Edmund and Elizabeth Campbell
During the mid-to-late-1950s, Edmund and his wife Elizabeth formed the Save Our Schools Committee, organized to fight Virginia’s “massive resistance” policy to the U.S. Supreme Court desegregation decisions.
Edmund Douglas Campbell (1899–1995) was a lawyer, social activist, and Arlington County Board member who advocated for civil rights, school desegregation, and state representation according to population. Campbell vehemently opposed Virginia’s “Massive Resistance” policy in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954 and 1955, along with his wife Elizabeth, Campbell fought to ensure that Arlington's public schools remain open by organizing the Save Our Schools Committee (comprised of parents and citizens from across Virginia) in defiance of Senator Harry F. Byrd and his allies.
Among his other accomplishments, in 1955, Campbell won a case that overturned a Virginia law prohibiting racially integrated seating in public places. In 1958, following the closure of schools in Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Front Royal, he successfully argued as the lead attorney in James v. Almond, finally ending Virginia's “Massive Resistance" laws that had forced the closing of all public schools, which Federal courts had ordered to integrate. Following that decision, the first Black students entered Stratford Junior High School on February 2, 1959.
In the lawsuit Davis v. Mann, the Supreme Court decided in 1964 that Campbell successfully argued that Arlington and Fairfax counties were illegally under-represented in the Virginia legislature, finding that legislative apportioning gave less populated rural areas more legislative influence per voter than more densely populated Northern Virginia as a result of the 1960 census.
Edmund Douglas Campbell was born March 12, 1899, in Lexington, Virginia, the son of the dean of Washington and Lee University (W&L). He graduated as the valedictorian from W&L in 1918. By 1922, he had received a Master’s in economics from Harvard and graduated from the W&L School of Law.
Edmund moved to Northern Virginia, where he succeeded as a lawyer and civic activist. In June 1936, Edmund Campbell wed Elizabeth Pfohl. Together, they would raise four children. He served as chairman of Arlington County’s first public utilities commission and as a member of the Arlington County Board (1940-1946). He was chairman of the county board in 1942 and 1946. In 1955, he helped found Arlingtonians for a Better County, a nonpartisan group that became a powerful political force in the county.
During the mid-to-late-1950s, Edmund and his wife Elizabeth formed the Save Our Schools Committee, organized to fight Virginia’s “massive resistance” policy to the U.S. Supreme Court desegregation decisions. In 1958, he argued the case in Federal court, which resulted in Virginia’s massive resistance laws being declared unconstitutional. This case and a similar case before the Supreme Court of Virginia resulted in the reopening of public schools in several Virginia
localities and the integration of Virginia’s public schools. On February 2, 1959,
Arlington’s Stratford Junior High School (known now as H-B Woodlawn) became the first integrated public school in Virginia.
In 1962, Edmund Campbell successfully argued to the United States Supreme Court that Northern Virginia localities, including Arlington and Fairfax, were illegally underrepresented in the Virginia General Assembly. This case and others resulted in the Court’s landmark “one man, one vote” decision that established equality of representation in state legislatures nationwide.
Edmund Campbell was president of the Washington, D.C. Bar Association (1961-1962), a member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates (1964-1970), and a member of the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors (1972-1975). Edmund D. Campbell died on December 7, 1995, in Arlington. Following his death, The Washington Post stated: “In life, as in court, Ed Campbell fought injustice with a passion,
insisting that freedom be accorded citizens without regard to color or belief.”
Margaret Elizabeth Pfohl was born December 4, 1902, in Clemmons, North Carolina.
She received a Bachelor’s degree in English from Salem College and a Master’s in education from Columbia University. At just 25, she became dean of Moravian College for Women in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1929, she became dean of Mary.
Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. In June 1936, Elizabeth Pfohl wed Edmund D. Campbell. They settled in Arlington County and raised four children.
Concerned about the quality of public education in Arlington, Elizabeth Campbell won a seat in 1947 on the County’s first elected school board. She was the first woman elected to a school board in Virginia. She served three terms, 1948-1951, 1952-1955, and
1960-1963, and was chairman three times. Her leadership and commitment led to funding for seven new schools, hiring more teachers at better salaries, starting such programs as kindergarten, full-day sessions for first- and second-graders, music and art classes for African American students, and educational services for people with disabilities; and
launching the first countywide school bus service. In the mid-to late-1950s, she and her husband joined together in the struggle to desegregate Virginia’s public schools.
In 1957, Elizabeth Campbell became president of the Greater Washington Educational Television Association (GWETA), which was formed to offer a nonprofit and noncommercial educational broadcast service to the Washington, D.C. area. In 1958, GWETA inaugurated its first daytime broadcast on local station WTTG, airing Time for Science, a science enrichment program for elementary school students. In 1961, a public television station began broadcasting in the nation’s capital as WETA Channel 26. Under her pioneering leadership, WETA flourished, growing from a small local public television
station into a nationally renowned multimedia company.
Elizabeth Campbell stepped down from her role as president in 1971 to become WETA’s vice president of community affairs, a position she held until her death. Elizabeth Campbell received many awards recognizing her decades of public service, including Washingtonian of the Year in 1978 and public television’s highest honor, the Ralph Lowell Award, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1996. She also received five honorary doctorate degrees. Elizabeth P. Campbell died on January 9, 2004, in Arlington.