A century from now, will desegregation in Virginia be a forgotten story?

If we don't do a better job of saving our records, it will be. Currently

few of the records of school desegregation in Virginia are publicly

available. A group of archivists, historians and public officials have

expressed an interest in creating a taskforce to identify, locate and

preserve records that document Virginia’s school desegregation process.



This documentation could encompass public and private records from the

early 1950s into the late 1980s.  Public records of desegregation could

include City Council/County Board minutes; School Board minutes and

administrative papers; school district correspondence with parents, city

and county officials, Virginia Department of Education and Pupil Placement

Board, decisional papers, legal advice and policy statements. Private

records might take the form of teachers’ diaries, oral histories, records

of informal tutoring groups that existed when public school were closed,

organization papers of ad hoc citizen groups for and against Massive

Resistance, papers of associations such as Virginia Education Association,

Virginia State Teachers Association, Virginia Association of School

Superintendents, Virginia School Boards Association. Legal research may be

necessary to determine the public access rights to some of these records.

Individual student school and medical records would not be sought due to

confidentiality laws.



Events that might be covered include the early challenges to Jim Crow

schools in the pre-Brown early 1950s; the Virginia court cases that were

bundled with other suits to become Brown v. Board of Ed; the school

closings in Prince Edward County, Charlottesville, Warren County and

Norfolk; the school openings in those counties; the gradual integration of

all public schools in Virginia and court ordered busing to end de facto

segregation lasting into the 1980s.



The final product of this taskforce would be an electronic catalog (similar

to the Virginia Heritage Project) which would describe the existent records

of desegregation in the Commonwealth of Virginia.



The tasks of this group might include:

      Determining the scope and timeframe of what is to be documented: the

         Massive Resistance movement, public schools, private schools,

         higher education, etc.

      Recruiting participation from members of relevant constituent groups

         such as school superintendents, teachers, civic leaders, etc.

      Recruiting task force members from each area of Virginia who are

         knowledgeable about regional history and records

      Obtaining funding for the project from granting agencies such as the

         Virginia Heritage Foundation and the National Historical

         Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)

      Developing a historical records survey instrument to locate relevant

         records

      Creating an electronic catalog of discovered records

      Finding a virtual home for the catalog

      Developing an educational toolkit for K-12 teachers to use the

         catalog



The media attention given to the 50th anniversary of Massive Resistance’s

school closings has increased public awareness of this important era. While

the public is listening may be the best time to find documentation so that

the 100th anniversary is not commemorated with silence.



We would welcome your thoughts and suggestions on this idea.



Sonia Yaco

Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist

Old Dominion University

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Dr. James Sweeney

Associate Professor of History

Old Dominion University



Old Dominion University

4427 Hampton Blvd.

Norfolk, VA 23529-0256





http://www.lib.odu.edu/special/index.htm