Southern Governors Gather in Virginia to Plan Resistance to Brown v. Board Decision

By EJI Staff, EJI

On June10, 1954, governors and representatives from twelve Southern states met in Richmond, Virginia, and resolved to defiantly resist the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.Released less than a month earlier, the Brown decision struck down racial segregation laws — prevalent in the South — that required separate public schools for Black and white children.

Virginia Governor Thomas Stanley called the Richmond meeting to discuss the Southern states’ options for responding to Brown. The governors of Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi had already publicly stated their intent to maintain the separation of white and Black students, even if it required dissolving the public education systems in their respective states. The governors of Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia had been less radical in their public comments, but still expressed interest in exploring legal methods of avoiding integration.

See Also

Featured Image, BETTMANN/CORBIS
Full article @ EJI, A History of Racial Justice