Albertis Sydney Harrison Jr. (January 11, 1907 – January 23, 1995) was an

American politician The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers. These are: the U.S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a bi ...

and jurist. A member of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

associated with Virginia's Byrd Organization, he was the 59th Governor of Virginia in 1962–66, and the first governor of Virginia to have been born in the 20th century.

Early life and education

Harrison was born in

Alberta, Virginia Alberta is a town in Brunswick County, Virginia, United States. The population was 298 at the 2010 census. It is home to the Christanna Campus of Southside Virginia Community College. History For much of the 20th century, Alberta marked the junc ...

, the son of Albertis Sydney Harrison and Lizzie, (née Goodrich). He has been widely reported as related to

Benjamin Harrison V Benjamin Harrison V (April 5, 1726April 24, 1791) was an American planter, merchant, and politician who served as a legislator in colonial Virginia, following his namesakes’ tradition of public service. He was a signer of the Continental As ...

who signed the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...

and two United States presidents,

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...

and

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...

, the 9th and 23rd Presidents. He received an

LL.B Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

degree from the

University of Virginia Law School The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...

in 1928. Harrison married Lacey Virginia Barkley c.1940. They had two children, Antoinette H Jamison and Albertis S. Harrison III and 6 grandchildren, Joseph D. Goodrich Harrison, Monica Harrison Kopf, Virginia Lacey Jamison, and James Carper Jamison II.

Legal and political career

Harrison went into legal practice in

Lawrenceville, Virginia Lawrenceville is a town in Brunswick County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,438 at the 2010 census. Located by the Meherrin River, it is the county seat of Brunswick County. In colonial times, Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswoo ...

, where he became town attorney, before being elected

commonwealth's attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a lo ...

of Brunswick County. He was elected to the

Senate of Virginia The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

in 1947. He served there for ten years, before being elected

Attorney General of Virginia The attorney general of Virginia is an elected constitutional position that holds an executive office in the government of Virginia. Attorneys general are elected for a four-year term in the year following a presidential election. There are no ter ...

in 1957. Harrison resigned as Attorney General in April 1961 to run for Governor, winning election that November with 63.84% of the vote, defeating Republican H. Clyde Pearson. His administration increased educational financing for new schools and laboratories and raised teachers' pay. He promoted the development of state-supported colleges and technical schools as well as improved vocational training. He helped to modernize state banking laws to attract investment and accelerated highway construction. He sat on the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, later renamed the

Supreme Court of Virginia The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative ...

, from 1968 to 1981. In 1968 he chaired the Commission on Constitutional Revision that drafted the 1971

Constitution of Virginia The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the document that defines and limits the powers of the state government and the basic rights of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like all other state constitutions, it is supreme ...

Massive Resistance

As Attorney General, Harrison was responsible for defending the state's resistance to school integration, as part of the

Massive Resistance Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and p ...

strategy endorsed and led by the state's political leader, United States Senator

Harry F. Byrd Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia for four decades as head of a political faction that became known as the Byrd Organization. ...

. Part of Massive Resistance involved the closing of public schools in various Virginia cities and counties to prevent racially integrated classrooms. ''

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County ''Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County'' (Docket number: Civ. A. No. 1333; Case citation: 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952)) was one of the five cases combined into '' Brown v. Board of Education'', the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme ...

'' (1952) was one of the companion cases to ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' (1954), but the Supreme Court had left enforcement to the local federal district judge. Moreover, the

Gray Commission The Commission on Public Education, known as the VPEC or Gray Commission (after its chair, Virginia state senator Garland Gray), was a 32-member commission established by Governor of Virginia Thomas B. Stanley on August 23, 1954 to study the effects ...

of Byrd loyalists had recommended passage of various laws to avoid or delay integration. After opinions by the Virginia Supreme Court on January 19, 1959 as well as a three-judge federal panel overturned much of the new Virginia legislation, Governor

J. Lindsay Almond James Lindsay Almond Jr. (June 15, 1898 – April 14, 1986) was an American lawyer, state and federal judge and Democratic party politician. His political offices included as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 6th congre ...

(previously attorney general) and Harrison decided not to defy those courts and allowed schools in Arlington and

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

to reopen. However the schools in Prince Edward County closed in 1958 and did not reopen until 1963, as white students used tuition grants to attend a private

segregation academy Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

at state expense, while black students were left to volunteer efforts. Other problematic school closures, ultimately opened pursuant to federal court orders included those in Albemarle,

Warren County Warren County is the name of fourteen counties in the USA. Some are named after General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War: * Warren County, Georgia * Warren County, Illinois * Warren County ...

and later New Kent County (the subject of the 1968 Supreme Court decision in ''

Green v. County School Board of New Kent County ''Green v. County School Board of New Kent County'', 391 U.S. 430 (1968), was an important Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case involving school desegregation. Specifically, the Court dealt with the Freedom of Choic ...

'' (1968). Harrison told the board to comply unless they were willing to risk prosecution. By this time, he, like a number of other Byrd Democrats, had concluded that obstinate resistance to integration could not continue. Another aspect of Massive Resistance involved new laws regulating attorney ethics, designed to attack practices of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

, which was pursuing the desegregation actions. Initially, the U.S. Supreme Court deferred to an upcoming decision of the Virginia Supreme Court about those new ethics rules in '' Harrison v. NAACP'' (1959), but the case came before it twice more in ''

NAACP v. Button ''NAACP v. Button'', 371 U.S. 415 (1963), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ru ...

'' (1963) (which was reargued after Harrison resigned as Attorney General to run for Governor, and which Virginia lost under attorney general

Robert Young Button Robert Young Button (November 2, 1899 – September 1, 1977) served two terms as Attorney General of Virginia, as well as a fifteen years as Virginia State Senator. Button rose through the ranks of the Byrd Organization and became one of its lea ...

Death

Harrison died of a heart attack at his home in Lawrenceville on January 23, 1995. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Lawrenceville, Virginia. The

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

in Lawrenceville is named in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Albertis 1907 births 1995 deaths Democratic Party governors of Virginia Justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia Virginia Attorneys General Democratic Party Virginia state senators County and city Commonwealth's Attorneys in Virginia Virginia lawyers University of Virginia School of Law alumni Albertis American Episcopalians 20th-century American lawyers People from Lawrenceville, Virginia 20th-century American politicians