1961 US Commission on Civil Rights Report Book 2 - University of ...

Floyd County was the second Virginia community to experience
school desegregation for the first time in 1959-60. It is in the southwestern
part of the State and has a relatively small Negro population.
On September 23, 1959, a Federal judge ordered admission of 13 Negro
students to the county's 2 formerly white high schools effective January
25, igGo. 138 Before this there had been no high school serving
Negroes within the county. On November 12, 1959, the school board
assigned the pupils pursuant to the court's order, but the outcome was
doubtful for a while because the county board of supervisors passed a
fund cutoff ordinance under which it could close schools on short notice.
Nevertheless, on January 25, 1960, the 12 Negro pupils entered the
high schools without incident, no action having been taken by the
county board of supervisors to close the schools.
The third district, Pulaski County, which, like Floyd, is in the southwestern
section of the State where the Negro population is small, desegregated
initially in September 1960 when a Federal court ordered
the admission of 14 Negro pupils to one of the county's 2 high schools. 139
Before this there was no high school available to Negro pupils within
the county. The 14 Negroes were enrolled in school with 1,231 white
pupils.
The one high school of the city of Galax in Grayson County was
desegregated in September 1960 under unusual circumstances in that
the seven Negro students admitted to Galax High School were residents
of Grayson County outside the city. They were ordered admitted to
the school by a Federal court which declared that under the contract
between Galax City and Grayson County, Negro students were entitled
to the same treatment as white students similarly situated. 140 They were
enrolled in the school with 613 white students. 141
Desegregation suits were pending against two of the three school
districts, the City of Richmond and Fairfax County—where Negro pupils
were voluntarily assigned by the State Pupil Placement Board to formerly
white schools for the first time effective for the fall term of 1960.
Two public schools were also desegregated in Roanoke by action of
the board although no suit is known to have been pending there. 142
These were the first voluntary assignments of Negro pupils to formerly
white schools by the board since its creation in 1956.
Suit was filed in September 1958 14S to desegregate the public schools
of Richmond, but it was not until September 1960 that the State Pupil
Placement Board assigned 2 Negroes to a school attended by 766 white
pupils. 144 The desegregation reportedly took place without incident.
Richmond is, at the writing of this report, the only one of Virginia's
desegregated school districts in which the Negro public school population
exceeds the white. As of November 1960 the public schools
of Richmond enrolled 17,980 white, and 22,164 Negro pupils. 148
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