Cautious Progress

The voters of Little Rock, like the voters of Virginia, have made clear that if there is no other choice, they will not abandon free public education to avoid desegregation. Last week the doors of Little Rock's embattled Central High School swung open again--for the registering of students for the September reopening ordered last month by a federal court. Some 48 Negro youngsters were registered at Central, including five of the nine admitted before Governor Faubus closed the schools last year. Six more applied for admission to other Little Rock schools where Negroes have never been enrolled before. Elsewhere in the South, there was progress, however cautious: ¶ Florida's first desegregated school will be Miami's Orchard Villa Elementary School, where four Negro pupils have been told to report this fall. ¶ The North Carolina tidewater town of Havelock, possibly forestalling withdrawal of U.S. aid for its overcrowded white schools, decided to admit the children of Negro marines serving at nearby Cherry Point airbase to white schools. ¶ Two federal court orders for the submission of desegregation plans opened the possibility of desegregation in the South's two largest public-school systems: Atlanta must offer a plan by Nov. 1. New Orleans by March 1.

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