Prince Edward County Research Articles

1850.38 Southern Ball-Games

Chumney was similar to baseball, played with two teams, and had batters, pitchers, catchers, and fielders.1Two games with roots in the mid-19th century, both of them pastimes associated with the American South, have come to light only recently: chermany and round cat.Chermany/ChumneyThe most spelling, suggests that there may have been some connection to Germans-that perhaps German immigrants brought the game to Virginia. Diligent searches through many sources about Virginia and other areas of the South, however, have found no connections of chermany to Germans. There were Germans in colonial Virginia onward, but so far there was no mention of a baseball-type game called chermany. Virginia humorist George William Bagby addressed this matter in what is so far the fullest discussion of chermany. Stating the he had purchased a former female academy in Buckingham with plans to convert it to a fiddlers' college, Bagby revised his goals: abandoned the original plan and consecrated the Institute wholly to the instruction of able-bodied young men in the ancient and manly games of 'Chermany' and 'Ant'ny Over.' The etymology of the former game is obscure. It may have been 'Germany.' Though I have never known a Dutchman [i.e., a German] to play it or even be aware of its rules and regulations.Whatever the term's origins, Bagby considered chermany a superior game:My aim was to supplant the vile pastimes of base-ball and billiards which befell the Commonwealth [of Virginia] as a part of the loathsome legacy bequeathed us by the war. I could not, indeed, believe that these debilitating and abnormal sports would perpetually exclude the time-honored and patriotic game to which Virginians had been accustomed, but my fear was that after the base ball business the awful thing called cricket might follow, and that I could not have borne. Those silly wickets and those absurd bats are to my mind execrable, inexcusable, and unfounded upon reason and sense.2Indeed, Bagby saw chermany as one of the numerous skills a Virginia boy of his generation had to master around eight years old.3A couple of the sources, however, also referred to a game called chumney, which would lead to a reasonable conclusion that chermany was a variant of or vice versa. In his History of Prince Edward County, Virginia, Herbert Clarence Bradshaw defined thus:Chumney was similar to baseball, played with two teams, and had batters, pitchers, catchers, and fielders. The pitcher tried to pitch a good ball, and the batter tried to knock the solid rubber ball out of sight. A Runner had to be hit when in motion to down him, and to go around the ring, which was larger than a baseball diamond, twice was a real accomplishment. 4William Cabell Bruce's biography of John Randolph of Roanoke provokes additional questions about chumney. Bruce stated that as an adult Randolph enjoyed playing games most common with the local boys, including chumney.5 While most sources place chermany later, in the 1830s and onward, Randolph was playing in the 1820s. If was an earlier name for the game later termed chermany, then again the game may have had no connection to Germans.Then where did the name chumney come from? None of the older dictionaries consulted lists the term, and a search of British place names did not turn up a locale of that name. There may have been some confusion with chumley, which itself is a variant of Cholmondeley, the family name of a longtime ruling clan in Cheshire in northwest England. Did a variant of baseball obtain the name in that region and transplant it to Virginia?Round CatThe second game under consideration here is round cat. References to this game are few and sporadic, none of them providing conclusive detail. The 1917 Scribner's story that mentioned chermany also listed round cat, and placed it in the Richmond area in the 1860s. …

Distribution and movement of Bay of Quinte Walleye in relation to temperature, prey availability and Dreissenid colonization

The spatial and seasonal distribution of walleye were surveyed with gillnets in the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario during 1992–2008. Walleye movements were determined with tagging in the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario surrounding Prince Edward County during fall 1998–2003, and with recaptures from angling and other fisheries in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River during 1998–2003. Immature walleye (age <4 yr) were abundant in the upper Bay of Quinte from April to November, moved small distances down the bay during summer, and were less frequently observed in Lake Ontario. Mature walleye (age >4 yr) were found in the upper Bay of Quinte during spring, and farther down the bay during summer. Older mature walleye (age-7+) were observed in eastern Lake Ontario during summer. The tagging data were consistent in showing that older fish moved down the Bay of Quinte toward Lake Ontario during summer. During fall mature walleye moved back up the Bay of Quinte either from Lake Ontario or the lower bay. Immature and mature walleye moved farther up the Bay of Quinte during fall to spring, again with older walleye tending to move longer distances. Walleye migration between the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario during spring and fall was consistent with avoiding warm temperature in the upper bay, and foraging on alewife in the lower bay and Lake Ontario during summer and young-of the-year fishes such as gizzard shad during fall. The distribution of walleye between the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario did not change after dreissenid colonization.

Living on the Frontlines: Black Teenagers on the Move to Freedom

This article analyzes a set of fifty-five interviews conducted with black teenagers during the summer of 1963 in Prince Edward County, Virginia: site of the nation's most determined attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education through abandoning public education altogether. Caught up in currents larger than themselves, the teenagers' thoughts on subjects such as the term "black," the effectiveness of nonviolence, and the actions and motivations of white people offer a rare window into the minds of youth defining their own personhood against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world. Historians know relatively little about civil rights figures like the Prince Edward children, who were simultaneously protesters and victims. Many were thoroughly politicized by their experience, becoming either active resistors or thoughtful commentators on American race relations, while others remained unwitting participants in Prince Edward's civil rights drama.

WHITE JUSTIFICATIONS FOR SCHOOL CLOSINGS IN PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, VIRGINIA, 1959–1964

AbstractFrom 1959 to 1964, Prince Edward County, Virginia, dodged a court desegregation order by refusing to operate public schools. Though the county played an integral role in the national battle over civil rights, scholars and journalists have largely neglected Prince Edward's role in the national drama of race. In 1951, Black high school students went on strike to protest unequal school facilities. This strike led to an NAACP lawsuit that became one of five decided inBrown v. Board of Education. When faced with a final desegregation deadline in 1959, the county put itself in a unique position by becoming the only school district in the U.S. to close its public schools for an extended period of time rather than accept any desegregation. Most White students attended a private, segregated academy; over three-quarters of Black Prince Edward students lost some or all of those years of education. White county leaders believed they were creating a blueprint for defying desegregation in the rural South and perhaps, they hoped, throughout much of the United States. Using archival materials, interviews and secondary accounts, I explain how White county leaders made a public case for the school closings. These leaders' rhetorical strategy was a crucial early draft in the depiction of segregation as a natural state free of racial rancor. The segregationist rhetoric emanating from Prince Edward County was grounded primarily in arguments for privatization, local self-determination, and taxpayers' rights. Such arguments would come to dominate conservative rhetoric nationwide.

Kingston, Ontario, 5-7 October 2008

The 80th annual meeting of the Eastern Section of the Seismological Society of America took place in Kingston, Ontario, 5–7 October 2008. It was a well-attended meeting, with 75 registrants, 25 of them students. Fifty-one papers were presented, 36 oral and 15 by poster. There were three special sessions during the meeting: “Induced and Mining Seismicity” (eight papers), “The April 18, 2008, Southern Illinois Earthquake: Post Earthquake Studies” (two papers), and “Seismic Hazard Related to the Nuclear Industry” (12 papers). The rest of the presentations and posters were part of general sessions. Eight oral presentations and seven posters were by students. The award for the best student oral presentation went to Alan Baird of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, for his paper, “Stress chanelling and partitioning of seismicity in the Charlevoix seismic zone, Quebec, Canada.” His co-authors were Steve McKinnon and Laurent Godin. The awards for second- and third-best student papers went to Katie Ploeger (Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario) and Kathryn Gunberg (Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia). The best poster presentation award was won by Ken MacPherson of University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, for his paper, “Strong ground motion in the Upper Mississippi Embayment from finite-fault, finite-difference simulations,” with co-authors Edward Woolery and Zhenming Wang. The awards for second- and third-best student posters went to Caitlin Latimer (University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario) and Leo Leon (University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta). ▴ The best oral presenters: Katie Ploeger (left), Alan Baird (middle), Kathryn Gunberg (right). Photo by S. Dineva. The pre-meeting field trip had both a scientific part and a visit to wineries in Prince Edward County. Dr. Laurent Godin of Queen's University led 23 participants to four geological stops north of Kingston, Ontario. At the first stop they were able to see evidence for the complex deformation and reactivation history …

Childhood Educational Disruption and Later Life Outcomes: Evidence from Prince Edward County

Beginning in 1959 the public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, were closed for 5 years in opposition to court‐ordered integration. I combine data from numerous administrative sources to examine the effects of the school closings on the educational attainment and economic outcomes of affected black children. Although exposed students obtained an average of 1 fewer year of schooling than peers in surrounding counties, they do not exhibit substantially worse material, health, and incarceration outcomes. These findings may result from (1) the provision of substitute educational opportunities for many students and (2) flat returns at levels of educational attainment typical for southern Virginia blacks during this period.

Childhood Educational Disruption and Later Life Outcomes: Evidence from Prince Edward County

Beginning in 1959 the public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia were closed for five years in opposition to court-ordered integration. The author combines data from numerous administrative sources to examine the effects of the school closings on the educational attainment and economic outcomes of affected Black children. Although exposed students obtained an average of one fewer year of schooling than peers in surrounding counties, they do not exhibit substantially worse material, health, and incarceration outcomes. These findings may result from 1) the provision of substitute educational opportunities for many students and 2) flat returns at levels of educational attainment typical for southern Virginia Blacks during this period.

Ice Scours in the Sediments of Glacial Lake Iroquois, Prince Edward County, Eastern Ontario

Straight or slightly curved ice scours are found in thin glacilacustrine sediment of eastern Lake Iroquois, especially near the crest of an escarpment in Prince Edward County. They are large (to 3.57 km long and 174 m wide), shallow (about 1 m deep) and oriented in a nearly westerly direction. Irregular ridges of sediment have been pushed up along the sides and at the western end of some scours. Bedrock is near the ground surface, but had little influence on the formation of the scours. Based on their shape, location and pattern, we conclude that the scours were most likely formed in shallow water of the short-lived Sydney phase of Lake Iroquois by lake ice driven by prevailing northeasterly winds from the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet.

Structural Elements and Neotectonics of Prince Edward County, Southern Ontario

The seismically active Clarendon-Linden Fault of western New York State appears to connect with the Salmon River Fault and possibly with the Picton Fault, both of which cut through Prince Edward County, southern Ontario. Bedrock exposures display a variety of structural features including faults, fractures, and pop-ups which indicate that the region has been subjected to repeated tectonism since the Middle Ordovician. Thus, despite the general perception that Prince Edward County and the rest of the Lake Ontario region is one of low seismic potential, geological and geophysical data suggest otherwise.

MELVIN PATRICK ELY. Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2004. Pp. x, 640. $35.00

Melvin Patrick Ely has produced a compelling study of an African American community that challenges much of the historiography in its field. Mining rich and largely untapped archival resources, most notably county court records, Ely describes with considerable nuance the founding and development of Israel Hill as part of the larger free black community of Prince Edward County, Virginia. Richard Randolph left provisions in his will to free as many of his slaves as possible and also made arrangements for the settlement of his former bondspeople on 400 acres of his landholdings. (An edited version of the will appears in this book.) Despite some delay in the execution of the will's provisions, Randolph's wishes were finally carried out and the community of Israel Hill was born. Ely's book carries us into the culture and economy of this enclave of free persons of color and describes their relationships with white neighbors, creating a rich picture of life and race relations in a southern community.

Reading, Writing, and Reparations: Systemic Reform of Public Schools As a Matter of Justice

This Article examines reparations as a means of supporting systemic reform of public education, focusing on a recent enactment of the Virginia General Assembly, the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Program and Fund (Brown Fund Act). This provision seeks to remedy the state's refusal to integrate schools after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education by providing scholarships to persons denied an education between 1954 and 1964, a period known as massive resistance. Under this regime, the state's executive and legislative branches colluded to develop laws that defied Brown's mandate, including authorizing the governor to close public schools. One locality, Prince Edward County, went so far as to keep its schools closed for five years, but provided state-funded scholarships to enable white children to continue their learning. Black students, however, went without an education, or had to leave the area to get what state officials denied them. The paper examines the Brown Fund Act within several contexts to assess its efficacy as a remedy and as a form of reparations. Specifically, the paper examines key aspects of Virginia's history and finds that state imposed limits on educational opportunities were part of larger systemic subordination of African Americans. Thus, for example, laws proscribing literacy for slaves, limiting the franchise for Blacks, denying integration in schooling, and enabling Black taxpayer dollars to be diverted to white schools combined to maintain a caste system in which Blacks perpetually would occupy the lower rungs. Viewed in this light, the Brown Fund Act is only a partial remedy and not truly reparative. The paper thus concludes by building upon the work of Professor Eric Yamamoto, and others, who have posited that reparations should emphasize material change by, inter alia, repairing institutions that have been tainted by state-sanctioned, state-enforced subjugation. The institution in need of repair in this instance is public education. In this regard, the paper explores a variety of legislative measures the state should pursue to effectuate such change and provide justice that it so long denied its Black citizens.

Both Victors and Victims: Prince Edward County, Virginia, the NAACP, and "Brown"

Both Victors and Victims: Prince Edward County, Virginia, the NAACP, and "Brown"

Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and Forces against Brown

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown, declaring that state-imposed school segregation was unconstitutional, increased the politics of education rather than decreased its importance in the school desegregation. This article describes the political activities in school desegregation after Brown by the two major political parties, republicans and democrats. In summary, the Republican Party placed its major activities toward winning southerners ' votes in order to change the majority in the U.S. Congress, slowing down the desegregation process, creating alternatives to public school desegregation (such as school-choice option), and making conservative appointments to the federal judiciary. The Democratic Party sought to retain its southern political base by promising an orderly process for implementing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown, providing legal remedies through the courts with assistance by the Office of the U.S. Attorney General, and providing financial support to local school districts seeking to desegregate their schools. Nevertheless, the conservatives, over a 50-year period, lost a few struggles but won the political war against court-ordered school desegregation. The national political struggle over school desegregation is discussed in this article, and that struggle continues. The America constitution leaves the role of public education to the individual states. In America we have 50 state educational systems with varying degrees of educational services for their citizens and approximately 16,000 local school Districts (Thompson & Wood, 2001). For the purpose of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), implementing the 1954 Court's decision, plaintiffs must bring legal action in each offending local school districts. The federal government gets involvement in public education by passing and enforcing legislation to protect the legal rights of school children under the general welfare clause of the U.S. Constitution. After the U.S. Civil War, Congress enacted three Constitutional Amendments: the 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th Amendment gave the former slaves legal rights and citizenship, and the 15th Amendment gave Black males the right to vote. The important Amendment for school desegregation under Brown is the 14th Amendment, that applied the Bill of Rights to State Action, provided expanded due process beyond those found in the Fifth Amendment, and added the Equal Protection Clause. Despite the wishes of the Reconstruction U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court changed and in 1896 the Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, upheld a Louisiana statute requiring separate but facilities as meeting the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Louisiana outlawed integrated rail travel within the state. In the 1954 Court, Brown (1954) reversed the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and held that the state-enforced separate but doctrine was in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The executive branch of government represented by the President of the United States gets involved in public education when it is to his political advantage; and that is what President Richard M. Nixon did in 1968 when he sought the Republican nomination for President. Brown gave birth to the modern reform movement via public vouchers and other educational reform measures under his Southern Strategy, that was designed to gain the votes of individuals who opposed school desegregation and the votes of northern Whites who did not wish for their children to attend school with urban minorities, but who did not have the resources to move to White isolated suburban communities. The school-choice movement that became the backbone of the Southern Strategy in education began in the State of Virginia in late 1950s with attempts to derail school desegregation, and drew national attention with the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Griffin. In 1959, Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its public schools for five years rather than desegregate. …

"Getting It Straight": Southern Black School Patrons and the Struggle for Equal Education in the Pre- and Post-Civil Rights Eras

In the years of separate but equal, Southern Black community members strove valiantly to enhance the inferior educational opportunities counties and states provided for their children. Their actions in attaining new school buildings, high school grades, bus transportation, extending school terms, providing learning materials, and maintaining school facilities were critical. Their dedicated commitment to improving their children's education provides inspiration for Black parents faced with different, but just as serious, impediments to equal educational opportunities for Black children today. Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. When you see you have problems . . . examine the historic method used . . . by others who have problems similar to yours. Once you see how they got their's straight, then you know how you can get yours straight. (X, 1963/1991, p. 190) Nearly 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) attempted to provide Black children with equal educational opportunity by ruling school segregation unconstitutional, Black education is in crisis. Black children are often alienated from school, unable to translate the values-spoken by the adults in their lives of the importance of education into the values-lived of performing in school as if education is truly important (M. Philipsen, 1999).1 Black parents, too, often do not feel a sense of ownership of their schools, contributing to a lack of involvement on their parts that in turn weakens their ability to influence institutional accountability and student achievement. There are complaints that many teachers appear not to care about their students as people, with scant patience for those who cannot keep up with the lesson and little interest in the children's nonscholastic needs. These factors, themselves the results of a complex causality, have contributed to a situation where Black student achievement is below that of Whites, regardless of socioeconomic status, the racial make up of the school, or whether the setting is urban, suburban, or rural.2 Many remedies to the daunting problems surrounding the education of Black youth today have been suggested, including better teacher training, school vouchers, and Afrocentric curricula. Excellent work has been done on the strong, caring Black teachers in segregated schools who not only taught their subject matter but also interacted with students in ways that nurtured, inspired, and boosted the self-esteem of Black children (Foster, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Morris & Morris, 2000; Walker, 1996). Interested teachers of today, Black and White, can model their interaction with Black students on these lessons from the past. Teacher training programs, too, can use such studies to train teachers to teach Black children more effectively. Just as careful analysis of the historic role of Black teachers can play a part in improving the interaction of teachers and Black students today, this article suggests that those concerned with the education of Black children may also benefit from an appreciation of the pre-Brown struggle of Black school patrons to address the educational crises of that time.3 By detailing the efforts of one community over time, the present endeavor builds on James D. Anderson's seminal work (1988) on the grassroots campaigns that started and sustained many Southern Black schools.4 It also contributes to the growing body of literature critiquing school desegregation and questioning the conventional wisdom that unequal funding, physical plants, and teaching materials necessarily led to a wholly inferior education (Bell, 1980; Cecelski, 1994; Foster, 1997; Foster & Foster, 1993; Jones, 1981; Morris & Morris, 2000; Rogers, 1975; Sowell, 1974, 1976; Walker, 1996). Using the example of Prince Edward County, Virginia, this article offers an historical analysis of the valiant, incessant efforts of economically, politically, and socially oppressed Black communities across the segregated South to give their children the best education possible. …

A history of neotectonic studies in Ontario

First observations of geologically young rock faults and folds in New York in the late nineteenth century were shortly followed by others in Ontario. Remapping of the Paleozoic rocks began in the 1930s, and Quaternary geology mapping became organized in the 1950s, leading to further discoveries of faults and folds in the bedrock. Engineering works in the Niagara and Hamilton areas from the 1890s to the 1970s encountered repeated problems of rock squeeze. The separate geological and engineering experiences were linked in the 1970s, and with heightened awareness, discoveries of rock disturbances (mainly popups) greatly increased in the 1970s and 1980s. Understanding centered on high horizontal stress in the bedrock, which became quantified through rock testing and modeling. The creation of the Multi-Agency Group for Neotectonics in Eastern Canada (MAGNEC) in 1986 brought together a diverse group interested in all aspects of neotectonics, including the distribution and causes of rock stress and the potential implications for seismic risk. The existence of nuclear power plants sensitive to variations in the stress environment and high population densities near the Great Lakes provided motivation for further attention, and Prince Edward County was designated for special study. Recent suggestions of reduced seismic activity under ice sheets and increased activity associated with isostatic uplift during their retreat lead to the question whether seismic risk is slowly decreasing as uplift rates decline.

The Thunder during the Storm-School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia, 1957-1959: A Local History

This article contends that Norfolk, Virginia, serves as a microcosm of the social tensions that flared throughout the South in the wake of the 1954 and 1955 Brown school desegregation rulings. It provides a retrospective look at regional, state, and local actions pertinent to Norfolk's desegregation experience between 1957 and 1959. Examining both the impact of White southerners' to desegregation and the efforts of Black and moderate White Norfolkians to advance school integration, the author maintains that the storm wrought by this conflict met its demise in February 1959, when 17 Black students were peacefully admitted to the city's previously all-White secondary schools. The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas not only overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), but it also provided the legal recourse for African Americans to attack and dispel the racially discriminating practices that were common throughout the United States during the early half of the 20th century, particularly in the public schools. Although the desegregation of the nation's armed services in 1948 was a sign that the racial attitudes and conditions between Blacks and Whites were changing, the Brown decision was the catalyst that triggered the South's to school desegregation. Shortly after the Court issued its landmark decision in the Brown case, Richmond (Virginia) newspaper editor James J. Kilpatrick, inspired by the 18th-century idea of interposition, or state's rights, defined southern defiance of school desegregation efforts as massive resistance (Dabney, 1971, p. 536). The purpose of this was to undermine Brown and protect the southern tradition of segregation. It was manifested in the efforts of White southern lawyers and lawmakers to appeal the Supreme Court's decision and to legislate state laws that funded not only White flight from the public schools but the building of separate but equal schools for African Americans (Campbell, Bowerman, & Price, 1960; Dabney, 1971). Notwithstanding, the widespread defiance of Whites in the state of Virginia would eventually collapse under the pressure of federal efforts to enforce integration, resulting in a domino effect on throughout the South. In the wake of Brown, state legislators in Virginia passed a number of laws in an attempt to block or delay desegregation and yield only token school integration in that state (Campbell et al., 1960). Among these was the Pupil Placement Act of 1956 (Education: Public Schools-Virginia, 1956). Conceived as part of a lawful stratagem to nullify the Brown decision, this piece of legislation and its resultant political agencies, the Pupil Placement Boards (PPBs), formed the centerpieces of Virginia's undertakings (Dabney, 1971). By decreeing that the enrollment of African American students in previously Whites-only schools would disrupt the efficiency of those schools' operations, the PPB maintained the segregated status quo in Virginia's schools for nearly two years after the Court's ruling. The Gray and Almond plans, named after Virginia governors Stanley Gray and J. Lindsay Almond, were two other legal tactics used by the state of Virginia to avoid school desegregation (Dabney,1971). The Gray Plan established state-funded tuition grants for White students who did not want to attend integrated schools to attend private or parochial schools. The Almond Plan empowered the governor with the authority to close the state's public schools and cut off funding to those schools in the event that the federal government forced the state to comply with Brown. In the port city of Norfolk, Virginia, the evasive legislative manuevering of the lawmakers in the state capital coalesced into a peculiar and telling event. Norfolk did not have the large Black population characteristic of other Virginian and southern cities, nor did its racial climate match that of the precarious situations in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Prince Edward County, Virginia. …

Reptiles and Amphibians of Prince Edward County, Ontario, by Peter Christie [Review

Reptiles and Amphibians of Prince Edward County, Ontario, by Peter Christie [Review

Deep structure beneath Lake Ontario: crustal-scale Grenville subdivisions

Lake Ontario marine seismic data reveal major Grenville crustal subdivisions beneath central and southern Lake Ontario separated by interpreted shear zones that extend to the lower crust. A shear zone bounded transition between the Elzevir and Frontenac terranes exposed north of Lake Ontario is linked to a seismically defined shear zone beneath central Lake Ontario by prominent aeromagnetic and gravity anomalies, easterly dipping wide-angle reflections, and fractures in Paleozoic strata. We suggest the central Lake Ontario zone represents crustal-scale deformation along an Elzevir–Frontenac boundary zone that extends from outcrop to the south shore of Lake Ontario.Seismic images from Lake Ontario and the exposed western Central Metasedimentary Belt are dominated by crustal-scale shear zones and reflection geometries featuring arcuate reflections truncated at their bases by apparent east-dipping linear reflections. The images show that zones analogous to the interpreted Grenville Front Tectonic Zone are also present within the Central Metasedimentary Belt and support models of northwest-directed crustal shortening for Grenvillian deep crustal deformation beneath most of southeastern Ontario.A Precambrian basement high, the Iroquoian high, is defined by a thinning of generally horizontal Paleozoic strata over a crestal area above the basement shear zone beneath central Lake Ontario. The Iroquoian high helps explain the peninsular extension into Lake Ontario forming Prince Edward County, the occurrence of Precambrian inlier outcrops in Prince Edward County, and Paleozoic fractures forming the Clarendon–Linden structure in New York.

Brown v. Board of Education at 40: A Legal History of Equal Educational Opportunities in American Public Education

INTRODUCTIONOn May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down perhaps its most significant ruling of all time. In a unanimous 9-0 opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown I) (1954), the Court held that the de jure segregation of public education based on race deprived minority children of equal educational opportunities in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. A year later, in Brown II (1955), the Court set about dismantling segregated school systems. While subsequent rulings attacked de facto and de jure segregation in the wider arena of American society, Brown I remains unchallenged as the catalyst for systemic change. Beginning with school desegregation efforts and culminating in the civil rights movement and a generation of heightened consciousness for African Americans and other disenfranchised groups, Brown I spawned an era of equal educational opportunities.In light of the Supreme Court's monumental ruling in Brown I, this article briefly discusses more than three dozen of the cases involving court-ordered public school desegregation decided in the 40 years since 1954. Further, it provides a detailed commentary and analysis of the Court's leading opinions.A LEGAL HISTORY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL DESEGREGATIONThe history of the Supreme Court's involvement in school desegregation can be divided into four periods: the first spanning the decade from 1954 to 1964, the next from 1965 to 1979, the third from 1980 to 1989, and the last covering the early years of the 1990s.A Decade of All Deliberate Speed: 1954-1964Flushed with victories in Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950)--companion cases that prohibited interschool and intraschool segregation, respectively, in higher education--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was set to launch a frontal attack on racial segregation in the public schools. Accordingly, its chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, and his team of NAACP attorneys laid the groundwork for Brown I. In light of the central role Brown I occupies in American history, this case will be examined in greater detail here than the other rulings succeeding it.Brown I is cited as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas because the lead case was initiated there. It actually involved four class-action suits filed on behalf of African American students who were denied admission to schools attended by White children due to laws that either mandated or permitted racial segregation. The other actions originated in New Castle County (Delaware), Clarendon County (South Carolina), and Prince Edward County (Virginia). Segregation was allowed under state law in Kansas, and it was required both by the state constitutions and statutes in Delaware, South Carolina, and Virginia. The Delaware suit was an appeal from a state court action; the remaining cases sought further review of federal court rulings.The lower federal courts based their decisions to uphold de jure segregation on the pernicious standard established by the Supreme Court's 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson but which apparently originated almost half a century earlier in a Massachusetts case, Roberts v. City of Boston (1850). Only in the Delaware case did the Court order the immediate admission of African American students to schools previously attended exclusively by White children. It did so based on its finding that the schools attended by White youngsters were superior with respect to such factors as teacher training, pupil-teacher ratios, and physical plant facilities. Thus, although each action was premised on different facts and a variety of local conditions, they were consolidated on appeal in light of their common legal question. Oral arguments in Brown I were initiated in December 1952, but the Court was unable to reach a decision, seemingly because it was divided on the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine. …

The Implementation of Desegregation Plans Since Brown

IntroductionWhen Supreme Court overturned doctrine of separate but equal in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown I) (1954) as violation of Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment, it fashioned decision with no immediate relief. The question of relief was set for reargument, and an invitation to submit briefs to aid in formulation of relief was extended to attorneys general of United States and states where de jure school segregation was imposed. Although reargument was held year later in Brown II (1955), Court still failed to provide clear guidelines to end de jure segregation in public schools. Instead, it required only a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance (p. 300). Thus, whether Black student could be admitted to formerly all-White school or vice versa constituted desegregation was left unanswered. The Court provided no definitions of desegregation and no guidance regarding how it was to be accomplished.The issue was further confounded by Court's now-famous admonishment to states to use all deliberate speed in implementing mandates of Brown II (p. 301). This phrase soon took on mantel of black humor: Blacks, it was noted, wanted speed, while Whites wanted to be deliberate. Brown II, with its high-sounding phrases founded on notion that school systems would make good-faith efforts to comply with mandates of Brown I, became more symbol of victory than definitive statement or direction for remedy.Following Brown II, White community, with few guidelines from courts, moved deliberately. As would be expected, little desegregation happened. Still, even though little was happening and even less planning was being done, some progress was made. Amidst flurry of state laws obstructing desegregation, political posturing by elected officials, retaliation against civil rights lawyers, and open defiance by local citizen groups, most of southern states previously operating under de jure segregation took some affirmative actions.One of early tests of Brown arose in Little Rock, Arkansas, where desegregation plan formulated by local school authorities was opposed by state legislature and by governor, who called in National Guard to prevent Black students from attending formerly all-White high school. The governor's actions were enjoined by federal district court. Subsequently, in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), Supreme Court unanimously held that desegregation in Little Rock was to proceed and that Brown could not be overcome by state legislative actions. However, like Brown, Cooper provided no guidelines as to what constituted desegregated school. Hence, many districts proceeded with notion that accepting few assigned or voluntary Black student transfers into formerly all-White schools satisfied requirements of Brown.As years following Brown passed with little appreciable change in racial makeup of former de jure school systems, Court became impatient. In McNeese v. Board of Education for Community Unit School District 187, Chaokia, Illinois (1963), Court held that it was not necessary to exhaust administrative remedies in school desegregation cases before relief could be sought in federal court. McNeese was quickly followed by Griffin v. Prince Edward County Board of Education (1964), in which Court held that the time for mere 'deliberate speed' had run out (p. 234). Despite these stern words, however, little significant desegregation occurred.FREEDOM OF CHOICELittle was accomplished in initial desegregation efforts following Brown because no clear judicial guidelines were set forth. While few districts attempted to desegregate by allowing handful of Blacks to attend formerly all-White schools on voluntary basis, no efforts were made to assign or entice White children to attend formerly all-Black schools. …