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153 25 Virginia Confronts a “Statesmanlike Decision” David W. Miller Williamsburg, Virginia, was not entirely typical of its region in 1955, the year in which I graduated from high school. It was a college town and hence had a larger element of liberal intelligentsia than many otherwise comparable communities had. Since the late 1920s, Williamsburg had been the scene of the Rockefeller-financed restoration of the eighteenth-century colonial capital. This gave the city a strong economic base and also infused an element of outside (Northern) influence. John D. Rockefeller Jr., Williamsburg’s financial angel, was a devout Baptist whose personal views on racial issues differed from the public stances taken by the organization that he funded. Rockefeller promoted racial equality in quiet ways, assiduously avoiding conflict with the established white-only ethos of the community. Thus, when the white high school (the old Matty School), which stood on the former grounds of the Governor’s Palace, needed to be razed to make way for the restoration project, Rockefeller financed the building of two new public high schools in Williamsburg—one white (Matthew Whaley School) and one colored (Bruton Heights School). The two schools were utterly equal in physical characteristics and amenities. Both were spacious and well equipped. The Rockefeller family endowed a generous college scholarship fund for a top graduate of each of the two schools. If there was such a thing as separate but objectively equal public schools—aside from the “badge of inferiority ” inherent in forced segregation—Williamsburg had them. Indeed, the black school had a more highly credentialed faculty than the white school. (It took me a while to realize that disparity resulted from limitations on employment opportunities for educated blacks.) The Rockefeller interests did not try to confront most segregationist sentiments and practices. Thus, while the two public schools were equal in so many ways, the white school stood in a rather prominent location near the restoration project, while the black school was in an obscure location (at least from my vantage point) on the “other” side of the C&O railroad tracks. The downtown movie theater, which was owned and operated by the Restoration, 154 De Jure States and the District of Columbia admitted whites only. (The only other local cinema, a privately owned drivein on the outskirts of town, featured a high wall down the center to separate the vehicles and persons of white and black patrons.) Public benches in the downtown area were all designated by signs as white or colored. Blacks held no public offices. The college opened to townspeople a rich cultural life, but the only time I ever saw blacks in attendance at any of the college events was when the superb choir of Hampton Institute would come to perform a concert of “Negro spirituals.” Williamsburg was also a county seat, and the surrounding area was rural, dominated by farming and fishing. There were clearly defined black and white settlements, country stores, recreation areas, and so on. But not everything was segregated. For instance, farmers brought their merchandise to farmers’ markets and lined up their wagons full of produce or seafood without apparent regard to race. Black domestic workers came into town early each weekday, and at the end of the day assembled on the benches surrounding the town flagpole waiting for their rides home. They seemed oblivious to the plaque on the flagpole, which commemorated its donation by the Ku Klux Klan. (In a later era, when my father assumed an important position at the College of William and Mary, my mother covertly arranged for the KKK plaque to become accidentally lost, thus extirpating a degrading symbol that had always irked her. The rediscovery of the plaque in an obscure warehouse many years later provoked questions and speculation, but Mother never acknowledged her role in this small gesture for racial decency. Now that she is gone, I feel entitled to blow her cover.) My school class—all white, of course—consisted of about equal parts farm kids and city kids, whose families were mostly merchants, tradespeople, bluecollar workers, and college professors. Most shared the racist views of their parents. We who were subject to more liberal influences did not broadcast dissent and certainly did not go out of our way to seek friendship with African American youngsters of our own ages. We knew them barely, if at all. I was just finishing eleventh grade when Brown I was decided. I was a writer on the school paper and I aspired...

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