Integration in Arlington – Stratford Jr. High

Before Feb. 2, 1959, there were schools in Arlington for white students and separate schools for black students. Virginia was one of 17 southern states that required racial segregation in the schools. The black schools had less money and used discarded books and materials from the white schools.

In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka on behalf of thirteen Topeka parents and their twenty children. The case known as Brown vs. the Board of Education was finally settled by a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 17, 1954. The decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and declared that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities.

Following the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Arlington School Board adopted a plan to desegregate county schools in the fall of 1956. However, state political leaders had no intention of allowing Arlington or any other school system in Virginia to integrate.

U.S. Sen. Harry Byrd Sr., D-Va, coined the phrase “Massive Resistance” and urged Southern states to fight federal desegregation orders. Following his lead, the VA General Assembly adopted a policy of Massive Resistance to integration.

The state legislature voted to abolish Arlington’s elected school board and replace it with one appointed by the county board, which was more conservative. State law called for automatic shutdown of any racially-mixed school.

“The reaction of the state to the Supreme Court was one of defiance,” recalls O. Glenn Stahl, former Arlington school board, and leader of the Committee to Preserve Public Schools which fought to keep schools open after desegregation. According to Stahl, “the state legislature was saying, ‘if any desegregation takes place, we will close the schools.’ That was the essence of the law.”

On May 17, 1956 the NAACP filed suit against Arlington County and three other Virginia localities, seeking to force school desegregation.

The integration laws were tested several times when integrationists attempted to enroll black students into white schools. In September 1957, eight black students applied to Arlington white schools and were turned away – three at Stratford Junior High, two at Washington-Lee, two at Swanson, and one at Thomas Jefferson. Principal Claude Richmond of Stratford told Joyce Bailey, George Nelson, and Leslie Hamm, Jr. they could not be admitted.

By the summer of 1958, Arlington was under a federal court ordered to admit seven Negro children to four white schools. State law called for automatic shutdown of any racially-mixed school. The people of Arlington were concerned they would have no public schools if they complied with the federal court order. In fact, the state had closed schools in Norfolk when they tried to integrate, leaving 17,000 children without a school.

Citizens from Arlington, Richmond, Front Royal, and Norfolk united to form the Committee to Preserve Public Schools. The committee included both segregationists and integrationists, but all members insisted the public schools be kept open. Stahl, a former Arlington school board member, was the leader of this group, which fought to keep schools open after desegregation.

On Sept. 17, 1958, Alexandria Federal Judge Albert V. Bryan ruled that Arlington must admit four black students to Stratford. Governor Almond directed that the State Pupil Placement Board and not the County School Board had the sole right to place the pupils. The Committee to Preserve Public Schools sued Governor Almond in October 1958. In January 1959, the State School Closing law was found unconstitutional and struck down, forcing Governor Almond to obey the court order to admit black students to white schools.

On Feb. 2, 1959, four black students, Michael G. Jones, Gloria Thompson, Donald Deskins, and Lance D. Newman, were enrolled in the seventh grade at Stratford Junior High School in Arlington. 85 policeman in full riot gear and close to 1000 members of the media watched the students enter the building that day. Watch this news report from February 7, 1959 by WSB-TV reporter Neal Strozier commenting on the day.