Effective Desegregation

Amidst the national concern with desegregation in the public schools, Louisville, Ky., has been a focus of interest because o£ the well-planned, peaceful way it has carried out the Supreme Court's ruling. The five-man Board of Education there is headed by William C. Embry '34, who with his fellow board members has given complete backing to Superintendent Omer Carmichael, advocate of settling the segregation problem at the local level by means of careful preparation and community education.

At the time of the Supreme Court decision in May 1954, Embry insisted that the Board's "thinking and planning must start right now, even if the decision allows us five years to carry out desegregation." After discussions with teachers and school principals, the School Board in June 1955 voted for a definite plan to place white and Negro children in the same schools this year. With a small percentage of voluntary segregation, schools opened this fall with no ill-feeling.

Embry, president of the Embry Container Corporation, has been interested in problems in education for a long time. He was elected to the Louisville Board of Education in 1948, 1950 and 1954, and is now president. Other experience in the field of education comes from such jobs as chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and as regional chairman of the Transylvania College Development Program and Gift Funds Drive. He is a member of the Dartmouth Alumni Council and last year was president of the Dartmouth Club of Louisville.