Education: Organized Hope

At a mass rally in Atlanta last week, Southern moderates spoke with a fervor and eloquence they often lack. Said Sylvan Meyer, 37, editor of north Georgia’s Gainesville Times: “Our state leaders have failed us miserably. The doctrine of state sovereignty died at Appomattox and was reinterred at Little Rock.” His applauding listeners: 1,500 parents, civic leaders and students, members of a brand-new organization of protesting moderates, HOPE, Inc. (for Help Our Public Education) and its student counterpart, SOS (Students for Open Schools).

The meeting climaxed a winter of hopeless worry. With a school integration decision pending in federal district court, Atlantans were dead certain that the wool-hat state legislature’s massive-resistance laws would lock all city schools next September. But HOPE took hold quickly; in three weeks businessmen were solicited for funds, and chapters were formed in Atlanta and seven other Georgia cities. At last week’s rally Editor Meyer left no doubt that HOPE’s members prefer at least token integration to locked schools. “This will be called surrender,” he said. “I’m not afraid of labels. Fighting for Georgia’s schools is no surrender.”