The Charlottesville, Va., City Council has apologized for the city’s role in Virginia’s “massive resistance” to school integration in the 1950s. The resolution unanimously approved last week will be sent to the 12 black students who first integrated the city’s public school system.
Massive resistance was Virginia’s state-sanctioned response to the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. In Charlottesville, all the city’s white schools were closed in the face of integration. Several other localities also refused to integrate.
Charlottesville school board member Juan Wade said that the apology was “very honorable” and that the school board should consider similar action.
