Perrow Commission

The Commission on Education, known as the Perrow Commission after its chairman, Virginia state senator Mosby Perrow Jr., was a 40-member commission established by Governor of Virginia J. Lindsay Almond Jr. on February 5, 1959 after the Virginia Supreme Court in Harrison v. Day and a three-judge federal court in James v. Almond had both struck down significant portions of the Stanley plan, which had implemented Massive Resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education issued on May 17, 1954 and May 31, 1955.[1] Four legislators (some from the Virginia Senate, others from the House of Delegates) were appointed from each of the ten U.S. Congressional districts in Virginia. Compared to the Gray Commission that Governor Thomas B. Stanley had appointed five years previously, Perrow Commission included more representatives from cities, northern and Western Virginia, although many members served on both commissions.[2]

Background

Massive Resistance
Gray Commission

Hearings and Report

Governor Almond instructed the Commission to prepare a report by the end of the legislative session on March 31, 1959.[3]

Following extensive public hearings and debate, the Commission on March 31 issued a 74 page report. "The Commission is opposed to integration and offers the program set out herein because it thinks it is the best that can be devised at this time to avoid integration and preserve our public schools."[4] It further described a "local option" plan that included new pupil placement laws, a new compulsory attendance law, and tuition grants that could be used at what came to be known as "segregation academies"--similar to the former Gray plan that had never been adopted, but rather superseded by the more radical (and now overturned) Stanley plan.[4] Thus, members assured segregationists that it would preserve their values, and predicted passage.[5]

Criticism and Aftermath

Many segregationists were appalled at the Commission's report for betraying the Massive Resistance movement. On the eve of the state Senate's vote on adopting the Perrow Commissions' recommendations, five thousand people (mostly from Southside Virginia) gathered in Richmond's Capital Square, condemning Governor Almond and Lieutenant Governor Stephens for supporting the Perrow Commission's recommendations rather than fight on.[6] Later, liberals would criticize it for replacing "Massive Resistance" with "Passive Resistance."

Former Perrow Commission member George M. Cochran later recalled how, after four hours of debate, the House approved the House bill reported from the Education Committee 54 to 45, leading to final passage 54 to 46.[7] On the Senate side, an anti-Perrow Commission majority controlled the Senate Education Committee, so Almond's allies employed a parliamentary device to permit the entire Senate (rather than just that small committee) to vote on the pupil assignment bill. To break a deadlocked Senate, however, supporters needed the tie-breaking vote of Senator Stuart B. Carter of Fincastle in Botetourt County, who had long argued against the school closings at the heart of Massive Resistance. Carter had opposed the tuition assistance aspects of the Gray plan, and had recently had major surgery. Carter was wheeled into the Senate chambers on a stretcher to cast the decisive favorable vote.[7] The bill passed 20 to 19. The following day, on the same 20 to 19 vote, the Senate approved the local pupil assignment bill.

The 1959 special session established a permanent fissure in the Byrd Organization, "embittering old friends toward one another."[8] The Senate's passage of the "local option" helped trigger the now-seemingly inevitable decline and fall of Massive Resistance, but Perrow paid a political price. He lost support within the Byrd Organization, which defeated his re-election plans in the 1963 Democratic primary.[7] Governor Harrison later appointed Perrow president of the Virginia State Board of Education.[9]

Legal challenges to the remains of Massive Resistance continued, and in 1963, Virginia lost NAACP v. Button. The following year, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Prince Edward County's obstinacy in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. Moreover, over Dixiecrat opposition and filibusters, President Lyndon B. Johnson convinced the U.S. Congress to enact civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, then the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which undercut the Byrd Organization's base). In April 1965, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare issued guidelines which required all U.S. School districts to file compliance documents by July. With increased funding as an incentive, all but 5 of Virginia's 130 school districts filed desegregation plans and documentation concerning compliance by April 1965.[10]

In Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, the Supreme Court heard arguments challenging the freedom-of-choice plan the New Kent school board had enacted supposedly to desegregate the county schools on a voluntary basis, and which allowed white children to attend segregation academies at public expense. Arguing on behalf of the NAACP and representing black parents, Samuel W. Tucker used statistics to show that the county's plan was no more than segregation by another name, 14 years after Brown. In May 1968, the Court agreed, finding the freedom-of-choice plan an inadequate remedy and also ruling that school boards had an "affirmative duty" to desegregate their schools, not place the burden upon black schoolchildren and their parents.[11]

Members of the Commission

As shown by the # symbols below, Perrow Commission membership significantly overlapped with that of the Gray Commission, but also included more representatives from cities, northern and Western Virginia, whereas Southside Virginia had been over-represented on the Gray Commission.[2]

First Congressional District


Second Congressional District


Third Congressional District


Fourth Congressional District


Fifth Congressional District


Sixth Congressional District


Seventh Congressional District


Eighth Congressional District


Ninth Congressional District


Tenth Congressional District


Members of Gray Commission not on Perrow Commission

References

  1. ↑ E. Griffith Dodson, The General Assembly of Virginia 1939-1960 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1961) p. 396
  2. 1 2 Ronald L. Heinemann, Harry Byrd of Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996) at pp. 347–50
  3. ↑ "Television News of the Civil Rights Era : Primary Documents". virginia.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Report on the Commission of Education" (PDF). 1959. Retrieved 2016-08-17.
  5. ↑ "Members of the Perrow Commission predict passage of their program to safeguard segregated schools". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
  6. ↑ Heinemann pp.350–351
  7. 1 2 3 Cochran, George M. (2006). "Virginia Facing Reality: The 1959 Perrow Commission" (PDF). Augusta County Historical Society. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
  8. ↑ Heinemann p.351
  9. ↑ Gunter, Margaret B. (2003). "A History of Public Education in Virginia" (PDF). Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Education. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
  10. ↑ Daugherity at p. 109
  11. ↑ Brian J. Daugherity, Keep on Keeping On (University ofVirginia Press 2016 at 124 et seq.
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