Massive resistance was a policy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. of Virginia on February 24, 1956, to unite other white politicians and leaders in Virginia in a campaign of new state laws and policies to prevent public school desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. Although most of the laws created to implement Massive Resistance were negated by state and federal courts by January 1960, some policies and effects of the campaign against integrated public schools continued in Virginia for many more years; many schools, and even an entire school system, were shut down in preference to integration.
Read more about Massive Resistance: Byrd Organization, Opposition To Racial Integration, Circumventing Brown Ruling By New State Efforts To Maintain Segregation, 1958–59 Massive Resistance Vs. The Courts, Segregation Academies, Prince Edward County: No Public Schools 1958–64, Freedom of Choice: Most Public Schools Remain Segregated, Federal Courts Order Busing Programs, Historical Reaction, Artistic Interpretation
Famous quotes containing the words massive and/or resistance:
“Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“The greatest, or rather the most prominent, part of this city was constructed with the design to offer the deadest resistance to leaden and iron missiles that might be cast against it. But it is a remarkable meteorological and psychological fact, that it is rarely known to rain lead with much violence, except on places so constructed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)