ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Feb. 13.
Amplification
A time line of local civil rights events in Sunday's paper did not
note that Lakeside Amusement Park's management cited economic reasons
for closing its swimming pool in 1968. Also, the park was fully
integrated in August 1964.
1939
First issue of ``The Roanoke Tribune,'' founded by the Rev. F.E. Alexander, is printed on Gilmer Avenue in Northwest Roanoke. The paper remains a family business, operated now by Claudia Whitworth and Stan Hale, daughter and grandson of Alexander.
Chauncey Harmon, principal of the all-black Calfee Training School in Pulaski, sues the Pulaski County School Board for equalization of facilities. The board made plans to rebuild the school after it burned in 1938, but Harmon wants a bigger one than planned. At the same time, Willis Gravely sues the board for equalization of pay for black educators. The suits are lost. Harmon later becomes principal of Salem's George Washington Carver School.
c.1946
Margie Jumper, a black woman, violates a Roanoke ordinance by refusing to give her seat on a trolley to a white man. She is dragged from the car and jailed. Jumper pleads guilty and pays a small fine, and the incident is forgotten.
1949
Dr. P.C. Corbin sues Pulaski County School Board for discrimination regarding school facilities. He loses the case regarding the high school, but wins on the elementary level. Little change results from the case, but it is believed to be one of 11 cases supported by the NAACP before the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case.
1950
Though unsuccessful, Eugene S. Brown is the first black person to run for Roanoke's city council.
1951
Students boycott the all-black R.R. Moton School in Prince Edward County to protest the school's second-rate facilities.
1952
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, a suit resulting from the Moton School situation, is argued in federal court in Richmond. It was one of five cases that came together as the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Topeka (Kan.) case.
1954
First black students enter Roanoke parochial schools.
1955
Gov. Thomas Stanley appoints commission to sketch the outlines of ``massive resistance.'' The plan was to close public schools rather than admit black students.
1956
The ``Stanley Plan,'' also called the ``Byrd Plan,'' is passed by a special session of the General Assembly. It marks the beginning of massive resistance. Only a few school systems, including Prince Edward County, opt to actually close schools.
1958
A black student graduates from a Roanoke parochial school, the first black student ever to graduate from an integrated Virginia high school.
1959
The Virginia Supreme court strikes down massive resistance.
Fourteen black Floyd County teens and their parents sue to attend school in their own county, instead of 45 miles away at the Christiansburg Institute.
Prince Edward County closes its schools in the face of a court order to integrate. They did not reopen until 1964.
1960
As a result of the 1959 lawsuit, the first black students enter Floyd and Check high schools.
The beginning of public school desegregation in Roanoke. The state's Pupil Placement Board assigns black children to Melrose Elementary, West End Elementary and Monroe Junior High School.
A biracial committee organizes to peacefully integrate Roanoke's lunch counters and movie theaters. Led by the Rev. R.R. Wilkinson, then-president of the local NAACP, the committee comprised Dr. Maynard Law, Lawrence Hamlar, John Hancock, the Rev. Emmett L. Green, Robert Burrell, G. Frank Clement, Arthur Taubman, Ben Parrott, Gordon Willis, William A. Lashley and George P. Lawrence. With the cooperation of business managers and owners, the highly orchestrated plan comes off without violence.
1963
The committee regroups to integrate golf courses and hospitals. Old Monterey and Blue Hills golf clubs are the first to allow black members.
1964
A garbage dump located in what is now Roanoke's Washington Park is closed and filled in but only after many complaints from blacks in the surrounding community. At one point, the Rev. Wilkinson threatened to place a line of mothers and babies across the road to keep more trucks from entering.
Roanoke Memorial Hospital is integrated.
Lakeside Amusement Park is integrated. Blacks are allowed in the park for three days after Labor Day but still are not permitted in the park's swimming pool.
1968
Lakeside Amusement Park closes and buries its massive swimming pool. Critics argue it is done to avoid allowing blacks to swim in it.
- Timelines prepared by staff writer Matt Chittum with the assistance of Dr. Maynard Law, Vernice Law, Georgia Reeves, Wayne Tripp and Marylen Harmon and John Selby, Associate professor of history at Roanoke College
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshots of Harmon, Jumper, Wilkinson, Law, Hamlarby CNB1964: The garbage dump located in what is now Roanoke's Washington
Park before it is closed and filled in after complaints from
blacks in the surrounding community. In the background is Lincoln
Terrace Elementary School.