I Want to Encourage African-Americans in Hanover to Support Elected School Boards: End a Vestige of Segregation!

I realize this is dangerous.  But the pro-elected school board in Hanover needs what frankly is a ridiculous number of signatures (the law should have been 15% or 1000 or maybe 15oo signatures but I am grateful for the effort to bring about elected school boards in Virginia.) and we need all, as abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote:  Agitate, agitate, agitate!

But African-American voters, activists and leaders in Hanover ought especially to support the referendum and ultimate victory:  For appointed school boards is a vestige of discrimination and segregation.  Let’s get rid of it.  It also opens up the political system in Hanover County.  Seven (or nine if they adopt two at-large members that Hanover may be authorized to do by statute) new entry-level positions in politics.  For public service.  Jesus said be a servant.  Good place for service.

It is not often that I cite the ACLU but here is a historical treatment of appointed school boards and I agree with it (alas it is true):

Appointed school boards are part of the legacy of Virginia’s post-Reconstruction period, during which the state’s white leaders sought to limit the political influence of African-Americans. It culminated in the infamous Constitutional Convention of 1901, which was devoted to codifying Jim Crow practices. At that well-documented gathering, Virginia’s leading statesmen amended the Constitution to require literacy tests and poll taxes and reinstituted felon disfranchisement. They also rejected attempts to allow elected school boards in Virginia.

In 1947, Arlington County was allowed to enact elected school boards.  BUT when it became apparent that that school board would integrate the county schools by race, the General Assembly took back that right to elect the school boards (from the ACLU post):

In 1947 the General Assembly finally capitulated to the wishes of Arlington County by passing a law permitting that one jurisdiction to elect its school board members. But even this refreshing turnabout had a distressing ending. In 1956, after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Arlington’s school board voted to integrate the school system. The General Assembly reacted immediately by repealing the law allowing elected school boards in Arlington.

Again from the ACLU post citing an odious comment in the 1901 Constitutional Conviction but soon to be US Senator Carter Glass:

Discrimination! Why that is exactly what we propose; that exactly, is why this Convention was elected — to discriminate to the very extremity of permissible action under the limitations of the Federal Constitution with the view to the elimination of every [N]egro who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the strength of the white electorate.(footnote omitted)

Now no one will say, and I am NOT SAYING that anyone in leadership in Hanover County advocates discrimination or segregation.  But let’s get rid of this relic of Jim Crow.

I would respectfully urge the African-American community in Hanover County to use this to organize politically – something like a Hanover Voters Coalition – if you would and this might help open up elections in the county.

I’ll help.  Let me know how to help.  Least I can do.