Black Students Recount Early Days of Integration

Summary

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For some of the black students who took the first steps toward integrating Virginia's public schools more than a half-century ago, the memories of their hardships have not faded with time.

"That was the worst two and a half years of my life," said Andrew Heidelberg, one of 17 black students to attend previously all-white Norfolk public schools in 1959, as Virginia's efforts to resist racial integration began slowly to unravel.

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Black Students Recount Early Days of Integration

"Most people really don't understand how we were treated," Heidelberg said Friday at the state Capitol, where former students, lawyers, academics and political leaders examined the lega...

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