By Marian Wright Edelman
As a teenager, many of Barbara Johns’s wildest fantasies were about a surprising subject: a new school. “My imagination would run rampant — and I would dream that some mighty man of great wealth built us a new school building or that our parents got together and surprised us with this grand new building and we had a big celebration — and I even imagined that a great storm came through and blew down the main building and splattered the shacks to splinters — and out of this wreckage rose this magnificent building and all the students were joyous and even the teachers cried . . .”