From The Guide’s Archives

Archives taken from the pages of the (New) Journal and Guide colored youths had been assigned.

Schools Reopen With No Trouble

First Day: Quiet Prevails at Norfolk and Arlington

By Jack V. Fox/UPI

NORFOLK Virginia admitted 21 colored pupils to public schools heretofore used exclusively by white students on Monday in a peaceful change from a policy of massive resistance to integration.

Seventeen colored students were admitted to schools in Norfolk and four in Arlington in the Washington suburbs. There were not the slightest incidents despite a few pre-opening rumblings that there would be picketing and strife.

Other schools that were closed under the law are Charlottesville–permitted under an eleventhhour court reprieve that postposed integration until next September – and Front Royal in Warren County where the affected schools did not open.

Virginia accepted the fact of integration only after federal courts had knocked down every state barrier and after the legislature had passed fresh laws to chip the impact of the historic transition.

“I said all along there would not be any trouble and there was none, “said Principal Charles W. Purdue, a former Duke University football star and now Principal of Norfolk’s big Norview High.

In Arlington, school Superintendent Ray E. Reid said “I am happy to least there were no incidents and that everything is quiet. A boycott had been threatened by white pupils at Arlington but it failed to develop.

Under new state law, however, the state would provide up to $250 annually in tuition grants for any pupils who do not want to attend integrated schools.

Lone Girls “Desegregate

Two of Norfolk’s Schools

By P.B. Young Jr.

NORFOLK

Two brave and dignified girl pioneers Geraldine Virginia Talley 13, and Betty Jean Reed, 15, Monday morning became the first and lone Negroes ever to attend respectively Northside Junior and Granby High Schools.

They are two of the Norfolk 17 assigned in varying numbers to six all-white secondary Norfolk schools.

Theirs was the experience of being racially alone in student bodies of 1,330 at Northside and 2,004 at Granby.

At some of the other schools, as many as seven

Geraldine rated a top student at the special tutoring classes sponsored by the Norfolk NAACP during the five months closure of some schools locally is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Talley of Titustown. Mr. Talley is a leading merchant and outstanding civic leader.

Betty Jean is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Reed of Carney Titustown. Mr. Reed is a car rider with the Virginia Railway in Norfolk. Mrs. Reed is a housewife. The colored students and the schools where they are enrolled:

• Norview Junior High: Edward Jordan, Lavera Forbes, James Turner, Claudia Wellington, and Patricia Turner.

• Blair Junior High: Lolita Portis and Reginald Young

• Northside Junior High School: Geraldine Talley.

• Norview High: Andrew Heidelberg, Olivia Driver, Johnnie Rouse, Carol Wellington, Frederick Gonsouland, and Delores Johnson

• Maury High: Lewis Cousins

• Granby High: Betty Reed

Man’s Skeleton Found In Bed

By John “Rover” Jordan SUFFOLK

The dry bones of a skeleton found tucked away in a neatly kept bed apparently have held the mystery in the disappearance two years ago of William Gray, 73, a man well known in former years for playing the “devil” in religious pageants.

Nansemond County Police are still somewhat puzzled as to their next step in the weird story of a man who lay dead for many months in the front bedroom of his modest fourroom house on the bank of Smith Creek in the Boston section of Nansemond County, northwest of Suffolk.

County Investigator Ray

B. Early assisted by Deputy Charles “Skinny” Jones, a colored officer, made the grisly discovery on Thursday, climaxing a search of many weeks. The missing man’s wife was immediately taken into custody and was being held in Nansemond County jail pending an investigation of the strange case.

The skeleton was found clothed in shirt and trousers and covered, except for the head with blankets. It was as if the man had laid down for a nap month and months ago, never to awaken. The room was clean and free of dust and the furnishings were neatly in place.

Mr. Gray, a very popular man in the area, was missed by his friends and neighbors over two years ago. Church groups offering him food on occasion began to ask

5 Months Later – She’s In School

NORFOLK

Five months passed between the time 17-year-old Patricia Godbolt heard Norfolk school officials admit she was being denied entry to a school close to her home simply because of race and the day she entered that school.

That day of entry was Monday,

February 2. Miss Godbolt, (left) and Miss Delores Johnson are shown here entering Norfolk’s Norview High School in Monday morning’s opening of the first desegregated schools in Virginia History. They are two of five colored pupils at Norview High; one of six schools that realized a peaceful transition from segregated to integrated schools

NORFOLK

History Made

History was made in Virginia on Feb.

2 when 21 colored pupils entered seven public schools which only served white students. Six of the schools opened on a desegregated basis in Norfolk, one at Arlington. No racial incidents arose questions. There were conflicting stories about his disappearance and police were notified. His wife Emaline Gray, 54, gave unsatisfactory answers.

Deputy Early told reports that Mrs. Gray gave him the “runaround” first telling him that her husband was to make the transitions. Above three of seven pupils admitted to Norfolk’s Norview High School make their way into the building. They are Andrew Irvin Heidelberg, Miss Oliver Driver and Alverez F. Gonsaland. Ten colored students were admitted to five other Norfolk schools and four were enrolled at Arlington Stratford Junior High. living in another section of town and later that he was living in Newport News. She refused to allow the officer to search the house and he finally obtained a warrant.

The officer quoted the woman as then saying that her husband died in July 1956. She denied any knowledge of foul play. Later she told investigators that her husband was not really dead but an evil spirit had taken possession of him. If the spirit can be exorcised, she assured them, he would be well again.

The investigation is ongoing and the man’s skeleton has been buried.

By Walt Carr