The 1971 Constitution:
Real Change Made In The Lives Of Virginians

April 23, 1951

Barbara Rose Johns led over 450 students in a two-week protest of deplorable school conditions at Robert Russa Moton High School, an all-Black high school in Farmville, Virginia. They were requesting a new, better school to be built to adequately accommodate the needs of students and teachers, comparable to all-white high schools.

May 23, 1951

Johns and classmate Carrie Stokes sought legal counsel from the Richmond NAACP. Lawyers Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson filed suit on behalf of 117 students in the Prince Edward County School District to integrate schools. Asking for Section 140 of the 1902 Virginia State Constitution which stated that “white and colored children shall not be taught in the same schools” to be struck down on the grounds that it violated the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. While the student strike led by Barbara Johns was the impetus for the case against Prince Edward County School Board, 14-year-old freshman Dorothy Davis was the first plaintiff, resulting in the case being named Davis et. al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. This was the only case out of the five cases that comprised Brown v. Board to be initiated by a student-led effort. A three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court presided over the case, unanimously rejecting it and stating “We have found no harm to either race.”

May 5, 1952

NAACP attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and the case was eventually argued with four other cases: Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart [Delaware], Bolling v. Sharpe [District of Columbia], Brown v. Board of Education [Kansas], Briggs v. Elliot [South Carolina]. These cases would collectively become known as Brown v. Board.

May 17, 1954

With a 9-0 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, reversing all prior school segregation court rulings. While this was a groundbreaking decision, there was no direction for the implementation of school desegregation.

May 31, 1955

In a decision known as Brown v. Board of Education II, the U.S. Supreme Court directed district courts and school boards to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.” This vague language supported the attitudes and politics of Virginia’s conservative Democratic leadership under the infamous “Byrd Machine,'' led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd. Conservative politicians established systems in opposition to integration, known as Massive Resistance.

November 1955

Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanely, with the help of an appointed commission, had already begun coming up with potential methods of defying school integration. The Gray Commission, chaired and named after Virginia State Senator Garland Gray, proposed the following: An amendment to the state constitution’s attendance law, making it illegal to require children to attend integrated schools Provide tuition grants for white parents to send their children to private schools Allow the Governor to close public schools to avoid integration Establish a Pupil Placement Board to individually assign students to prospective schools and approving transfer requests Recommendations from The Gray Commission and Gov. Stanley were passed by the General Assembly as the segregationist legislative package known as The Stanley Plan. 1956 - By the start of the school year, Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved the propositions by the Gray Commission, in addition to forbidding any integrated school to receive state funding, legalized by the Stanley Plan, to circumvent the integration of public schools. "If we can organize the Southern States for Massive Resistance to this order I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South." Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, “Byrd Calls for ‘Massive’ Resistance to Integration,” February 26, 1956. White southerners were yet again fighting to uphold racism and segregation in the name of “states rights,” this time utilizing the doctrine of interposition, whereby the state “interposes” between the federal government and people of said state, preventing the federal government from enforcing laws the state deems unconstitutional.

Consolidated cases from Norfolk school district heard by U.S. District Court declared the Pupil Placement Act Unconstitutional but it continued in effect as the ruling was being appealed and the school year continued. The nine Black students who bravely integrated Little Rock Central High, against resistance from Governor Faubus, were proof to stubborn Virginians that President Eisenhower was not against the use of the National Guard to enforce compliance with federal integration mandates. However, in November 1957, Virginia elected J. Lindsay Almond, another member of the “Byrd Machine,” as the successor to Governor Stanley.

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Governor Almond took office that January. Federal Courts ordered public schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Arlington County to integrate, but localities appealed and started the year a month late, or certain schools were forced to close by Governor Almond. During the school closure, Norfolk’s size and lack of resources made it harder to educate the 10,000 students who relied on public schools. Nearly one-third of the students went completely uneducated. In richer localities like Charlottesville and Warren, neighborhoods, communities, and philanthropic organizations banded together to educate the youth until schools reopened.

February 2, 1959

Four African American students enroll in a previously all-white school in Arlington; Seventeen African American students enroll in a previously all-white school in Norfolk. Gov. Almond does not intervene and the students attend school peacefully. Massive Resistance begins to fail in Virginia but it would take years for schools to fully integrate.

The original Pupil Placement Board members resigned due to several appeals of the constitutionality of the Pupil Placement Act. New members were appointed to the Pupil Placement Board and the General Assembly wouldn’t completely dismantle it until 1966. The new Freedom Choice Plan allowed families to choose which public school to attend, but practical issues such as lack of transportation as well as fear and intimidation contributed to continued segregation.

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Slow but ongoing integration efforts in Virginia were being compounded nationally with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. National pressure helped hasten Virginia’s stalled integration practices. Unlike other states, Virginia didn’t require National Guard intervention despite its failure to abide by federal law.

The Supreme Court case Green v. County School Board of New Kent County quickened the pace of desegregation in Virginia. Not only did this ruling outlaw the Freedom Choice Plan but also led to controversial new bussing schemes to expedite integration.

In the late 1960’s Black and white neighborhoods were still racially segregated making it easier for suburban white students to attend segregation academies and inner-city Black students to attend the “desegregated” public city schools. To attempt to curb the continued white flight, court-ordered bussing transported white students to city schools and Black students to county schools. For a host of reasons, Black and white parents were not in favor of transportation past city-county lines. Failed bussing schemes resulted in neighborhood schooling plans, similar to the current workings of public schools.

The election of Republican Linwood Holton as governor in 1969 signaled an end to the conservative Democrat Byrd Machine, which had held power for much of the 20th century. Holton served as Virginia’s governor from 1970 to 1974, during which time his children were enrolled in the predominantly Black Richmond Public Schools.

July 1, 1971

Gov. Holton continued the work begun by Gov. Godwin to revise the Virginia state constitution. The Commission on Constitutional Revision worked from 1968 until 1970 and recommended many improvements to ensure quality education for all of Virginia’s youths. The new state constitution was overwhelmingly passed by voters in Virginia and went into effect on July 1, 1971.