Massive Resistance in Virginia

This is the cover of Numan Bartley's book The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s. It was the first scholarly work that specifically discussed the politics of school integration in the southern United States. 

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Virginia was forced to face a long-ignored problem: segregation. It was not an out-of-the-blue situation. Racial violence was becoming more and more common, and efforts to desegregate had been consistent since the Emancipation Proclamation’s signing in 1863. In 1946, President Harry Truman created a Committee on Civil Rights to determine approaches to protecting American citizens’ civil rights. The following year, the committee published a report suggesting racial integration as a possible solution. In 1954, the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education decided that the separation of races in schools was unconstitutional and detrimental to the education of the minority. To combat the possibility of integrating schools, Senator Harry Byrd suggested massive resistance. The Stanley Plan was soon put into effect, and Virginia schools closed. Finally, in 1959, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the school closing laws were unconstitutional. The integration of the schools began, and the massive resistance movement was dead. 

The efforts of white politicians were late in coming. African American Virginians had been fighting discriminatory policies for years and had begun taking matters into their own hands. In 1947, the first black elected official, William Lawrence, took office. Many black students began attending the University of Virginia’s medical and law schools. There was also a major push from organizations such as the NAACP for equal schools for blacks and whites. Finally, in the 1970s, the Virginia schools were fully integrated, and the Southern massive resistance ended.

While Democrats in the South had previously been pro-slavery, most changed their views right before and during the Civil Rights movement. With the exception of some, like Harry Byrd, most Democrats were for the integration of schools and public places. While there are no available sources stating Edwin Lynch's viewpoint, it can be inferred that since he was a Democrat and often opposed to Harry Byrd's "Byrd Machine", he was more than likely for the integration of schools and against the Massive Resistance movement. 

References

Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Democratic Party.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., March 5, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Party#ref308573.

Heinemann, Ronald, John Kolp, Anthony Parent, and William Shade. Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: a History of Virginia, 1607-2007. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2008.

Picott, J. Rupert. "Desegregation of Public Education in Virginia--One Year Afterward." The Journal of Negro Education 24, no. 3 (1955): 361-70. Accessed April 17, 2020. doi:10.2307/2293465.