Whites Comment on Integration at Warren County High School
(WSLS Television, Roanoke, VA)

Warren County High School in Front Royal was the first school in Virginia closed by Governor Almond when faced with federal court orders to desegregate in the fall of 1958. A WSLS reporter interviewed parents and students below Warren County High School as 22 black students entered on February 18, 1959. One mother stated her intention to keep her son enrolled in the all-white private school that was created as an alternative to forced integration. She thought her son was showing more interest and doing better in the private school. A senior enrolled in the private school said, despite his wishes, there was no official boycott by whites of the integrated Warren County High School, but he did not expect more than 15 whites to show up for classes that day.