Davis V. County School Board of Prince Edward County - Aftermath

Aftermath

For more details on this topic, see Prince Edward County, Virginia.

The ruling was extremely unpopular among white Virginians and a considerable number of them attempted to resist integration through every means possible, during a period known as Massive Resistance. Schools remained segregated for several years. By 1959, James Lindsay Almond had become Governor of Virginia, and faced with continuing losses in the courts, he dismantled the system of segregated schools in that state. Nevertheless, the Board of Supervisors for Prince Edward County refused to appropriate any funds for the County School Board at all, effectively closing all public schools rather than integrate them. White students often attended "segregation academies", which were all-white private schools that were formed. Black students had to go to school elsewhere or forgo their education altogether. Prince Edward County schools remained closed for five years.

In 2008, the case and the protest which led to it were memorialized on the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol in the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial.