1960-1965

All Deliberate Delay

"Doing only what the courts may order in response to suits represents a grudging attitude unworthy of a progressive community in our present-day world." (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, 1960)

And yet...this is essentially what Fairfax County School Board does for the next 5 years.

Once Massive Resistance collapsed and pupil placement control was returned to localities, Fairfax County School Board had autonomy over pupil placement decisions. The first three Black students integrated 2 schools in Fairfax on September 1, 1960, and 8 formerly all-white schools had at least one Black pupil enrolled by the end of the 1960-1961 school year. Families of Black students had to affirmatively apply for enrollment under this "free choice" program, however, and there were significant roadblocks. Fairfax County denied the applications of many students who initially applied for pupil placement in integrated schools closest to their homes. Later, Fairfax County denied applications for pupil placements for students who lived closest to a segregated Black school but wished to attend an integrated school. The School Board adopted a secret desegregation plan which was rumored to be a "grade a year" plan which would have taken over a decade to implement. And integrated athletic competition was banned, which was a major disincentive for Black athletes who may otherwise have wanted to transfer to an integrated high school. These roadblocks and delays led to legal action from parents who realized that the only way to move the School Board forward was to compel it through court order.

Community groups in favor of desegregation were more organized and effective during these years, particularly the Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, the Fairfax NAACP, and many community associations that took affirmative votes to demonstrate support for desegregation.

1960 - Grudging Action, Further Delays

"Continued segregation gives the implication of sympathy with out-dated ideas of innate racial superiority, which concept practically all of our citizens abhor." (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, 1960)

March 1960 - Fairfax County Council on Human Relations calls upon the Fairfax County School Board to act swiftly upon the opportunity to assume local authority and adopt a desegregation plan allowing all students to attend schools nearest to their homes, saying, "Orderly school desegregation is entirely feasible and desirable in our county." (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, 1960)

Sept 1, 1960

The first three students to desegregate Fairfax schools bravely started the first day of school at all-white schools.

The students were Jerald R. Betz, a first grader, and Raynard Wheeler, a second grader, who started at Belevedere Elementary School on Columbia Pike.

Gwendolyn Brooks, a second grader, started school at Cedar Lane Elementary in Vienna.

(Chapman, 1960)

Photo Credit:Washington Post, Sept 2, 1960, p. B1

September 1960 - Superintendent W.T. Woodson told the Federal court hearing the case of 26 Fairfax students who had been denied admission to white schools that desegregation "wouldn't be best for the pupils but would be a major distraction." ('Major Disruption" Seen In Full Integration Now", 1960)

School Board Chairman Theodore Herriot testified to the court that the Board had adopted a secret grade-a-year desegregation policy, integrating only the first and second grades during the 1960-61 school year.

Barbara Jackson, one plaintiff, applied to Bryant Intermediate School, just a block from her house. She had to attend school at Luther Jackson, 13.9 miles from her home.

W.T. Woodson said speedy integration would result in "greater friction and the learning capabilities of the children would be handicapped. ("Fairfax Negroes Fight", 1960).

November 1960 - Fairfax County School Board bans integrated participation in interscholastic sports. Barbara Marx, a white leader in the Arlington NAACP, notes that "excluding Negroes from school teams is a serious deterrent to more applications by Negroes to white schools." (Marx, 1960).

1961

January 1961 - an interracial coalition of students calling themselves the Junior Council on Human Relations writes to the Fairfax County School Board in protest of the ban on interracial sports. Petitions in opposition to the ban were circulated at Lee High School, James Madison High School, and Groveton High School. The Fairfax High School newspaper published an editorial approving desegregation and opposing the ban on Black student participation in integrated athletics. (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, January 1961).

The petition against the ban on integrated athletic competition went on to collect over 2500 student signatures across the county. (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, March 1961).

January 24, 1961 The Parent-Teacher Association of Fairfax County, on a 30-5 vote, resolved to direct its executive board to work "toward the desegregation of the Fairfax County School system, including athletics." (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, March 1961).

1961 - Rayfield Barber is the first Black student to attend Groveton High School as a freshman. He was a graduate of the Class of 1964.

Barber he was elected as a freshman class officer and participated in freshman athletics. Says that he later found out that the freshman program would have to be cancelled for safety reason, so the schedule was modified so that all games would be played at home at Groveton. He shares his experience that his high school and other high schools in Northern Virginia insisted that he participate in the statewide student government conference, but he was not allowed to stay on the campus of the conference.

February 1961 - The Fairfax County Council on Human Relations notes that state regulations for local pupil placement decisions include criteria that "are open to considerably leeway in local interpretation, and might be used in a jurisdiction so minded to slow legal desegregation. Certain of the criteria, also, are open to legal attack, especially if administered on a racist basis." (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, February 1961)

February 1961 - Preston Blackwell of Madison High School and Rayfield Barber of Groveton High School initiate legal action against the Fairfax County School Board in challenge of the ban on integrated athletics. Barber had played one game of freshman football at Groveton "without incident". (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, March 1961)

Febrary 21, 1961 - Fairfax County School Board takes action to retain local control over pupil placement. The School Board also reversed its ban on Black student participation in interscholastic sports. (Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, March 1961).

April 4, 1961 - Deadline for pupils to apply for placement at a school closest to home. The Fairfax County Council on Human Relations distributed a flyer to parents of Black students to promote applications.

"The 27 Negro children enrolled this year in previously white schools report they have been made welcome. They have made many friends and have had greater educational opportunities. They have been welcomed by the P-TA. Things have gone well. [...]

As more Negro parents have their children enter previously white schooos, more and more children will make friends with those different races. Prejudice will be reduced. As time goes on, desegregating the school system will help Negroes get better jobs, better housing, and a better life."

Fairfax County Council on Human Relations April 4 1961 Recruitment Flyer.pdf

(Fairfax County Council on Human Relations, 1961, n.d.)

August 31, 1961

Fairfax County School Board lists 19 schools that will be desegregated starting the 1961-1962 school year, including 8 in their second year of desegregation. The total count of all Black pupils in these 19 schools is 95. 9 of the 19 schools have only 1 or 2 Black pupils starting in September 1961.

1962

October 29 - Washington Post reports on the two major segregation fights facing Fairfax - one, the desegregation of the Fairfax Education Association, and the other, the question of phasing out the remaining segregated "Negro schools" entirely. ("Segregation battle looms in Fairfax", 1962)

1963

February 27, 1963 - A "Dear Friend" letter from the Fairfax NAACP reminds recipients of the April 5 deadline for forms to request pupil placement at integrated schools. "There are nearly 220 Negro children in the County now attending integrated schools, but there are many more who should be attending such schools and thus improve their educational opportunities."

The letter notes that the following vocational courses not offered at Luther Jackson will be available to 11th and 12th grade students at these integrated high schools:

Auto Mechanics, Drafting & Design, Maintenance & Repair, Electronics (Radio & TV) - Woodson, Edison, and Marshall
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Carpentry & Cabinet Making, Cosmetology, Electricity, Practical Nursing - Woodson (Fairfax County Branch NAACP, 1963)

April 15, 1963 - Fairfax County School Board document shows 151 Black pupils had made the list to be assigned to desegregated schools for the 1963-1964 school year for the first time.

October 29 - A front-page Washington Post article reflects on the process of gradual integration in the DC suburbs, pointing out that there has been little trouble associated with integration, but that is because "there really is very little integration." (McBee, 1963). McBee notes that only 16.5% of Black students are enrolled in integrated schools.

McBee notes that some academic disparities seem to be "greater than group differences" and that Fairfax County has been developing tutoring programs to "bring up...performance in integrated schools." She notes that "a Negro girl at Madison High School in Fairfax County won a $1400 scholarship to Bryn Mawr and a National Honor Society award. (McBee, 1963). She also notes that Negro students have been elected school leaders in Fairfax.

McBee says "Faculties are segregated in Fairfax." (McBee, 1963, A1). She also noted the social isolation that many Black students in integrated schools feel (backed up by the statistics above about how few Black students there were in many FCPS schools). McBee writes, "A shy Negro girl at Madison said, "Some kids at Luther Jackson (Fairfax County's only Negro high school) won't even speak to me now, maybe because they feel I've tried to just drop out of my race. I don't understand it." (McBee, 1963, A7).

McBee notes intentional acts of kindness on the parts of some suburban white students to make their Black classmates feel more welcome. She writes that in 1960 at Madison HS in Fairfax, several leading students organized "a coke party for the first Negro entrants". ((McBee, 1963, A7)

"Desegregation has not produced a great change because there aren't very many Negro students in white schools." (McBee, 1963)

1964

According to Blakeney v. FCPS, there were approximately 2,300 Negro students in FCPS in 1964. Only 900 attended 72 integrated schools. The remainder attend the 6 all-Negro schools (five elementary and Luther Jackson Junior-Senior High School). (Blakeney v. Fairfax County School Bd., 1964).

Blakeney v. Fairfax County School Board

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 48 plaintiffs who requested enrollment in either all-white or integrated schools in FCPS, but were denied entry and were enrolled in the all-Negro schools closest to their homes. Plaintiffs showed that white students were not assigned to all-Negro schools closest to their residence.

The court ruled that "the issue is now moot", because (presumably in response to the lawsuit), the School Board on July 9, 1964 "reexamined the applications of the forty-eight intervenors and assigned each of them and two additional colored applicants to the all-white or integrated school nearest to their place of residence. All other Negro children similarly situated will be reassigned to the next nearest all-white or integrated school upon request. Neither white nor colored children will be compelled to attend any of the existing so-called all-Negro elementary schools-- except by choice."

(Blakeney v. Fairfax County School Bd., 1964).

The court noted that between March 1964 and July 1964, FCPS had closed one all-Negro elementary school, Oak Grove, reassigning all 55 former pupils to all-white or integrated schools.

The Court found that FCPS planned to "phase out" Luther Jackson as a segregated school by eliminating 7th grade in 1964 and 8th grade in 1965. "The remaining three grades of this of this junior-senior high school will be completely phased out in teh next two or three years and the shool plant will then be used by those students, colored and white, then residing in the attendance area delineated for this plant."

The Court noted that the School Board denied over 100 transfer requests in April of 1964, citing reasons such as overcrowding or lack of transportation. Though the Board did not clearly use the grounds of race in these denials, the Court noted that white children are not compelled to attend "all Negro" schools closest to their place of residence regardless of the extent to which the next-closest white school is overcrowded.

The Court noted that the "all-Negro" schools are in, for the most part, all-Negro communities, due to longstanding housing segregation in the county. The Court did not demand that the all-Negro schools be closed, citing that the court precedent demanded only that racial discrimination must end, not that integration must be forced through closure of existing schools or through busing.

December 10, 1964 - NAACP expresses "its appreciation of the Board's actions toward full desegregation of schools in Fairfax County, without the pressure of court action or activist demonstrations." (Fairfax County School Board, 1964, December 10, p 31)

1965

February 16, 1965 - Special Session of the Fairfax School Board to hear public reaction "to proposed boundary changes influencing areas served by negro schools, toward complete desegregation of the Fairfax County school system."

Testimony was taken from people in equal numbers in support of and opposed to the proposed desegregation plans. Board members praised participants for "the restrained and mature approach" shown in the hearing. (Fairfax County School Board, 1965, February 16, p.61)

"...toward complete desegregation of the Fairfax County school system"

Photo Credit:Washington Post, Feb 15, 1965, Page B1

The front page of the B section of the Washington Post details the vanishing of "the last vestiges of the old dual Negro and white school systems in the Washington area" (Dewar, 1965).

"Most recently Fairfax County, once the slowest to take the initiative on desegregation, unveiled an ambitious plan for phasing out all of its remaining Negro schools by fall, 1966. Significantly, the impetus stems from more than just a judicial writ. As important now is the force of economic and to a degree at least, moral pressures. It has become both expensive and embarrassing to cling to the old system" (Dewar, 1965, p. B1)

Dewar also notes, "It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that integration has been accomplished....residential segregation....serves just as effectively to lock thousands of Negro pupils in segregated schools." (Dewar, 1965, p. B1)

"Fairfax is under court order to complete desegregation, but the economies of maintaining small, inefficient segregated schools while struggling to keep pace with an overall enrollment explosion is perhaps even more compelling. At one point, operating a dual system was estimated to cost $1 million annually." (Dewar, 1965, p. B1)

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