Stratford Junior High School and Desegregation
In the 1950's it also was at the center of a "massive resistance" in the state of Virginia to public school desegregation.
Stratford Junior High School was built in 1950 during one of Arlington's most active periods of school construction following World War II. It was the first of four new junior high schools built to accommodate the rapid increase in student population. In the 1950's it also was at the center of a "massive resistance" in the state of Virginia to public school desegregation.
The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision to end school segregation "with all deliberate speed" rocked Virginia to its core in May 1954. Following the landmark case, government officials, citizen organizations, and other councils throughout the South vehemently opposed the desegregation of the public school system.
Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia campaigned for “massive resistance” that urged a no-compromise line against integration. Three African-American students attempted to integrate Stratford Junior High School in 1957, but all were refused admittance and sent to Arlington's segregated Hoffman-Boston School.
Through continued litigation by the NAACP, on February 2, 1959, Stratford was the first public school in the Commonwealth of Virginia to be desegregated. Four African American students from the Hall's Hill Neighborhood, Ronald Deskins, Michael Jones, Lance Newman, and Gloria Thompson, under riot-ready police guard, were peacefully admitted.
The successful integration represented the end of the Commonwealth’s policy of “massive resistance” and a blow to foes of school integration across the South. It would be over a decade before all of Virginia's schools were integrated.
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