Day 9: Dr. Owen Cardwell and School Desegregation, 1961
After Brown v. Board, every school system in the country desegregated and integrated at a different pace and in a different way, since the Supreme Court left the task up to local jurisdictions to accomplish. The long, complicated work of the Lynchburg public schools’ racial integration spanned sixteen years, weaving through coalitions and factions, tolerance and racism, political activists and legal systems, but largely borne on the shoulders of the African American community.
One of those community members was Dr. Owen Cardwell, who passed in May 2025, just as Bridge of Lament was finishing the layout of articles for this year’s crossing.1 As a teenager, he was one of the first two Black students who enrolled in the previously all-white E.C. Glass High School, desegregating classes there eight years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregated schooling unconstitutional. He went on to serve in church ministry for 55 years, most recently pastoring Diamond Hill Baptist Church. He dedicated his life to improving the Lynchburg, Virginia, community.
In Spring 2006, Lynch’s Ferry Magazine published a chapter from a 2001 University of South Carolina Master’s Thesis, both entitled “‘No Matter How Long’: the Struggle to Integrate the Public Schools in Lynchburg, 1954-1970.” In the excerpt, educator Henry Faulkner Heil distills Lynchburg’s sixteen years’ integration struggle into a riveting saga.2 The following extract focuses on Dr. Cardwell’s important contribution as a student at E.C. Glass High School:
“Owen Cardwell, Lynda Woodruff, Cecelia Jackson, and Brenda Hughes, with their parents' support, all applied for admission to Glass in 1961. As an eighth-grader at Dunbar, Cardwell told his father, Cardwell, Sr., that he wanted to become an architect. An excellent student with a solid 'A' average, Cardwell desired to excel academically beyond Dunbar's capabilities, since they did not offer a drafting class. Cardwell, Sr., along with Lynda Woodruff's stepfather and mother, Edward and Georgia Barksdale, investigated the academic possibilities at Glass. What they found was surprising. While Lynchburg's black population was significantly smaller than its white population, the law stated that facilities needed to be equal. But the parents' investigation showed that Glass offered its students 121 subjects, while Dunbar offered only 42.
“They showed their findings to Virgil Wood, pastor of Diamond Hill Baptist Church, outspoken leader for Civil Rights, and member of SCLC, who organized a meeting for all those in the community wishing to fight the segregated system. Originally, quite a few expressed an interest, but only four prospective transfer students came to the meeting. The four students present shared many similarities. Besides being long-time friends, they all maintained excellent academic records and three of the four lived in traditional, two-parent, middle-class homes. Not surprisingly, their parents shared similarities as well. Edward Barksdale, Lynda Woodruff's stepfather, worked for the federal government, thus Washington rather than Lynchburg's white community paid his salary.
“Owen Cardwell, Sr. owned an independent real estate business, operating solely within the black community. Likewise, only black citizens patronized Dr. George Jackson's successful dentistry.
“An exception, Mabel Hughes worked as a domestic for a white Lynchburg family. According to her daughter, that family never once complained or insinuated that her mother's job was in jeopardy due to her involvement in the school desegregation issue, nor was she concerned. Realizing nothing was gained without a struggle, the four families embarked on a mission to change the face of education in Lynchburg.
“Cardwell, Woodruff, Jackson, and Hughes all objected when, in the spring of 1961, the Pupil Placement Board (PPB) denied their requests to transfer from Dunbar to Glass for the upcoming academic year. The four families retained the services of Ruben Lawson, a NAACP attorney from Roanoke, to assist in the appeals process. Again denied transfer at an August hearing in nearby Roanoke, the families filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Western Virginia. In an informal hearing in September, Judge Thomas Michie, as a precursor to the litigation (and apparently a foregone conclusion in his mind), ordered Cardwell and Woodruff to enter Glass in January, while ordering Jackson and Hughes to remain at Dunbar. Michie cited academics as the reason behind his decision. Although not yet legally binding, this decision was upheld when the case went before the District Court two months later.
“Jackson v. School Board of City of Lynchburg, Virginia, et al., began November 14, 1961. In his opinion, Michie ruled that the PPB discriminated against two of the four students based on their race. Since the board had denied Cardwell and Woodruff's applications based on proximity to Glass and not on academic achievement, they had to prove that the same guidelines were used when assessing the placement of white students. They were not. White students assigned to attend Glass also lived closer to Dunbar, but were not placed there.
“Ultimately, Michie stated that, by ignoring whites' proximity while denying blacks based on the same principle, the board violated the United States Constitution as determined in Brown over seven years before. The case officially ended the PPB's discriminatory practices throughout the state of Virginia.”
Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Cardwell would clarify that his effort at E.C. Glass did not integrate the school system. Rather, he and the other enrolled Black students constituted “token” desegregation, which pacified the city for a few years. Meanwhile, most students were still enrolled in the Black schools. Integration was an uphill battle, not fully effected in Lynchburg until 1970, after the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed, allowing federal enforcement of integration, and the Massive Resistance movement folded.
Kenton Martin, Bridge of Lament project coordinator, is a husband, father, and project manager for a local engineering company. He seeks to follow Jesus into the difficult places of the community.
The Lynch’s Ferry article is an excerpt from Heil’s 2001 dissertation, available in the University of South Carolina Libraries:
Heil, Henry Faulkner. “No Matter How Long” : The Struggle to Integrate the Public Schools in Lynchburg, Virginia, 1954-1970. 2001. University of South Carolina.
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