Page 8 - Demo

Jackson v. School Board of City of Lynchburg
OThe legal battle that prompted the integration of E.C. Glass and ended the Pupil Placement Board’s discriminatory practices throughout Virginia
Owen Cardwell, Lynda Woodruff, Cecelia Jackson, and Brenda Hughes, with their parents’ support, all applied for admission
to Glass in 1961. As an eighth-grader at Dunbar, Cardwell told
his father, Cardwell, Sr., that he wanted to become an architect. An excellent student with a solid ‘A’ average, Cardwell desired
to excel academically beyond Dunbar’s capabilities, since they
did not offer a drafting class. Cardwell, Sr., along with Lynda Woodruff’s stepfather and mother, Edward and Georgia Barksdale, investigated the academic possibilities at Glass. What they
found was surprising. While Lynchburg’s black population was significantly smaller than its white population, the law stated
that facilities needed to be equal. But the parents’ investigation showed that Glass offered its students 121 subjects, while Dunbar offered only 42.
They showed their findings to Virgil Wood, pastor
of Diamond Hill Baptist Church, outspoken leader for Civil Rights, and member of SCLC, who organized a meeting for all those in the community wishing to fight the segregated system. Originally, quite a few expressed an interest, but only four prospective transfer students came to the meeting.
The four students present shared many similarities. Besides being long-time friends, they all maintained excellent academic records and three of the four lived
in traditional, two-parent, middle-class homes. Not surprisingly, their parents shared similarities as well. Edward
ABOVE: Lynda Woodruff and Owen Cardwell broke the color line in Lynchburg
LEFT: Cardwell, Sr., along with Lynda Woodruff’s stepfather and mother, Edward and Georgia Barksdale
Lawson, a NAACP attorney from Roanoke, to assist in the appeals process. Again denied transfer at an August hearing in nearby Roanoke, the families filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Western Virginia. In an informal hearing in September, Judge Thomas Michie, as a precursor to the litigation (and apparently a foregone conclusion in his mind), ordered Cardwell and Woodruff to enter Glass in January, while ordering Jackson and Hughes to remain at Dunbar. Michie cited academics as the reason behind his decision. Although not yet legally binding, this decision was upheld when the case went before the District Court two months later.
Jackson v. School Board of City of Lynchburg, Virginia, et al., began November 14, 1961. In his opinion, Michie ruled that the PPB discriminated against two of the four students based on
their race. Since the board had denied Cardwell and Woodruff’s applications based on proximity to Glass and not on academic achievement, they had to prove that the same guidelines were used when assessing the placement of white students. They were not. White students assigned to attend Glass also lived closer to Dunbar, but were not placed there.
Ultimately, Michie stated that, by ignoring white’s proximity while denying blacks based on the same principle, the board violated the United States Constitution as determined in Brown over seven years before. The case officially ended the PPB’s discriminatory practices throughout the state of Virginia.
While Lynchburg’s black population was significantly smaller than its white population, the law stated that facilities needed to be equal. But the parents’ investigation showed that Glass offered its students 121 subjects, while Dunbar offered only 42.
Barksdale, Lynda Woodruff’s stepfather, worked for the federal
government, thus Washington rather than Lynchburg’s white community paid his salary.
Owen Cardwell, Sr. owned an independent real estate business, operating solely within the black community. Likewise, only black citizens patronized Dr. George Jackson’s successful dentistry.
An exception, Mabel Hughes worked as a domestic for a white Lynchburg family. According to her daughter, that family never once complained or insinuated that her mother’s job was in jeopardy due to her involvement in the school desegregation issue, nor was she concerned. Realizing nothing was gained without a struggle, the four
families embarked on a mission to change the face of education in Lynchburg.
Cardwell, Woodruff, Jackson, and Hughes all objected when, in the spring of 1961, the Pupil Placement Board (PPB) denied their requests to transfer from Dunbar to Glass for the upcoming academic year. The four families retained the services of Ruben
12 LYNCH’S FERRY
COURTESY OF THE NEWS & ADVANCE
COURTESY OF THE NEWS & ADVANCE
COURTESY OF THE NEWS & ADVANCE