All Deliberate Speed: Reaction to Brown in the Old South Constantian v. Anson County – North Carolina, 1956 (93 S.E.2d 163); Dobbins v. Commonwealth – Virginia, 1957 (96 S.E.2d 154); Harrison v. Day – Virginia, 1959 (106 S.E.2d 636)
| “Virginia can remain silent no longer. Recognizing … the prospect of incalculable harm to the public schools of this State and the disruption of the education of her children, Virginia is in duty bound to interpose against these most serious consequences, and earnestly to challenge the usurped authority that would inflict them upon her citizens … . [W]e pledge our firm intention to take all appropriate measures honorably, legally and constitutionally available to us, to resist this illegal encroachment upon our sovereign powers.” – Virginia Legislature (1956)
“Our deep conviction is that the interpretation now placed [by Brown] on the 14th Amendment, in relation to the right of a state to determine whether children of different races are to be taught in the same or separate public schools, cannot be reconciled with the intent of the framers … However that may be, the Constitution of the United States takes precedence over the Constitution of North Carolina.” – Justice William Bobbitt, in Constantian “[T]he State must support such public free schools in the State as are necessary to an efficient system, including those in which the pupils of both races are compelled to be enrolled and taught together, however unfortunate that situation may be … we deplore the lack of judicial restraint evinced by [the Brown Court] in trespassing on the sovereign rights of this Commonwealth reserved to it in the Constitution of the United States. It was an understandable effort to diminish the evils expected from the decision in the Brown case that prompted the enactment of the statutes now under review.” –Justice John Eggleston, in Harrison |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 3. OLD SOUTH LEGAL HISTORY > 3.6. Old South: Depression, War and the Demise of Jim Crow (1920-1965) > 3.6.1 Old South (1920-1965): The Slow Death of Jim Crow > 3.6.2 Old South (1920-1965): Cracks in the Color Line > 3.6.3 Old South (1920-1965): Holding the Racial Line >