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BACKGROUND
In 1952, Moton High School students joined with NAACP attorneys, to bring suit in Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia. This case, along with four others, was combined with Brown v. Board of Education. Responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, in 1955, then-Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr. instituted, what has become known as, Massive Resistance policy in an effort to maintain segregation. Desegregation actually began in 1959 when the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court overturned many of the laws enacted to stifle desegregation, and the governor’s decision to close schools. Nevertheless, not until Green et al. v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia (1968) and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina (1971) did the pace of desegregation in Virginia quicken.
MEDIA
- Virginia – In Opposing Trump’s Education Pick, Kaine Cites Virginia’s Ugly History on School Segregation (Washington Post, 2017)
- Virginia – Virginia’s Schools are Growing More Racially and Economically Segregated (Washington Post, 2016)
- Farmville, VA – A Civil Rights Museum, a Public University and a Reconciliation (Washington Post, 2015)
- Arlington, VA – Segregation and Desegregation and Civil Rights in Virginia (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2014)
ADVOCACY
- Confronting School and Housing Segregation in the Richmond Region: can we learn and live together? (University of Richmond School of Continuing Professional Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education, HOME of Virginia)
- School Teachers from Across U.S. to Visit VCU to Explore History of School Desegregation in Virginia (VCU News)
OTHER RESOURCES
- Increasingly Separate and Unequal in U.S. and Virginia Schools (The Commonwealth Institute, 2016)
- Miles to Go: A Report on School Segregation in Virginia, 1989-2010 (The Civil Rights Project, 2013)
- Racial Segregation in Virginia’s Schools (StatChat, 2012)
- Public School Desegregation in Virginia During the Post-Brown Decade (William and Mary Law Review, 1996)
- Desegregation in Public Schools (Encyclopedia Virginia)
RESEARCH ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS
- Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Virginia Commonwealth University