
Racial tabulation in the Detroit Public Schools began in 1961.
This followed a recommendation by the Citizens Advisory Com-
mittee on Equal Educational Opportunity.
Of the 45 schools which in 1966 have fewer than 10 per cent
Negro teachers, 35 have a proportion ranging from 5.0 per cent
to 9.9 per cent. This leaves 10 schools with staffs of less than
5 per cent Negro teachers. There were 15 such schools in 1965.
Of the 294 schools tabulated there are 22 schools with no
Negro students. There were 30 schools with no Negro students
in the 1965 racial count. The report also cites 14 schools with no
white students as compared to 10 in 1965.
There is no doubt that there is an improvement in existing condi-
tions, with "an increase in the number of schools with more than 50
per cent Negro teachers," with improvement in facilities and increasing
opportunities for the less affluent to be trained for productive pursuits.
Nevertheless, important questions are posed by the report. It
indicates that Negro families are larger, but it also shows that in
a city in which the Negro population is approximately 40 per cent
of the total, its student population is nearly 57 per cent of the total.
This is akin to situations existing in most of the larger American
communities and it explains the new attitudes of diminishing opposi-
tion to parochial schools, the establishment of new private progressive
schools—all resulting from neighborhood changes and a fact that need
not be ignored: that integration is not complete, that the reduced
_standards of teaching in some schools have induced parents to send
their children to private schools with smaller-than-public-school classes.
Perhaps time will solve this problem and will again place emphasis
on the public school system. Meanwhile the existing situation has
brought about the formation of many Protestant parochial schools, the
strengthening of the Catholic school system, and may have contributed
in great measure towards the formation of Hebrew Day Schools. While
the establishment of the latter is due primarily to the urgency of
assuring the best possible Jewish training for our children, the status
of our schools must have contributed in some measure to Day Schools'
enrollment.
The community responsibility emerging from the figures that have
just been reported is quite plain. It demands that the overwhelming
majority of Negro children in our schools should be provided the best
teachers and the most inviting facilities on a par with the white element
in our population. Every possible facility should be created to encour-
age Negro students to train for trades and to be prepared to enter
the professions. Negro teachers must have the same opportunities for
placement as their white colleagues. We owe these things to ourselves,
not as a duty to our Negro neighbors. They are our fellow-citizens,
and as such must have the same provisions for the best in schooling
as the children of white parents.
The Race Issue and Some of Its Lessons
As we begin a new year, there is the growing recognition that
the race issue will remain one of the major problems to be solved.
If we are to have a progressive year, there must be unity in abolishing
whatever restrictions remain, in reassuring mutual respect, and re-
storing confidence in the American way of life that is so dependent
upon just treatment of all - citizens on a basis of equality.
The past few months' experiences were marked by renewals of
anti-Semitism in certain Negro ranks and by expressions of hatred
that were unjustified wherever they were uttered.
Some of the demonstrations of hatred were truly shocking and
also irrational. For example, a Los Angeles weekly Negro periodical
published a puzzling report of the Israel-Jordan conflict under the
heading "Israelis Kill 10,000 Arabs." Purportedly emenating from
Cairo, that story was such an evident fabrication, such a fantastic
incitement to hatred, that Negro leaders deplored it deeply. But in
order to grant that periodical the dignity of serious attention, the
story was ignored.
There have been milder demonstrations of hate and bigotry, and
all stand rejected by fair-minded Americans.
Most deplorable is the flight that accompanies the race issue.
Not only is there an unending movement toward the suburbs in large
communities, but Negroes, too, are running from their old sections,
some of which are not depressing but need rebuilding and improving.
The Watts area in Los Angeles is a typical example of what is
presently occurring. It has been reported that 1,000 Negro families
have moved from Watts to rural Los Angeles areas and have become
"escapees" from the crowded communities. Where there is overcrowd-
ing this is understandable. But when the movement is based on fear
and on a desire to run away from realities, the existing problem is
certain to grow rather than to decline.
A typical example of the existence of fear is to be found in the
2—Friday, January 13, 1967
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Racial Issues . . . Our Schools
and Community Problems . . .
JNF Project . . BG Attitude
By Philip
Slomovitz
very mention of Watts in Los Angeles. Since the riots of last year,
people seem to fear to go there. In that area there are tourist at-
tractions, and chief among them are "The Watts Towers." Yet only
a few — those who know how to abandon fear — go to see the unusual
structure that took 30 years to complete. It is a tower—or a series of
towers—which were erected out of seashells, broken bottles, dishes,
tiles, caps—whatever Simon Rodia could find. For three decades this
immigrant from Italy kept building during his spare time while work-
ing as a night watchman and construction worker. He purchased the
lot, built the towers, then retired, gave the product of his life which
he built as a tribute to America as a gift to his community. Now
it is a landmark that should be one of the highlights for visitors
in Los Angeles.
Simon Rodia wrote a piece in which he explained his gift to
this country. He wrote these few lines:
"I no have nobody help me out. I was a poor man. Had to
do a little at a time. Nobody helped me, I think if I hire a man
he doesn't know what to do. A million times I don't know what to
do myself. I never had a single helper. Some people say what ,
was he doing . . . some of the people think I was crazy and some
people said I was going to do something. I wanted to do something
in the United States because I was raised here you understand? ,
I wanted to do something for the United States because there are
nice people in this country."
What a remarkable result of fate that this thing he did, dedicated
to the nice people of America, should now be located in an area
that was degraded by horrible riots but where people can and should
live in peace and in amity!
There is a lesson in "The Watts Towers." They seem to say to
all that there are nice people, and that they are the majority of Amer-
icans. That is why these towers in Watts should serve as a symbol—
inviting people to join in abandoning fears, in erasing hatreds, in re-
fusing to yield to panic and to go to Watts to see the creation of a
man who came here from abroad and loved America. Let it be a lesson
for all to love all of America and all of its people. Perhaps out of that
lesson will emerge one of the encouraging symptoms of a vanishing hate.
*
*
*
Important New JNF Gift to Israel
Adoption by the women of the Jewish National Fund of a project
to reclaim the strategic Gonen frontier region in Israel marks an-
other vital step by the Detroit Jewish community in its continuing
efforts to assist in Israel's upbuilding programs. This community has
traditionally carried on important tasks in behalf of the land re-
demption and reclamation fund, and the new task by the women of
JNF is a commendable effort in the direction of practical assistance
to Israel at a time when the country's frontiers must be protected.
The JNF's role remains significant in view of the special tasks
that have been assigned this — the oldest — fund of the Zionist
movement. On the occasion of the current 65th anniversary of the
founding the JNF by the World Zionist Congress — which, in 1902,
adopted the blueprint for such a fund set forth by the late Prof.
Hermann Schapira — an important statement by David Ben-Gurion
is worth resorting to. The former Israel Prime Minister said:
"The Keren Kayemeth is justifiably proud that it has already
planted scores of millions of trees on an area of over 200,000
dunams, but far larger areas still require planting. The Fund
has opened up hundreds of kilometers of roads in the mountains,
in border areas and the desert, thus making possible development
activities and settlement in of and empty regions. We are
still at the very beginning of the work. The Fund is now helping
the creation of the city of Arad in the Eastern Negev, but in the
next decade we shall have to build at least 15 or 20 similar towns
in the Negev, for unless we settle the Negev, Israel cannot survive.
"The people of Israel and the State of Israel are still very
far from having achieved this. This land which has been ours
for 4,000 years is confronted by grave perils from without and
emptiness and desolation from within. As yet the vast majority
of the Jewish people, over 80 per cent, are still in the Diaspora,
subject to others and exposed to assimilation and obliteration.
"Without continuing and intensifying the great two-fold
change which spells the essence of our rebirth and of our task—
the change in the nature of the people and of the land, i.e.,
without the Ingathering of the Exiles, the revival of the wilder-
ness, the building of a new society and a high culture which will
be the moving spirit in the life of our youth, of the working
masses and of our cultural leaders — without these, all that we
have accomplished in the past 80 years, including our great
achievements since the founding of the State, shall have been in
vain. The road to the fulfillment of the vision of redemption is
still remote and strewn with snares and perils. Without constant
pioneering effort to illumine the vision of the change, the change
in the people and in the land, we shall not reach our historic
goal. The Jewish National Fund is one of the instruments in the
realization of this vision and the Fund's strength derives from the
fact that it has rested on its laurels but when the State was
established took into account its new tasks from which it was
debarred under foreign rule, and abandoned the old tasks which
were fulfilled more effectively by the attainment of our inde-
pendence and sovereignty.
"Not only by means of tree planting, opening up roads in
the desert, clearing stones and reclaiming rocky lands, but in its
spirit and method, was the Fund able to serve as a model and
example for our generation, the last generation in bondage and
the first in redemption. Its policy has been not to be content
with maintaining the status quo but to adapt itself to the vision
of the change from a people dispersed in the Diaspora to a na-
tion thriving in its own country, the change from a desert land
into a settled and populated country, the change from a society in
bondage, penalized and discriminated against, to a society founded
upon co-operation, freedom and brotherhood, the change of spirit,
steeped in poverty, ignorance and sterility, to a spirit which is
created from the conquest of science which makes man control
nature and from the inheritance of the Hebrew prophets towards
redemption of the nation and the universe. Then the Jewish Na-
tional Fund will indeed be the permanent asset of all mankind."
Indeed, the JNF still performs valuable functions, as reclaimer
of neglected areas, as work-provider in tree planting conducted by
thousands of new settlers and also as an educational agency which
teaches the youth the values of land redemption. The new project
by the Detroit women adds a good project to this community's partner-
ship with Israel in the continuing Zionist endeavors.
.
B-G Again Hits
at Eshkol, Fails
to Win Support
(Direct JTA Teletype Wise
to The Jewish News)
TEL AVIV — Former Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion lashed
out again Tuesday at the govern-
ment of his successor, Levi Eshkol,
at a meeting of the Mapai-spon-
sored kibbutz movement and was
in turn challenged as a divisive
element in the Mapai Party.
He accused the premier and his
colleagues of being "people of no
honor," charged again that Pre-
mier Eshkol was not fit for the
premiership and that the Israeli
government had failed in its two
most important functions — in-
gathering and security. He told
the meeting of the Ichud Hakvut-
zot Vehakibbutzim that it was not
enough to buy arms but that it
was also essential to acquire
friends. This, he charged, Premier
Eshkol had not done.
He also said that the postwar
emergency immigration had ended
and Russia's doors for Jewish
emigration were not yet open.
Israel's only hope for additional
newcomers, therefore, was from
the free world but this, he de-
clared, could be achieved only
when Jews were given a vision
and a mission concerning Israel.
As long as there were "untruth-
ful" people at the helm of Israel's
government, he stated, people
would not come.
He was challenged by members
of the movement who called him
"the man who initiated the split
in Mapai," a reference to Ben-
Gurion's formation last year of
the dissident Israel Workers party
(Rafi). Another critic told him
that "you have created the state
and won the war of liberation but
we do not agree you know every-
thing."
One of the main reasons for Ben-
Gurion's appearance was to win
support for his renewed campaign
for a change in Israel's electoral
system aimed at doing away with
the nation's multiplicity of poli-
tical parties. After five hours of
discussion of the proposals, the
former premier failed to win sup-
port.
NY Savings Banks
Solicit Application
for Jobs From Jews
NEW YORK (JTA)—The Sav-
ings Banks Association of New
York State, coordinating body of
the state's mutual saving banks,
has issued an illustrated booklet
soliciting applications for jobs from
people of "a variety' of ethnic and
religious backgrounds."
The booklet—the first of its kind
—was warmly praised by the
American Jewish Committee, which
has been active in opposing job
discrimination in the fields of
banking, insurance, utilities and
large corporate business.
Representatives of the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee have been
meeting with representatives of
the association on problems of
discrimination following a study
made by the AJ Committee last
year which revealed that there
are less than 3.5 per cent of
Jews among the 750 trustees of
New York City's 50 mutual sav-
ings banks, and less than 2.5 per
cent of Jews among their 400 top
executives.
A year after the original report
was made public, the AJ Commit-
tee reported that these banks had
increased the number of their Jew-
ish trustees by more than one-third
although the number of Jewish
executive officers had remained
substantially the same.
A national survey of executive
positions in the 50 leading com-
mercial banks across the country
revealed last September that Jews
were filling only 1.3 per cent of
the senior posts and 0.9 per cent
of. the ,middle-management posts.