Dabney Lancaster

Dabney Lancaster led the drive to pass the Gray Commission recommendation for a constitutional convention to amend section 141. Lancaster had served as president of Longwood College and as the superintendent of education in Virginia. Lancaster campaigned for local-option responses to desegregation and against state control over schools even if that meant tolerating integration in some localities. Despite Dabney's preference for local-option, the Gray Commission plan strongly predicted school closings, private education alternatives funded with publicly financed tuition grants, and widespread resistance to the federal court orders.