would not allow the black students to pass. As one of the students, Melba Pattillo, tried to flee with her mother, a group of white men, one of them carrying a rope, chased after the pair. Another man swung at the girl with a tree branch.
Eisenhower didnt want to pick sides, but after the situation had dragged on for days and Little Rocks mayor, Woodrow Mann, asked for assistance from the White House, the president federalized the National Guard and sent more than one thousand US Army soldiers armed with billy clubs to the school. He went on television to tell the public that he believed it was his inescapable responsibility to uphold the Brown ruling and to prevent mob rule. The next day, September 25, nine black children walked through the schools front doors.
Less than a year later, on August 20, 1958, Eisenhower declared it was the solemn duty of Americans to comply with the Supreme Courts order to end racial discrimination in public schools, and he implied he would again use force to integrate the schools if necessary. But when Governor Faubus closed Little Rocks public schools to prevent their integration a month after Eisenhowers August speech, the president did not intervene.
Yet Eisenhowers talk stirred the new governor of Virginia, J. Lindsay Almond Jr., who in his inaugural address in January 1958 had suggested Virginia would fight back. Against these massive attacks, we must marshal a massive resistance, he announced. A day after the presidents August comments, Almond called a press conference and told reporters that he would close schools if federal troops were sent in. There will be no enforced integration in Virginia, he said.
The Virginia General Assembly had authorized the governor to close any school that came under the protection of the federal troops and to close the rest of the districts schools, too. As district courts in Virginia began to order desegregation, Almond warned Prince Edward, as well as Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Arlington on September 4 that he would close white schools if blacks were assigned to attend, and he was ready to keep his promise.
On September 15, the governor shut down Warren County High School in Front Royal, located seventy miles west of Washington, DC, and attended by one thousand white students. It became the first school closed under the states massive resistance laws after a federal district court judge ordered the admission of twenty-two black students to the schoolthe county had no black high schooland the judge at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay. On September 19, Almond closed a high school and an elementary school in Charlottesville that were preparing to desegregate, shutting out 1,700 children. And on September 27, Almond shut six white schools in the military community of Norfolk, locking out ten thousand children, after a federal judge ordered the schools to be desegregated. When the Norfolk School Board announced that it had assigned seventeen black children to its schools, Almond issued a proclamation within minutes, declaring the Norfolk schools under his control. The governor made use of rights that had been granted to him by the state assembly years earlier in anticipation of this moment.
In the three communities, nearly thirteen thousand students were locked out of school at the end of September, and the response in Virginia was stunned silence, the reporter Benjamin Muse reflected later. Some white parents banded together, forming the Virginia Committees for Public Schools to demand that the schools be reopened, and ministerial associations in Norfolk and Front Royal chimed in. The editor of Norfolks Virginian-Pilot newspaper, Lenoir Chambers, one of the few Virginia newspaper leaders who publicly opposed the school closures, criticized the decision that locked out or threatened 5,500 children of navy families from all over the country. More than two dozen business leaders pressured
Eisenhower didnt want to pick sides, but after the situation had dragged on for days and Little Rocks mayor, Woodrow Mann, asked for assistance from the White House, the president federalized the National Guard and sent more than one thousand US Army soldiers armed with billy clubs to the school. He went on television to tell the public that he believed it was his inescapable responsibility to uphold the Brown ruling and to prevent mob rule. The next day, September 25, nine black children walked through the schools front doors.
Less than a year later, on August 20, 1958, Eisenhower declared it was the solemn duty of Americans to comply with the Supreme Courts order to end racial discrimination in public schools, and he implied he would again use force to integrate the schools if necessary. But when Governor Faubus closed Little Rocks public schools to prevent their integration a month after Eisenhowers August speech, the president did not intervene.
Yet Eisenhowers talk stirred the new governor of Virginia, J. Lindsay Almond Jr., who in his inaugural address in January 1958 had suggested Virginia would fight back. Against these massive attacks, we must marshal a massive resistance, he announced. A day after the presidents August comments, Almond called a press conference and told reporters that he would close schools if federal troops were sent in. There will be no enforced integration in Virginia, he said.
The Virginia General Assembly had authorized the governor to close any school that came under the protection of the federal troops and to close the rest of the districts schools, too. As district courts in Virginia began to order desegregation, Almond warned Prince Edward, as well as Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Arlington on September 4 that he would close white schools if blacks were assigned to attend, and he was ready to keep his promise.
On September 15, the governor shut down Warren County High School in Front Royal, located seventy miles west of Washington, DC, and attended by one thousand white students. It became the first school closed under the states massive resistance laws after a federal district court judge ordered the admission of twenty-two black students to the schoolthe county had no black high schooland the judge at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay. On September 19, Almond closed a high school and an elementary school in Charlottesville that were preparing to desegregate, shutting out 1,700 children. And on September 27, Almond shut six white schools in the military community of Norfolk, locking out ten thousand children, after a federal judge ordered the schools to be desegregated. When the Norfolk School Board announced that it had assigned seventeen black children to its schools, Almond issued a proclamation within minutes, declaring the Norfolk schools under his control. The governor made use of rights that had been granted to him by the state assembly years earlier in anticipation of this moment.
In the three communities, nearly thirteen thousand students were locked out of school at the end of September, and the response in Virginia was stunned silence, the reporter Benjamin Muse reflected later. Some white parents banded together, forming the Virginia Committees for Public Schools to demand that the schools be reopened, and ministerial associations in Norfolk and Front Royal chimed in. The editor of Norfolks Virginian-Pilot newspaper, Lenoir Chambers, one of the few Virginia newspaper leaders who publicly opposed the school closures, criticized the decision that locked out or threatened 5,500 children of navy families from all over the country. More than two dozen business leaders pressured
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