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After Virginia's school-closing law was ruled unconstitutional in January 1959, the General Assembly
repealed the compulsory school attendance law and made the operation of public schools a local
option for the state's counties and cities. Schools that had been closed in Front Royal, Norfolk, and
Charlottesville reopened because citizens there preferred integrated schools to none at all. It was not
so Prince Edward County. Ordered on May 1, 1959, to integrate its schools, the county instead
closed its entire public school system.
The Prince Edward Foundation created a series of private schools to educate the county's
white children. These schools were supported by tuition grants from the state and tax credits
from the county. Prince Edward Academy became the prototype for all-white private schools
formed to protest school integration.
No provision was made for educating the county's black children. Some got schooling with
relatives in nearby communities or at makeshift schools in church basements. Others were educated
out of state by groups such as the Society of Friends. In 1963–64, the Prince Edward Free School
picked up some of the slack. But some pupils missed part or all of their education for five years.
Edward R. Murrow, the famous radio and television journalist, presented the program "The Lost Class of '59"
on the CBS television network. It caused national indignation. Nonetheless, not until 1964, when the U.S.
Supreme Court outlawed Virginia's tuition grants to private education, did Prince Edward County reopen
its schools, on an integrated basis. This event marked the real end of Massive Resistance.
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Governor J. Lindsay Almond addressing the General Assembly
On January 19, 1959—coincidentally Robert E. Lee's birthday—
rulings by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and a three-judge federal district court panel invalidated Virginia's
laws mandating the closing of public schools faced with mandatory desegregation. The state court based its decision
on the Virginia Constitution's stipulation that the state operate public schools. The federal court based its ruling
on the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In an address to the General Assembly nine days later,
Governor J. Lindsay Almond, while sounding defiant, capitulated and asked the legislature to repeal the
Massive Resistance legislation. Virginia Historical Society, J. Lindsay Almond Papers. |
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Oliver Hill, Roy Wilkins, and Reverend Francis L. Griffin
On May 21, 1961, civil rights leaders Oliver Hill, Roy
Wilkins, and Reverend Francis L. Griffin attended a gathering in Farmville sponsored by the
NAACP to discuss the closing of Prince Edward County's schools. The closing of the
schools from 1959 to 1964, in defiance of integration, became a focus of national
attention with TV journalist Edward R. Murrow's program "The Lost Class of '59."
Courtesy Richmond Times-Dispatch. |
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Frank D. Reeves, Henry L. Marsh, III, and Samuel W. Tucker
Shown here on June 18, 1964, NAACP lawyers (left to right) Frank D. Reeves,
Henry L. Marsh, III, and Samuel W. Tucker were actively involved in the litigation to force the reopening of the Prince
Edward County school system on an integrated basis. Courtesy Richmond Times-Dispatch. |
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Prince Edward Academy Jacket
Prince Edward Academy was the prototype for white academies established to
protest school integration. When opened in the fall of 1959, approximately 1,500 white pupils in the
county enrolled in the academy, which had facilities spread across the county. There were about 70
teachers and administrators. Students' tuitions were paid by grants from the Commonwealth of
Virginia. Eventually, such grants were ruled illegal unless the public school system reopened,
which it did in 1964. Because it discriminated by race, the school lost its tax-exempt status
in 1978, but began enrolling black students in 1986. Today it is called the J. B. Fuqua School.
Lent by Virginia State University Archives and Special Collections. |
Next: The Green Decision of 1968
Previous: Passive Resistance
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