Davis v. School Board of Prince edward country (virginia)
In 1951, Robert B. Moton High School students attended school in unequal conditions. Not only were the classrooms overcrowded, but the students were also spilling into school buses. Four years earlier the school had been ruled inadequate by the State Board of Education, and by 1951, the school, which had been built to hold 180 students, was being used to hold 450.
In 1951, Countywide, all but one of the 15 black school buildings was a wooden frame structure with no indoor restroom facilities. The buildings had only wood, coal, or kerosene stoves for heat and a total property value of $329,000. On the other hand, all seven white schools were made of brick with steam or hot water heat and indoor toilets with a total property value of $1.2 million. The county spent $195 per capita for black students while spending $317 for white students.
As predicted by the NAACP legal team, the Virginia courts ruled that the facilities were unequal and should be equalized to meet the standard of "separate but equal" from Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and combined with four other cases under Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. In 1959, the county board of supervisors abolished public education rather than allow black and white students to go to school together. The vast majority of the county's 1,700 African-American students went without formal education for the next five years - students whom historians have labeled "the crippled generation."Following the Brown decision, Virginia Senator Harry Byrd led a policy of "massive resistance" to court-mandated integration in the state. This policy took its most destructive form in Prince Edward County. During this period, Prince Edward County became a focal point on both sides of the desegregation issue. Money poured in from segregationists all over the nation, which allowed the county to open Prince Edward Academy, a segregated white private school.
The county then instituted a school voucher plan to ensure that white parents could afford to send their children to the private school. People from other Southern towns came to Prince Edward County to take lessons in fighting desegregation. At the same time, pro-integration organizations such as the NAACP and the American Friends Service Committee arrived to investigate and report on conditions. These groups and black colleges did what they could to offer educational alternatives for the locked-out African American students. The situation lasted for five years, until a Supreme Court decision in 1964 forced the county to reopen the public schools. Though with virtually all of the white students in private school, the public schools remained segregated all-black institutions. Over time, conditions in Prince Edward improved. Even Prince Edward Academy eventually integrated, though it did so to avoid losing its tax-exempt status. Even with its high level of integration, there is still a significant disparity in the opportunities afforded to Prince Edward students.
In 1951, Countywide, all but one of the 15 black school buildings was a wooden frame structure with no indoor restroom facilities. The buildings had only wood, coal, or kerosene stoves for heat and a total property value of $329,000. On the other hand, all seven white schools were made of brick with steam or hot water heat and indoor toilets with a total property value of $1.2 million. The county spent $195 per capita for black students while spending $317 for white students.
As predicted by the NAACP legal team, the Virginia courts ruled that the facilities were unequal and should be equalized to meet the standard of "separate but equal" from Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and combined with four other cases under Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. In 1959, the county board of supervisors abolished public education rather than allow black and white students to go to school together. The vast majority of the county's 1,700 African-American students went without formal education for the next five years - students whom historians have labeled "the crippled generation."Following the Brown decision, Virginia Senator Harry Byrd led a policy of "massive resistance" to court-mandated integration in the state. This policy took its most destructive form in Prince Edward County. During this period, Prince Edward County became a focal point on both sides of the desegregation issue. Money poured in from segregationists all over the nation, which allowed the county to open Prince Edward Academy, a segregated white private school.
The county then instituted a school voucher plan to ensure that white parents could afford to send their children to the private school. People from other Southern towns came to Prince Edward County to take lessons in fighting desegregation. At the same time, pro-integration organizations such as the NAACP and the American Friends Service Committee arrived to investigate and report on conditions. These groups and black colleges did what they could to offer educational alternatives for the locked-out African American students. The situation lasted for five years, until a Supreme Court decision in 1964 forced the county to reopen the public schools. Though with virtually all of the white students in private school, the public schools remained segregated all-black institutions. Over time, conditions in Prince Edward improved. Even Prince Edward Academy eventually integrated, though it did so to avoid losing its tax-exempt status. Even with its high level of integration, there is still a significant disparity in the opportunities afforded to Prince Edward students.