Massive Resistance Course to Be Offered at VCU
Massive Resistance is a relatively unknown facet of Virginia history involving the closing of schools who were resistant to desegregation in the 1950s. Yet, a new class in the works at Virginia Commonwealth University hopes to change that. Starting this spring, students will be given a first-person account of the past by getting a chance to talk to former students affected by the school closings.
Shawn Utsey, chairman of the Department of African-American Studies, is heading the project and is looking for it to become an on-going course at VCU. It will combine Psychology with African-American Studies as students will be trained in the proper ways to communicate with the orator on their story. The trainers, which includes Utsey, will be traveling to South Africa in December to train themselves at the Sinomlando Centre for Oral History and Memory Work at the University of Kwazulu-Natal. This institution has experience with working with subjects who were prejudiced against during Apartheid. People affected by Apartheid also went through similar issues with schooling just as the former students that were impacted by the Massive Resistance in Virginia.
“The University is moving to a new paradigm in its quest for excellence and part of that is to engage students in the community and learning experiences… particularly the Civil Rights history in Richmond and in Virginia,” Utsey said. He added that the course would allow students, with proper training, to conduct oral histories with people who were part of the experience.
Ted Tunnell, a History professor at VCU with specialties in Virginia History, said that the “movement was initiated by the [Senator Harry F.] Byrd Machine after Brown vs. the Board of Education [in] resistance to [the] integration of schools in Virginia.” He stated that the movement not only affected African-American children, but also Whites, causing an accelerated movement to the suburbs where the races weren’t mixed. The county that was affected the greatest was Prince Edward, as it was closed for five years from 1959 to 1964.
Students like Kellie Lingle, a senior History major, hope that the class will be beneficiary to anyone who takes the class. “[Massive Resistance] is overlooked and just provided as an example and since there are still living subjects available to provide knowledge, the class would be a great place to learn from the past,” she added.
Nicole Donahue, also a History major, said, “I’m not a big U.S. History freak and I don’t know much about the struggles here in Virginia… but it sounds like it would be pretty interesting and I’d look into taking it.”
The class offered would be a full-semester, 400-level course that would ideally be open to everyone. Utsey voiced that there would be prerequisites and African-American Studies majors would have first priority. November 20 is the formal announcement for the course and is looking to familiarize the community affected by the Resistance before the calls to discuss their past come their way.
Written and turned in on October 12, 2011 for MASC 203
