The Year Virginia Opened the Schools

by Lenoir Chambers

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The Year Virginia Opened the Schools

A year ago, reviewing the hot and confused record in 1958 of Virginia's struggles to establish and maintain 100 per cent resistance to desegregation in the public schools, The Virginian-Pilot was compelled to characterize it as "The Year Virginia Closed the Schools."

This characterization represented the inevitable result of a policy which Virginia, as we said then, could not continue. That policy "is so patently self-defeating that calmer judgment would find ways of getting rid of it even if it was not probable—as governmental leaders acknowledge—that the statutes for closing schools will be declared unconstitutional."

It was entirely plain then that "the state is bound by every obligation of governmental principle and human dignity and decency, and its own self-interest, to find a better policy" than the one Virginia was living under as 1958 turned into 1959.

The state, under the irresistible influence of the courts, has done so. In direct contradiction to 1958, the year Virginia closed the schools, 1959 is the year Virginia opened the schools.

This is the most important development in any consideration of the state's struggle with problems that have confronted it since 1954 and will confront it in a longer future. It is fundamental. If it is assumed that Virginians in the world of today think it intelligent and wise, or even tolerable, to shut down the public education program on which democracy rests, then we should be condemning ourselves to darkness. The real meaning of 1959 is that it marked a turn in the tide of public opinion.

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The most powerful influence in this development was not the state's political leadership. It was the combination of federal and state courts. Even when the decisions of both on January 19 wrote down the end of massive resistance as a viable policy, the immediate reaction of political leadership was cries of bitterness and anguish, and almost of defiance. The Norfolk City Council attempted a cut-off of all schools above the sixth grade until the courts set it straight—as the courts continued to do for the state and other localities throughout the year.

But to the great credit of the three communities, of which Norfolk was the largest, where the public schools had been locked and the children turned loose to the pasturage of ignorance, the reopening of the public schools in February with a few Negro children among many white children was a demonstration of calmness and acceptance.

Governor Almond

Governor Almond

Governor Almond, after a long record of supporting massive resistance, acknowledged ultimately the barrenness of that course of action. He had the courage to lead subsequent moves in more sensible directions. The creation of the Perrow commission and the approval by the General Assembly of its principal recommendations created deep hostilities and required hard fighting all along the line. At moments the decisions turned on a single legislative vote. But the change was profound. The movement gathered momentum. The legislative primaries in July disclosed no political disposition—on a state basis—to turn back to the old dead-end road.

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Thus it came about that although the first half of the year found Virginia engrossed in immediate, complicated problems, the second half found the state moving calmly about its educational responsibilities. When the schools opened in September, Charlottesville joined Norfolk, Arlington, Warren County, and Alexandria with some desegregated schools. The number of desegregated pupils rose from 21 in February to 86.

The break in this pattern was in Prince Edward County. There the county supervisors cut off all appropriations for operating schools and locked all public school doors. There the county's white residents set up private schools for 1,500 white children. And there Prince Edward's 1,700 Negro children were left by the county to idleness and ignorance.

But that conscience is beginning to hurt the white people of Prince Edward is apparent in their efforts to establish private schools for Negro children. Ultimately the county and the state will have to do far more about education in Prince Edward.

Otherwise the second half of 1959 was notable for the collapse of old attempts by legislative commissions to frighten Negroes out of supporting the NAACP, new harassments of the same nature, and the continuing demonstration of the futility of the State Pupil Placement Board—that designated bottleneck of desegregation movements. These were the debris of old-style massive resistance programs, though important in their assumptions and a reflection on their creators. In the end they will go, just as in the end something better will arise in Prince Edward than its present injustice.

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More intelligent handling of problems of great difficulty will continue and increase only if commonsense and courage continue to direct the course of both political leadership and public opinion. The struggles for reasonable solutions are not over. The state may see setbacks of serious proportions. It is certain to encounter perplexities not easy to resolve. It may discover demagogues entranced with the thought of exploiting honest doubts and uncertainties as well as old prejudices. It needs sensible cooperation from its Negro citizenship. It needs every ounce of good will it can find from any source.

But the old years of impracticality, unconstitutionalism, and futility are on the way out. If Virginia can produce more willingness to face the facts and fresh qualities of initiation and leadership in dealing with them, the year the state opened the schools can lead to a New Year of hope.