In
early 1959, Virginia Governor J. Lindsay Almond informed his citizens
that it had been decreed that they did not control the schools in their
own State, and that their educational system must be degraded as was
done in District of Columbia. Bernhard Thuersam
New Moral Code Forced Upon Virginia:
“On
January 19, 1959, came the legal rejection of massive resistance that
Governor Almond expected. Both the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and
a three-judge federal district court ruled, in separate cases, that the
anti-desegregation statues adopted in 1956 were illegal and invalid.
When the beleaguered governor went on television two days later to
announce his response to the court rulings, his tone was strident and
his message was one of continued defiance. An impassioned Almond told
Virginians:
“To
those in high places or elsewhere who advocate integration for your
children and send their own to private or public segregated schools, to
those who defend or close their eyes to the livid stench of sadism, sex
immorality and juvenile pregnancy infesting the mixed schools of the
District of Columbia and elsewhere; to those who would overthrow the
customs, morals and traditions of a way of life which has endured in
honor and decency for centuries and embrace a new moral code prepared by
nine men in Washington whose moral concepts they know nothing about . .
. to all these and their confederates, comrades and allies, let me make
it abundantly clear for the record now and hereafter, as governor of
this State, I will not yield to that which I know to be wrong and will
destroy every semblance of education for thousands of the children of
Virginia.”
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