Prince Edward: Law and Reality

Since May 17, 1954, events have moved inexorably toward the showdown now unfolding in Prince Edward County, where public education has been abandoned and replaced by a private school system. Among the gently rolling hills of Piedmont Virginia, near where the Confederacy crumbled 94 years ago, the last stand of the rural South has begun.

Make no mistake: this is the crucial test, the inevitable conflict of the forces of tradition and innovation. Sturgis, Clinton, Little Rock, Front Royal-these may come to be regarded as skirmishes on the road to Prince Edward County. For here, in deadly earnest, the rural South will make its stand. Unlike the cities of the new South, the counties of the old find no political or economic obstacles in the path of total resistance. There are no government contracts or military installations or new industries to be lost, no groups of influential “moderates” to be appeased. To a very considerable extent, the rural South is self-contained, closed to ideas, arguments and threats that prevail elsewhere.

RW

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Richard Whalen

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Since May 17, 1954, events have moved inexorably toward the showdown now unfolding in Prince Edward County, where public education has been abandoned and replaced by a private school system. Among the gently rolling hills of Piedmont Virginia, near where the Confederacy crumbled 94 years ago, the last stand of the rural South has begun.

Make no mistake: this is the crucial test, the inevitable conflict of the forces of tradition and innovation. Sturgis, Clinton, Little Rock, Front Royal-these may come to be regarded as skirmishes on the road to Prince Edward County. For here, in deadly earnest, the rural South will make its stand. Unlike the cities of the new South, the counties of the old find no political or economic obstacles in the path of total resistance. There are no government contracts or military installations or new industries to be lost, no groups of influential “moderates” to be appeased. To a very considerable extent, the rural South is self-contained, closed to ideas, arguments and threats that prevail elsewhere.