Reality in Atlanta

"We are up against reality," editorialized the Atlanta Constitution. Indeed, the city's board of education had not only faced reality but accepted it. Ordered by U.S. District Judge Frank A. Hooper to present an acceptable integration plan (TIME, June 15), the board delivered last week on schedule. Proposed: a pupil-placement plan patterned on the Alabama law, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled constitutional. If Judge Hooper accepts, Atlanta's 95,000 public-school students (40% Negro) will be integrated a class at a time from the twelfth grade down--a twelve-year process.

But one reality collides with another: Atlanta may face an even worse segregation crisis than Little Rock's. Under Georgia law, integration in a single school automatically shuts down the entire local system; nonfederal funds are cut off. Obvious solution is amending the law to allow integration in Atlanta alone. But Georgia's back-country state legislators, who regard Atlanta as a big-city Gomorrah, are in no mood for compromise. Even if rabidly segregationist Governor S. Ernest Vandiver wished to ease matters, he left himself no room last week. Said he: "The people of Georgia overwhelmingly elected me Governor on a platform that, among other things, made my views on school segregation well known, clear and unmistakable. Those views have not changed."

Vandiver's actions should speak softer than his words. He can close Atlanta's schools for breaking the state segregation law, but Atlantans furnish 30% of the state's entire tax revenue, and they would scarcely relish paying to educate other Georgia children while their own are barred from school. If one Atlantan proved in federal court that he was being deprived of equal protection under the law, the U.S. could order the city's schools reopened--or all Georgia schools closed down. This might even move the state legislature to give Atlanta local option. Atlantans ask: Why wait for disaster?

Last week many Atlanta parents were rallying to a new organization called HOPE (Help Our Public Education), whose 30,000 supporters hope to rouse the whole state to the danger. But many more parents are ignoring public schools. This year the city's 21 Roman Catholic schools, all segregated, have suddenly swollen past saturation point with 7,132 students. The seven independent schools, also segregated, are doing their best business in history with 3,500 students; two new lower-grade independent schools are off to such flying starts that each will soon blossom into secondary schools. As crisis approaches, Atlanta's non-public schools are entering a golden age. For public schools, the taste is slightly coppery.

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