ENTRY

Albert V. Bryan (1899–1984)

SUMMARY

Albert V. Bryan was a federal district court and circuit court of appeals judge during a crucial period in the fight over public school desegregation. After serving as the commonwealth’s attorney in Alexandria from 1928 until 1947, he was appointed a federal judge of the Eastern District of Virginia. Although he supported segregation Bryan stuck closely to legal precedents established by the U.S. Supreme Court. He ruled in favor of continued school segregation in 1952. After Brown v. Board of Education reversed his ruling in 1954, however, Bryan began following the new precedent, though in a manner that slowed implementation. His subsequent decisions on Massive Resistance delayed, but did not stop, desegregation of Virginia schools. In 1961 he was appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Adhering again to Supreme Court precedent, in 1969 Bryan struck down state tuition grants to students attending segregated private schools. He retired from the federal bench in 1971 and died in 1984.

Early Years

Albert Vickers Bryan was born on July 23, 1899, in Alexandria, the son of Marion Beach Bryan and Albert Bryan, a bank cashier who served on the Alexandria city council and was active in the Democratic Party. He graduated from Alexandria’s public high school, attended the University of Virginia, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and received his law degree in 1921. Returning to Alexandria to practice law, Bryan married Marie Elizabeth Gasson on December 1, 1923. They had two sons.

Harry F. Byrd

While he was a young attorney Bryan made important political connections. His law partner was the namesake son of Howard W. Smith, who in 1930 began a thirty-six-year tenure in the House of Representatives. Like the elder Smith, Bryan became a loyal supporter of Harry F. Byrd Sr., who was then the new leader of the Byrd Organization the dominant faction of the Democratic Party in Virginia. Bryan served as the Alexandria city attorney from 1926 to 1928, when he was appointed and subsequently elected commonwealth’s attorney. He practiced law and served as commonwealth’s attorney until 1947, when President Harry S. Truman appointed him a federal judge of the Eastern District of Virginia. Bryan was sworn into office on June 10, 1947, and served until August 1961, the last two years as chief judge of the district.

Desegregation Decisions

Bryan was completely a product of Virginia’s traditional society. Courtly and scholarly, he was, in the words of a fellow federal judge, “the epitome of a Southern gentleman.” As a jurist, Bryan was equally known and respected for the clarity of his legal writing and his strict adherence to precedent. During his years on the federal bench he had to deal with several major cases involving school desegregation and legislative apportionment—matters that brought into conflict Virginia’s traditional society and the U.S. Supreme Court rulings he was required to enforce.

Protest Sign at Robert Russa Moton High School

In 1952 Bryan sat on a three-judge federal panel that heard the case challenging public school segregation in Prince Edward County. Writing for the court and basing his decision on longstanding precedent, he ruled in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County that racial separation was constitutional. In 1954 the Supreme Court reversed Bryan’s ruling and sixty years of precedent in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Two years later, while presiding over the desegregation case involving the Arlington public schools, Bryan in Thompson v. County School Board of Arlington County adopted the narrowest possible interpretation of the ambiguous wording of the Supreme Court’s implementation decree. When two fellow federal judges issued desegregation orders in 1958 that triggered a confrontation with the state’s Massive Resistance laws, Bryan, again in Thompson v. County School Board of Arlington County , gave that county until February 1959 to comply. The delay helped the Byrd Organization’s leadership avoid an embarrassing confrontation with liberals and moderates in a community where opponents of Massive Resistance were fully prepared to keep the public schools open even if the state’s school-closing laws were invoked. After state and federal courts invalidated the Massive Resistance statutes in January 1959, Bryan’s decree covering the Arlington and Alexandria schools, along with a similar court order in Norfolk, brought about the first public school desegregation in Virginia. In 1969 in Griffin v. State Board of Education , closely adhering again to Supreme Court precedent, Bryan struck down the last vestige of Massive Resistance, state tuition grants to students attending segregated private schools.

Later Years

Howard W. Smith

In 1961, in a move intended to conciliate Howard W. Smith, by then the powerful chair of the House Committee on Rules, President John F. Kennedy raised Bryan to a newly created seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Sworn in on August 24, 1961, he faced another important issue in Virginia politics the very next year. In the reapportionment case of Mann v. Davis, Bryan ruled that in order to reflect demographic changes, the General Assembly would have to be reapportioned to increase the number of seats for Northern Virginia and the Tidewater cities. Once again, by closely following precedent set by the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr, he helped undermine a major bulwark against change—control of the legislature by the most tradition-minded regions of Virginia. Bryan took senior status and in effect retired on August 16, 1971, a month after his son Albert Vickers Bryan Jr. was appointed a federal district judge.

Christ Episcopal Church

Bryan sat on the board of visitors of the University of Virginia from 1956 to 1964 and was rector of the university from 1960 until his term on the board ended. He was also a vestryman of Christ Episcopal Church in Alexandria for many years and senior warden at the time of his death. Bryan died on March 13, 1984, in Fairfax Hospital after open-heart surgery and was buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria. In 1995 Congress named the courthouse for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse.

MAP
TIMELINE
July 23, 1899
Albert V. Bryan is born in Alexandria, the son of Marion Beach Bryan and Albert Bryan.
1921
Albert V. Bryan receives his law degree from the University of Virginia.
December 1, 1923
Albert V. Bryan and Marie Elizabeth Gasson marry in Alexandria. They will have two sons.
1926—1928
Albert V. Bryan serves as city attorney of Alexandria.
1928—1947
Albert V. Bryan serves as commonwealth's attorney.
June 10, 1947
Albert V. Bryan is sworn into office as a federal judge of the Eastern District of Virginia.
1952
In Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Albert V. Bryan writes on behalf of a majority of the federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia that racial separation is constitutional.
May 17, 1954
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregation in schools is unconstitutional, but fails to explain how quickly and in what manner desegregation is to be achieved. The decision leads to the Massive Resistance movement in Virginia.
1956—1964
Albert V. Bryan sits on the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
1956
In Thompson v. County School Board of Arlington County, on behalf of a majority of the federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Albert V. Bryan adopts the narrowest possible interpretation of the Supreme Court's charge to desegregate public schools.
January 1959
After Governor J. Lindsay Almond Jr. closes public schools in resistance to desegregation, state and federal courts strike down Virginia's Massive Resistance policies.
1960—1964
Albert V. Bryan serves as rector of the University of Virginia.
August 24, 1961
Appointed by President John F. Kennedy, Albert V. Bryan is sworn in to fill a newly created seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
1962
In Mann v. Davis, Albert V. Bryan of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that in order to reflect demographic changes, the General Assembly will have to be reapportioned to increase the number of seats for Northern Virginia and the Tidewater cities.
February 11, 1969
In Griffin v. State Board of Education, Albert V. Bryan strikes down state tuition grants to students attending segregated private schools—the last vestige of Massive Resistance.
August 16, 1971
Albert V. Bryan retires from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
March 13, 1984
Albert V. Bryan dies in Fairfax Hospital after open-heart surgery and is buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery.
1995
Congress names the courthouse for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse.
FURTHER READING
  • Dierenfield, Bruce J. Keeper of the Rules: Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987.
  • Heinemann, Ronald L. Harry Byrd of Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.
  • Hershman, James H. Jr. “Bryan, Albert Vickers.” In the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Vol. 2, edited by Sara B. Bearss, et al., 342–343. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 2001.
  • Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. 2004 ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.
  • Lassiter, Matthew D. and Andrew B. Lewis, eds. The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
  • Muse, Benjamin. Virginia’s Massive Resistance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.
  • Newbeck, Phyl. Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
  • Smith, Douglas. “‘When Reason Collides with Prejudice’: Armistead Lloyd Boothe and the Politics of Desegregation in Virginia, 1948–1963.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 102 (1994): 5–46.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Hershman, James & Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Albert V. Bryan (1899–1984). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/bryan-albert-v-1899-1984.
MLA Citation:
Hershman, James, and Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Albert V. Bryan (1899–1984)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 08 Dec. 2023
Last updated: 2021, December 22
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