Norfolk church spoke out against the times of segregation

NORFOLK

In the late 1950s, when Virginia's fight against integrating its schools was just gathering steam, Phyllis Stein was a stay-at-home mom with two small children. She looked after them during the week, went to church on Sundays and, if race came up, she changed the subject.

It wasn't an exciting life, but it was comfortable, Stein said - until everything changed.

Stein was at a service at Chesterfield Heights Methodist Church with her husband, Tony, who now writes for the Clipper, a community news section for readers of The Virginian-Pilot. The pastor told the congregation that if any black people tried to join the church, he would bar the door with his own body.

Shocked, the Steins walked out. They cut off all ties to the church, Phyllis Stein said, and started spending their Sunday mornings at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

Then they read in the paper about a local church speaking out against Massive Resistance, the state's effort to shut down its public schools rather than integrate.

Stein was "scared to death to stand up for what I believed in, until I found the courage right here," she told members of the Unitarian Church of Norfolk during a panel Sunday.

Church members who were around in the days of Massive Resistance told the story of how their church took a public stand against the movement and how it campaigned to encourage other white residents of Norfolk opposed to Massive Resistance to speak out.

Not all of the church's members were staunch integrationists at the time, member Phil Caminer said. Some were still a little unsure about the idea. But they knew they wanted their public schools open, and on Sept. 14, 1958 - in the heyday of the Massive Resistance fight - the church's congregation held a vote.

Unanimously, the congregation passed the statement, "We call upon the state authorities to put an end now to their practice of enforced segregation and to permit localities to maintain the free public schools."

The church's young pastor, the Rev. Jim Brewer, helped found the Norfolk Committee for Public Schools, a group of white residents who fought to keep schools open.

Members of his church helped the group's efforts, going door to door to collect signatures from others opposed to closing the schools. The idea was to show those who wanted to speak out but were afraid that they weren't alone, members said.

"The cause had many secret supporters, but few would jeopardize safe anonymity and reputation to join the lonely handful out in front," said Will Frank, 73. They'd say, " 'I'd love to work with you, but I wouldn't have any friends.' And that was true."

For Frank, who was 22 and a recent arrival from New York at the time, speaking against segregation wasn't so bad, he said. He had no ties to sever.

But for others who would see crosses burned on their lawns and whose neighbors and friends would no longer speak to them once they had "come out" as desegregationists, taking a public stand took courage, he said.

"They put their names out there, out there for everybody to see, when it was just a handful," he said. "Somebody had to be out there as the leader."

Alicia Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@pilotonline.com