40 years later, Franklin seeks to close chapter on desegregation

Forty years after being forced to desegregate, the Franklin School Board has asked a federal judge to declare that the school division has eliminated all vestiges of racial discrimination.

The request is largely a formality: The schools have been integrated for some 38 years. But the legal move represents a historic footnote to the racial divisions that once gripped this small western Tidewater community.

"This is pretty routine," said Richmond lawyer Carter Glass IV, who is handling the legal matter for the board. "We probably could have done it a long time ago."

The School Board and the Department of Justice filed papers, made public Friday, in U.S. District Court stating that the school division has complied with court-ordered desegregation obligations. A district judge must approve the request.

The department has been filing similar court motions across the country in towns and cities that were forced to desegregate their schools in the 1960s and early 1970s. The department said it has reviewed desegregation orders in at least 78 communities.

"This was not unusual," Glass said. "The Justice Department realized that there were dozens if not hundreds of these orders lying around the country, most of which had been forgotten."

Technically, the federal court order from 1968 remained an open case.

School Board members had no idea the case was still open, said Taylor Williams, Franklin city attorney.

"As far as we know we have been in compliance," Williams said. "We're certainly happy to have it put in closed."

The Justice Department conducted a year-long review of the school division's compliance with the desegregation order before filing the motion.

Glass said the review included a look at the racial makeup of the student body and the teaching staff as well as the transportation system to ensure the buses were not racially divided. The department even looked at yearbooks.

"The School Board of Franklin City has fulfilled its affirmative desegregation obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment and other applicable federal law, entitling defendants to a declaration of unitary status and termination of this litigation," the Justice Department wrote in a court filing.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith.

Before 1965, Franklin operated separate schools for blacks and whites.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's historic 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, Franklin became one of many Virginia communities to adopt Massive Resistance, which sought to prevent school desegregation.

But by the mid-1960s, with Massive Resistance crumbling, Franklin adopted a "Freedom of Choice" plan. Still, that resulted in only a handful of black students attending previously all-white schools and no white students attending all-black schools.

The Justice Department sued in 1968, which led to the court-approved desegregation plan creating a single-grade configuration, where all students in one grade attend the same school. The school division continues to operate that way today.

Over the years, the Justice Department has reviewed the school division's compliance with desegregation. Except for a controversy eight to 10 years ago about transfer students, which was resolved, the division has complied, Glass said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment Friday.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com