St. Paul Recorder

NAACP Again Opposes Aid To Schools Who Defy Court Rulings
New York. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is again supporting the Powell amendment to the federal aid to school construction proposal, Roy Wilkins, executive secretary, announced here this week.

Mr. Wilkins' announcement followed President Eisenhower's Jan. 28 message to Congress proposing that more than $2 billion of federal funds be made available to the states to assist them in the construction of public schools. The President's message expressed the hope that "this school construction legislation can be enacted on its own merits, un-complicated by provisions dealing with the complex problems of Integration."

Powell To Introduce Measure
Representative Adam Clayton Powell promptly announced that he would again introduce his amendment restricting federal aid to states in which schools are already integrated or in which a start toward desegregation has been made. In the 84th Congress the New York congressman introduced a similar amendment which the NAACP vigorously supported.

In a memorandum to all state and local units of the NAACP on Jan. 28, Mr. Wilkins affirmed that "the position of the NAACP on this matter has not changed from that of previous years. We are still opposed to granting funds to states to build school where those states have refused and are still refusing to begin to desegregate their public schools in accordance with the ruling of the United States Supreme Court."

The NAACP leader cited a resolution passed by the Association's Board of Directors on Feb. 14, 1955, which declared that "any new federal legislation in aid of education in the states at whatever level or of whatever character should contain corrective and safeguarding features which make such aid valuable only to states as comply fully with the spirit and purpose of the Constitution."

Eight Defiant States
Only eight states, Mr. Wilkins' memorandum pointed out, have refused to allow any of their public elementary and secondary schools to desegregate. The other forty states are within the law and should receive assistance, he said.

"Our proposal is a simple one," the NAACP spokesman declared. "States which refuse to obey the Supreme Court should not receive the same multimillion dollar assistance as the states which obey the Supreme Court. Federal funds should not be used to underwrite defiance of the Supreme Court."

The NAACP, Mr. Wilkins asserted, will again campaign vigorously for inclusion of safeguards against the use of federal funds to build segregated schools.