蜜桃影视

Farmville, Virginia

The United States of America was not founded nearly 250 years ago with the Declaration of Independence, says a former Virginia newspaper editor.

鈥淭his country is still being founded, it certainly was not founded in 1776,鈥� said Ken Woodley, for the Farmville Herald. 鈥淭his place, more than Independence Hall, was the birthplace of America.鈥�

Woodley was referring to the spot where he was standing, the former R.R. Moton High School, where a 1951 student strike led to the inclusion of more than 100 Virginia students and families as plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. The brave stand taken by the student strikers to protest a grossly unequal public school system, Woodley said, gave actual meaning to the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that all men are created equal.

Woodley made his remarks at the Robert Russa Moton Museum, the building that once held the all-black segregated high school in Farmville, Virginia, where dozens of community members gathered Saturday evening to partake in a panel discussion featuring former plaintiffs 鈥� including the Moton student strikers 鈥� in the 1954 landmark case 翱濒颈惫别谤听Brown, et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (KS), et al., which declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional.

蜜桃影视聽interviewed the former student plaintiffs in their Farmville homes ahead of the event and visited key sites with them. See the photo tour here.

Saturday鈥檚 event was the second in a nationwide tour commemorating the 65th anniversary of the historic decision and was co-hosted by the Moton Museum, the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence, and Research, the Walton Family Foundation and 蜜桃影视. The series celebrates the untold stories of the hundreds of plaintiffs . The first event took place in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. The tour is headed to Topeka, Kansas, on Nov. 12.

Of those forgotten Brown cases, Virginia鈥檚 Davis v. County School Board was the only one that was student-led. But little of that history makes it into textbooks, said Cheryl Brown Henderson, founding president of the education foundation that bears her family name and the younger daughter of named plaintiff Oliver Brown.

鈥淲e鈥檒l get a student from Virginia wanting to know all about Topeka, and my response is, 鈥榃hat about your case?鈥� And they won鈥檛 know that Virginia was a part of Brown v. Board, so it鈥檚 supremely frustrating for us,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e doing our students a disservice by not teaching what actually happened.鈥�

Sharing the panel with Brown Henderson in Farmville Saturday were three of the Moton High strikers and Davis case plaintiffs 鈥斅燡oan Johns Cobbs, Joy Cabarrus Speakes and John Stokes 鈥斅燼nd Cainan Townsend, director of education and public programs for the Moton Museum.

Moton High, in largely rural Prince Edward County, was about 70 miles west of Richmond in southern Virginia. The school was intended to house 180 students, but its student body grew to more than 450 by 1951. Students who didn鈥檛 fit in the main building took lessons in tar paper shacks heated by potbelly stoves, and the school lacked textbooks and facilities like an infirmary and teachers鈥� restrooms. The school鈥檚 auditorium also served as its gymnasium and cafeteria as well as overflow classroom space. Many of Moton鈥檚 students traveled umpteen miles, past modern and well-equipped all-white schools, to get to and from school each day.

On April 23, 1951, Moton student Barbara Johns 鈥� fed up with district officials鈥� ambivalence toward the black community鈥檚 demands for better and more equitable schooling conditions 鈥� orchestrated a meticulous plan that lured Principal M. Boyd Jones out of the building and gathered the student body in a surprise assembly.

鈥淭hen, on this very stage, these curtains opened, and I saw Barbara standing there,鈥� Joan Johns Cobbs, Barbara鈥檚 younger sister, recalled Saturday.

As Joan slid slowly deeper and deeper into her seat on that April morning to pre-empt embarrassment from her sister, Barbara made an impassioned speech against injustice, calling on her more than 450 classmates to protest until their demands for a new building and equitable schooling conditions were met. The student body walked out of school after that assembly, beginning a two-week strike that led NAACP attorneys Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill to file Davis v. County School Board on behalf of the students a month later.

Also folded into Brown were Delaware鈥檚 Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart, South Carolina鈥檚 Briggs v. Elliott and Washington, D.C.鈥檚 Bolling v. Sharpe. Although Briggs v. Elliott was the first to arrive at the Supreme Court on appeal, it is widely believed that Brown became the lead case given Kansas鈥檚 position in the middle of the country. The court saw it as an opportunity to take the issue of segregation in education out of the South and catapult it onto a national platform.

Because 鈥渆verything is money,鈥� Brown Henderson said, the 鈥渘ext frontier鈥� in raising awareness of this richer history is to reach out to state leaders who purchase educational resources to use their buying power to impress upon textbook companies the need to correct lessons about Brown v. Board.

鈥淲hat we really have to do is speak up and use our voice to make sure that we don鈥檛 go backwards, and that we continue to go forward,鈥� Cabarrus Speakes said. 鈥淚 hope that everyone remembers to use your voice and make a difference wherever you can, because we still have a ways to go.鈥�

In Virginia, advocates like Townsend, the museum鈥檚 director of education and public programs, are working together to submit a series of curriculum proposals to the state next year that would be “more inclusive of all Virginians” and teaches Brown v. Board in more detail.

鈥淸We鈥檙e submitting a curriculum change because] you can鈥檛 have textbooks that don鈥檛 go along with that curriculum,鈥� Townsend said. 鈥淪o hopefully, you鈥檒l find textbooks that are more accurate.鈥�

But in the very state that led the charge to desegregate schools in America, history is beginning to repeat itself. In 2010, 6 percent of Virginia schools were 鈥渋ntensely segregated,鈥� according to . That figure was just half that 鈥� 3 percent 鈥� two decades prior in 1989.

And while major metropolitan areas are becoming less segregated across the country, black-white exposure in schools has plummeted since 1990. In 2010, the student body of the average white student鈥檚 public school was about 10 percent black 鈥� , according to research by Grover J. Whitehurst, a fellow in the Center on Education Data and Policy at Washington, D.C.鈥檚 Urban Institute. But the average black student鈥檚 public school had a smaller enrollment of white students than similar institutions did 30 years prior.

In Prince Edward County, line and more than one-third of the student population identifies as black. Black student performance on annual state exams has for years trailed outcomes across all racial groups, .

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e experiencing now tells you how tenuous those [Brown v. Board] accomplishments are, which means you can鈥檛 stop. We have to pass the torch on to the others coming up behind us. We age out in terms of energy and even remembering and all the things you need to do this work,鈥� Brown Henderson said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 so much work to be done to recognize what鈥檚 happened in our country to make the change that our young people take for granted. But it has to be done.鈥�

Although the Supreme Court鈥檚 1954 ruling in Brown overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and declared segregated education illegal, it didn鈥檛 explicitly give a mandate on integration, and many all-white schools ignored the decision. So in a second case in 1955, Brown v. Board of Education II, the country鈥檚 highest court handed down a ruling that ordered states to desegregate schools 鈥渨ith all deliberate speed.鈥�

Still, Southern politicians continued to push back. The state that spearheaded the movement for educational equity was also the one that led the fight against it. By 1956, Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia had gathered more than 100 signatures from Southern congressmen backing the 鈥淪outhern Manifesto,鈥� which opposed integrated schools and laid the groundwork for a set of laws that resisted the Supreme Court鈥檚 mandate. Those regulations, which became known as Massive Resistance, had varying degrees of impact on Southern states.

In Virginia, rather than desegregate schools, the state chose to either shutter them altogether or pull funding from districts, which forced localities to close schools. For the five years between 1959 and 1964, children in Prince Edward County 鈥� a so-called 鈥渓ost generation鈥� of children, as the locals consider them 鈥� had no formal education. The Quaker community 鈥� the Religious Society of Friends 鈥� did what they could to raise funds and help place some children in other states for schooling.

It took another legal effort, partially led by then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, to compel Prince Edward County to reopen its schools in 1964. That year, of students in Virginia were enrolled in desegregated schools.

鈥淎ll of you represent the words that were written in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, words that the men who wrote them and signed them did not believe,鈥� Woodley, the former newspaper editor, said to the Brown plaintiff panelists Saturday.

鈥淵ou all gave me faith in the country I read about in Munford Elementary School in Richmond. It turns out I was reading a whole lot of lies, but you all took America at its word. The good thing that this country did with 鈥榓ll [men] are created equal鈥� is it set the bar high; you and your families took hold of that bar and raised this country up.鈥�

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation, a sponsor of the event, also provides financial support to 蜜桃影视.听

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