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
[log in to unmask]

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