CONTENT WARNING
Materials in the Library of Virginia’s collections contain historical terms, phrases, and images that are offensive to modern readers. These include demeaning and dehumanizing references to race, ethnicity, and nationality; enslaved or free status; physical and mental ability; and gender and sexual orientation.
Context
After the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that school segregation was unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia's white political leaders at the state and local levels led a Massive Resistance movement, even threatening to close public schools rather than desegregate. Governor Thomas B. Stanley backed legislation in the General Assembly to maintain so-called "separate but equal" schools. The reactions by Virginians to Brown v. Board varied—while some approved the decision enthusiastically, there were many who bitterly opposed it.
Members of the NAACP in Warren County sued to desegregate the high school in Front Royal, and in September 1958 a federal district court judge ordered that Black students be admitted to Warren County High School. Governor J. Lindsay Almond closed the school, as well as others in Charlottesville and Norfolk that had also been ordered to desegregate. A total of nine schools were closed, locking out nearly 13,000 students. In January 1959, a federal district court declared Virginia's massive resistance laws unconstitutional based on the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals declared that they violated the state constitution. In February, twenty-three Black students integrated the high school in Warren. Many localities in Virginia continued to resist efforts to desegregate public schools into the 1960s.
Alvin and Ainslee Dohme owned Cedarbrook Farm, where they raised polled herefords, in Warren County. Although they did not have children in public schools, they opposed Virginia's policy of Massive Resistance to school desegregation. In February 1959 they wrote to Warren County supervisor Maurice Bowen expressing their opinion that closing public schools to preserve segregation was "traitorous folly and failure in our civic responsibilities."
Citation: Letter from Ainslee B. Dohme and Alvin R. L. Dohme, Front Royal, to Maurice Bowen, Front Royal. February 26, 1959. Warren County Board of Supervisors, Petitions and Letters For and Against Public School Integration, February–March 1959, Accession 39750. Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
For more information on Massive Resistance, see Encyclopedia Virginia.
Standards
Suggested Questions
Preview Activity
Scan It: Scan the document. What words and phrases stand out to you? Why?
Post Activity
Analyze: Do you think this letter is effective? How would you make their point stronger?
Think About It: Imagine you are a student where schools were closed. How would you feel? Why would you feel this way? Explain.