After the case became part of the Brown v. Board of Education cohort that made its way to the Supreme Court, Virginia senator Harry Byrd said it was “the most serious blow that has yet been struck against the rights of the states in a matter vitally affecting their authority and welfare…. In Virginia now we are facing a crisis of the first magnitude.”[17] To be clear, the “crisis” Byrd believed they were facing was that white and Black children might be ordered to share schools.
