Mosby Perrow Jr.

After a three-judge federal court and the Virginia Supreme Court both ruled on January 19, 1959 (Robert E. Lee's birthday) that Virginia's school-closing laws (part of the Stanley Plan to block school desegregation) were unconstitutional under both the federal and state constitutions, Governor James Lindsay Almond Jr. initially vowed to continue Massive Resistance, but soon decided not to defy the courts but instead limit the degree of integration. He thus appointed Perrow chairman of the Virginia School Commission which became known as the "Perrow Commission".[4] Although powerful Senator Harry F. Byrd was stunned and would not admit defeat, attorney general Albertis Harrison defended the governor's shift toward accommodation. Moreover, the Perrow Commission included four members from each congressional district, unlike the earlier Gray Commission which was weighted toward Southside Virginia.[5]

Following extensive public hearings and debate, the Perrow Commission issued a report that stated, in part, "The Commission is opposed to integration and offers the program set out herein because it thinks it is the best that can be devised at this time to avoid integration and preserve our public schools."[6] The report further describes a "local option" plan that included new pupil placement laws, a new compulsory attendance law, and tuition grants that could be used at what came to be known as "segregation academies"—similar to the former Gray plan.[6] On the eve of the senate's vote on adopting the recommendations of the Perrow Commission's report, five thousand people (mostly from Southside Virginia) gathered in Richmond's Capital Square, condemning Governor Lindsay Almond and Lieutenant Governor Stephens for their support of the Perrow Commission's recommendations and for betraying the Massive Resistance movement.[7] Former Perrow Commission member George M. Cochran later recalled how, 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.[8] On the Senate side, an anti-Perrow Commission majority controlled the Senate Education Committee, so Almond's allies employed a parliamentary device to permit the entire Senate rather than just that small committee to vote on the pupil assignment bill. To break a deadlocked Senate, however, supporters needed the tie-breaking vote of Senator Stuart B. Carter of Fincastle in Botetourt County. Carter had opposed the tuition assistance aspects of the Gray plan, but had recently undergone major surgery. Undeterred, the pro-Perrow faction found Carter and wheeled him into the Senate chamber to cast the decisive favorable vote.[8] The bill passed 20 to 19. The following day, on the same 20 to 19 vote, the Senate approved the local pupil assignment bill.

The 1959 special session established a permanent fissure in the Byrd Organization, "embittering old friends toward one another."[9] The senate's passage of the "local option" helped trigger the now-seemingly inevitable decline and fall of Massive Resistance, but Perrow paid a political price. He lost his support within the Byrd Organization, which defeated him in the 1963 Democratic primary needed for reelection.[8] Perrow was later appointed president of the Virginia State Board of Education.[10]

Perrow fought to reroute the long-planned interstate highway now known as I-64 between Clifton Forge and Richmond from its "northern route" through Charlottesville to a "southern route" that would include Lynchburg. Since the 1940s, maps of the federal interstate highway system depicted the interstate taking a northern route, but Virginia had received assurances from the federal government that the final location of the route would be decided by the state.[11]

The proposed southern route called for the interstate to follow from Richmond via US-360 and US-460, through Lynchburg to Roanoke and US-220 from Roanoke to Clifton Forge. Accordingly, the southern route would have supported a greater percentage of Virginia's manufacturing and textile centers at that time. In 1959, a report championed by Perrow succeeded in persuading a majority of Virginia Highway Commissioners to support the southern route. In a surprise defeat for both Perrow and Lynchburg, however, both Governor Almond Jr. and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges, Sr. announced in July 1961 that the route would not be changed from the originally-proposed northern route.

In 1963, B.F. Dodson defeated Perrow in the Democratic primary, but was in turn defeated by Republican Robert S. Burruss Jr. in the general election. Thus, Burruss succeeded Perrow. However, the redistricting in 1965 meant that Lynchburg no longer was in state senate District 12 with Campbell County, but in District 11 with Bedford and Amherst Counties, which re-elected Burruss.