Supreme Court decision, Brown v Board of Education, bans racial segregation in public schools, affirming that separate but equal schools are not, in fact, equal. Virginia is connected because it was one of five legal cases (e.g., Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia) involved in the decision. Include in narrative discussion (not as separate entries) the following:
In response to the Brown decision, Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., and other Virginia lawmakers promote the “Southern Manifesto,” which opposes school integration. 1955 – Brown II. Supreme Court rules that school desegregation must take place with "all deliberate speed.”
1956 – To protest the Brown decision, Senator Byrd and other southern lawmakers call upon the state to carry out acts of “massive resistance.”
1958 – Governor J. Lindsay Almond closes schools in Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Alexandria. Black students are severely affected, while many White students get access to private White-only facilities. Because Albemarle Training School and Jefferson School in Charlottesville were segregated schools for African American students, however, they did not close.
1959 – Virginia Supreme Court overturns school closings.
The Brown decision set a precedent, which led civil rights activists to legally target segregated hospitals. They first aimed at the Veterans Administration, and in 1954 it officially ended segregation in its hospitals. This was significant in many ways. Through the Veterans Administration hospitals, for example, many Black nurses such as UVA graduate Mavis Claytor had greater opportunities to work in desegregated facilities.
Black activists were then successful in desegregating hospitals via the landmark 1962 Supreme Court ruling, Simkins v Cone, which mandated that private hospitals receiving federal funding under the Hill-Burton Act could not discriminate based on race, as protected by the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Simkins v Cone also outlawed sections in the original Hill-Burton Act that provided for separate-but-equal hospital access and services. Although African American nurses had been employed in some white hospitals, until Simkins, almost no hospitals permitted African American physicians to obtain staff privileges.
1654
University of Virginia Law Library
BACK >
