Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

SESSION 5, TAPE 5, SIDE 1
Q: What I've done, under the heading of education and promotion of civil
rights in education, is run through the bills that you were involved with
in the House and then carried on into the Senate. In that folder are some
from the Senate. If 1 may, I'll just call attention to some of the bills
or groupings of bills and see what you recall about those particular ones.
A: Yes.
Q: For example, back in 1957 you were cosponsor on a bill, the primary
sponsor was Simon. I dnn't know, was that Paul Simon in the House?
A: Paul Simon, yes.
Q: In which he submitted a bill which would require superintendents to make
sworn statements of nondiscrimination in schools before they would receive
state aid. And this was approved. He also, in 1961, introduced a bill
where affidavits would be required. Now, I don't know what the difference
between the two bills was but they were both approved. Does this strike a
bell with you?
A: Yes, it does strike a bell with me. That was one approach that was taken
to make certain that those persons most responsible for making certain
that the schools were operated on a nondiscrimination basis would have some
accountability. In asking principals ar superintendents to make that statement,
either by the first method or the second, would in some measure make
certain that that principal would operate the school on a nondiscriminatory
basis. That was probably a sort of an opening round in the whole thing of
making certain that there would be no school discrimination. There had been
and there were many instances where it was provable that there was some
discrimination in our school systems. That was one of the ways used to try
to avoid it and to stop it.
Q: Do you know how Paul Simon came to be the primary sponsor on that first
bill? Now, it was a Representative Marks on the second bill having t~ do
with the affidavits.
A: No, I. don't really know how he came to be the sponsor. It was an idea
that had probably emanated with him or with some person who asked him to put
it in. I don't know. And Representative Marks was a very fine representative
who came along with the second one in 1961; sort of a tightening up
process, I assume.
Q: I see. How did you become involved with these bills?
A: Well, it was a concept that I certainly agreed to and believed in and
it would be normally natural for me to cosponsor a bill of that nature.
Q: Do you recall how you became aware that these bills were in the mill?