LAWFUL RESISTANCE

The depth and intensity of Southern opposition to the Supreme Court rulings cannot be judged by the shrill cries of demagogic politician's. More important than the demagogues in the impending battle will be a band of solid Southerners who have already abandoned the old devices and cliches and are prepared to fight until doomsday with legal weapons to maintain segregation in their public schools. The day after last week's Supreme Court opinion, an editorial in the influential Richmond (Va.) News Leader made clear the nature of this opposition. Excerpts:

NOW that the United States Supreme Court has laid down its program for ending segregation in the public schools, we in the South can begin making more definite plans to preserve it. The court made its move yesterday. Now it is our move . . .

What can the State do?

The Governor's Commission on Public Education can get down to work now in drafting specific legislation to be submitted to the General Assembly.

-One aim should be to eliminate from the State Constitution and from the Code of Virginia all laws that now require segregation in the public schools; these provisions are dead letters now, and are only hindrances.

-A second aim should be to repeal the compulsory school attendance law; we should not leave in the Code any provision that might compel Virginia parents, white or Negro, to send their children to any given school against their will.

-For a third aim, the Assembly should make it possible for any locality that wishes to integrate its schools to do so. There may be quite a few counties in Southwest and Valley Virginia, where Negro population is small, that will wish to pursue this course.

-Fourth, the Governor's Commission should draft a law permitting the assignment of individual pupils to particular schools.

-Fifth, the Commission should consider legislation that would achieve the maximum possible decentralization of authority over school operations . . . We, too, are prepared to [fight] county by county. But it may be possible to place school administration not merely at a level of county governments, but at a level of magisterial districts or even at a level of school districts within magisterial districts.

-Sixth, the Commission may be able to formulate legislation that would give fresh stimulus to the formation and operation of private schools . . .

-Seventh, the Commission may wish to recommend legislation that would establish within the Attorney General's office a special division, generously financed and liberally staffed, to assist local authorities in the long and expensive litigation that can be foreseen . . .

Is all of this to advocate that Virginia attempt, by lawful means, to get around the law? That is exactly what we advocate.

For let this be said once more, in unmistakable language: In May of 1954, that inept fraternity of politicians and professors known as the United States Supreme Court chose to throw away the established law. These nine men repudiated the Constitution, spit upon the tenth amendment, and rewrote the fundamental law of this land to suit their own gauzy concepts of sociology. If it be said now that the South is flouting the law, let it be said to the high court: you taught us how.

From the moment that abominable decision was handed down, two broad courses only were available to the South. One was to defy the court openly and notoriously; the other was to accept the court's decision and to combat it by legal means. To defy the court openly would be to enter upon anarchy; the logical end would be a second attempt at secession from the Union. And though the idea is not without merit, it is impossible of execution. We tried that once before.

To acknowledge the court's authority does not mean that the South is helpless . . . Rather, it is to enter upon a long course of lawful resistance; it is to take lawful advantage of every moment of the law's delays . . . Litigate? Let us pledge ourselves to litigate this thing for 50 years. If one remedial law is ruled invalid, then let us try another; and if the second is ruled invalid, then let us enact a third.

But while we resist, let us do everything we can--not because of the Supreme Court but in spite of the Supreme Court--to raise the cultural and educational levels of all of our people. We should continue to do our utmost to assure education for every child, white and colored alike . . .

Yesterday's opinion of the Supreme Court ended nothing. It changed nothing. And if it be said that the court's opinion was conciliatory, we would reply that the South is no more of a mind to conciliate on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday. When the court proposes that its social revolution be imposed upon the South "as soon as practicable," there are those of us who would respond that "as soon as practicable" means never at all.

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