WDBJ September Showdown Interviews with Victor Ashe and J. Hugo Madison
(WDBJ Television, Roanoke, VA)

Victor Ashe argued that black applicants to white schools near their homes should not be treated any differently than any other students applying to attend schools closer to their homes. Ashe contended that the city school board in Norfolk should not make new rules designed specifically to address these applicants. To do so, he maintained, was to employ "methods that are improper and unnecessary." Unlike the white politicians and school officials who tried to avoid answering directly whether schools might actually close under the massive resistance laws, J. Hugo Madison stated plainly that the schools most definitely would be closed if a black applicant were admitted. However, Madison did not believe that the "citizens of Norfolk" would allow these schools to be closed for more than a "day or so."