"In 1958, Charlottesville and Norfolk schools as well as those in Prince Edward and Warren Counties closed by order of the governor. Thousands of schoolchildren went without education for half a decade so Virginia could, once again, maintain its racial code. The general assembly also created a voucher system using public funds to allow white parents to send their children to private schools. The federal courts ruled the closures and the vouchers unconstitutional, but Harry Byrd would not give up. He tried to persuade Governor Almond to call out the National Guard. One unverified account of the meeting suggests Byrd ordered Almond to shoot children if necessary. Almond allegedly replied, "I'll do it, Harry, if you put it in writing." White supremacists rarely give up their power without a fight. Almond finally relented, and token integration began peacefully in February 1959."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Democratic Party (United States) politiciansMembers of the United States SenatePublishers from the United StatesPeople from West VirginiaGovernors of Virginia
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (2020), p. 67
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_F._Byrd
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Harry F. Byrd
Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia for four decades as head of a political faction that became known as the Byrd Organization. Byrd served as Virginia's governor from 1926 until 1930, then represented it as a United States Senator from 1933 until 1965. He came to lead the "[[w:conservative coalition|conserv
23 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Harry F. Byrd →
Related Quotes
"I favor a strong military but, if wartime spending is to be made a part of our budget in peacetime, and continued for…"
"If we can organize the Southern states for massive resistance to this order... the rest of the country will realize t…"
"At the dedication of the Shenandoah National Park [July 3, 1936], President Roosevelt, [Secretary of the Interior] Ha…"
"There are gentle men in whom gentility finally destroys whatever of iron there was in their souls. There are iron men…"
"Byrd evinced no particular proclivity to endorse a state antilynching law in the wake of Raymond Bird’s death. But wh…"
"Senator Byrd's final year in Congress would be 1965. His final battle was against the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. The…"
"Finally, on January 16, 1928, Byrd asked the Virginia General Assembly to declare lynching “a specific State offense”…"
"Incontestably what runs Virginia is the Byrd machine, the most urbane and genteel dictatorship in America. A real mac…"
"Senator Harry F. Byrd incarnates the cavalier-First-Family-of-Virginia tradition, except in one important particular.…"
"I construe my election as a mandate to me as a businessman to institute the best methods of efficiency and economy in…"