Virginia
Governor J. Lindsay Almond and his citizens witnessed the degradation
of education caused by the unconstitutional Brown decision, and the
predictable result of forced school integration in nearby DC.
Bernhard Thuersam
New Moral Code From Washington
“On
January 19, 1959, came the legal rejection of massive resistance that
Governor [J. Lindsay] 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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