INTRODUCTION

After five years almost of political fighting, procedural delay, and legal wrangling, it seemed ironic to many onlookers in Norfolk, Virginia that February 2, 1959 passed “without incident.” Norfolk was in a state unrest because There was, indeed, a great deal at stake. Less than two weeks earlier, both the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and Virginia State Supreme Court had issued decisions, ordering that six of Norfolk’s public schools integrate. It soon became clear that the smallest of these schools, Norview High, was to be the center of attention. Norview was to be the home of seven of the seventeen African American students who bore the burnt of Norfolk’s desegregation effort. This paper examines their story, and the role they played when the NAACP championed desegregation efforts in Norfolk and throughout the south.