To devise strategy for evading the U.S. Supreme Court's school desegregation order, Virginia's Governor Thomas B. Stanley appointed a legislative commission headed by State Senator Garland Gray, a dependable cog in U.S. Senator Harry Byrd's Democratic Party organization. The Gray Commission hammered out a compromise designed to head off integration in communities that oppose it, and permit it in others. Even so, the plan was meeting unexpected opposition. Reason: quite apart from its cautious sabotage of the Supreme Court order, many Virginians thought the Gray plan might wreck their public-school system.
Green Light. Under fire were ramifications of the kickoff...
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