Desegregation of Virginia Education (DOVE) Project

Timeline of School Desegregation in Virginia
Separate and Unequal
• 1870  Va. creates public school system – racial segregation required. • 1896  Plessy v. Ferguson, Supreme Court rules “separate but equal” is legal. • 1915  White teachers paid three times more per child as black teachers. • 1940  Federal court rules Norfolk School Board violated 14th Amendment by not paying black and white teachers equally. • 1948  President Truman orders desegregation of Armed Forces. • 1949  Federal court rules Pulaski County must provide equal schooling for black and white children. County ignores ruling.  • 1950  African American lawyer Gregory Swanson enrolls in UVa Law School.
Virginia Leads the Way to Brown v. Board of Education
• 1951  Students in Farmville protest unequal conditions and with NAACP sue for integrated school. Lawsuit becomes part of Brown v. Board of Education. • 1954   Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas rules “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” • 1955  Brown II. Supreme Court rules school desegregation must take place with “all deliberate speed.”
Virginia Massively Resists
• 1956  “Massive resistance” laws are passed to “prevent a single Negro child from entering any white school.” • 1958  Federal courts order nine white schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk to admit black students. Governor Almond closes those schools. • 1959  Massive Resistance laws ruled unconstitutional. Schools ordered reopened. Prince Edward County, refusing to integrate, closes its public schools. State tuition grants for “segregation academies” begin. • 1963  Surry County converts high school to white-only private school.
Making It Real
• 1964  Supreme Court orders Prince Edward County schools reopened. Civil Rights Act passed. All public schools are opened to Native Americans. • 1968  All public colleges now admitting both black and white students. Supreme Court ends “freedom of choice” plans. • 1969  Court ends state tuition grants to segregation academies. • 1970  Governor Holton enrolls his children into previously black schools in Richmond. Busing for racial balance begins. • 1986  Norfolk becomes first city in country to end busing for racial balance. • 1988  Desegregation of U.S. public schools generally peaks; after this, schools in many cities become more segregated.
Revised: 3/19/2012