Louisiana: The State We're In; 437

[Beeping] Production assistance for the following program was provided in part by Kaiser Aluminum. Across Louisiana, the opening of school year 1980 has brought a time of uncertainty and change, a time when the arrival of school buses has meant the advent of court-ordered busing, and with it, citizen discontent. The school's the whole community. If we lose it, we've lost our community. So we'll do anything to keep it. The presidential race is heating up in Louisiana as Ronald Reagan held a campaign rally at LSU and Ms. Lillian Carter paid a visit to rural Louisiana. Louisiana: The State We're In with Beth George and Ron Blome.

Welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. This week we'll examine one of the most controversial issues of this decade: court-ordered desegregation and forced busing. For Louisianians, this issue is coming very close to home as evidenced by the events in the community of Forest Hill, Louisiana. This week we have a report on the situation in Rapides Parish and the lessons to be learned for East Baton Rouge Parish. Beth, if some of those issues of national implication were in the news this week, some national politicians were in our backyard. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan paid a visit to Louisiana and, not to be outdone, the Democrats sent one of their top campaigners to the state, Miss Lillian, the president's mother. We'll have a story on presidential politics Louisiana style. Ron, Louisiana has more than its share of national attention this week. In large measure, it came from the dramatic story of a group of parents who took over their local school. This action came in response to a federal court order closing the school. But what happened in Forest Hill is only symptomatic of the problems facing Louisiana's public schools. This week, a closer look at school desegregation.

Across Louisiana, the opening of school year 1980 has brought a time of uncertainty and change, a time when the arrival of school buses has meant the advent of court-ordered busing and, with it, citizen discontent. The school's the whole community. If we lose it, we've lost our community. So we'll do anything to keep it. We feel like we could get a better education here than we could at Carter C. It's just, I'm glad that our parents are trying to keep our school open. I just wish they'd keep our school open instead of closing it. Since the early 1970s, school systems in Louisiana have been officially desegregated, but shifting population patterns have produced increasing numbers of one- race schools, predominantly white in rural and suburban areas and increasingly black in urban central city schools. This development, coupled with a new federal push to eliminate the vestiges of segregation, has placed school boards at

odds with the federal courts. In Rapides Parish schools opened this fall under a plan developed by Federal District Judge Nauman Scott. The plan calls for a system of clustering some schools and increased busing of students after the fifth grade. Four schools have been turned into special sixth grade centers and there remain three predominantly black kindergarten through second grade elementary schools. But the most controversial feature of Judge Scott's plan has been the closing of three schools, one of those in the rural community of Forest Hill, Louisiana. We want our school. This is our community. It's, the school is the center of our community and the school has been here 80 years. This is generation, my little girl's the third generation of our family to attend here. I mean, it's very sentimental is what it amounts to. We want our school. On September 9th, parents in the Forest Hill community took over their local school. Classes were conducted in defiance of the federal court order closing the school and under the

glare of increasing media attention. Clyde Holloway, who owns a local nursery, served as acting principal and mothers were brought in as volunteer teachers. The issue that rallied this community was, in their words, not one of racism but survival. The building to be closed not only a school, but the heart of the town. The classes continued for a week. But on Wednesday, September 17th, federal marshals issued subpoenas that signaled the end of the occupation. Federal Judge Nauman Scott was cracking down, telling 26 mothers and eight fathers that they had until midnight to get out of the school or be subject to daily fines of $100 to $300. The following morning the parents complied with the court order, but held a brief ceremony closing the school and serving notice that they would appeal the decision of the judge while they conducted classes in three local churches. I characterize it as a, as a right of a community to survive. I forget about education on this issue because anybody who knows

anything about rural communities knows and especially a place where people live essentially in the woods, so to speak, at 4:00 in the afternoon there is no nothing open in Forest Hill, that the school is the nucleus of that society. It is the heart of it. Chris Roy is the attorney for the people of Forest Hill and he contends that those in rural Rapides Parish should not have to bear the burden of desegregating the Alexandria city school system. It was not closed because it was inadequate as a facility. It was not closed because it didn't have enough students. It was not closed because the people didn't support it. It was closed to dilute a mixture which had been ordered, paired and clustered in a, in a, in an urban area. It was closed because of urban problems and it's not fair to rural people because they're two different societies. But the issue of Forest Hill may not be as clear cut as attorney Roy makes it sound. For

the children from this school are not being bused 18 miles into the city of Alexandria, but rather being bused 12 miles to Lecompte, another rural town where the high school students from Forest Hill are already taken. Nevertheless in the community of Forest Hill the emotional impact of the court decision is still strong, the parents still watching the now-deserted school. Well, we're feeling sad, but not defeated. We would like to remain in our school building, but we are going to keep our children and remain in our town. There seems to be some concern over the fact of what happens to the children now in terms of going on to other grades and this sort of thing. What are the plans, Dorothy? Well, they're trying to get the school accredited and we'll just start from there and see what we can do. Just going to mostly concentrate on education. A lot has been made of the fact that this is not a racial issue at all, but an issue of school being the heart of the community. That is an accurate assessment? That is an accurate assessment.

We get along well with the blacks in our community and a lot of us have worked with blacks in other areas, lived by blacks in other areas. And this is not a racial issue, no matter what anyone is saying. This is not race. This is for our community. We feel like our point was expressed. We feel like the people realize the importance of this school to our community and probably schools similae like it all over the nation in the rural areas that really are the heart of the communities and there's just more than anyone from the city could ever understand feeling between the parents and the school. I wish everyone in America could understand what it is to live in a rural area and what the school means to a rural area. But in a larger sense, the story of Forest Hill is just a portion of the desegregation issue. The most visible reaction of a community adjusting or not adjusting to the realities of what the federal government is mandating across the country. And they understand very clearly that their local community school has

been closed and that they had no voice in that closing. And that they feel their community life will be disrupted because of the closure and that their children are being unduly abused. That's very clear to them. Jo Ann Kellogg is a member of the Rapides Parish School Board, a nine-member board with two blacks and one woman. It is on the school board level that community pressure is most clearly felt, and how the school board reacts may in large measure ensure the success or failure of any desegregation plan. And I've heard many people say why doesn't the school board arrange a plan for its own parish. And I can only say that politics is, is the ground rule there. Someone has to say my children will be bused somewhere and politically no elected official is willing to sit down with the other elected officials and say okay my kids get bused, but yours don't. Or we can bus

your kids, but you're not going to bus mine. So consequently the federal government and attorneys for the private plaintiff have forced federal officials into doing something that the local systems would not or could not do for themselves. And sometimes that plan is far less palatable than the one that could be devised by the local community itself. That's correct. Because historically courts send in experts who have no affection for the community. And so they do a desegregation plan based on numbers. White chips and black chips. And they simply count the number of white people here and the number of black people here, and they put them together in a situation where they will have a racial mix that is acceptable to the courts. The difficulty there is that the community tolerance level is not taken into account. Nor are cultural differences

taken into account. And particularly here in Rapides, we have great diversity within our own parish. And so we have tremendous problems there. I'm not as familiar with East Baton Rouge as I am with Rapides and, say, Natchitoches. but there's no way that an outsider is going to be sensitive to local issues the way that local people are. It seems also that there is an interesting conflict set up between rural and urban communities. That's correct. In the metropolitan area of Alexandria, we have the largest population of black students. In the rural areas, we have in some instances no black students residing there and in other instances very few. And many rural residents of the parish feel that they are being used to solve what is essentially an urban problem. And, of course, the

urban people have a rather different perspective and that is, in order to have an integrated school system, you must have both black children and white children. And if you have no more white children to integrate with, then you of necessity go further and further away from your metropolitan area to draw those white children in. Haven't we seen patterns, experiences throughout the country that you can almost say this happened then, next this happened and then ultimately you have a flight from the public school system. That is correct. Ultimately it results in another, another segregated system. A private, except it's on, it's on different criteria. Instead of being segregated by race, they are segregated by economics. And you have a private system for the more affluent members of society and you have a public system for the less affluent members of society. Though they be black, white or any other ethnic origin.

And I think that has been pretty...the pattern has been established all over the United States in the South and the Midwest as in Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas. Now they're looking at cross district busing in Houston. Certainly New Orleans, which opened its public school system this year with 93 percent black enrollment, Los Angeles, which is undergoing terrible problems right now. But then how do you maintain the integrity, the balance? How do you maintain the public school system? What is going to happen here in Rapides? Are you going to see this same pattern established? The same flights in the schools? It depends on an enormous number of factors. I think that, you know, it depends on on the action of your local people. If, for example, a majority of the Rapides Parish School Board has voted to appeal this to the 5th Circuit, the 5th circuit certainly has the authority to uphold Judge

Scott's plan, in which case I feel that we could probably work the kinks out and and maintain a viable public education system. However, if the 5th Circuit chose to initiate a more drastic remedy, such as busing much younger children, I think that you're going, you're going to see more and more people leave the public school system. The school crisis in Forest Hill has received most of the media attention across the state. But in the rest of the parish, the desegregation plan has been implemented without incident. But for other communities in Louisiana, such as East Baton Rouge Parish, the process of increased desegregation is just beginning. Facing an October 15 deadline to develop a plan, the school board and its attorney John Ward must also face the problems now confronting Rapides Parish. The onslaught of these federal court decisions in the federal government in the area of desegregation has definitely damaged the public

school systems everywhere and made it more difficult for them to provide the type quality education that they would like to do. We still have, in spite of that, have a good public school system in this state. It hurts when things required by the federal government that the school board cannot control, that is, the people themselves. When the people object so strongly to what the federal government is requiring that they leave the school system. Because when you lose students and support from the community from any segment of the community and they leave to go elsewhere in the country or another parish or private schools, then the school system loses. There's no question about that. But the school systems, I think all over the state, have are bearing up to the burden and are keeping a good school system for the students that attend that school.

If there is a clear consensus that quality education and desegregation are the mandates for the future in the state's public school system, there's little unanimity in how to achieve those ends. For years school boards have adopted "it's best to wait and see" attitude, maintaining that a neighborhood concept can exist within a system that, taken as a whole, is desegregated. But recent decisions by federal judges have thrown that argument out the window. East Baton Rouge Superintendent Raymond Arveson says the choice is very clear. I think the question is clear and, you know, the judge said it in that last sentence. And that's what happens if you don't do the planning, I will. You know, that's what happened in that one. It's happened in other cases across the nation. Take a look at Cleveland. And he uses the terminology, Judge Parker uses the terminology, I have no inclination to be a super superintendent, and I'm glad he doesn't. That's my job, to be a superintendent. But I think the message just shouts out at us --

you do the planning or somebody else will do it for you. On the fundamental issue of busing to achieve racial balance, there appears to be a shift in public sentiment. Whether that will be reflected in federal policy is still unclear. And so public education has become a field for social experimentation over and above its original purpose for educating young Americans. And until the public begins to realize, through the electoral process, that public education is not to take care of sociological phenomenon that they would like to see develop, then we're going to continue suffering from a quality standpoint. But the shifting of public sentiment and public policy may mean little to parents faced with the day-to-day reality of coping with a difficult school situation. And for the children it means simply trying to learn in an adult world that is often confusing.

To update this story, we can simply tell you that the parents in Forest Hill have appealed the judge's order closing their school and are continuing to hold classes in local churches. On the parish level, the Rapides Parish School Board has appealed the entire desegregation plan to the 5th Circuit. In East Baton Rouge Parish, school board members have asked for a delay in coming up with the desegregation plan. Federal Judge John Parker has imposed an October 15th deadline, and the school board is asking for an additional two months. On a national level, Thursday the U.S. Senate voted to prohibit the Justice Department from taking any sort of action to require the busing of children to school. This language was added to an appropriation bill. Similar actions by the Congress in the past have resulted in little change. But this latest action seems to be a clear expression of legislative sentiment in an election year. Well, Beth, after the events of this week we know for sure it's an election year here in Louisiana. In fact those that are counseling the three presidential candidates would like us to believe that this is the most important race ever, that the choices are clear, and the issues are well defined. Those assumptions may be debatable in

themselves, but what is clear is that this time around the public has been been bombarded with coverage of the candidates in the campaign for well over a year. Now we're going to do it, as we present our coverage of the campaign in Louisiana. As the presidential election draws closer, the candidates are beginning to pay more attention to the states that political analysts have said could go either way, which could admittedly define all 50 states, but that's what they're calling Louisiana this year: a state that could go either way. Needless to say, the candidates have been paying attention to Louisiana. Ronald Reagan has been here twice this month. His wife has paid one visit. Ms. Lillian Carter, the President's mother, came here this week following a visit by presidential son Chip Carter and the President will be here next month. Thank you all. And John Anderson Jr. made a stop to promote his father's independent candidacy who is not expected to come visit. One factor that makes the presidential contest in Louisiana all the more interesting is that it pits the prestige of the state's top political rivals against each other. Republican Governor Dave Treen is leading the Reagan campaign and Democratic former

Governor Edwin Edwards is heading up the Carter effort. Treen was present for a visit by Reagan to New Orleans earlier this month. When the candidate arrived at LSU in Baton Rouge this week, Treen was on vacation in California. The Reagan staff considered the second visit to the state important, however, and they made sure the candidate paid homage to the symbol of the LSU football team Mike the Bengal tiger. From there the Reagan entourage pressed into the LSU Assembly Center where local campaign officials had assembled a very large and partisan crowd. Let's make the choice, let's look at the record, and let's elect a man who can and will produce. With your help, let's elect Ronald Reagan president of the United States. As Reagan began his speech, a young man from the crowd shouted, "No more hostages." And the Republican

candidate lost no time in picking up on another opportunity to attack the President. (applause) Whatever may happen with those, our fellow Americans, the plight for almost a year now of a half a hundred Americans still being held hostage, citizens of this great and powerful nation, is an example of what is wrong with the foreign policy of this administration. (applause) Reagan's campaign staff had billed this speech as a major policy statement, but for the most part the rhetoric echoed the themes of Reagan's earlier speeches espousing freedom in the American way and attacking Jimmy Carter's handling of national defense and the economy. No one has ever asked the most important question: why. Why do we need a new strategy for economic growth? Well, one obvious

answer is that the current economic disaster we are enduring calls for a change. (applause) The interaction of freedom and security are all important. We can attain security both for our families and our nation only by trusting freedom to work, and we can keep freedom only if we're economically secure. If each family and each individual of the United States knows that government policies are not suddenly going to change the rules of the game through inflation, taxes or unemployment. Such changes erode the spirit of dedication and sense of purpose which are at the heart of a defense of freedom. President Carter disagrees with my vision of a secure economic freedom. He still believes after three and a half years of failure that economic prosperity can somehow be created by the machinery of government. There were a lot of cheers for Reagan at LSU, but also a few boos from some Southern University

students who felt their band was pressured by an aide to Governor Treen into playing for a candidate that they don't support. The governor's office denied that they brought any pressure to have the all-black band attend. Reagan made sure to personally thank the band members to avoid an embarrassing campaign incident. The scene for this week's Carter campaign foray into Louisiana may have reflected the President's concern with holding on to his rural Southern support. He sent his mother, Miss Lillian, to the small town of Montpelier for a rally and a fund-raising dinner with Democratic leaders. There the President's mother received a cowboy hat and cut a ribbon to officially dedicate a mechanical riding bull. And although Miss Lillian wore the hat, she declined to ride the bull. Miss Lillian could hardly be expected to address the political issues of the day. And she didn't. She did please the crowd, however, with anecdotes about her son, the President. As to her other son, Billy, the one who gets into trouble, White House campaign staffers told reporters: Don't even ask. So what did reporters ask Miss Lillian? Well, they asked if the South is important to the campaign. The South is always the most important part of the world. [Applause]

Thank you all for coming. I've had a very enjoyable...(fades) And not to leave the Anderson campaign out, we can report that John Anderson Jr. paid a campaign visit to Louisiana last week, although he said he almost didn't make it. So I was going to be in New Orleans and I figured I should stop in Baton Rouge and do some campaigning here. And it's a good thing I got off my plane because it was hijacked to Cuba. The very Delta 333 was the one that I took from Dallas, so you don't know how happy I am to be in Baton Rouge and not Havana. Other than that, Anderson Jr. didn't have much to say except that it really was nice to be in Louisiana and he thought his dad would make a great president. If there is a common thread to all these campaign events, it is that they are well covered by the media and, when the candidates themselves show up, they are well orchestrated. To some, it is a disturbing trend that the campaign trail is a journey through staged events. Hugh Sidey, veteran White House correspondent for TIME magazine, says it's not good, but it's nothing new. And this

election, I believe, extends it beyond anything we've seen before. A part of it is, indeed, the problem of limited finances and they're going to use it. But also part of it that it's a spectacle down here. It's brought on principally by the networks. They invest millions of dollars. It's good show biz. The fusion of politics and show biz, quite honestly, is one of the dreadful developments of our time. We have the permanent campaign from election to election, and it's played across this great electronic stage and these men play to that. And frequently substance is lost in all of that, so that there isn't any question that these large caravans of journalists who follow these people are used and they're growing every year. It has become a great spectacle. It almost becomes kind of a dog-and-pony show then. Well, it is indeed. The principal assignment or the task every day of the candidate is to get on Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor's news and that's done in 90-second bursts. Now you don't do that in discussing the tax policy. You do it

in some kind of gimmick, an attack on your opponent or either you wear a funny hat or you go someplace. And so the result is that we have too many gimmicks in politics. We have too many rather bizarre and extraordinary events that really don't relate to the issues. The personalities of men are legitimate discussion areas, but that's gone beyond bounds in some ways, too. So what they play for, in virtually everything now, is is is the drama. And that distorts politics. What does all that say about the presidency then and the future of it? Well, it doesn't say necessarily it has to be that way. I'm one who believes you can change it. If you get a viable candidate, which is difficult. The selection process is lousy. It's bad. You have to have a man who's unemployed, who is wealthy, who wants to give up his family, his fortune and pursue this goal. And in the process he's savaged by the media plus the special interests. It's a tough life. You get very singular people that try out for it. The presidency though is an institution I think is still viable.

You get a strong man who understands who he is, where he's going, what he wants. And I think it works. But it gets more difficult with every year. And, of course, there's a lot more campaigning to come and we'll be covering that. Of interest, I think, will be that showdown if there is one between Governor Treen and former Governor Edwards. President Carter has already scheduled a stop in Louisiana on October 21st, and I'm sure will be there at that time. We'll be back next week with another edition of The State We're In at our regular time on Friday evening, and our repeat time will be changed from Sunday morning to Sunday afternoon at 4:30. We hope you'll join us then. I'm Beth George. I'm Ron Blome. [theme music]

Production assistance for the preceding program was provided in part by Kaiser Aluminum.