Won't discuss racial situation
Lawrence School Board doesn't listen
By MIKE SHEARER
Kansan Staff Writer
More than 100 persons were asked to leave a Lawrence School Board meeting last night.
The crowd, consisting of predominantly white college students and instructors, left the meeting, stood outside the Administration Building, 2017 Louisiana, for a few minutes and then returned to the meeting.
The board then adjourned to the office of Carl Knox, superintendent of schools, to meet behind locked doors.
The meeting was for board members to discuss building plans with architects, and the board refused to enter into dialogue with the crowd which was hoping to discuss Lawrence High School's racial situation.
The board said it could not discuss LHS racial problems because they were not on the agenda of the meeting which had been called so board members could meet with architects.
Many in the crowd were members of "Concerned Citizens Crisis Coalition," a group of KU faculty members, students, ministers and Lawrence citizens which formed last week following the walkout at Lawrence High School by about 50 black students.
The "Concerned Citizens" faction of the crowd distributed "recommendations" to the board in the form of a two-page proclamation attacking "pervasive discrimination, inadequate curriculum and underrepresentation of black students in school affairs."
The proclamation asked for the immediate implementation of the following demands which had been made by black LHS students:
- Inclusion of "Afro-American history" into the curriculum as a part of the regular American history course and as a separate course on African history.
- Recognition of a black student group which has the right to meet during school time.
- Election of at least one black cheerleader.
- Employment of more black teachers, a full-time black counselor and at least one black coach.
- A black exchange student at the high school.
The proclamation further asked for the censure of the high school's administration for "irresponsible actions in not fulfilling its commitment and allowing a critical problem in community relations to develop."
The concerned citizens had gone to he meeting after more than one person had talked with Jim Owens, president of the board, and had understood that the meeting would be open to discussion of the black students' demands.
All the board members denied having told anyone the meeting would be open to discussion of Lawrence High's racial situation.
The board then promised to put the issue first on the agenda Oct. 7, and the crowd left after making a few objections.
The crowd returned to an outer office of the board chambers a few minutes later.
Knox left the meeting to tell the crowd it was creating a disturbance.
"You are creating a disturbance in my soul," replied one of the crowd.
Rick Atkinson, Belleville graduate student, and Mrs. Georgella Lyles, 1745 Ohio, the mother of black children who will attend Lawrence High, led the crowd back into the meeting.
Owens then called for a coffee break and most or the board members as well as the architects who were meeting with them left the room.
During the coffee break, Knox told the citizens, "There will be serious attention given this problem. The machinery has been set up and is in motion to take a look at every problem."
When the board members returned, Owens told the citizens once again, "There is no doubt but that you will be heard on Oct. 7."
Referring to the board's discussion with architects, Mrs. Lyles said, "I don't think we need another building if we don't have a school."
After refusing to leave the room, the crowd was told by Owens, "You can either clear the room or we will go to the superintendent's office and lock the door."
"We didn't come in here to make small talk with you," Owens said.
"We don't think this is small talk," said a member of the crowd.
The board members then adjourned to Knox's office and continued their meeting behind closed doors, and the crowd dispersed.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
79th Year, No.11
--cal and military necessity that the United States withdraw, he said.
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Tuesday, October 1, 1968
UDK News Roundup by United Press International
Longshoremen strike
With the exception of heavy police details in Brooklyn's predominantly Negro and Puerto Rican Hill-Brownsville school district, classes proceeded normally everywhere for the city's 1.12 million public school children.
NEW YORK—A strike of 75,000 dockworkers began at midnight Monday, tying up most cargoes in ports from Maine to Texas. President Johnson had already moved to cut it short before it began.
Meet again on Pueblo
The President invoked the Taft-Hartley law Monday night, only a few hours before the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) struck the seaports on expiration of its contract with the New York Shipping Association.
Even though the President invoked the order before the strike, it would be sometime Tuesday before the administration could go to court to seek an injunction under the law that would send the ILA back to work for an 80-day cooling off period.
N.Y. teachers teach
The department's press officer, Robert J. McCloskey, said he expected the meetings at the truce village in which the United States is seeking the release of the Pueblo and the crew would continue.
WASHINGTON-U.S. and North Korean officials held another meeting late Sunday night at Panmunjom to discuss the status of the USS Pueblo's imprisoned 82-man crew. The State Department said yesterday there was "no breakthrough."
NEW YORK-New York's striking school teachers returned to classrooms throughout the city yesterday despite a neighborhood school board's rejection of a strike settlement made by the teachers and the city.
--cal and military necessity that the United States withdraw, he said.
Ex-Viet ambassador wants Americans out
Tran Van Dinh, former South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States, says he is backing the Communists in Vietnam.
"One problem exists in Vietnam today-how to get Americans out," Dinh said at a Minorities Opinion Forum in the Kansas Union Forum Room.
Dinh said he believes the United States should withdraw all its troops from Vietnam. It is a political and military necessity that the United States withdraw, he said.
"The U.S. could withdraw within a period of three to six months," Dinh said. "It doesn't take near as much time to get out as it does to get in."
Dinh said he realizes it would be very difficult for the U.S. to quit because of the many casualties sustained by American soldiers. But he
Talking about the bombing of North Vietnam, Dinh said the North Vietnamese attitude was that the U.S. must end the bombing to be on the same moral level as the Vietnamese are.
"As a Vietnamese, I can only approve of the North Vietnamese attitude toward bombing," Dinh said.
U.S. Marines hold off Communist assaults
SAIGON (UPI)—U.S. Marines killed 30 North Vietnamese regulars dug into bunkers near the beseiged Special Forces outpost at Thuong Duc, and B52 bombers blasted encircling Red positions with 350 tons of bombs, military spokesmen said Tuesday.
But the tiny, star-shaped Green Beret camp entered its fourth day of withstanding assault by Communist units that battered a relief column Monday and raised Hanoi's flag over a nearby village.
Military spokesmen said the Marine unit overran the North Vietnamese bunkers less than 12 miles from Thuong Duc Monday, killed 30 Reds inside the crumbling bunkers and routed the rest in three hours of fighting. U.S. losses were reported as one killed and one wounded.
In the Demilitarized Zone, between the two Vietnames, the jaws of two converging American forces were about to meet Tuesday but allied commanders conceded that the North Vietnamese division they hoped to trap apparently fled north across the Ben Hai river.
Military spokesmen said they saw
no connection between the Marine engagement and the nearby battle for Thuong Duc.
Shortly after the Marine fight, spokesmen said, the giant B52 Stratofortresses dropped their payloads of 350 tons of high explosives on North Vietnamese positions near the camp.
U. S. and South Vietnamese defenders have held the strategic outpost 30 miles southwest of Da Nang against repeated human wave attacks and rocket bombardments since Saturday.
At stake is control of the An Hoa Valley, an infiltration route Communist commanders have used to funnel supplies toward Da Nang for a possible second full-scale assault on South Vietnam's second largest city.
Far to the south, Communist gunners kept tension at a peak around Saigon by lobbing 40 rounds of mortar fire into the nearby allied base at Long Binh Monday night. Spokesmen said they missed their target, an ammunition supply dump, and did only light damage and light casualties.
Jayhawks are number 5 -See page 6
Dinh asked if democracy was relevant to the Vietnamese society and background.
"In Vietnam, democracy means safety for the whole community not for each individual." Dinh said.
He said he wondered if Vietnam's form of democracy was not better than that of the United States.
Dinh offered a two-part formula for peace in Vietnam:
First, put the entire blame on the United States.
Second, create a United Nations, peace-keeping force to occupy Vietnam until a suitable solution is found.
"There should be a very strong peace force in Vietnam to unify the country under a socialist leftist society. They should be responsible for making sure there is no more war, and that there would be no restrictions on the freedom of elections." Dinh said.
"I predict that by next year, whoever will be President of the United States, will end the war in Vietnam," he said.
Dinh's lecture was sponsored by the American Friends Committee
(Continued on page 8)
WEATHER
Partly cloudy and warm with southwest winds 15 to 20 m.p.h. today. Partly cloudy to cloudy and mild with a slight chance of light showers tonight and Wednesday. High today lower 80s, low tonight 55 to 60. Precipitation probabilities 10 per cent today and 20 per cent tonight and Wednesday.