massive resistance

Cultural  

1. The opposition of many white leaders in the South to the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. The Court had declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The expression massive resistance was used in a letter signed by over a hundred members of Congress, calling on southerners to defy the Supreme Court's ruling.

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Example Sentences

In the civil rights era, this court led the charge for desegregation, fighting massive resistance with forceful decisions that helped break the back of Jim Crow.

From Slate • May 17, 2023

Board of Education decision and to the Civil Rights laws became known as "massive resistance."

From Salon • Mar. 4, 2023

The takeover was met with massive resistance, which has since turned into what some U.N. experts have characterized as civil war.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 17, 2022

What's most likely is that the majority were neither on the left, supporting civil rights activists, or on the far right, supporting the language and tactics of massive resistance, he thinks.

From BBC • Mar. 12, 2019

Why not merely oppose to them a massive resistance?

From The Conqueror by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn