The Defenders News and Views [Newsletter]

The Defenders News and Views [Newsletter]

Publication of The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, a grassroots political organization dedicated to preserving strict racial segregation in Virginia's public schools. The group was established in Petersburg in October 1954 following the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Chapters of the group opened across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This newsletter is a folded sheet, two pages printed on both sides. The text header on the front page says, "The Defenders News and Views/Published by Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties/405-A East Franklin Street."

This document reports on the annual meeting of the Defenders that was held on November 4, 1959 in Richmond, Va. During this meeting a panel of representatives from private schools (identified as "those schools which have been established for parents who do not want their children to attend the integrated public schools") spoke.

Members of the panel: 
J. Barrye Wall, Prince Edward County 
Jack Crouse, Warren County 
Frank R. Ford, Norfolk 
H. P. Paden, Arlington 
Barry Marshall, Charlottesville 

Excerpt:
"White citizens of Prince Edward County offered to assist the Negroes to set up schools for their children, through use of the scholarship grants and surplus property laws....Mr. Wall emphasized the fact that the NAACP is interested only in integration - not education. Their program is to integrate the schools first, then churches, hotels and every phase of society. Education in Virginia today, he stated, is controlled by the NAACP, and complete integration by 1963 is the goal."

Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties

V.2011.02.01., The Valentine

1959 October - November

The Valentine

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Learn more: 
The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, Encyclopedia Virginia 
Freedom Now Project, VCU Libraries
Massive Resistance, Encyclopedia Virginia 
In Defense of Prince Edward County of Virginia. Speech of Hon. Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia in the Senate of the United States, Wednesday, May 17, 1961, Social Welfare History Image Portal