Leon M. Bazile of Virginia, Defender of State Sovereignty and White Supremacy -- From Racial Integrity to Massive Resistance.

Under the Virginia Constitution of 1902, for a half-century and more, a tiny electorate ruled over a White supremacist regime, one that proved effective at suppressing dissent at home and deflecting intervention from without. Key policies long kept in place in Virginia during that era included the "one-drop" rule of Black racial identity, a ban on marriages deemed "interracial" (one party, and only one, being "White"), and a system of state-supported schools kept categorically segregated. Leon M. Bazile, a representative--in fact leading--figure from this time, promoted all three policies. Over time, he and his counterparts found themselves and those policies increasingly challenged, especially by Black Virginians and federal authority. Much of this article derives from opinions Bazile authored as a local judge on matters of race and law with regard to schools or marriage: (1) in June 1955, after Brown v. Board of Education, in a case regarding Hanover County school bonds in a new era of mandated desegregation and (2) in January 1965 after Mildred and Richard Loving challenged the sentences imposed on them in January 1959 for their interracial marriage. Leon Bazile highlights the constellation of ideas and values and institutions and power--the entire Jim Crow complex--that the Black Freedom Struggle in Virginia was up against in the 1950s and 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]