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Governor J. Lindsay Almond on Success of Private Schools
(WDBJ Television, Roanoke, VA)

Governor J. Lindsay Almond said Virginia had "excellent" private schools. And as a "result of this trouble more private schools will come into being and will function in..." (tape cutoff). Almond pushed for and passed through the General Assembly a measure to allow tuition grants of $250 per pupil to parents who want to send their children to private schools rather than to an integrated public school. Almon's program was based on his conviction that having failed to defeat integration his administration would not force any student or parent to accept integration against his or her will. Conservative legislators, such as Senator Garland Gray, proposed closing all public schools in February 1959 and issuing tuition grants to all students. They foresaw an immediate solution for parents to choose segregated academies. Gray's bill was opposed Almond and his attorney general Albertis S. Harrison as unworkable, and it did not make it out of committee. The governor's proposal, while more moderate, spurned the public school system and predicted an unlikely future for private schools.
About the film
  • Date: February 1959
  • Sound: Yes
  • Duration: 00:15
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