Southern Stalemate
In 1959, Virginia’s Prince Edward County closed its public schools rather than obey a court order to desegregate. For five years, black children were left to fend for themselves while the courts decided if the county could continue to deny its citizens public education. Investigating this remarkable and nearly forgotten story of local, state, and federal political confrontation, Christopher Bonastia recounts the test of wills that pitted resolute African Americans against equally steadfast white segregationists in a battle over the future of public education in America.
Beginning in 1951 when black high school students protested unequal facilities and continuing through the return of whites to public schools in the 1970s and 1980s, Bonastia describes the struggle over education during the civil rights era and the human suffering that came with it, as well as the inspiring determination of black residents to see justice served. Artfully exploring the lessons of the Prince Edward saga, Southern Stalemate unearths new insights about the evolution of modern conservatism and the politics of race in America.
Praise
“What happened in Prince Edward County in the late 1950s and early 1960s was nothing less than an American tragedy. Yet it’s long lingered on the margins of civil rights history, a footnote to the standard story of struggle and triumph. With Christopher Bonastia’s careful, enlightening, and sympathetic new study, it finally has the book it deserves.”
“A fine book that captures the intensity of the struggle among the white segregationists, the NAACP and the Black community during the years of the school closing, Southern Stalemate sheds new light not he civil rights movement and this important case. It represents an important step int he quest to better understand race, social movement, and legal scholarship.”
“This study of an often-overlooked event should become a staple part of the reading lists of the modern civil rights era. [Bonastia] possesses an engaging writing style that allows readers to move through the murky waters of the past with relative ease. . . . Highly recommended.”
“An important addition to scholarship about the American Civil Rights movement, Christopher Bonastia’s Southern Stalemate offers insights into the startling dismantling of public education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, from 1959 to 1964. . . . The depth and detail of the book will be valuable to scholars of social movements and political rhetoric.”
“Insightful and thoroughly researched. . . . One of the great strengths of this book is Bonastia’s facility in moving between the various actors and isntitiuoins involved in the desegregation struggle. Although ostensibly covering a relatively focused topic–a case study of single Virginia county–Souther Stalemate is an impressively ambitious and wide-ranging work of scholarship.”