Integration: The Midnight Raid

Virginia’s Prince Edward County, which has two separate school systems (public for Negroes, private for whites), is learning the price of prejudice. It comes to $180,000, which county officials will have to pay out of their own pockets.

In 1964, county supervisors decided to give tuition grants to the private schools, summoned white parents and parceled out the money while a Negro parents’ suit to bar the grant was pending in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Negroes called this action a “midnight raid on the county treasury,” and the court ordered restoration of the funds. Now that the Supreme Court has refused to review the judgment, the supervisors will have to raise the cash or go to jail.