“Strife, Bitterness, Chaos and Confusion” : Desegregation in Virginia

In June 2024, we shared our experience processing correspondence related to segregation in the Governor Stanley papers. Thousands of letters were mailed to Stanley in response to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The overwhelming majority express themes of hatred, fear, anger, and racism, heightened from the decision to integrate schools, and by extension, society at large. Most of the correspondence came from white Virginians, proponents of upholding segregation by claiming reasons of religion, states’ rights, taxation, public safety, eugenics, and “racial purity.” Some Black parents also wrote to Governor Stanley, concerned about the discrimination their children would face in an integrated school system. Constituents wrote in support of or opposition to General Assembly bills that would effectively maintain segregation at a state level, expressed their disdain of perceived federal overreach, and shared ideas on how Virginia could resist the inevitable push towards integration.

The Governor Stanley segregation correspondence captures a moment in time when the evolution from segregation to integration was not a clear, linear path. While these letters reflect the immediate aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education, they were only the beginning. The pro-segregation movement known as “Massive Resistance” would gain traction in the ensuing years. Despite orders from the Supreme Court in 1955’s Brown II to desegregate “with all deliberate speed,” the Virginia governor, members of the General Assembly, and Virginian constituents continued to resist integration with varying methods of obstruction. To circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Virginia General Assembly passed a series of bills known as the “Stanley Plan” to create a Pupil Placement Board, ensuring that Black students could not integrate into white schools. This legislation also gave the governor power to close public schools to thwart federal orders to implement integration.¹

The Pupil Placement Board, formed by Governor Stanley in December 1956, essentially gave the state control over student enrollment. The board, comprised of Hugh V. White, Beverley Randolph, Jr., and Andrew Farley, was charged with overseeing student applications for students “graduating to another school, entering the school system for the first time, or transferring from another school system.”² The applications did not explicitly mention race so that the board would appear compliant with federal guidelines stemming from Brown vs. Board of Education. Instead, the panel would use context clues like “last school attended” to deny Black students requesting transfers to white schools.³ Reasoning behind the rejections also never mentioned race, instead citing transportation issues or the student’s academic record (even if the students had exemplary records).⁴ The Records of the Public Placement Board highlight the board’s operations, including correspondence to parents, superintendents, school principals, and school boards; approved or denied memorandums; and board meeting minutes.

The Pupil Placement Board continued under Governor J. Lindsay Almond (1958-1962), who further bolstered the Massive Resistance platform. After a series of federal court decisions ordered schools in Charlottesville, Front Royal, and Norfolk to desegregate, Governor Almond responded by enacting parts of the newly passed Stanley Plan and closed the schools in September 1958. Over 10,000 Virginia students were locked out of white schools while Black schools remained open.⁵ Shortly before Governor Almond closed the schools, he wrote to the superintendents to explain how integration will “produce strife, bitterness, chaos and confusion to the utter destruction of any rational concept of a worthwhile public school system.”⁶ But by closing the public schools to preserve segregation, he unwittingly fulfilled his own worst fears.

In the J. Lindsay Almond Executive Papers, there is a tonal shift in the constituent correspondence that reflects the chaos that unfolded. The letters convey an air of uncertainty, prior to and during the school closures. While hateful commentary still exists (especially suspicion and distrust of the NAACP), there is also concern about the larger impact of school closures. Constituents expressed their worries about job security, the effects of “neglecting education,” the potential of raising taxes to support tuition credits, and the consequences of stoking the racial divide. Some wonder if the local public schools closed, if they could re-open as state-operated private schools that could legally exclude Black students and therefore triumphantly skirt federal desegregation mandates once and for all.

As weeks of school closure ticked by with no clear alternative, unease began to set in. Parents in Norfolk sent their children out of state; or to schools in South Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Portsmouth; or to makeshift classes in churches and private homes.⁷ Students at Lane High School in Charlottesville sent a petition to Governor Almond, urging him to reopen the school.⁸ Norfolk mayor W. Fred Duckworth wrote to Governor Almond in October, offering possible solutions with code citations that would reopen schools for white students.⁹ The Norfolk Committee for Public Schools, a bi-partisan group advocating for the opening of public schools under a locally administrated pupil placement board, also wrote to Governor Almond, pointing out the economic repercussions of his actions. They explain that:

They also make an emotional plea:

The Norfolk Committee for Public Schools attached a petition to their letter with a self-estimated 5,000 signatures from white citizens.

Reprieve came on January 19, 1959, when the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia both independently ruled that the school closures were unconstitutional.¹¹ While Governor Almond swiftly spoke out in opposition to the courts’ decisions, he ultimately allowed schools to reopen in February 1959. Later, the General Assembly returned pupil placement authority to localities, although the Pupil Placement Board continued to operate until it was dissolved in 1966.

Despite the court rulings, Virginia desegregated schools at an extremely slow pace. As a response to the court decisions in 1958-1959, Prince Edward County opted to defund and close all its public schools (including Black schools), using state tuition grants to fund a private school for white students.¹² While the county was forced to re-open public schools in 1964 after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County, the private school remained in operation. As a result, most of the Prince Edward County children enrolled in the re-opened public school were Black students.¹³ Similar weaponization of private schools, also known as “segregation academies,” functioned across Virginia and the South, stifling true integration.¹⁴ When school desegregation did occur, it was often traumatic. When the Norfolk 17 entered school in 1959, “they were spat upon, called names, had things thrown at them, were tripped, and one girl was stabbed.”¹⁵ By 1960, only 170 out of 204,000 Black students in Virginia were enrolled in white schools.¹⁶ It would take decades for the vitriol expressed in the Governor Stanley segregation correspondence to calm as Virginians gradually acclimated to integration.

The letters in the Stanley correspondence offer perspective on Virginia’s initial visceral reaction invoked by the federally mandated steps towards integration. However, evidence of the overwhelming massive resistance to integration in Virginia is, of course, not limited to just Governor Stanley and Governor Almond and their constituent correspondence. There is more to glean and uncover in the archives beyond the immediate aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education.

The Library of Virginia maintains collections and resources that include materials on school desegregation and Massive Resistance. Some good starting places are:

– Maria Shellman, State Records Archivist, and Karen King, State Records Archivist