Massive Resistance Timeline

Source: A RESOLUTION OF THE CHARLOTTESVILLE CITY SCHOOL BOARD OF CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

• In 1953 the Charlottesville school board appointed Fendall Ragland Ellis (March 5, 1910–May 8, 1986) superintendent of the city's public schools.
• On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
• On May 7, 1956 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People named Ellis and the Charlottesville school board as defendants in a lawsuit filed in federal court on behalf of forty-three black students denied admission to all-white public schools in the city. Ellis sought guidance from the governor several days later. Subsequently the school board hired John Stewart Battle, a former governor and Charlottesville resident, to represent the board at the state's expense. As the suit made its way through the courts, state officials scrambled for a plan to combat court-ordered desegregation.
• Implementing a policy of Massive Resistance, the General Assembly, in a special session, adopted laws in August 1956 designed to prevent racial integration, including one requiring the governor to close any school that desegregated its facilities. These state actions forced local school officials such as Ellis into a no-win situation. If school officials refused federal court orders to integrate, they could be fined or imprisoned; but if they obeyed the court orders, the state would shut down their schools. The legislature formed a state Pupil Placement Board for the purpose of removing local control.
• March 25, 1957, the U. S. Supreme Court declined to hear the School Board’s appeal of Judge Paul’s decision.
• September 10, 1958, Judge Paul ordered the school system to admit two African American students to Lane High School and ten to Venable.
• September 19, 1958, in an effort to prevent the desegregation of the Charlottesville School System, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia ordered the closing of Lane and Venable. (The Charlottesville School System was closed for five months.)
• On January 29, 1959 the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Massive Resistance legislation violated the state constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution.
• February 4, 1959, Superintendent Ellis reopened Lane and Venable on a segregated basis for the remainder of the school year; with the African American students being taught in a separate room in the Venable Annex.
• September 1, 1959, the Commonwealth’s Pupil Placement Board denied the transfer request of the Charlottesville African American students wanting to be admitted to Venable and Lane.
• September 5, 1959, Judge Paul ordered the immediate transfer of twelve African ­American students, three to Lane High School and nine to Venable Elementary.
• September 8, 1959, twelve students integrated the Charlottesville School System.
• On September 17, 1962 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals finally invalidated the pupil assignment plan; desegregation struggles continued in Charlottesville for the rest of the decade.