 Protests started by Barbara Rose Johns in 1951 in Farmville against segregated schools led to the lawsuit Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County . This case , filed by Richmond natives <unk> Robinson and Oliver Hill , was decided in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education , which rejected the segregationist doctrine of " separate but equal " . But , in 1958 , under the policy of " massive resistance " led by the influential segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization , the Commonwealth prohibited desegregated local schools from receiving state funding . 
