The Byrd Machine ran Virginia politics for more than half a century, wielding power and influence over everything from who got the nod to be governor to how the state maintained racial segregation. Inheriting its tactics from two previous political machines, the Byrd organization operated with a pathological hatred of debt spending, crushing the power of labor unions and forcing its will on Black schoolchildren protesting separate and unequal facilities. The turning point came during massive resistance, a move to close public schools rather than integrate them. Journalist and author Michael Lee Pope details the rise and fall of the last great political machine in Virginia.
Michael Lee Pope is an award-winning journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria. He has reported for NPR, the New York Daily News and Northern Virginia magazine. He has a master’s degree in American studies from Florida State University, and he is a former adjunct professor at Tallahassee Community College.