Teachers Association which is a national organization composed of Negro teachers and officers from the nursery school through the university, with membership and affiliations aggregating approximately 20,000; and (3) the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest Negro Greek-Letter college fraternity in the world, having a membership of approximately 6,000 located in all the States of the Union. We approve this bill in its present form because it seems to us to be the best drawn bill of its kind and for its purpose that has come to our attention. We like the objectives stated in the bill; the establishment of a board of apportionment and the prescriptions under which it must operate; the principles of certification and payment; the requirement that the State shall by overt act of its legislature accept the provisions of the bill; and the method of auditing and reporting. These are, in our judgment, all very commendable features. We are especially solicitous that none of these provisions as written shall be weakened by amendment. We are interested in all of the groups whose educational progress it aims to promote, but we are particularly interested in those aspects of the bill intended to aid in equalizing educational opportunities of minority races. In some respects, of course, the interests of the minority races parallel the interests of other groups as, for instance, in the case of the provision for rural schools.

It seems necessary, however, to point out that this bill will not be a panacea for our educational and financial ills. It does not touch the other Federal appropriations which now are being used so largely for the education of white persons. Moreover, the real cure for inequality of educational opportunity in most of the States which maintain separate schools by law for Negroes lies, we think, in a more equitable distribution of State and Federal funds for all of the people, but this seems impossible without depriving a part of the children of advantages now enjoyed. We seek equalization without reducing one whit the educational opportunities now offered white persons in these States. In other words, we seek equality of educational opportunity by additions to the present outlay, if practicable, instead of diminishing the educational opportunities of others by subtraction from what they already have.

As we see it, if there is any aspect of the bill about which one may reasonably entertain doubt, it lies in section 6 (a) (1) (F), beginning with line 25 on page 8 and extending through line 8 on page 9. provision reads:

This

n States where separate public schools are maintained for separate races, provide for a just and equitable apportionment of such funds for the benefit of public schools maintained for minority races, without reduction of the proportion of State and local moneys expended for current expenses (not counting moneys expended for the construction or equipment of school buildings or the purchase of land) during the fiscal year ended in 1940 for public schools for minority races;

* * *

There is danger that the expenditures during "the fiscal year ended in 1940" may freeze a floor for current State expenditures for Negroes which in time may become outmoded and unjust. We suggest the desirability that the fixing of the floors become the object of recurrent legislation in appropriations bills from year to year, but that under no circumstances is it to fall below the current expenditures of 1940.

We respectfully urge enactment of this bill without weakening amendments for the following reasons which are intended to supplement testimony already before this committee:

1. As is well known, as of January 1940, 9 of the 17 States maintaining separate schools for Negroes have passed laws providing graduate fellowships for extra State education. They are Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina. In a number of instances these fellowships are based upon the differences of cost of education in the State institution and the cost of education in the nearest available institution of learning which offers the subject which the student seeks and which is not offered in the Negro public schools in the State. This has the disadvantage in some instances of limiting the student's opportunity for getting training of a high order. It also loses the advantage which a good home institution has of advertising education in the community and attracting a larger percentage of the population. These laws are encumbered in a number of ways. In some States the student must have been a resident citizen of the State for a number of years. Kentucky and Oklahoma require that the applicant be a resident for 5 years. Texas apparently requires an 8-year residence for the applicant. Finally, there is a marked variability among these scholarships. According to Oliver C. Cox, from 1936 to 1939, Kentucky awarded 304 scholarships averaging $54.62; Maryland, 130 averaging $83.75; Missouri during the period 1937-38 awarded 279 averaging $91.96. During the period 1936-38 Oklahoma awarded 228 averaging $36.42; Virginia, 517 averaging $74.14; and West Virginia, 198 averaging $61.35. Up to January 1940 only two of the Negro land-grant colleges awarded degrees above the Bachelor'sTexas and Virginia. Texas offers the M. A. degree in four fields-two in agriculture and two in education. Virginia State College for Negroes offers the M. A. degree in agriculture, education, English, home economics, and the science-mathematics group.

The provisions of this bill, we believe, will help remedy this situation and harmonize it with the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States.

2. Although the land-grant colleges for Negroes awarded degrees in a number of fields in the year 1939-40, I think everyone will agree that these institutions are insufficiently supported for the work they are undertaking. In order to illustrate this lack of proper support I have organized from Circular 187, Preliminary Report, Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Year Ending June 30, 1940, United States Office of Education, comparisons between the support given the landgrant colleges for Negroes in the 17 States providing separate schools by law and the support given corresponding colleges for white persons in those States.

In studying table I, one must keep in mind that the 1930 percentage of Negroes in these 17 States of the total population is about 23. We observe that from Federal sources the Negroes received only 3.6 percent of the moneys appropriated for land-grant colleges (this does not take account of the Smith-Hughes and George-Deen funds which are matched by the States); from the States, 10 percent, and from the counties 1.7 percent. From all sources the land-grant colleges

for Negroes received 7.3 percent of the regular income from Federal, State, and county sources listed in circular 187.

TABLE I.—General income from governmental sources, year ended June 30, 1940

Table II gives a break-down of the Federal funds received by the land-grant colleges, 1939-40. Through the Interior Department: 1862 land-grant fund, land-grant colleges for Negroes received 15 percent; from other Federal land-grant funds, 0 percent; supplementary Morrill funds, 28.6 percent, (this is the fund well known because the law specifically provides that the money shall be divided on a population ratio). Through the Department of Agriculture: Hatch-Adams funds, 0 percent; Smith-Lever funds, 0 percent; Clarke-McNary funds, 0 percent; Purnell funds, 0 percent; Capper-Ketcham funds, 0 percent; Bankhead-Jones funds for agriculture, 0 percent; further development funds for extension, 0 percent; other funds, 0 percent. It is probable that some of the funds received by the white colleges are spent on Negro extension work or otherwise. The Negro land-grant colleges received 5.9 percent of the P. W. A. funds.

Table III gives the collegiate enrollments in these schools. The number of Negro students of college grade 3 weeks after the beginning of the fall term 1939-40 was 14.7 percent of the total. In the summer session of 1939-40, 20.3 percent of the total enrollment in land-grant colleges were in land-grant colleges for Negroes. Thus it is clear that although the Negro colleges had 16.5 percent of the total collegiate enrollment in land-grant colleges, they received not in excess of 8 or 9 percent of the funds from Federal, State, and county sources, bearing in mind omission indicated above.

Table IV shows expenditures. We see that for organized research the Negro land-grant colleges spent 0 percent; for extension services separately organized, 0.5 percent; for libraries, 10.6 percent; for plant operation and maintenance, 17.1 percent; for administrative and general expense, 14.5 percent, and for resident instruction, 11.5 percent. TABLE IV.-Expenditures, year ending June 30, 1940, for educational and general purposes (omitting organized activities related to instructional departments)

3. Obviously we are interested not alone in higher education, although that is vastly important because it is this area of educational preparation from which we may expect our leadership. The fact is that the situation is perhaps just as bad in the lower levels of instruction. The percentage high-school enrollment of the total enrollment in 18 States (which includes the District of Columbia) is 7.7 for Negroes, 19.6 for whites. The percentages range from 2.26 for Negroes and 18.77 for whites in Mississippi to 16.63 and 25.99 in the District of Columbia. These percentages tend to give a rather more optimistic impression than is warranted when one realizes that there is a considerable proportional discrepancy between their bases. In 1930 the percentage of Negro children ages 5 to 20 attending school was 60; the percentage of white children 5 to 20 was 71.5. For the ages 14 to 17 the discrepancy between the percentages is about 10. At ages 14 and 15, 78.1 percent of Negroes and 90.4 percent of whites are attending school; the percentages for years 16 and 17 are 46.3 and 58.9; for 18 and 20, 13.3 and 22.6. In 17 States and the District of Columbia in 1936 the percentages of high-school enrollment by grades to the totals of Negro and white enrollments respectively were: First year, 3.1 and 6.7; second year, 2.1 and 5.3; third year, 1.5 and 4.1, and fourth year, 1.0 and 3.4.

In 16 States "there are available proportionately fewer than onethird as many Negro high school teachers as there are white high school teachers." Wilkerson finds that "425 counties with very limited

secondary school facilities, 4 with none at all, were concentrated chiefly in States with large Negro populations, notably Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama." In 17 States and the District of Columbia there are proportionately nearly three times as many white as Negro pupils in high schools. In Mississippi the disparity rises to the alarming proportion of nine white pupils to one Negro pupil. In the United States as a whole for every 100 pupils, age 14 to 17 inclusive, 60 are in high school; in 17 Southern States and the District of Columbia the ratio for white pupils of these ages is 55 whereas for Negro pupils it is 19.

It is my understanding that the problem with reference to elementary schools has already been presented and I have no desire to repeat the testimony here.

Citizens of African descent labor under marked disadvantages. They bear the stigma of previous condition of servitude; they are marked off by anthropological features which make them easily identified as objects of discrimination; they are discriminated against in the areas of employment, extending even to the defense program; and they are substantially isolated in most instances from the main streams of culture. It is, therefore, of manifold importance that the Federal Government leave no stone unturned to see that they are guaranteed equal opportunity to prepare for competition with other citizens in an essentially competitive society.

We believe that this bill is a move in the right direction and heartily

endorse it.

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, I can hardly refrain from making a remark in the presence of the three men who have been testifying, representing the blacks in America. Really and truly, the American Negro doesn't know what real racial, cultural prejudice is like.

I say that as a man who spent much of his lifetime among other peoples, and I know it. We can change probably the whole aspect of many of the phases by changed attitudes toward them.

I have lived among peoples. The one I am thinking about nowI happened to just watch him making a pot, and as soon as I left the doorway he came out with that pot, spit, of course, because there are certain peoples in the world who always spit when they are in close proximity to those whom they hate; and then threw the pot with all his might and main and broke it into hundreds of pieces, because I had looked at it.

With all the sympathy in the world that a man who knows what these are like, can have, and I know I am not preaching to the right people because all of you men have been students who are here and I am not preaching at all, but I do hope that you all realize that the best friends we have for this Federal aid to education bill are the men who represent the South pretty much on our committee; and in our committee we have never heard, in the 3 or 4 years that the bill has been before us, anything but the finest appreciation of the problem and an earnest and honest desire to help in every way possible.

I know you will forgive me for saying that; and thank you for coming.

Dr. LONG. Senator, I would like to say that we certainly appreciate your attitude in this matter and we deeply appreciate the attitude of the men from the South who are interested in this program and see our point of view. I hope you will not for a moment think that