[citation needed] In response, on April 23, 1951, a 16-year-old student named Barbara Rose Johns, who was the niece of Vernon Johns, the famous black Baptist preacher and civil rights leader, covertly organized a student general strike.

Over 450 walked out and marched to the homes of members of the school board, who refused to see them and instead threatened them with expulsions.

Further details about this story can be found in Taylor Branch's Parting The Waters, America In The King Years 1954-63, published by Simon and Schuster in 1988.

This book mentions that the headmaster was told over the phone that the police were about to arrest two of his students at the bus station.

It states that some classes were held in "three temporary tar-paper shacks" built to house the overflow at the school.

In it, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was, effectively, unconstitutional and illegal.

By 1959, J. Lindsay Almond had become Governor of Virginia, and faced with continuing losses in the courts, he dismantled the system of segregated schools in that state.

White students often attended "segregation academies", which were all-white private schools that were formed.