DOCSLIB.ORG

Volume 10 Number 027 Massive Resistance

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Volume 10 Number 027 Massive Resistance Volume 10 Number 027 Massive Resistance - II Lead: The reaction of the Virginia political establishment to the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools was called massive resistance. The plan was the inspiration of the Byrd Machine. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from the Birmingham jail in 1963 that “privileged groups rarely give up their privileges voluntarily.” Perhaps nowhere has that best been demonstrated than Virginia in the 1950s. The news that the U.S. Supreme Court had unanimously declared segregated schools to be inherently unequal, therefore unconstitutional, was greeted throughout the white South with a combination of unbelief, fear, and defiance. To achieve unanimity on the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren dealt with the constitutional question first and delayed the process of implementation. The South had time to comply or defy. Except for North Carolina, which devised a system of token and isolated desegregation, for the most part the South chose defiance. As it did in 1861, with equally lamentable results, Virginia led the way. From the 1920s to the mid-1960s, power in the Commonwealth resided in the Organization, commonly known as the Byrd Machine, named for its key figure, U.S. Senator and former Governor Harry Flood Byrd, Sr. of Winchester. The Machine’s base of power was that band of counties south of the James River known as the Southside. Its business was agriculture, specifically tobacco cultivation. Its population was split pretty evenly between disenfranchised and poorly educated African Americans and lots of very nervous whites. The Byrd machine played on white fear of black progress. In return, Southside whites supported the Machine. Through artful design of legislative districts, the Southside controlled the Virginia General Assembly and from the Southside came the scheme known as massive resistance. Next time: schools at threat. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950’s. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Ely Jr., James W. The Crisis of Conservative Virginia: The Byrd Organization and the Politics of Massive Resistance. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1976. Hamilton, John Alfred. “Prince Edward’s Massive Resistance.” Nieman Reports 53 (1999): 141-147. Lassiter, Matthew D. and Andrew B. Lewis. The Moderates' Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998. Mayer, Michael S. “Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy.” Journal of Southern History 68 (2002): 740-743. Martin Jr., Waldo E. Brown v. Board of Education. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1998. Morrow, Lance. “Prince Edward and the Past.” Time 134 (1989): 58-59. Norton, Mary Beth, et al. A People and a Nation. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. Smith, J. Douglas. Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. “U.S. Constitution.” <http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html >. Wilhoit, Francis M. The Politics of Massive Resistance. New York, NY: George Braziller, 1973. Wolters, Raymond. The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1984. Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The "Virginian-Pilot" Newspaper's Role in Moderating Norfolk, Virginia's 1958 School Desegregation Crisis
    Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - College of Education & Professional Studies Urban Education (Darden) Winter 1991 The "Virginian-Pilot" Newspaper's Role in Moderating Norfolk, Virginia's 1958 School Desegregation Crisis Alexander Stewart Leidholdt Old Dominion University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/urbanservices_education_etds Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Education Commons, Journalism Studies Commons, Mass Communication Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Leidholdt, Alexander S.. "The "Virginian-Pilot" Newspaper's Role in Moderating Norfolk, Virginia's 1958 School Desegregation Crisis" (1991). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), dissertation, , Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/tb1v-f795 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/urbanservices_education_etds/119 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education & Professional Studies (Darden) at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT NEWSPAPER'S ROLE IN MODERATING NORFOLK, VIRGINIA'S 1958 SCHOOL DESEGREGATION CRISIS by Alexander Stewart Leidholdt B.A. May 1978, Virginia Wesleyan College M.S. May 1980, Clarion University Ed.S. December 1984, Indiana University A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion Unversity in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY URBAN SERVICES OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY December, 1991 Approved By: Maurice R. Berube, Dissertation Chair Concentration Area^TFlrector ember Dean of the College of Education Member Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
    [Show full text]
  • Massive Resistance.Ppt [Read-Only]
    MassiveMassive ResistanceResistance VViirrggiinniiaa 11995544--11996644 MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal facilities were legal. This ruling upheld the idea of separation of the races and enforced the Jim Crow laws. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee Under the Jim Crow laws, life in the south was strictly segregated. Theaters, schools, waiting rooms, restaurants, even water fountains were segregated. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee After World War II, however, there was a desire for change. African Americans were no longer willing to accept the Jim Crow laws. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee President Truman issued an Executive Order integrating the Armed Forces in 1947.With his signature, the President, as Commander in Chief, ended segregation – in the Armed Forces, but not in the rest of society! Life was still segregated throughout the south. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee Schools and other facilities were supposed to be “separate but equal”. They were separate, but rarely were they equal! African American schools often went without indoor plumbing and heating systems. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee In 1954, The United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, that “Separate but equal was inherently unequal” and the Plessy decision of 1896 was overturned. Separate facilities were no longer legal. MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee Senator Harry Byrd, Sr. of Virginia said the Brown decision “will bring implications and dangers of the greatest consequence.” He went on to announce that he would use all legal means to continue segregated schools in Virginia! MMaassssivivee RReessisisttaannccee Governor Stanley of Virginia appointed a commission to look at options for defying the Brown decision.
    [Show full text]
  • Draft—April 9, 2008 Explaining Massive Resistance: the Debate
    Draft—April 9, 2008 Explaining Massive Resistance: The Debate over the Capacity of the Law to Promote Racial Equality, 1954-1964 Christopher W. Schmidt American Bar Foundation *** This is very much a work-in-progress. Please do not cite or quote without the author’s permission *** ABSTRACT In this article, I examine how those who supported the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) understood and explained the subsequent rise of massive resistance to school desegregation and the conspicuous failures of the Court’s mandate throughout the South. My analysis draws on several interrelated historical claims. First, that Brown was initially greeted with a striking degree of optimism toward the prospects for successful implementation. This optimism was, in large part, the product of arguments activists and scholars had been making in the years preceding Brown about the capacity of legal reform to promote the cause of racial equality. Racial liberals argued that white supremacist attitudes were not as entrenched as was commonly assumed, and that the law could play a powerful pedagogical role as a definer of moral value. But by 1956, as the white South mobilized in defiance of the Court’s desegregation mandate, these legalist assumptions about the reformist potential of the rule of law and the nature of southern race relations came under assault. Massive resistance, unexpected in its strength, scope, and the bluntness of its refutation of federal authority, forced those who had previously touted law’s capacity to reconsider their positions. Some sought to downplay the extent of Brown’s failures, or to explain resistance as the product of ineffective, tentative application of the law, rather than any flaw in the assumption that laws could uproot entrenched customs.
    [Show full text]
  • Massive Resistance and the Origins of the Virginia Technical College System
    Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges Volume 22 | Issue 2 Article 6 10-10-2019 Massive Resistance and the Origins of the Virginia Technical College System Richard A. Hodges Ed.D., Thomas Nelson Community College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry Part of the Higher Education Commons, History Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons Recommended Citation Hodges, R. A. (2019). Massive Resistance and the Origins of the Virginia Technical College System. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 22 (2). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol22/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ VCCS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inquiry: The ourJ nal of the Virginia Community Colleges by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ VCCS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hodges: Massive Resistance and the Origins of the VTCS MASSIVE RESISTANCE AND THE ORIGINS OF THE VIRGINIA TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM RICHARD A. HODGES INTRODUCTION In the summer of 1964, Dr. Dana B. Hamel, Director of the Roanoke Technical Institute in Roanoke, Virginia received a phone call that would change the course of Virginia higher education. The call was from Virginia Governor Albertis Harrison requesting Hamel serve as the Director of the soon to be established Department of Technical Education. The department, along with its governing board, would quickly establish a system of technical colleges located regionally throughout Virginia, with the first of those colleges opening their doors for classes in the fall of 1965.
    [Show full text]
  • Bill Bolling Contemporary Virginia Politics
    6/29/21 A DISCUSSION OF CONTEM PORARY VIRGINIA POLITICS —FROM BLUE TO RED AND BACK AGAIN” - THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GOP IN VIRGINIA 1 For the first 200 years of Virginia's existence, state politics was dominated by the Democratic Party ◦ From 1791-1970 there were: Decades Of ◦ 50 Democrats who served as Governor (including Democratic-Republicans) Democratic ◦ 9 Republicans who served as Governor Dominance (including Federalists and Whigs) ◦ During this same period: ◦ 35 Democrats represented Virginia in the United States Senate ◦ 3 Republicans represented Virginia in the United States Senate 2 1 6/29/21 ◦ Likewise, this first Republican majority in the Virginia General Democratic Assembly did not occur until Dominance – 1998. General ◦ Democrats had controlled the Assembly General Assembly every year before that time. 3 ◦ These were not your “modern” Democrats ◦ They were a very conservative group of Democrats in the southern tradition What Was A ◦ A great deal of their focus was on fiscal Democrat? conservativism – Pay As You Go ◦ They were also the ones who advocated for Jim Crow and Massive resistance up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of in 1965 4 2 6/29/21 Byrd Democrats ◦ These were the followers of Senator Harry F. Byrd, a former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator ◦ Senator Byrd’s “Byrd Machine” dominated and controlled Virginia politics for this entire period 5 ◦ Virginia didn‘t really become a competitive two-party state until Ơͥ ͣ ǝ, and the first real From Blue To competition emerged at the statewide level Red œ
    [Show full text]
  • Virginia's Massive Folly
    Undergraduate Research Journal at UCCS Volume 2.1, Spring 2009 Virginia’s “Massive Folly”: Harry Byrd, Prince Edward County, and the Front Line Laura Grant Dept. of History, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Abstract This paper examines the closure of public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia from 1959- 1964 in an effort to avoid desegregation. Specifically, the paper traces the roots of the political actions which led to the closure and then-Governor Harry Byrd's role in Virginia's political machine at the time. The paper argues that it was Byrd's influence which led to the conditions that not only made the closure possible in Virginia, but encouraged the white citizens of Prince Edward County to make their stand. In September, 1959, the public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia closed their doors to all students. While most white students were educated in makeshift private schools, the doors of public education remained closed until the Supreme Court ordered the schools to reopen in 1964. This drastic episode in Virginia’s history was a response to the public school integration mandated by the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Prince Edward County was not the only district in Virginia to take this action; it was merely the most extreme case of resistance after state laws banning integration were struck down as unconstitutional. Schools all over the state closed, most only temporarily, and the white community rallied to offer white students assistance to attend segregated private schools rather than face integration in a movement termed “Massive Resistance.” While this “Brown backlash” occurred all over the South, it was most prevalent in the Deep South.
    [Show full text]
  • Roanoke School Desegregation and the Politics of Delay
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2013 Integrating "The Star City of the South": Roanoke School Desegregation and the Politics of Delay Peter Carr Jones College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Other Education Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Jones, Peter Carr, "Integrating "The Star City of the South": Roanoke School Desegregation and the Politics of Delay" (2013). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539626722. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-sa7m-en67 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Integrating “the Star City of the South”: Roanoke School Desegregation and the Politics of Delay Peter Carr Jones Clearwater, Florida Bachelor of Arts, Washington and Lee University, 2006 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts Lyon Gardiner Tyler Department of History The College of William and Mary May 2013 Integrating “the Star City of the South”: Roanoke School Desegregation and the Politics of Delay Peter Carr Jones Clearwater, Florida Bachelor of Arts, Washington and Lee University, 2006 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts Lyon Gardiner Tyler Department of History The College of William and Mary May 2013 APPROVAL PAGE This Thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts ^ 1 / F^eter Carr Jones Approved by the Committee, January 2013 ___________ Committee Chair Scott Reynolds Nelson, Legum Professpr of History College of William and Ma M Davison Douglas Dean and Arthur B.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of the Virginia Democratic Party, 1965-2015
    A History of the Virginia Democratic Party, 1965-2015 A Senior Honors Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation “with Honors Distinction in History” in the undergraduate colleges at The Ohio State University by Margaret Echols The Ohio State University May 2015 Project Advisor: Professor David L. Stebenne, Department of History 2 3 Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Mills Godwin, Linwood Holton, and the Rise of Two-Party Competition, 1965-1981 III. Democratic Resurgence in the Reagan Era, 1981-1993 IV. A Return to the Right, 1993-2001 V. Warner, Kaine, Bipartisanship, and Progressive Politics, 2001-2015 VI. Conclusions 4 I. Introduction Of all the American states, Virginia can lay claim to the most thorough control by an oligarchy. Political power has been closely held by a small group of leaders who, themselves and their predecessors, have subverted democratic institutions and deprived most Virginians of a voice in their government. The Commonwealth possesses the characteristics more akin to those of England at about the time of the Reform Bill of 1832 than to those of any other state of the present-day South. It is a political museum piece. Yet the little oligarchy that rules Virginia demonstrates a sense of honor, an aversion to open venality, a degree of sensitivity to public opinion, a concern for efficiency in administration, and, so long as it does not cost much, a feeling of social responsibility. - Southern Politics in State and Nation, V. O. Key, Jr., 19491 Thus did V. O. Key, Jr. so famously describe Virginia’s political landscape in 1949 in his revolutionary book Southern Politics in State and Nation.
    [Show full text]
  • 20Th Century Virginia Study Guide (Answer Key)
    Name/Number: _____________________________ Date: _____________ 20th Century Virginia Study Guide (Answer Key) Standard VS.9a: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of twentieth and twenty- first centuries Virginia by describing the economic and social transition from a rural, agricultural society to a more urban, industrialized society, including the reasons people came to Virginia from other states and countries. During the early twentieth century, agriculture began to change. Old systems of farming were no longer effective. Crop prices were low. Growth of Virginia’s cities People moved from rural to urban areas for economic opportunities. Technological developments in transportation, roads, railroads, and streetcars helped cities grow. Coal mining spurred the growth of Virginia towns and cities as people moved from the countryside to find jobs. During the 20th Century, Northern Virginia has experienced growth due to increases in the number of federal jobs located in the region. In the late 20th century and the early 21st century, Northern Virginia and the Tidewater region have grown due to computer technology. People have moved to Virginia from many other states and nations. Standard VS.9b: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of twentieth and twenty- first centuries Virginia by identifying the impact of Virginians on international events. Woodrow Wilson was a 20th Century President who wrote a plan for world peace. George C. Marshall was a military leader who created an economic plan to ensure world peace. Standard VS.9c: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of twentieth and twenty- first centuries Virginia by identifying the social and political events in Virginia linked to desegregation and Massive Resistance and their relationship to national history.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 299 Literature Review the 1954 Supreme Court Ruling in Brown V
    1 299 Literature Review The 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education brought tremendous upheaval to the state of Virginia, which had operated under deep segregation for decades. Under the influence of an extremely conservative political machine headed by Democratic Senator Harry Flood Byrd, Virginia enacted a strategy of total opposition to the Court’s decision. The “massive resistance” movement, as Byrd called it, was loosely based on the doctrine of interposition and included several legislative attempts to impede integration in the state. Politicians sympathetic to the Byrd machine withheld state funding from integrated schools and created pupil assignment plans that awarded only a few token spots to black students at white schools. The movement, which most historians cite as taking place from 1954 to 1956, ultimately caused temporary school closings in Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Prince Edward County, Virginia. While much has been written on the aftermath of the Brown ruling in the South, relatively few monographs have been published about Virginia’s massive resistance in particular.1 The majority of books specifically dealing with Virginian resistance were published in the 1960s and 1970s, a trend that presumably occurred because of the large interest in school integration during the Civil Rights movement. Until recently, books concerning Virginia’s massive resistance sought to explain it only through the actions of conservative whites who adamantly opposed the 1 For an overview of resistance to desegregation in the South, see Reed Sarrait, The Ordeal of Desegregation: The First Decade (New York: Harper and Row, 1966); Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950’s (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1969); Francis M.
    [Show full text]
  • Our Segregated Capital: an Increasingly Diverse City With
    Our Segregated Capital An Increasingly Diverse City with Racially Polarized Schools Gary Orfield & Jongyeon Ee February 2017 2 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles Our Segregated Capital, February 2017 Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................................... 5 FOREWORD ............................................................................................................................................................... 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 11 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT .......................................................................................................................... 15 WHY IT MATTERS: RESEARCH SHOWS POWERFUL INTEGRATION EFFECTS .................................................................... 16 THE HISTORY OF THE ISSUE IN WASHINGTON ...................................................................................................................... 19 CIVIL RIGHTS AND WASHINGTON SCHOOLS .......................................................................................................................... 21 THE JUDICIAL EFFORT: SERIOUS BUT TOO LATE .................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • School Integration Heroic Or Quixotic? by NOAH L
    J: ·wr's Note: In the spring of 2014, the Arlington Historical Society umbia Masonic Lodge #285 co-sponsored the second annual Arlington ~-- E say Contest, intended to encourage interest and research in local ~--. The contest was open to 11 th graders from H-B Woodlawn, Wakefield, ...... ~-·'""' on-Lee, and Yorktown High Schools. The theme of the contest was at extent was Arlington County heroic or quixotic in its pursuit of school _ ·o n, considering contemporary trends?" The Arlington Historical Society d to publish the winning essay, below.] School Integration Heroic or Quixotic? BY NOAH L. KENNEDY (WASHINGTON-LEE HIGH SCHOOL) Last Friday, at approximately 10:45, first period at Washington-Lee High - hool took a brief hiatus for the annual black heritage assembly. For half an ~our, the auditorium was crowded with an audience of just under a thousand - nagers. They sat attentively, with the occasional whisper, as they listened ·o kits, poetry, and anecdotes about people ranging from Malcolm X, to Rosa P ks, to Nelson Mandela, and then to Trayvon Martin. Although the assembly -\- both creative and educational, and showed its audience how far we've ome as a nation, it missed one important part of black heritage and civil rights - at strikes a bit closer to home: the history of our own county's civil rights movement, and more specifically, the brave1y that surrounded the integration of ..\r lington County Public Schools. Despite the overwhelming resistance against hool integration in Virginia, Arlington County's school board and its citizens bowed enormous bravery and fortitude by opposing the popular belief and law of its state.
    [Show full text]