National Affairs: Strong Hand in Kentucky

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Albert Benjamin ("Happy") Chandler, the sometimes clownish governor of Kentucky and the first announced candidate for President of the U.S. in 1960, has his faults—but racial demagoguery has never been one of them. Under Chandler the number of integrated school districts in Kentucky rose to 92 (out of 217) by the end of the 1956-57 school year, and Louisville became a model of its kind. Last week seven more Kentucky districts began integration—including coal-mining Union County, where a Sturgis (pop. 2,300) mob last year turned away Negroes trying to enroll in high school.

The Sturgis crowd was on hand again for last week's school opening—and so were eight state troopers, thoughtfully dispatched to the scene by the Chandler administration. Seventeen Negro students arriving at the high school were jeered. A few handfuls of gravel and four or five empty soda-pop cans were tossed, but the presence of the cops held off real trouble. Next morning the crowd was down from about 300 to about 100—and the trooper force boomed to 30. The cops were not trying to make trouble ("If these people will only meet us halfway," implored the captain in charge), but they were ready when it came.

The students were already in school when two Negro women wandered past, unwisely stopped to see what was going on. Fat, fiftyish Madge Lucas, one of the noisiest of the whites, lumbered over to the Negro women, shouted, "Who's going to help me take these niggers for a ride?" The response was less than enthusiastic. "All right," screamed Madge Lucas, "you take care of the cops, and I'll get those niggers in the car myself." At that point, four husky troopers closed in on her, dumped her without further ceremony into a patrol car, and lugged her off the scene.

That took the heart out of the Sturgis crowd. It was reduced to muttering about "police brutality." That night—under the watchful eyes of a detail of troopers—the local White Citizens League rallied, heard prayerful thanks because "God did not cross us with a sea gull or a crow." It was all just so much noise. Next morning Sturgis was as quiet as if it had always had an integrated school.