num_pages: 208
description: A southern journalist campaigns for racial understanding during thestruggle over school desegregation in Virginia. In 1958 the nation's attention was focused on Norfolk,Virginia, where nearly ten thousand students were locked out of their schools.Rather than comply with the desegregation mandate of Brown v. Boardof Education , Governor J. Lindsay Almond, supported by the powerfulpolitical machine of Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., had closed Norfolk's whitesecondary schools. Massive resistance to integration transformed Norfolkinto a civil rights arena. Although the process by which Norfolk's schoolswere integrated was far from orderly, the transition was characterizedby debate, political maneuvering, and judicial action--not violence. LenoirChambers, editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot , conducted a five-yeareditorial campaign supporting the peaceful implementation of the Court'sorder. The Pilot was Virginia's only white newspaper to take thisposition. Chambers was later awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials. Utilizing a wide range of primary and secondary sources,Standing before the Shouting Mob examines Chambers's campaign, exploresthe influences that shaped his racial views, and places him within thecontext of southern journalism. The book also provides a detailed analysisof Virginia's massive resistance and Norfolk's school closing. 
language: English
title: Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive Resistance to Public School Integration
titlecomplete: Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive Resistance to Public School Integration
ratings_count: 3
publisher: University Alabama Press