The events surrounding the 1956-57 school year in Virginia are largely unknown to most people. The era of “massive resistance” to openly defy the Brown decision is long gone, yet its legacy remains. Public education in Virginia and around the country continues to be largely segregated with widespread racial disparities. Lower income children of color are often concentrated in high poverty areas characterized by “underperforming schools” that are under resourced. The result is unequal education that limits the potential of these children. Especially since the 1980’s, our nation has largely abandoned intentional efforts to provide a truly integrated public education in favor of a neighborhood focused approach that benefits children in middle and high income neighborhoods and contributes to racially segregated education especially for low income children of color. The second video posted below addresses this reality. While there is no simple solution to the de facto resegregation of public education in our nation today, learning about the shameful and uncomfortable history of racial segregation of public education in Virginia and throughout the South coupled with commitment to the equal flourishing of all children provides a foundation to find a way forward.
This is the time of year when children are preparing for the new school year. Parents, children, teachers, and school administrators are well aware of the upcoming first day of school in their localities. But at the start of the 1956-57 school year in Virginia, there was tension and uncertainty in many localities caused by the state government. Two years after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in which segregation in public education was declared unconstitutional, white state officials were defying that decision in favor of a plan of massive resistance to school integration. In the US Congress, massive resistance was led by Virginia Senator Harry Byrd, Sr. who authored the “Southern Manifesto” supported by 101 members of Congress including the entire Virginia delegation. At the state level, Governor Thomas B. Stanley led the effort to implement massive resistance in Virginia. That effort began just months after the Brown decision and culminated with a called session of the Virginia General Assembly in August 1956 to pass a set of laws that became known as The Stanley Plan. At the heart of The Stanley Plan was the automatic closure of any public schools that chose to integrate, the cut off of state funding to any schools that chose to integrate and stay open, and providing tuition grants to students of schools that closed. These grants largely supported white private schools that became known as “segregation academies.” The governor claimed that such drastic measures were necessary because Virginia faced, “the gravest problem since 1865.” He also claimed, “If we accept admission of one Negro child into a white school, it’s all over…we will have given up.” In the immediate aftermath of adopting The Stanley Plan, nine schools were closed in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk. The Stanley Plan provided a blueprint that other states and localities in the South used to develop their own forms of massive resistance. The first video posted below summarizes the impact of The Stanley Plan.