The Shenandoah County School Board made national news earlier this year when it voted to restore the names of Confederate generals to two schools. Two of our reporters teamed up to delve deeper into the controversy and the history behind it. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi picks up the story in the segregated Virginia of 70 years ago.
In 1954, the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board. Virginia's state government vehemently responded with a policy of 'Massive Resistance' to integration. The NAACP sued multiple localities, including Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Warren County, where Black children had been blocked from attending the white schools where they lived. In 1958, the governor closed those public schools for four months, rather than allow the Black students to enter. The federal courts intervened to reopen the schools.
Shenandoah County officials were watching to see how this all played out. After all, they had other pressing needs at home – building three new, consolidated high schools and repairing and expanding five elementary schools – all for white children. In January 1959, the school board chair, Gordon D. Bowman, made a motion to name the southern high school after Stonewall Jackson. It was unanimously approved. Bowman has a granddaughter who still lives in the area. She told WMRA in an email that she could not provide insight into his motivations, as he passed away when she was six.
The 1960 Jacksonian yearbook offers some context. A dedication reads, in part, [quote] "It is because here in Shenandoah County, many of its finest sons became members of the Stonewall Brigade. … Among all the great men of our nation, no one today … affords a stronger pattern of human character" than Stonewall Jackson.
The other two high schools were given the geographic names of Strasburg and Central.
ZACHARY HOTTEL: It was very community-driven, the ultimate plan that was decided on for the three high schools.
Zachary Hottel is an archivist with the Shenandoah County Library.
HOTTEL: So I'm sure, although this is really just a guess, that all three of those names were very community-driven.
During this time, Black parents were asking the school board when their children would get adequate facilities. The board discussed building two new Black elementary schools.
Then, in February 1962, a local newspaper reported that the first Black student had applied to go to high school in Shenandoah County – a 14-year-old girl from Woodstock. The next month, Willie Mitchell's parents requested that he and his two siblings be admitted to Strasburg High and Elementary.
WILLIE MITCHELL: There were a lot of parents that didn't see a whole lot of benefit in going to Douglas High School –
That was in Winchester.
WILLIE MITCHELL: … when you had a high school right here in Shenandoah County. It was a struggle to get that working. … I remember one meeting, when Dad came home and he was very irritated. And Mom asked him, "Will, what's wrong?" And he said, "well, I was talking to one of the officials I had a meeting with." And they looked at him and said, "Mitch, the only bad thing about your boy going to high school, and my daughter's there, they might mongrelize." Dad, of course, was very irritated over that. He said, "my son is not a dog, and neither is your daughter, [chuckles] and she's not going to let him do anything more than what she wants!"
The county kicked the decision up to the state's Pupil Placement Board, which ruled to admit Willie's sister, Fay, to Strasburg High. In 1963, Willie followed.
WILLIE MITCHELL: Going there was a really interesting thing, because there was this gymnasium! And we had a locker room! And so much room!
Willie made social strides by joining the football team, wrestling, and running track. Other schools throughout the county, including Stonewall Jackson, allowed a trickle of other Black students through their doors. In their wake, the Shenandoah Board of Supervisors briefly repealed the ordinance that required public school attendance. They quickly reinstated it in fear of losing state funding.
HOTTEL: And then in 1964, the federal government has this thing called the Civil Rights act, and for any school to get federal money after that, they have to sign a Civil Rights pledge that they're not going to discriminate.
Willie's wife, Laura Marquetta Mitchell, went to Strasburg High that fall. But in her experience, integration did not mean acceptance.
MARQUETTA MITCHELL: I wasn't used to hateful looks and glances. I wasn't used to that. I had never been treated like that before in my life. And so my grandmother used to always say, and it was very difficult, "the harder the hit you, the harder you must bounce." [taps finger on table] … I was just a kid, and I had to learn how to do that.
To the Mitchells, the county's dedication to Confederate names is part of their lifelong experience of white neighbors and classmates who seem to only know certain parts of history.
MARQUETTA MITCHELL: And still don't realize … that segregation was in this community, and we lived parallel lives. … I had to know about you, but you didn't have to know a thing about me.
This is a county, in a valley, in a Commonwealth, in a country that saw so much bloodshed – of the people stolen, trafficked here, and kept in slavery, and of the people whose farms were torched and sons killed in the war. It also saw sharp resistance from the descendants of the latter to sharing education, resources, and everyday life with the descendants of the former. So, as each generation stumbles forward in pursuit of a more perfect Union – what legacy have these Confederate names left us? WMRA's Bridget Manley will take us back to the present day with the conclusion of our series.
Special thanks to the Massanutten Regional Library, Shenandoah County Library, and Shenandoah County Public Schools for their archives and assistance. This series referenced the following research materials:
Online resources
- Ancestry's U.S. Census records
- Encyclopedia Virginia
- Library of Congress census maps
- Shenandoah County Library's Shenandoah Voices Oral History Collection
- VMI's Stonewall Jackson Papers collection
- West Virginia Archives and History's "A State of Convenience: The Creation of West Virginia" collection
Books
- "A History of Shenandoah County," John M. Wayland, 1927
- "Echoes of Shenandoah," Shenandoah County Retired Teachers Association, 1977
- "Jacksonian Heritage" 1960 yearbook
- "Life and Letters of 'Stonewall' Jackson by his wife," Mary Anna Jackson, 1892
- "Reflections : early schools of Shenandoah County, Virginia," Shenandoah County Historical Society, 1995
- "Schools in New Market, Shenandoah County, Virginia," Nancy Branner Stewart, 1992
- "Shenandoah County in the Civil War," Richard B. Kleese, 1992
- "Shenandoah County Men in Gray," Thomas M. Spratt, 1992
Publication and government archives
- New York Times archives
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia records
- Shenandoah County School Board minutes
- Shenandoah Herald archives
- Shenandoah Valley archives
