This paper provides an anecdotal account of racial relations and integration efforts in West Virginia before and after the Brown decision, from the perspective of the publisher of the "Charleston Gazette," The struggle for racial equality in West Virginia has been filled with contradictions. The first legal action taken in West Virginia against a board of education occurred in 1926 to permit Blacks to use the facilities of Charleston's public library. Blacks began attending West Virginia University extension classes in the mid-1920s, and graduate and professional schools of the university were opened in 1938 following a Supreme Court decision. For a decade prior to the Brown case, conferences sponsored by the State Department of Education were integrated in all activities, and in some counties Black and White teachers' meetings were integrated, as were some county secondary principals' meetings. Immediately following the Brown decision, all curricula and facilities at State colleges were opened without racial restriction. In the first year after Brown, all White State schools except one enrolled a few Blacks and the State's two Black schools enrolled Whites. Integration did not occur as quickly in the State as it should have, it is said, but the West Virginia record compares favorably with what happened elsewhere. While school integration continued many institutions and facilities such as restaurants and hotels remained segregated. Across the State, the media's reaction to the Brown decision was accepting. (KH)