ENTRY

Thomas B. Stanley (1890-1970)

SUMMARY

Thomas B. Stanley served as governor of Virginia (1954–1958) during the turbulent first years of Massive Resistance to school desegregation. His initial reaction to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was moderate, but Stanley, a politician of few gifts, was unable to curb increasing calls for a defiant stance to school desegregation. Stanley eventually followed the lead of more conservative Democrats and backed legislation designed to maintain what supporters called “separate but equal” schools.

Thomas Bahnson Stanley was born in Henry County on July 16, 1890. In 1924 he founded the Stanley Furniture Company and was a dairy farmer before turning to politics in 1930. He was a member of the House of Delegates from 1930 to 1946, serving as Speaker of the House from 1942 to 1946. Before being elected governor, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1946 to 1953.

Early in his term as Virginia governor, the Supreme Court handed down the controversial Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate public schools. Stanley initially urged Virginians to accept the ruling. It quickly became apparent, however, that white politicians in Southside Virginia, where the powerful Byrd Organization‘s political base resided, would not accept desegregation under any circumstances. Stanley created a committee composed primarily of Southside politicians to craft a response to the Brown decision. The resulting “Gray Plan,” named after the committee’s chairman, segregationist Garland Gray, of Sussex County, gave localities the choice to desegregate their schools but also provided legislation that would allow those localities to skirt integration if they wished. The Commonwealth, for example, would supply state-funded tuition grants to students who wanted to attend private—and therefore segregated—schools instead of desegregated public schools.

At the same time, Stanley and the Democrats, who were heavily influenced by James J. Kilpatrick, editor of the Richmond News Leader, and Senator Harry Flood Byrd Sr., were adopting the notion of interposition—an argument harkening back to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and John C. Calhoun’s support of nullification in the 1830s—that states could reject federal infringements on their sovereignty. The combined popularity of the Gray Plan’s “local option” and the concept of interposition encouraged Stanley and other Byrd Democrats to adopt a more drastic strategy. A revised proposal, dubbed the Stanley Plan, erased the so-called local option on school desegregation and, instead, empowered the governor to shut down any school in danger of being desegregated.

Governor Thomas Stanley and Wife Anne

The Virginia General Assembly approved the Stanley Plan in 1956, and though Stanley declared that he would willingly lose desegregated schools as outlined in the plan, he never had to follow through on this promise. By the time the federal courts ordered schools in Charlottesville to desegregate in 1958, Stanley had already left office. His successor, James Lindsay Almond Jr., did fulfill the promise of the Stanley Plan and closed the Charlottesville schools, along with schools in Norfolk and Front Royal. The school-closing statute of the Stanley Plan left thousands of Virginia children without an education for several months. Ultimately, federal and state courts ruled early in 1959 that the Stanley Plan, along with other Massive Resistance laws, was unconstitutional. Thereafter, white Virginians accepted minimal desegregation as a condition of keeping public schools open.

Following his term as governor, Stanley went on to become the vice president and director of the First National Bank, as well as the chairman of the Commission on State and Local Revenues and Expenditures. He also continued his work as a furniture manufacturer. He died on July 10, 1970, in Martinsville and was interred in Roselawn Burial Park.

MAP
TIMELINE
July 16, 1890
Thomas B. Stanley is born on a farm near Spencer in Henry County.
1924
Thomas B. Stanley founds the Stanley Furniture Company several years before turning to politics.
1930—1946
Thomas B. Stanley serves as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
1942—1946
Thomas B. Stanley serves as Speaker of the House of Delegates.
1946—1953
Thomas B. Stanley serves as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
November 3, 1953
Thomas B. Stanley is elected governor of Virginia.
August 27, 1956
Governor Thomas B. Stanley announces a package of Massive Resistance legislation that will become known as the Stanley Plan. Among other things, the plan gives the governor the power to close any schools facing a federal desegregation order.
July 10, 1970
Thomas B. Stanley dies and is buried at Roselawn Burial Park in Martinsville.
FURTHER READING
  • Governor Stanley (1954–1958) Executive Papers. State Government Records Collection. The Library of Virginia, Richmond.
  • Heinemann, Ronald L. Harry Byrd of Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 996.
  • Lassiter, Matthew, and Andrew Lewis. The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 996.
  • Pratt, Robert. The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia,1954–1989. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992.
  • Muse, Benjamin. Virginia’s Massive Resistance. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 961.
  • Younger, Edward. The Governors of Virginia 1860-1978. Edited by James Tice Moore. harlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 982.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Eskridge, Sara. Thomas B. Stanley (1890-1970). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/stanley-thomas-b-1890-1970.
MLA Citation:
Eskridge, Sara. "Thomas B. Stanley (1890-1970)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 04 Oct. 2023
Last updated: 2021, December 22
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