_____________________________

Norfolk Commission To Begin Plans To Observe End Of Massive Resistance

     February 2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Norfolk’s public schools and Norfolk’s mayor is readying the city for an observance.
      Two distinguished citizens, former Mayor Joseph Leafe and former Vice Mayor Joseph Green, have been appointed to chair a special commission, announced Mayor Paul Fraim, who, earlier this year, called for the appointment of the commission to “plan an appropriate observance” .
      Forty-nine years ago on February 2, 1959, 17 black students now known as the “Norfolk 17”, first entered classes at several of the city’s formerly all-white schools, marking the end of the city’s participation in an effort across the South called “massive resistance”.
      Virginia Governor Lindsay Almond and the General Assembly adopted the policy of massive resistance in 1958 to avoid opening Virginia’s public schools to black students.  In an unprecedented decision, the state closed some of its all-white schools in Norfolk,   Charlottesville and Front Royal to defy compliance with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. 
    In Norfolk, five all-white schools were closed affecting an estimated 10,000 children. Many of those students attended private or parochial schools in Norfolk or schools in other local cities.  Newspaper reports indicate that many students were sent to live with relatives in other cities and still others never returned to school.  Those students would forever be remembered as the “Lost Class of 1959”.
      “The city is indeed fortunate to have two men of the caliber of Joseph Leafe and Joseph Green guide the planning of an event that will commemorate the end of a tragic chapter in the history of this city and

Posted April 9, 2008

   the State of Virginia,” said Mayor Fraim. “The observance will celebrate the progress that’s been made during the last 50 years toward achieving racial harmony and diversity’. 
       In his State of the City speech on February 1, Mayor Fraim set the tone for the observance of the 50th anniversary:
      “50 years ago, Jim Crow and massive resistance made us two cities, separate and unequal.  That Norfolk is gone forever.  Today we are a people of many ethnic and racial backgrounds living together and committed to working together for a better city”.
      City Council appointed the following members to the commission:  Brenda H. Andrews, Publisher of the New Journal and Guide; Barry Bishop, Chair of the Norfolk School Board; Dr. Tommy Bogger, Professor of History and Archivist at NSU; Louis Guy, Former Director of Norfolk City Utilities and President of the Norfolk Historical Society; William Hennessey, Executive of the Chrysler Museum;  Maurice Jones, newly appointed Publisher of the Virginian Pilot; Lula Sears Rogers, Historian and Archivist of First Baptist Church, Bute Street; Pamela Smith-Rodden, Landmark Communications Executive;  Lillian Wright, member of the Norfolk School board; Walter Dickerson, Norfolk Civic League Leader; Sonya Smith, local civic activist; Walter Green, retired Norfolk educator; Dr. Page Laws, Professor of English at NSU and Director of the School's Honors Program;  Ken Whitley, Norfolk Resident, graduate of Norview High School.

Click Here to Subscribe to the New Journal and Guide.