WDBJ September Showdown Interview with Governor J. Lindsay Almond
(WDBJ Television, Roanoke, VA)

Governor J. Lindsay Almond explained that the massive resistance laws required the governor to close any school under federal court order to integrate. He also explained that local officials might in time request that the governor remove the schools from the state system and turn them over to the localities without state funding. Almond had dire predictions for localities that might want to integrate--their schools, he suggested, would devolve into chaos and racial strife. On the other hand, Almond did not foreclose explicitly the possibility of locally supported integrated schools even under the massive resistance laws. Almond stated that he would approach such possibilities "with an open mind."