Englewood, New Jersey School Board Ordered to End Racial Segregation

Press Release
May 20, 1955

Cite this item

Englewood, New Jersey School Board Ordered to End Racial Segregation preview

Document text

The following text has been generated automatically during the document scanning process. It may contain errors, omissions, or incorrect formatting. Please refer to the PDF document if this text is not usable.

Download

By downloading, publishing, or reusing the Materials outside of the Website, you hereby confirm and attest that you have read and agree to the LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use linked below. We draw your attention to the following:

For those Materials owned by LDF, your use of the Material outside the Site is solely for one or more of the following (the “Permitted Purposes”):

Non-commercial research and private study;
Teaching, scholarship and instruction (including distance learning);
Non-commercial print and non-commercial online use;
Criticism, comment or news reporting; or
For people with visual disabilities (See Section 121 of the Copyright Act).
For those Materials not owned by LDF you understand that:
- It is your responsibility to determine whether the way you plan to use the materials falls within the copyright exception of Fair Use.
- For any use outside of Fair Use, it is your responsibility to seek and obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders.

LDF hereby grants you the right to use LDF owned Materials for the Permitted Purposes without seeking further permission from LDF.

If you publish or redistribute any Materials (including excerpts and quotes), you must include a credit line and/or proper citation to the source of the Material. However, you may not use the name of LDF in any manner which creates any false association between you and LDF or that incorrectly implies any sponsorship or endorsement of you by LDF.

NOTICE: Uses that do not comply with these Terms or that do not fall under Fair Use (or another exception) may make you liable for copyright infringement.

Read the full LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use Here.

I agree to the terms and conditions for use of this content.

If you would like to use this content in other ways, contact us at

Collection
- Press Releases
Creator
- LDF
Taxonomy
Identifier
- 0f9fe102-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

Cite this item

Press Releases, Loose Pages. Englewood, New Jersey School Board Ordered to End Racial Segregation, 1955. 0f9fe102-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/76a2df1a-327b-4c0d-8fd1-9c4e8112720b/englewood-new-jersey-school-board-ordered-to-end-racial-segregation. Accessed October 31, 2025.

Copied!

    PRESS RELEASE® e 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET «© NEW YORK 36, N. Y. ¢ JUdson 6-8397 

THURGOOD MARSHALL ARTHUR 8. SPINGARN c= Disclosed Chet rei 
ROBERT L. CARTER WALTER WHITE Assistant Counsel a 
ARNOLD De MILLE 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS Press Relations 
Treasurer 

ENGL™WOOD, NEW JFRSEY SCHOOL BOARD ORDERED 
TO END RACIAL SEGREGATION 

May 20, 1955 

TRENTON, N. J., May 19.--Frederick M., Raubinger, Commissioner 

of Education of the State of New Jersey, today upheld the segregation 

complaint of Mrs. Mary Walker of Englewood against the Englewood Board 

of Education, 

The Commissioner ruled that the Board drew school zone lines 

affecting kindergarten pupils attending Liberty and Lincoln elementary 

schools in such a way as to result in the segregation of Negro child- 

ren in the Lincoln School. The Commissioner also ruled that there is 

no. justification on educational or other grounds for the maintenance 

of a separate junior high school at the Lincoln School, which is attend- 

ed exclusively by Negro children. 

The Commissioner ordered the Board to draw new lines affecting 

attendance at Lincoln and Liberty schools by July 1, 1955 and to elim- 

inate the Lincoln Junior High School by September 1956. 

The Commissioner pointed out that although the Englewood Board may 

not have intended segregation, he was obliged to condemn the end result. 

Mrs. Walker filed her complaint with the New Jersey Division 

Against Discrimination in July, 1954, alleging that her son, Theodore 

Walker, aged 5, had been registered in the Liberty School during the 

month of May, 1954, in accordance with the school zone lines then in 

effect. She alleged that in September, 195l) he was required to attend 

the kindergarten at Lincoln, pursuant to new school zone lines adopted 

by the Board of Fducation on June 28, 195). Mrs. Walker charged that 

these new lines resulted in segregating Negro children in the Lincoln 

school, pursuant to a consistent plan and scheme of racial segregation 

on the part of the Englewood Board of Education. 

The Division Against Discrimination attempted to conciliate Mrs. 

Walker's complaint with the Board. When the Division failed to con- 
ciliate the complaint, a public hearing was ordered. The public hear- 

ing was held before Commissioner Raubinger in October and November 195). 
Mrs. Walker's case was presented to the Commissioner by NAACP Legal 

Defense attorneys Constance Baker Motley and Jack Greenberg and NAACP 
Attorney Leonard Williams of Trenton, New Jersey.

Copyright notice

This collection and the tools to navigate it (the “Collection”) are available to the public for general educational and research purposes, as well as to preserve and contextualize the history of the content and materials it contains (the “Materials”). Like other archival collections, such as those found in libraries, LDF owns the physical source Materials that have been digitized for the Collection; however, LDF does not own the underlying copyright or other rights in all items and there are limits on how you can use the Materials. By accessing and using the Material, you acknowledge your agreement to the Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Materials.

Additional info

To the extent that LDF includes information about the Materials’ origins or ownership or provides summaries or transcripts of original source Materials, LDF does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of such information, transcripts or summaries, and shall not be responsible for any inaccuracies.

Englewood, New Jersey School Board Ordered to End Racial Segregation

Collection

Creator

Taxonomy

Identifier

Cite this item

Copyright notice

Additional info

You may also be interested in