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Context
When the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, it declared that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The ruling overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine that had enabled Virginia and other southern states to maintain inferior schools for African American students. The court’s decision would make those separate school systems illegal and demand sweeping social changes in how African Americans were treated.
Not all Virginians approved of these changes. Richmond News Leader editor James J. Kilpatrick worked behind the scenes with state officials to prevent desegregation and published many editorials in his newspaper urging white Virginians to resist the court’s order, which he denounced as an unconstitutional decree. He revived the 19th century doctrine of interposition—interposing, or placing, the power of the state government between its people and the federal government—to argue that Virginia had the right to defy the Supreme Court. He published a series of editorials about interposition late in 1955. On November 22, Kilpatrick explained why he believed Virginia had the right of interposition to prevent desegregation. In another editorial published on November 29, he used historical examples to justify his argument that Virginia’s heritage and tradition required the state to take the lead in opposing “the Federal Government’s encroachments” on the powers of the states. Political leaders like U. S. Senator Harry F. Byrd and Governor Thomas B. Stanley employed Kilpatrick’s arguments to bolster their efforts to prevent school integration.
The General Assembly adopted a resolution of interposition in February 1956, although it had no binding effect. Later that month, Senator Harry Byrd called for massive resistance to desegregation, which the governor and the General Assembly put into effect through legislation passed later that year.
Citation: James J. Kilpatrick, "The Right of Interposition," Nov. 22, 1955, and "Interposition Now," Nov. 29, 1955, in Richmond News Leader, Library of Virginia.
Related entries
Governor Stanley's Address to the General Assembly, August 27, 1956, and the Voices Not Heard
Standards
Suggested Questions
Preview Activity
Scan It: Scan the document. What words and phrases stand out to you? Why?
Post Activities
Analyze: Why do you think opponents of Brown v. Board of Education used the idea of interposition? Could this be used for other arguments as well?
Think About it: Why do you think some Virginians supported massive resistance and by extension interposition? Explain.