The Stanley Plan was a package of 13 statutes adopted in September 1956 by the U.S. state of Virginia. The statutes were designed to ensure racial segregation would continue in that state's public schools despite the unanimous ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that school segregation was unconstitutional. The legislative program was named for Governor Thomas B. Stanley, a Democrat, who proposed the program and successfully pushed for its enactment. The Stanley plan was a critical element in the policy of "massive resistance" to the Brown ruling advocated by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr.Duke, p. 18. The plan also included measures designed to curb the Virginia state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which many Virginia segregationists believed was responsible for "stirring up" litigation to integrate the public schools.
The plan was enacted by the Virginia Assembly on September 22, 1956, and signed into law by Governor Stanley on September 29. A federal court struck down a portion of the Stanley plan as unconstitutional in January 1957. By 1960, nearly all of the major elements of the plan (including the litigation curbs aimed at the NAACP) had been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal and state courts.Dickson, p. 320. The constitutional invalidity of the Stanley plan led new governor of Virginia, J. Lindsay Almond, also a Democrat, to propose "passive resistance" to school integration in 1959. The Supreme Court declared portions of "passive resistance" unconstitutional in 1964 and again in 1968.
Background
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, in which the unanimous court held that separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. Although agitation for an end to racial segregation in schools (and society at large) had been building in the United States since the end of World War II,Patterson, p. 1-45. Brown sparked the modern American civil rights movement.Martin, p. 218.
The initial reaction of most Virginia politicians and newspapers to the Brown decision was restrained.Ryan, p. 35. From the 1920s to the late 1960s, Virginia politics had been dominated by the Byrd Organization, a political machine led by Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., another segregationist Democrat (who was also a former governor of Virginia).Bass and DeVries, pp. 339–340. Top leaders in the Byrd Organization, such as Governor Thomas B. Stanley and then–Attorney General J. Lindsay Almond, were also at first reserved in their reaction to the Brown ruling.Thorndike, p. 53.
However, this changed when James J. Kilpatrick, editor of The Richmond News Leader in Richmond, Virginia, quickly adopted a defiant and unyielding opposition to racial integration of public schools.Thorndike, pp. 51–52. Kilpatrick adopted the pre–American Civil War constitutional theory of interposition, and began publicly pushing for the state of Virginia to actively oppose the Supreme Court.Thorndike, pp. 51–55 Kilpatrick's hardening position, historian Joseph J. Thorndike has written, "likely...helped stiffen the resolve of several key figures, especially Byrd." On June 18, 1954, political leaders in Virginia's Southside (a collection of counties in the south-central region of the state) met and agreed to ask for vigorous state opposition to Brown.Thorndike, p. 55. They began calling themselves the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Civil Liberties, and members included U.S. Congressmen William Munford Tuck and Watkins Abbitt as well as state senators Charles T. Moses and Garland Gray. They selected Farmville businessman Robert B. Crawford as their president. Stanley, himself from the Southside, was deeply influenced by the strong segregationist sentiments expressed at this meeting.Sweeney, p. 27.African Americans constituted about 40% (sometimes more) of the counties of the Southside and the Tidewater, and the prospect of losing political power to blacks intensified the segregationist feelings of whites in these areas. See: Sweeney, p. 27. In 1968 Almond observed that Southsiders voted in large percentages for Byrd Organization candidates. "...[A]s a result the Southside has exercised a power disproportionate to its part of the over-all population of the state." Almond believed that "there would have been no hard, unyielding core of massive resistance in Virginia" if the Southside had not provided such a large bloc of strongly segregationist voters to the Byrd Organization. Almond quoted in Wilkinson, pp. 119–120. Six days later, Governor Stanley announced he would "use every legal means at my command to continue segregated schools in Virginia.""Stanley Backs Segregation". United Press International. June 26, 1954.
The Gray Commission On August 30, 1954, Governor Stanley announced the appointment of a commission, chaired by State Senator Garland Gray, to recommend a legislative response to Brown. Officially titled the Virginia Public Education Commission, it was more popularly known as the Gray Commission. In October 1954, a pro-segregation group called the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties (widely known as "the Defenders") formed.Bartley, pp. 94–96. The Defenders not only demanded that state legislators pledge not to support racial integration, but in June 1955 called for legislation to be enacted which barred state funds from being spent on school desegregation. Although limited primarily to the Southside and numbering no more than 15,000 members, the Defenders proved highly influential in state politics.Bartley, p. 95.
The crisis over school desegregation worsened throughout 1955. On May 31, 1955, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (known as Brown II) ordered that school desegregation occur with "all deliberate speed". Two weeks later, Governor Stanley and the Virginia State Board of Education announced that state policy would be to continue to operate the state's public schools on a segregated basis.Huston, Luther A. "Segregation Ban Defied in Virginia". The New York Times. June 27, 1955. Then, in a seemingly unrelated case, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled on November 7, 1955, in Almond v. Day89 S.E.2d 851 (1955) that providing state funds to private schools violated Article 141 of the state constitution.Ryan, p. 38. (In 1954, the Virginia General Assembly had enacted legislation providing educational vouchers to underage dependents of veterans who were wounded or had died in World War II). Kilpatrick and several Virginia political leaders had supported vouchers as a way of circumventing desegregation,Thorndike, p. 55–56. and the Almond decision struck directly at this proposal. The Gray Commission issued its report just five days after the Virginia Supreme Court's decision in Almond."Virginians Offer Integration Bar". The New York Times. November 13, 1955. The report, which wholeheartedly supported racial segregation in schools and denounced the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision, made a number of recommendations. Two stood out. First, the Commission proposed that the state constitution be amended to permit education vouchers to be given to those parents who did not want their children attending integrated schools, or to those children who lived in counties where public schools had been abolished.Bartley, p. 109. Second, the Commission advised amending state education law to permit local school boards to assign students to schools on the basis of factors (such as aptitude, availability of facilities, health, and transportation needs) other than race.
Stanley proposed enacting all the proposals recommended by the Gray Commission, with the exception of the pupil assignment provision."Gov. Stanley's Statement". The Washington Post. July 24, 1956. The governor also sought an amendment to state law authorizing and directing the governor to withhold state funding from any public school district when the "public interest, or safety, or welfare" required it. The plan would also permit a local school district to close its public schools (in which case every child would get a tuition voucher to attend a private school) or opt to not take state funding.Baker, Robert E. "Virginia Assembly Faces 3 Different School Plans". The Washington Post. August 28, 1956.
Legislative maneuvering and the rise of "massive resistance"
Governor Stanley called the General Assembly into special session on November 30, 1955, to consider adopting the Gray Commission's report (although not its actual recommendations).Morris, John D. "Virginia Tackles Schools Problem". The New York Times. November 30, 1955. During what one newspaper called a "hasty, almost hysterical four-day session",Quoted in Ryan, p. 39. the General Assembly "adopted" the Gray Commission's recommendations—although it did not enact them into law.Thorndike, p. 56.Ryan, p. 39. The legislature did approve a referendum for January 9, 1956, to call a state constitutional convention. A number of individuals and organizations came out against the Gray Commission's proposals as too moderate, however. Among these were Representative (and former Governor) William M. Tuck, Virginia House Speaker E. Blackburn Moore (a close friend of Byrd's), the Defenders, Kilpatrick, and even Gray himself.Bartley, p. 110.Thorndike, p. 58. For nearly three weeks in late November and early December, Kilpatrick wrote almost daily in the pages of the Richmond News Leader in favor of interposition.
In near-record numbers, Virginia voters turned out on January 9 to approve the call for a constitutional convention by a 2-to-1 margin.Morris, John D. "Integration Foes Triumph by 2 to 1 in Virginia Voting". The New York Times. January 10, 1956Baker, Robert E. "Virginia Votes for Proposal By Wide Margin". The Washington Post. January 10, 1956."Pro-Gray Referendum Vote Close to Record 1952 Presidential Total". The Washington Post. January 16, 1956.
After the referendum, Kilpatrick and now Byrd, too, began pressing for an even stronger legislative response, based on the constitutional justification of interposition.Bartley, p. 111. The Virginia General Assembly opened its 60-day legislative session on January 11, 1956."Virginia Legislature to Open Today", The Washington Post. January 11, 1956. Almost immediately, Byrd's supporters in the legislature demanded that the Assembly support interposition,"Va. Asked to Head Interposition Fight". The Washington Post. January 14, 1956. and a resolution to adopt the legal theory as state policy passed on February 1, 1956."Interposition Bill Passed by Virginia Assembly". The Washington Post. February 2, 1956."Interposition Bid Gains in Virginia". The New York Times. February 2, 1956. On February 25, Byrd called for "massive resistance" by Southern states against the Brown ruling."Byrd Calls on South to Challenge Court". Associated Press. February 26, 1956"Byrd Summons South to 'Massive Resistance. The Washington Post. February 26, 1956.