American History Tellers - Civil Rights - Jim Crow Fights Back | 3

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

After the Brown V. Board of Education ruling, civil rights activists had legal standing to desegregate schools. But doing so proved dangerous. The first black students to step into newly integrated schools faced extreme hostility from whites who felt Jim Crow society was under attack.The segregationists defied federal court orders. When National Guard troops sent by President Eisenhower forced the issue, white supremacists changed tactics, patiently and cruely wielding political and economic influence against activists. And when even those measures proved not enough to stop integration, some communities abandoned public education altogether, for whites and blacks. Closing all schools, they felt, was better than integrating them.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's September, 1957. You're a brick mason in Little Rock, Arkansas. It's the start of the school year, and as usual, you're seeing your daughter off on her first day. But today is different than any of the others you've shared. This time, she's headed to a new school with a new weight on her shoulders. She's one of a small group of black students integrating all-white Central High School.

She and the other students have just set off together, walking toward the campus with a few chaperones. Your wife turns to you. Do you think she'll be all right? I do. Just try not to worry. Be proud of her. I don't quite know how it happened, but we raised a crusader.

I just want her to be safe. I wish they would have let us go with them. You heard what the superintendent said at the meeting yesterday. Us being there might make things worse. And she's not alone. You look down the block as they continue walking down Park Street in two tight columns. At the back are two black ministers who have been helping to support you and the other families over the past weeks. And up front are four white men, three of them also ministers,

who have agreed to help the students get to school safely that morning. Come on, as long as we hang back, I think we can keep an eye on them. You grip your wife's hand tightly as the two of you make your way slowly down the block, keeping your distance, remembering the warnings. As they get closer to the school grounds, the sounds of shouting and chanting start to build. There must be hundreds of them, white men, women, and children. Some you would probably recognize from around town. Screaming, pumping their fists, waving confederate flags,

and hurling every vile and hateful word in their vocabulary at your daughter. You try to keep your expression calm and your voice reassuring as your wife glances at you nervously. I hear it. They'll be okay. She's just got to keep going. In truth, all you can think about is that distant memory from your childhood here in Little Rock. You were young, but old enough to remember when a white mob lynched a man here 30 years ago, dragged his body through the street, and ripped the pews out of the Bethel church to burn him. You heard the mob's screams and smelled charred flesh. Please, God, keep her safe.

Keep them all safe. You move slowly forward together. Look! A long line of soldiers is standing in front of the entrance. It's a reassuring sight. After all, you were a soldier once. They should keep the children safe. It'll be all right.

You see, they won't let the mob get to them. They should keep the children safe. It'll be all right. You see, they won't let the mob get to them. They'll get inside safely. But as your daughter's group reaches the line, the soldiers don't move. You can see the ministers up front engaging in a tense conversation with one of the men in uniform. What's happening? I can't tell. Maybe they're sending them to a different entrance. Minutes pass, and a sinking feeling comes over you. Something's wrong. What? I don't know, but it shouldn't be taking this long. As soon as the words are out of your mouth, you see your daughter and the other students turning around, exchanging looks, their shoulders starting to droop. They're not letting them in. Why aren't they letting them inside? I don't know.

But the judge and the superintendent, they all said that they could go. What happened? Right now, there's nothing we can do. We've just got to make sure that she's okay. A few minutes later, you meet your daughter and the other students safely away from campus. What happened? They told us to turn around, said the governor himself told them not to let us in. Are you all right? I'm fine. I just, I've never missed a day of school before. What's going to happen now? Will they let me go back? You pause. You want to comfort her. You want her never to have to feel this kind of pain, but instead you tell her the truth. I don't know. From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules.

Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon Jinks Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. We're continuing our six-episode journey through the American civil rights movement.

Today, we'll look at the challenges that civil rights activists faced in the 1950s as they attempted to build on the victories of Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott. This is Part 3, Jim Crow Fights Back. Determined to see the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation decision implemented, activists across the South applied steady pressure on their local schools to end Jim Crow practices. In many places, the early going was frustrating work. They met obstruction, delay, or violence at every possible opening. Perhaps nowhere in the country would the hardships of this battle become more publicized or sensational than the Arkansas capital of Little Rock. There, with support from the NAACP and local leaders, a campaign to desegregate the city's public high school had been underway since the Supreme Court's decision. By the summer of 1957, their efforts had apparently

succeeded. A small, carefully selected group of Black students would be admitted that fall to Central High School. Central was the crown jewel of public education in the state and one of the finest public schools anywhere in the South. It was a fitting symbol for all the promise that the Brown v. Board of Education decision had put within reach. The woman spearheading these efforts to desegregate Central High was a newspaper editor and activist named Daisy Bates. Bates and her husband, L.C., were longtime NAACP members and the founders of the Arkansas State Press newspaper. By the 1950s, Daisy Bates had become president of the Arkansas NAACP, and the Bates' unapologetic advocacy of civil rights issues in the pages of the state press often got them in trouble

with segregationists. From her leadership position with the NAACP, Bates had championed the end of Jim Crow schooling after Brown v. Board. As the start of the 1957 school year approached, she worked closely with the parents and students who were scheduled to desegregate Central High. There had been signs of trouble for several months leading up to the first day of classes, and the threats had only intensified as the summer drew to a close. In late August, Bates was at home one evening when a rock crashed through her living room window. Tied to it was a note.

Stone this time. Dynamite next. Bates hardly slept that night. In fact, there would be precious few restful nights over the next several years. When school finally opened in the first week of September, Arkansas Governor Orval Favus had chosen to defy the federal court order mandating Central High's desegregation. He called for the Arkansas National Guard to surround the school under the guise of restoring peace and order. Their primary instruction was to keep the Black students out. Here was an elected official commanding armed troops to defy federal law. White supremacists rejoiced. Repeated protests from Bates and other civil rights leaders,

along with a mounting national and international outcry, had seemingly no effect. For nearly three weeks, Faubus and the troops ensured that Central High remained all white. Finally, late in September, Faubus appeared to blink. On a Friday evening, he announced the withdrawal of the National Guard. Central's nine black students would finally get to see the inside of a classroom. But with the troops now gone, segregationists rushed in to take their place. Central's nine black students would finally get to see the inside of a classroom. But with the troops now gone, segregationists rushed in to take their place. They would put on their own show of force.

At home that weekend, Daisy Bates had one request for everyone who visited her. Pray for those nine children. As she said, they are the ones who have to face the mob. Imagine you're a 16-year-old high school student, a member of the Little Rock Nine. After three long weeks of waiting, your chance to start the school year has finally arrived. You've even got a store-bought dress for the occasion. All nine of you have gathered at the home of Daisy Bates to make the short journey over to Central. You make nervous small talk with one of the other students. What's your first class?

English. What about you? Chemistry. I've been keeping up with these assignments that they've been sending home, but I'm still worried I'll be behind. Well, you'll catch up quick. You've got a mind for science. You'll be running circles around that class in no time. Four of you squeeze into the backseat of a car. The rest of the group piles into a second car just ahead of yours. Slowly, you pull away from the curb. What do you think they'll be like? I figure they can't be all like the folks in that mob. It may take a little while, but they'll see we all belong there too.

You stare out the window as the car moves down the street. Wait, wasn't that our turn? I heard Mrs. Bates say that we're going over to the side entrance. Your ears start to pick up the dull roar of a crowd. You clutch your books to your chest and hurry inside through a large set of double doors and up some poorly lit stairs. At the top of the stairwell, the vice principal directs you to your classrooms. You hurry quickly down the hall. Walking through the open door of a classroom, you find the room full, except for a chair in the front row.

The teacher points to it without speaking, and you take a few steps, slide into your seat, and stare down at the scratched desktop in front of you. You can feel every other pair of eyes in the room fixed on the back of your head. You try not to look up, saying over and over in your head, Won't be like this every day. They'll get used to it. I'll get used to it.

It'll be better tomorrow. As the bell rings, you grab your books and bolt for the door, stepping out into a swarm of students moving through the halls. The next period goes by in a blur, the same mix of angry stares and nervous discomfort. And not a single person has spoken to you since the vice principal's directions. It's halfway through third period geometry when a knock on the classroom door forces you to look up from your desk. There's a uniformed police officer pointing directly at you. Get your books and follow me.

You follow him into the empty hallway and try to keep up. You're practically running behind him as you round the corner and arrive at the principal's office. The eight other black students are already waiting, and everyone looks as afraid and confused as you feel. Your heart is pounding. You turn to one of the other students. Do you know what's going on? He shakes his head. All right, y'all, this way. All nine of you are

moving now down the stairs to the ground level with uniformed police in front of you and behind. In a garage that looks like a mechanic's classroom, there are two police cars. Finally, the officer turns to you. Get in the back and lay down on the floor. He shoves a blanket into your hands. Cover yourself with this. You hear me? You lie low and hide. You lie on the floor, pressed against the seats and one of the other students and pull the blanket over you. The officer slams the rear door and turns to the driver. As soon as those doors open, you put your foot to the floor and you don't stop for anything. Under the blanket, all you can hear is quick, panicked breathing, and then the grinding of the garage doors as they start to rise. Suddenly, the car lurches forward, speeding out

the garage and down the gravel road that leads away from the campus. It barely slows down as you make the turn onto 16th Street, tires squealing around the corner. All nine students made it safely home that day. The mob outside of Central High had become violent after learning that the Little Rock Nine had successfully entered the school. First, the crowd began beating a number of Black reporters who were there covering the events of the day. Then they threatened to storm the campus and kill the black teenagers inside.

Police intervened to get the children out of harm's way. That night, Daisy and Elsie Bates kept an armed vigil with their neighbors, watching cautiously through the shattered living room window of their home. Near midnight, local police informed them that they had stopped a caravan of nearly a hundred cars only a couple blocks away, armed with clubs, pistols, rifles, and dynamite. No one slept after that. The following morning, the students stayed home, but an even larger mob had gathered at the school. Little Rock's mayor fired off a telegram to the White House requesting assistance from President Dwight Eisenhower.

It read, The immediate need for federal troops is urgent. Mob is armed, and engaging in fisticuffs and other acts of violence situation is out of control. That night, Eisenhower delivered a televised address to the nation. Good evening, my fellow citizens. I have today issued an executive order directing the use of troops under federal authority to aid in the execution of federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas.

The president immediately deployed more than 1,000 elite paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to enforce the court's desegregation order. He also federalized the Arkansas National Guard to prevent Faubus from engaging in further acts of armed defiance. On Wednesday morning, a convoy of Army Jeeps arrived at the Bates residence to escort the students to school. Soldiers with rifles in hand blocked off both ends of the street as the students piled into a large station wagon. The whole neighborhood had come out of their homes to watch. As the convoy pulled away and headed toward the school, hundreds of soldiers lined the streets, cordoning off a three-block radius around the campus.

Once the station wagon arrived at Central, a group of 22 soldiers surrounded the students and walked with them up the steps toward the school entrance. This time, and for the rest of the school year, they would be using the front door. Carlotta Walls, a member of the Little Rock Nine, described the feeling. Until that moment, it hadn't fully registered that the game of ducking and hiding was over. I could hold my head up. I, we, had a right to walk through those front doors like anyone else.

And the President of the United States had sent our U.S. military to ensure that right. Despite that feeling of triumph, the students would still need armed escorts for the rest of the school year. As Eisenhower scaled back the military presence, the nine students faced constant harassment and violence inside of Central's halls. Things were rarely better at home, where their families received a steady stream of threats. But the students went back to school, day after day, knowing they were fighting for something bigger than themselves. The lone senior in the group, Ernest Green, would become Central High's first Black graduate in May of 1958. A year of desegregation at Central High School had succeeded, but it had taken extraordinary measures to achieve even this relatively minor degree of integration.

What about the students, schools, and communities who didn't get the attention of the White House? Who did not receive armed protection? What would happen to them? And for that matter, what would happen in Little Rock once the TV cameras and reporters and the military escorts went away? As Daisy Bates and countless other Southerners, black and white, would discover,

the costs of supporting racial inequality were steep. Jim Crow's defenders were fighting back with a campaign of intimidation and repression designed to stop integration in its tracks. For years, American Scandal has taken you deep inside the biggest controversies and shocking events in U.S. history. And now you can listen to exclusive seasons on Wondery Plus. Go beyond the headlines with jaw-dropping stories and immersive reporting that unveils the complex truth behind these scandals. In our exclusive season, The Hare Krishna Murders, dive into the twisted world of a rogue sect of Hare Krishnas. When devotees mysteriously disappear, the trail leads to a dark web of deceit, greed, and even murder.

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I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine you're a 35-year-old black woman in Little Rock, Arkansas. It's September 1957, and the efforts to integrate Central High School are underway. You've spent the afternoon checking in on your neighbor, Daisy Bates, sharing a meal together. Now you're both sitting in her living room in front of a large picture window, cracked by vandals and patched with masking tape. Do you think you'll replace it?

I imagine they'd just break it again. But yes, sooner or later, I think we'll get it repaired. She smiles. Sometimes you've got to keep trying to fix the things that are broken. You both get up and head toward the kitchen to put away the leftovers. But as you do, there's a knock on the front door. I can put the food away if you want to answer that. Thank you. She turns back to the door and opens it. Before you enter the kitchen, you see that her visitor is a middle-aged white woman, about 50 years old. Though you don't hear her introduction,

Mrs. Bates invites her in to the living room to sit. By the time you put the food away, they are deep in conversation. You step closer to the doorway, eavesdropping just a little. If you would just say publicly that you are withdrawing your support and encouraging those children to go back to their proper schools, it would give us time.

We could prepare the community for integration. I know that you might face some criticism, but I can assure you that the Southern Christian women that I represent would stand by you. You've told me what would happen if I withdrew my support from the students. What would happen if I didn't? The visitor stares coldly in reply. You'll be destroyed. You, your newspaper, your reputation, everything. She pauses to let the message sink in. This is where you can reach me.

You have until nine o'clock tomorrow morning to give us your answer. And with that, she turns and lets herself out the front door. You walk in slowly from the kitchen. Are you all right, Daisy? Yes, I think so. You can see Daisy is lost in thought. You offer to stick around, to give her some company and perhaps security if any other visitors might show up. You make idle talk as the night falls, catching up on the comings and goings of the neighborhood. A little past midnight, there is sound from the street outside. The sound of an

explosion jolts you upright. Are they shooting? No, just a firecracker. They've practically made that a hobby at this point. I'll be right back. You lean back into your chair, unsettled, but reassured by her confidence. She reappears a moment later, holding a.45 caliber pistol, placing it in her lap as she takes her seat. You try not to stare, but she notices. Just in case. The pauses in your conversation get longer as the hour gets later, but Daisy is still wide awake.

It'll be dawn soon. May I ask, have you figured out what you'll say? I've been asking myself two questions all night. Do I have the guts to tell these bigots to go to hell? And do I have the right to destroy 16 years of my husband's life work? As much as the newspaper means to me, it's been his dream for most of our lives together. And they'll do everything they can to take it from us. I'm sure of that. But I can't turn back. Not while those children

are willing to risk so much going back to that school. They've already shown more courage than I could hope to muster. I suppose I've got my answer then. I'll tell them no. Then I've got to tell LC. Daisy Bates would deliver her answer that morning and describe the attempts at intimidation in the pages of the state press. The woman who had issued these threats quickly made good on them. White citizens throughout Little Rock used boycotts and coercion to drive away the newspaper's advertisers. Within weeks, the state press was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Even a flood of donations from sympathetic Americans across the country could only postpone the inevitable. By 1959, the paper shut down its presses. The dramatic showdown in Little Rock and the consequences that Daisy and Elsie Bates faced as a result of their participation were examples of a much broader movement throughout the South. A determined and ferociously organized effort to prevent school desegregation was underway. Not only did it intend to stop integration from happening, but it sought to exact a heavy price from those activists, black and white, who supported it.

Segregationists fought with renewed energy to defend Jim Crow under the banner of what came to be known as Massive Resistance. The South already had a long history of successfully repressing civil rights advocacy. Massive Resistance in the 1950s built upon these traditions and tactics through a variety of forms. In combination, they would prove tremendously successful at slowing or stopping the process of integration through the rest of the decade. And thousands of activists, like Daisy Bates, would suffer serious consequences. The signs of Southern defiance were apparent well before the Little Rock Crisis in 57. Almost immediately after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board three years earlier,

a mass movement had taken shape among segregationists. In the agricultural counties of Mississippi, white supremacists formed a new organization called the White Citizens Council. Its fundamental goal was to coordinate widespread resistance to desegregation. From its Mississippi seedbed, the Citizens Council spread rapidly throughout the South. It fed on bitter reactions of white communities to local civil rights activism, appealing to their sense that the Jim Crow way of life was under attack. By the start of 1956, with the Montgomery bus boycott garnering headlines from Alabama, Citizens Council had appeared in every Southern state.

Membership stood somewhere north of a quarter million, but more than raw numbers, it was the influence that the councils wielded that posed the greatest threat. Council leaders were usually well-connected members of the local elite, businessmen, political officials, judges, and white-collar professionals. In Montgomery, as the boycott went on, the city's mayor, police commissioner, and an array of other prominent figures all joined the council's ranks. And although women were initially prohibited from membership, before long, politically active middle-class white women throughout the South made up a key part of the council's local organizing base. One of the council's most powerful weapons was the use of social and economic pressure.

Council members wielded their influence ruthlessly. And it wasn't just activists they targeted. Any resistance to segregation could bring retribution. In Yazoo City, Mississippi, a group of 53 Black parents signed a petition in 1955 asking for the local school board to comply with a Brown v. Board decision. That same week, the Yazoo City's council bought a newspaper ad

listing the name, address, and phone number of everyone who had signed. The threatening phone calls started immediately. One man opened his front door to find a hearse idling in the street. Suddenly, the signatories and even their extended families began losing all their jobs. Banks called in loans and closed accounts. Stores refused to sell groceries, clothes, or other necessities to anyone whose name had been printed. All but two of the parents withdrew their support from the petition. The other two moved out of Yazoo County.

In other cases, council members exacted revenge with a frightening creativity. They bought up debts owned by activists and demanded immediate payment, forcing their victims into bankruptcy. They canceled insurance policies, ensuring activists couldn't drive for fear of being pulled over and fined. They pressured local IRS offices to initiate audits. They evicted tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Mississippi officials expelled almost 90% of the student body at the historically black college Alcorn State

when students there voiced support of the NAACP. All this in the name of preserving Jim Crow. For Daisy Bates, this pressure meant the intimidation of her newspaper's advertisers and eventually the collapse of the business that she and her husband, Elsie, had built. As she described it, In a matter of a few weeks, we watched 16 years of our lives being quickly chopped away. Emboldened by the growth and success of white citizens' councils, Southern politicians like Orval Faubus embraced an outright defiance of Brown v. Board. In March 1956, a year and a half before the Little Rock crisis, Southern congressional delegations had signed onto the Southern Manifesto. Calling the Brown decision a clear

abuse of judicial power, the document blasts the Supreme Court for trampling states' rights and overturning the separate but equal precedent. They encouraged the states of the South to resist forced integration by any lawful means. Local politicians had already enthusiastically taken up that challenge, finding a variety of outlets for their hatred of the Brown decision. That hatred also extended to the NAACP, the organization that had fought and won those cases in court. The NAACP had never really been welcome in the South, but their Supreme Court victory and the continueds, labeling the NAACP a subversive organization and dramatically restricting its activities. In various states, officials demanded that local NAACP offices hand over lists of their members and donors. Some states harassed the organization with repeated investigations.

Some established massive surveillance operations, cultivating networks of informants and spies to disrupt the group's activities. Some imposed fines, revoked the organization's tax-exempt status, or banned NAACP members from holding any form of public employment. A handful of legislatures scoffed at the idea of half-measures and simply banned the organization entirely. All told, in the four years after Brown v. Board, Southern states shut down nearly 250 NAACP branches and drove away almost 50,000 members. In Alabama, the NAACP ceased operations altogether until 1964. But politicians also aimed new legislation at their local school districts.

They offered taxpayer-funded tuition grants for white students to attend private schools exempt from the Brown decision. Some threatened to cut off all funds to schools that agreed to integrate. Several states passed pupil placement laws. Local boards could assign individual students to schools as they wished, as long as their criteria never mentioned the word race. Black parents who objected to their children's continued segregation faced a two-year-long administrative review process designed to prevent them from going to court. And a number of states went even further.

They repealed compulsory education laws and empowered state officials to close some or all of the public schools in the state. One of the states to adopt the school closure policy was Arkansas. In August 1958, three months after the graduation of Central High School's first integrated class, Governor Faubus called a special legislative session. Soon, he was armed with the ability to shut down Little Rock's public high schools. Rather than allow integration to continue for another year, that's exactly what he did. September came, and the schools never opened. The families of more than 3,600 Little Rock high schoolers, white and black, scrambled to make new arrangements. Nearly half of the white

students enrolled in hastily formed all-white private schools, funded partly with public money. Black students, barred from these classrooms, were mostly left without options. From the original Little Rock Nine, only five students remained in the state, taking correspondence courses, hoping that the sacrifices they made the previous year had not been in vain. The school stayed closed for the entire year. Public opinion, however, would eventually turn. White parents grew frustrated with the haphazard organization of the private schools. The local chamber of commerce feared, with good reason,

that businesses would stop investing in the city. And the federal courts, pressed by civil rights activists, declared the school-closing law to be unconstitutional. Faubus threatened to keep the schools closed anyway, but he soon gave in to the public pressure. Little Rock's high schools reopened and were integrated again in 1959. But there was no denying the damage that had been done. It was clear that segregationists would go to extraordinary lengths to grind civil rights activism down. Perhaps nowhere in the country felt that more acutely than Farmville, Virginia. Back in one of the towns that helped launch Brown v. Board of Education,

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Civil rights activists throughout the South struggled to gain traction after the Little Rock crisis. Though individuals and organizations continued to fight for racial equality, the strength of massive resistance proved overwhelming at times. Segregationists launched one of their most determined efforts in Prince Edward County, Virginia. It was here, in 1951, that high school student Barbara Rose Johns had sparked a student boycott in the town of Farmville. Her actions set

in motion a legal challenge to segregation that became part of the Brown decision three years later, in 1954. But white leaders in Prince Edward County and throughout Virginia responded with a particularly powerful massive resistance campaign. As in Little Rock, school closures became part of the segregationist arsenal. In September of 1958, as Central High School locked its doors, Virginia Governor J. Lindsay Allman Jr. shut down nine schools that were poised to integrate in Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Front Royal. But white parents were divided over the idea of halting public education in order to preserve Jim Crow in the state, and Allman, like Faubus, eventually reopened the schools in 1959.

Fractured public opinion short-circuited these school closures, but massive resistance still had large pockets of fierce support. One of the strongholds was in Virginia's Southside region, the home of Prince Edward County. There, on the fifth anniversary of the Brown decision, segregationists could claim an unqualified triumph. Despite continuous efforts from civil rights activists and attorneys, there had been no meaningful steps toward integration at all. But the strategy of delay and obstruction had seemingly reached its limit. The courts had finally ordered Prince Edward County schools to begin integration in the fall of 1959. That summer, Black and white residents in the county all asked the same question.

How far were Jim Crow's defenders really willing to go? Imagine it's a hot summer night in June 1959. You're crowded into the pews of New Hope Baptist Church with 200 other Black parents from Prince Edward County. The meeting is wrapping up after three hours of intense discussion and debate. A steady trickle of sweat has been running down your neck for the past hour, but it looks like the last speaker of the night is close to finishing up. All right, folks, the bottom line, what we're saying to you here is that things are not as bad as they seem right now. You saw what happened in Norfolk. They're not going to try that again. Your neighbor Charlotte, who rode with you over

here from Farmville, hops out of her seat for what must be the 10th time tonight. You keep saying that, but the board of supervisors still voted to cut off funds to the school district. You really believe they're bluffing? Listen, if the governor is giving up on closing down the schools and we have the courts on our side, I don't think they'll do it. These schools are going to stay open. Those buses are going to roll come September. Charlotte takes her seat again. You lean over. What's got into you this evening? I'm just worried is all. Do you really think those white folks are just going to give up? Couldn't say for sure, but I hope he's right. Well, I hope so too, but hope hasn't done

much to fix these schools yet. You ready to go? They aren't saying anything new anymore. You both get up and squeeze past a dozen people fanning themselves, craning their necks to see around the crowd and head quietly out the door into your car. All I'm saying is that your daughter and my son are both starting school in the fall, and I don't want them to have to go through the same things we did. I agree with you, but I tell you these folks are serious about shutting down these schools. The other day, a man over where I work said that he'd have his children grow up in absolute ignorance rather than have them spend a single day in an integrated school.

Well, sounds to me like he's doing a fine job growing them up ignorant all on his own. You ride in silence for a while, letting the breeze cool you down a bit. Suddenly, as you're driving past Moton High School, your alma mater, Charlotte points out the window. Pull over. I see something. You pull over to the side of the road, climb out of the car, and walk through the grass toward the schoolhouse. When you get close enough to the doors, you see that they are chain-shut and padlocked. Have they done that before? Not that I can remember. You still think they're not serious about this? You turn around silently and head back toward the car, hoping as hard as you can that she is wrong. September came and the doors to Moton High were still chained shut.

But despite the closures, more than 90% of white children in the county found themselves in classrooms come September. Segregated private academies, funded by taxpayer dollars and private donations, and staffed by out-of-work teachers from the public schools, carried on business as usual. But the 1,700 Black children in the county found themselves completely locked out. Unwilling to accept segregated alternatives, Black families pooled their resources and tried to provide makeshift options for their children. Schoolrooms appeared in basements, churches, and farmhouse shacks, but this only grew the disparity between white and black educational options. As the crisis went on, one prominent community leader described the situation in stark terms. We suffered our children to be destroyed in order that the law might speak. The public schools stayed closed, month after month. Prince

Edward County settled into a grudging, awful stalemate. Black residents refused to give up their rights and go back to segregated schools. White residents kept pouring resources into their private alternatives. Months turned into a year, then two, and then a third, and a fourth. The schools stayed closed here longer than anywhere else in the country. For five years, the county abandoned public education rather than accept integration. Reporters who visited Farmville called it an educational wasteland and labeled the students the crippled

generation. As the stalemate wore on, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy described the conditions as a disgrace to our country. The only places on earth known not to provide free public education are Communist China, North Vietnam, Singapore, British Honduras, and Prince Edward County, Virginia. The crisis in Virginia was an extreme example of the length that segregationists would go to to keep Jim Crow in place. But although other counties and states usually adopted less extraordinary tactics, the results were often the same. The combined effects of massive resistance were staggering. Despite years of fighting and sacrifices by activists like Daisy Bates, Jim Crow remained largely intact. By the

end of the 1950s, as Prince Edward County weathered its first year of the shutdown, less than 0.2% of Black schoolchildren anywhere in the South were in integrated classrooms. In the Deep South, fewer than 500 Black children were living out the purpose of the Brown decision. Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina were so effective at intimidation and resistance that not a single school had broken the color line. Six years after the Brown versus Board decision, a generation of Black students born during World War II headed off to college with a simmering frustration. They had grown up with the promise that America was the world's best hope for democracy.

But they had also grown up with the broken promises of desegregation. And with the images of Emmett Till's body dragged up from a Mississippi riverbed. Now, in the face of massive resistance, they wondered, would life be any better for them than it had been for their parents? Or had segregationists snuffed out the sparks of those early civil rights victories? As a new decade began, this young generation saw the questions of their moment and decided to write their own answers. It was time, they insisted, that they took the lead. The protests they launched would stun the nation and transform

the landscape of the civil rights movement. At lunch counters, on buses, in communities throughout the South, change was coming. On the next episode of American History Tellers, we'll explore a new wave of protest in the 1960s as the sit-in movement and the Freedom Rides capture national headlines and ignite fierce debates about the future joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers.

American History Tellers is hosted, sound designed, and edited by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Additional production assistance by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Jeffrey Gonda. Edited by Jan Chien. Edited and produced by Jenny Lauer. Produced by George Lavender. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis. Created by Hernán López for Wondery.

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