Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1897 — ALTON NEGROES RISE. [ARTICLE]

ALTON NEGROES RISE.

Separation of White Pupils from the Colored Raises a Storm. The fight between the Board of Education and the negro citizens of Alton, 111., over the separation of the white children from the black is growing more fierce and the relations between the two are becoming more and more strained. The attendance at the Douglas and Lovejoy* schools, the two buildings set apart for the colored children by the Board of Education, ha.s been very small, and, on the other hand, the old buildings are overcrowded on account of the colored residents insisting on their children attending the same schools as the whites. Superintendent R. A. Haight has given Instructions that the negroes shall be admitted, but that no recitations shall be heard until they go to their own school. They are allowed to remain in the schoolrooms, but only as visitors. There has been no serious trouble, but several of the school buildings were surrounded all day Wednesday by colored men and women who were there to see that their children received proper recognition. The members of the board are firm in» the stand they have taken, and say that no pupils will be recognized or allowed to recite a lesson until they are in the proper building. The stand they have taken is that the city of Alton has been put into one large school district, and they, with the superintendent, have the right to assign pupils to any school they think desirable. They say they are willing, if need be, to have the matter tested before the courts. On the other hand, the colored residents oppose the separate-school plan, and are no less emphatic in the stand they have taken, and say they propose to fight the case to the end. Public meetings have been held and a large sum of money has been raised. They claim the scheme to separate the children is an illegal one. They do not admit\even the point of discretionary power which the Board of Education holds is vested in the superintendent of schools.