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teN YEARS in review SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1964—PAGE 15-B VIRGINIA ‘Massive Resistance,’ 4 RICHMOND irginia’s 10-year school de segregation story may be summed up in two phrases: “mas sive resistance” and “freedom of choice.” “Massive resistance,” a policy of un yielding opposition to any racial mix- jjig in the classroom, called for the closing of schools as the ultimate weap on in the fight. “Freedom of choice,” adopted as of ficial policy in 1959 and still in effect, permits localities—and individuals as well—to choose between segregation and desegregation. It was adopted after both state and federal courts tossed out key “massive resistance” statutes as unconstitutional. Strictly speaking, “freedom of choice” was policy—but not practice—for a brief period even before “massive re sistance” was bom. Here is how the segregation-desegregation story was unfolded in the Old Dominion since the Supreme Court’s decision of May 17, 1954: On Aug. 28, 1954, Gov. Thomas B. Stanley appointed 32 members of the General Assembly to constitute the Virginia Commission on Public Educa tion. He directed the group “to as certain, through public hearings and such other means as appear appro priate, the wishes of the people of Vir ginia” concerning actions Virginia should take in light of the Supreme Court ruling. Opposed to Force The commission, headed by State Sen. Garland Gray of Sussex County, reported on Jan. 19, 1955, that the “overwhelming majority” of Virginians were opposed to enforced desegrega tion.” But the commission did not rec ommend “massive resistance.” Instead, it proposed a program under which no GRAY STANLEY On the political front, school deseg regation was an issue in the 1957 gub ernatorial campaign. Democratic At torney General J. Lindsay Almond Jr., espousing “massive resistance,” won over Republican State Sen. Ted Dalton (subsequently appointed to a federal judgeship by President Eisenhower) by a vote of 327,933 to 188,538. Dalton, who favored local option, said after the Nov. 5 election that he attributed his defeat to Virginians’ reaction to the national GOP administration’s use of troops in Little Rock, Ark., to enforce court- ordered desegregation. The ultimate weapon in “massive resistance” was used by Gov. Almond in September, 1958. He closed nine schools in three cities, throwing 12,- 700 children out of classes. After the Warren County High School at Front Royal opened for the fall term, U.S. District Judge John Paul on Sept. 8 directed the ad mission of 22 Ne groes. On Sept. 12 the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court re fused to stay the district court or der, and the same day Gov. Almond signed an order taking over the school and clos ing it. On Sept. 19 the governor took over and closed Lane High and Venable Elementary Schools of Charlottesville, and on Sept. 27 signed a similar order covering all six secondary schools in Norfolk. All these white schools had been ordered to admit Negroes. “Massive resistance” collapsed, legal ly, on Jan. 19, 1959, when the Vir ginia Supreme Court and a special three-judge federal court at Norfolk both struck down the school-closing laws. On Jan. 28 the General Assem bly met in special session, and by Jan. 31 completed action on a program recommended by the governor: estab lishment of tuition grants so that no child would be forced to attend a de segregated school, and repeal of the state’s compulsory attendance law. On Feb. 2, 1959, the first public school MISSISSIPPI PAUL child would be required to attend a desegregated school. A child in a deseg regated school could receive a public tuition grant to attend another school, trader the commission’s recommenda tion. °n Nov. 30, 1955, the General As sembly met in special session to pro- vide for amending the state constitu tion so that public funds could be used 33 Wanted for children attending priv- a te schools. The legislature called for a referendum on whether a constitu- “onal convention should be held to ®ake the necessary changes in the constitution. The referendum was held on Jan. 9, and by a vote of 304,154 to 146,164, trgmians authorized the convention. e 40 delegates elected to the i tion m et on March 5 and amended the ’destitution. Meanwhile, state officials to have second thoughts on per- any desegregation, even volun- Interposition Resolution biP n ^' e ^- 1. 1956, the General Assem- tt^Wted a resolution of interposi- Vir^:-. mter P°sing the sovereignty of v 'rgini a against encroachment upon the pTYed powers of this state, and ap- q u , g to sister states to resolve a 1 . 0tl °f contested power.” By May, isl ’ 14 Wa s clear that the state admin- ba< ^ decided not to imple- th e a _ ae ^ay plan. Gov. Stanley called sion , em 61y to meet in special ses- ■ tor ‘ The Aug. 27. *hen t i5 0vernor the legislators lo^ey convened that desegregation to fljg as " a clear and present danger” deny state - He recommended laws to school te fr^ds to any desegregated school,,’ to dose any desegregated Tla Ce ^d to establish a State Pupil Sssi-p ent Board to take over pupil ’fb from the localities. ^«w" em , bly enacted 23 “massive S- 22* laws and adjourned on 6 Sisb>« ‘ , ov - Stanley signed the new Ce ySePt 29 ‘ fl]°V s . desegregation suits were Past j k 1 various localities. Over ^ t otal decade, the number of suits ota] ed about 50. All Public JACKSON P ublic school desegregation in Mississippi is still in litigation and none of the 150 public school districts has complied with the U.S. Supreme Court’s “with all deliberate speed” mandate. However, in March, 1964, U.S. Dis trict Judge Sidney C. Mize issued a temporary injunction for desegregation this fall of the public schools in the cities of Jackson and Biloxi, and in Leake County (Carthage). The order followed reversals by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals of Judge Mize’s dismissal of desegregation suits filed by parents of 64 Negro children in the three school districts. Judge Mize had held that the appellants had not exhausted administrative remedies on the local level. After issuing his latest order, Judge Mize set the three cases for hearing on their merits. Judge Mize indicated that the outcome of those hearings could alter the effect of his earlier tem porary injunction. As the situation now stands, the three school districts are under order to submit by July 15 de segregation plans for at least one grade, beginning this fall. An intervening petition by two white parents asks an injunction stopping the Jackson municipal board from de segregating the city schools. Judge Mize permitted the white parents to intervene “because white parents also are entitled to their day in court.” Two of the plaintiffs in the Jackson EVERS MIZE Choice’ Mark Decade Freedom of desegregation in Virginia took place. Seventeen Negroes entered the six Norfolk secondary schools reopened af ter a one-semester shutdown. And four Negroes were in classes when Arling ton’s Stratford Junior High opened for the new term the same day. On Feb. 4 Charlottesville’s two closed schools reopened on a segre gated basis, a stay of the desegregation order having been obtained from the Fourth Circuit Court. On Feb. 10, nine Negroes began classes at three former ly white schools in Alexandria, after the circuit court had refused a stay of a desegregation order. On Feb. 18 the Warren County High School reopened, technically desegre gated. But the 23 Negroes who had been assigned there had the building to themselves; all whites withdrew to attend a private school, and none of them returned until the fall. On Feb. 5, 1959, Gov. Almond ap pointed a 40-member legislative com mission to study the segregation prob lem. The General Assembly on March 31 received the commission’s report, which said, in effect, that there was no legal way to maintain total segre gation short of closing the public schools. It said it did not believe the people of Virginia wanted to take such a drastic step. Package of Laws The group recommended a package of laws to permit localities to decide whether or not to desegregate then- schools. It recommended further that even where a locality permitted desegregation, scholarships (tuition grants) should be made available to any child who did not want to attend a desegregated school. The assembly approved the recommendations, but op ponents of “freedom of choice” came within one vote of defeating the pro gram in the Senate. In Prince Edward County, the seg regation fight had been going on since May, 1951, when Negroes filed a deseg regation suit against county officials. The case was one of the five on which the Supreme Court issued its May 17, 1954, ruling. On June 2, 1959, having exhausted all legal efforts to prevent desegregation, the Prince Edward Board of Super visors voted not to appropriate funds to operate public schools for the 1959- 60 session. The schools did not open for that session, nor have they opened since. On March 30, 1964, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the closing of the schools violated the con stitutional rights of the county’s Ne gro children. (The State Supreme Court ruled Dec. 2, 1963, that the clos ing does not violate the state constitu tion.) Since 1959 white children of Prince Edward have attended a private, segre gated system. Negroes had no schools from 1959 to 1963. In September, 1963, virtually all of the county’s Negroes began attending the Prince Edward Free Schools, a privately-financed sys tem set up through co-operation of federal, state and local authorities. The Free School system is scheduled to end operations in August. Surry County On Aug. 24, 1963, the Surry County School Board voted not to operate the county’s only white school during the 1963-64 year, since almost all white students had enrolled in private classes of the newly formed Surry Educational Foundation. The State Pupil Placement Board had assigned seven Negroes to the school. The county’s two Negro schools opened Sept. 5 as usual. The federal government initiated a school desegregation case on Sept. 17, 1962, against Prince George County, Va. The Department of Justice acted on behalf of children of Negro person nel at the U.S. Army Quartermaster School at Ft. Lee. On June 23, 1963, federal District Judge John F. Butzner Jr, ruled in fa vor of the government. He said the con tract under which Prince George County receives federal impact aid funds to educate federally - con nected children pr o v i d e s that these children re ceive treatment on the same basis as other children in the state. Since race is no longer a criterion in state pupil assignments, children of Ft. Lee personnel cannot be segregated by race in public schools, he said. Desegregation began in Prince George in September, 1963. 30 Negroes There were 30 Negroes in desegre gated schools in Virginia during the spring session of 1959 when the first racial mixing occurred. During the five school years since then, the number each year has been as follows: 102, 211, 536, 1,230 and 3,721. From four desegregated districts in the spring of 1959, the number has in creased yearly as follows: 6, 11, 20, 31 and 55. The number of desegregated schools has increased from the 11 in the spring of 1959 as follows: 19, 43, 75, 140 and 282. The first desegregation in a state- supported institution of higher learn ing occurred at the University of Vir ginia in 1951 by court order. Today, six of the 19 predominantly white colleges have a total of about 46 Ne groes enrolled, and three others have had Negroes enrolled previously. ALMOND DALTON BUTZNER Schools Continue Segregated James H. Meredith Now an Ole Miss graduate. desegregation case are Darrell Ken- yatta Evers and Reene Denise Evers, children of the slain civil rights lead er, Medgar Evers. Evers, a field repre sentative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo ple, was assassinated in June, 1963, as he returned home from a meeting on civil rights strategy. The first development after the 1954 Supreme Court decision was in the summer of 1955, when Negroes in about five state cities filed petitions with their local school boards asking them to take steps to put in effect the Supreme Court’s ruling. However, the petitions were not “officially” received by the school authorities because of their as serted illegality—that they were not certified but merely signatures on a petition, none of which had been no tarized. Numerous legislative enactments have followed the 1954 decision. De signed to bolster the state’s segregation policy and custom, the acts granted authority to the governor, as well as local school boards, to close schools threatened with integration. That au thority has not been executed. Just prior to the 1954 decision, the legislature in a 1953 special session re pealed the state’s compulsory school attendance law. The state constitution still provides in Section 207 that “sep arate schools shall be maintained for children of the white and colored races.” Several Efforts Several efforts have been made to desegregate the state’s colleges and universities. A former professor at Al corn A&M Col lege, C1 e n n o n King, appeared at the University of Mississippi to en roll in the 1958 summer school. Highway patrol men removed the Negro from the campus and the state had him committed to a mental hospital for examination. King was declared sane after 13 days and he left the state. Another Negro, Clyde Kennard, con ferred with state and school officials about enrolling at the University of Southern Mississippi (then Mississippi Southern College) in the fall of 1959. Local police arrested him as he left the campus and convicted him on charges of reckless driving and posses sion of whiskey. Kennard later was convicted on charges of stealing chicken feed and was sentenced to the state prison. Ne groes in the state questioned the charges against Kennard. The state re leased him after it was determined that he had cancer and he died later in Chicago. Mississippi’s only desegregation in education began on Oct. 1, 1962, when James Meredith, a Negro war veteran of Attala County, Miss., enrolled in the University of Mississippi by order of the federal courts. He had trans^ ferred from Jackson State College. Failed to Stay A series of legislative and execu tive actions by state officials had failed to stop Meredith’s entrance into the college. Both Gov. Ross Barnett and Lt. Gov. Paul B. Johnson (now gover nor) appeared at the university en trance to block the Negro’s arrival on the campus under escort of federal marshals. Meredith finally gained admission to the university Sept. 30 and on that night and through the next day, a mob attacked the marshals and rioted on the campus and in the adjacent town of Oxford. Two persons—a French journalist and an Oxford citizen—were killed and over 300 persons injured. President Kennedy placed 11,000 Mississippi National Guardsmen in fed eral service by executive order and sent in an additional 3,000 regular Army troops to restore order. Meredith re mained in the school, accompanied by federal marshals, until his graduation in June, 1963. That same month, another Negro, Cleve McDowell of Sunflower County, Miss., enrolled in the university School of Law by federal court order. Later in September, school officials expelled McDowell following his arrest on cam pus for possession of firearms. The school has accepted no other Negroes. KING