Mosby Perrow Jr.
Mosby Garland Perrow, Jr. was born on March 5, 1909, in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Mosby Garland and Louise Polk (Joynes) Perrow. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington and Lee University, and obtained his Bachelor of Laws from Duke University. He married Katherine Duane Wingfield of Lynchburg on June 24, 1938; they had three children: Duane Payne (Mrs. Wistar Palmer Nelligan); Mosby Garland, III; and Edmund Wingfield. In addition to practicing law, Perrow was a member of the Virginia State Senate as a Democrat for twenty years. He was appointed chairman in 1959 of the Virginia School Commission known as the "Perrow Commission" which is given credit for saving public schools after the fall of Massive Resistance. He was a member of the Board of Directors of several private corporations and belonged to various civic organizations in the Lynchburg area.[1]
Following extensive public hearings and debate, the Perrow Commission issued a report that recommended a "local option" desegregation plan that included new pupil placement laws, a new compulsory attendance law, and tuition grants.[2][3] On the eve of the senate's vote on adopting the recommendations of the Perrow Commission's report, five thousand people gathered in Capital Square in Richmond, condemning Governor Lindsay Almond for his support of the Perrow Commission's recommendations and for betraying the Massive Resistance movement.[3] The next day, after four hours of debate, the House approved the House bill reported from the Education Committee 54 to 45, leading to final passage 54 to 46.[4] On the Senate side, passage appeared bleak. An anti-Perrow Commission majority controlled the Senate Education Committee, so members and supporters of the Perrow Commission employed a parliamentary device to permit a full vote on the pupil assignment bill. To break a deadlocked Senate, however, supporters needed the tie-breaking vote of Senator Stuart B. Carter of Botetourt. But Carter was absent due to a severe illness that had left him bedridden. Undeterred, the pro-Perrow faction found Carter and wheeled the senator into the Senate chambers on a stretcher to cast the twentieth favorable vote.[4] The bill passed 20 to 19. The following day, on the same 20 to 19 vote, the local pupil assignment bill was approved.
The 1959 special session established a permanent fissure in the Byrd Organization, "embittering old friends toward one another."[3] Perrow's extensive efforts in the senate to secure passage of the "local option" triggered the inevitable decline and fall of Massive Resistance, but Perrow paid a price politically. He lost his support from the Byrd Organization, faced an opponent in the Democratic primary in his 1963 bid for reelection, and was defeated.[4] Perrow was later appointed president of the Virginia State Board of Education.[5]
References
- ^ Morton, Richard Lee (1962). Virginia Lives: The Old Dominion Who's Who Historical Record Association, Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
- ^ "Report on the Commision of Education" (PDF). 1959. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
- ^ a b c Heinemann, Ronald L. (1962). Harry Byrd of Virginia, p. 350. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Virginia.
- ^ a b c Cochran, George M. (1959). "Virginia Facing Reality: The 1959 Perrow Commission" (PDF). Augusta County Historical Society. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
- ^ Gunter, Margaret B. (2003). "A History of Public Education in Virginia" (PDF). Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Education. Retrieved 2011-07-11.