In some states, that meant a sudden and utter surge in the number of private schools and academies that opened their doors to white students only. But in Virginia, home to the onetime capital of the Confederacy, that simply was not regarded as enough. First, a set of laws and practices known as "massive resistance" created groups with the power to assign specific students to particular schools. In some places, public funds were used to provide private school tuition grants to white students whose parents disagreed with integration, and state legislators approved a measure cutting off all state funds to any public school that actually attempted to integrate.
But time after time, state and federal courts struck the practices down, declaring them unconstitutional and illegal.
By the final months of 1958, Virginia schools in places like Warren County, Charlottesville and cities as populous as Norfolk were ready to concede and integrate. State officials seized and closed schools in these and other places to try to prevent integration. But the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals (today known as the Supreme Court of Virginia) overturned the law giving state officials the authority to close or seize schools. And a federal court issued a ruling that overturned the same law.
Undaunted, Virginia lawmakers convened in January 1959 and passed a law actually revoking the very concept of compulsory school attendance. Students, their parents and county officials should decide, they said. And just in case any parents -- white or black -- were feeling particularly brave or inclined to integrate local schools, regional ruffians, local law enforcement agencies and elected officials leaned on specific and non-specific threats circulating all over the state to keep most black children out of what had previously been all-white schools.
But parents in bigger cities like Norfolk had had enough. Schools were officially, if only nominally, integrated that year. In Prince Edward County, Va., however, white officials refused to budge. They set up a series of private schools for white students only, supported with state funds and local tax credits. And they left black children with no schools at all for five years. Black parents either had to find some kind of coordinated way to continue their children's educations -- in private homes and churches without the benefit of public funds -- or send them to live elsewhere.
This situation remained, with some notable but small-scale alternatives, until 1964, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the publicly funded tuition assistance going to the all-white private schools was also unlawful.
Right about now, there are some Fix readers who, no doubt, have let out a deep and exasperated sigh -- or expressed some variation of this: "Yes, of course, we know that" or,"Well, that was then. What has that got to do with us now?"
Well, apparently quite a bit. Take an Internet-enabled trip on over to Augusta County, Va., circa December 2015. Stop by the local paper's website, the News Leader. And take a look at what The Washington Post has written here.
If you follow those links, you will find a statistical picture of Augusta County -- population 73,862 people, 91.5 percent white-non Hispanic, 98.1 percent American-born -- and you will see stories written in the News Leader just last week and elsewhere describing the mix of religious concern, ignorance and fear connected to a single classroom assignment.
That assignment prompted some sort of unspecified threat. That threat, in turn, made Augusta County school officials close every school in the district last week.
What was the grand, deeply offensive and upsetting content of this school assignment? A high school teacher asked students in a world geography class working their way through a unit on the world's major and monotheistic religions to complete an assignment that the teacher and curriculum designers believed to be important.
The aim: understanding the role that intricate Arabic script depicting portions of the Koran plays in decorating Islamic worship spaces (and some Muslim homes). The text on the worksheet also introduces the idea that any other type of religious imagery is considered verboten idolatry in Islam. If nothing else, it offers thinking students and teachers information with which they might begin a discussion about recent terrorist attacks and geopolitical events, as well as freedom of religion and expression in the United States. (Think of the brutal 2004 murder of the late Dutch filmmaker and self-described provocateur Theo van Gogh, or the January attack at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine).
The Virginia school assignment asked students to look at a block of Arabic script and attempt to re-create it in a blank space below. The text translates -- as the worksheet clearly explains -- to the Islamic shahada. That's the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Nicene or Apostle's creeds (recited in most Catholic and some Protestant churches with regularity but given meaning by the actual beliefs of those who repeat it). Most notably, an English-language translation of the shahada was not provided on the worksheet.
Why? The assignment did not specifically ask students to contemplate the shahada's meaning, to take it into their hearts and accept it as their own. It simply exposed students to a concept likely unfamiliar to most and asked them to try to duplicate the text in a blank space on the worksheet.
This from The Washington Post's reporting:
The shahada translates to: “There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Some translations start with: “There is no god but Allah.”The students were never asked to translate the phrase, nor were they instructed to recite it or “adopt or pronounce it as a personal belief,” Schools Superintendent Eric Bond wrote in a news release. He noted that students are slated to do similar calligraphy exercises in units about China.
That, folks, is art appreciation, cross-cultural exposure and a possible discussion and learning prompt -- not religious indoctrination. Well, that was supposed to be the academic point. But, it's one that appears to have been lost on a lot of people.
When some parents learned of the assignment handed out at Riverheads High School and the meaning of the text, that was quite enough to ignite a social and political firestorm. As CNN described it, the assignment prompted "such an an angry backlash" that school officials closed every school in the district as a safety precaution.
About 10,000 students could not attend school on Friday.
Unhappy about the assignment, some parents and non-parents alike gathered at a local forum to discuss what they viewed as the outrageous worksheet and assignment, a threat to their culture, their way of life and the values they are trying to instill in their children. Sound at all familiar?
For the record, some parents in the area clearly do not agree. Still, what was said at the meeting truly must be read to be believed. So here is a sampling and a link.
"There was no trying about it. The sheet she gave out was pure doctrine in its origin," the mother who organized the event for parents told an area television station and CNN affiliate, WHSV-TV. "I will not have my children sit under a woman who indoctrinates them with the Islam religion when I am a Christian."
And there was more -- much, much more. Some at the parent event called for the teacher behind the assignment to be fired. One person wondered aloud if the teacher is a terrorist, according to the News Leader. And some of what was said about the teacher and the assignment online was far worse.
As is the way of these things in 2015, by Monday the woman who organized the parent gathering had publicly declared herself the undeserving victim of international infamy, ridicule and blame for the school shutdown. She remains certain that she is right and that she did the right thing. Again, click the link here to see what she had to say for herself.
Also Monday, the local paper engaged in some public hand-wringing about damage done to the area's reputation due to "unflattering international media attention." Yes. That's really the problem here. But the editorial board did wisely acknowledge a whole series of bigger questions that linger. They begin with, "What now?"
There is no meaningful way to put some truths gently. So, we will at least keep it brief.
If, in Virginia, the reasons that more education and more exposure to the many cultures and people who inhabit this big broad world remain unclear in 2015, there is much work to do. If unbridled and irrational bigotry and fear -- whether racial or religious -- are not understood as rooted in delusional and self-sabotaging supremacy, then indeed there is much work to do.
At minimum, we should all be aware of this. Insufficient education and misinformation helps to feed the voracious and sometimes dangerous appetite of the nation's political machine. And that is a threat that, at present, remains so real and widespread that many Americans honestly cannot say that something similar to the recent events in Virginia, absolutely could not happen in a community near them.
CORRECTION: This post has been updated to remove a reference to Augusta County schools returning to session. Students have not returned since the uproar over the assignment and the threats causing the district to cancel classes Friday. On Monday students were scheduled to begin a two week break.


