The University of Virginia's Center for Politics will hold a conference in Richmond to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of Massive Resistance.

The July 17 event at the Virginia State Capitol will feature former students, civil rights leaders and politicians reflecting on one of the most divisive periods in Virginia's history. Massive Resistance was set off by state laws passed in the late 1950s to prevent school integration after the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that racial segregation was illegal.

Former governors A. Linwood Holton Jr. and L. Douglas Wilder are set to speak. Three of the Norfolk 17, the first black students to integrate Norfolk schools when they reopened in 1959, also are scheduled to appear.