Mosby Perrow Jr.

Perrow died in 1973 at a Lynchburg hospital and was buried at Lynchburg's Spring Hill cemetery. The University of Virginia holds his papers at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

In 1963, B.F. Dodson defeated Perrow in the Democratic primary, but was in turn defeated by Republican Robert S. Burruss Jr. in the general election. Thus, Burruss succeeded Perrow. However, the redistricting in 1965 meant that Lynchburg no longer was in state senate District 12 with Campbell County, but in District 11 with Bedford and Amherst Counties, which re-elected Burruss.

After a three-judge federal court and the Virginia Supreme Court both ruled on January 19, 1959 (Robert E. Lee's birthday) that Virginia's school-closing laws (part of the Stanley Plan to block school desegregation) were unconstitutional under both the federal and state constitutions, Governor J. Lindsay Almond initially vowed to continue Massive Resistance, but soon decided not to defy the courts but instead limit the degree of integration. He thus appointed Perrow chairman of the Virginia School Commission which became known as the "Perrow Commission". Although powerful Senator Harry F. Byrd was stunned and would not admit defeat, attorney general Albertis Harrison defended the governor's shift toward accommodation. Moreover, the Perrow Commission included four members from each congressional district, unlike the earlier Gray Commission which was weighted toward Southside Virginia.

The 1959 special session established a permanent fissure in the Byrd Organization, "embittering old friends toward one another." The senate's passage of the "local option" put an end to Massive Resistance, which now seems inevitable, but at the time was supported by powerful political and social leaders. Perrow paid a political price. He lost his support within the Byrd Organization, which defeated him in the 1963 Democratic primary needed for reelection. Perrow was later appointed president of the Virginia State Board of Education.

The proposed southern route called for the interstate to follow from Richmond via US-360 and US-460, through Lynchburg to Roanoke and US-220 from Roanoke to Clifton Forge. Accordingly, the southern route would have supported a greater percentage of Virginia's manufacturing and textile centers at that time. In 1959, a report championed by Perrow succeeded in persuading a majority of Virginia Highway Commissioners to support the southern route. In a surprise defeat for both Perrow and Lynchburg, however, both Governor Almond Jr. and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges, Sr. announced in July 1961 that the route would not be changed from the originally-proposed northern route.

Perrow was elected to the Virginia Senate from the 12th Senatorial District in 1943 and served continuously until 1964. He was active in local and state Democratic Party circles for many years and was a leading advisor to several Virginia governors. His committee assignments included Rules, Finance, County, City and Town, Organization, Moral Social and Town Welfare. His special committee assignments included the Denny Commission, which paved the way for improving the state's school system; the Commission to Study the Home for Needy Confederate Women, and the Virginia Advisory Legislative Council.

Perrow fought to reroute the long-planned interstate highway now known as I-64 between Clifton Forge and Richmond from its "northern route" through Charlottesville to a "southern route" that would include Lynchburg. Since the 1940s, maps of the federal interstate highway system depicted the interstate taking a northern route, but Virginia had received assurances from the federal government that the final location of the route would be decided by the state.

On June 24, 1938, Perrow married Katherine Duane Wingfield of Lynchburg. They had three children: Duane Payne (Mrs. Wistar Palmer Nelligan), Mosby Garland Perrow III, and Edmund Wingfield Perrow. The Perrow family lived in the Fort Hill neighborhood of Lynchburg and at Staunton View Farm in Campbell County, Virginia.

Mosby Garland Perrow, Jr. (born March 5, 1909 – May 31, 1973) was a Virginia lawyer and state senator representing Lynchburg, Virginia . A champion of Virginia's public schools, Perrow became a key figure in Virginia's abandonment of "Massive Resistance" to public school desegregation, including by chairing a joint legislative committee colloquially known as the Perrow Commission.

Perrow's family was French Huguenot, and came to the American Colonies from England in 1707, settling in Old Manakin near Richmond. Perrow was the great grandson of Captain William C. Perrow of Campbell County, Virginia, who served in the Mexican–American War, and the grandson of Fletcher C. Perrow who served in the Civil War in Company G 2nd Virginia Cavalry. Three of Fletcher's four brothers also fought for the Confederacy: Alexander Perrow, Stephen Perrow who rode with Col. John S. Mosby's Rangers, and Willis Perrow who was a courier for General Robert E. Lee at the age of fourteen. Perrow's father Dr. Mosby G. Perrow (1876–1943) was Director of Public Health and Welfare for the City of Lynchburg.