Not only it was really affected by the brown versus board of education but it was actually one of five cases that was ruled into an umbrella brown case. The reason that, because it was part of the progress of brown b board of education was the one young woman named robert johns junior led a walkout to protest the conditions of her school in farmville virginia in 1965 and that walkout from the naacp attorney in richmond and they agreed to come meet with Barbara Johns but that decision led the naacp to take up the case and file a lawsuit on the of those students and that eventually made all the way to the Supreme Court. The brown versus board of education and it was student led case out of the five. And county leaders there were so stunned by the decision, as were virginia leaders and leaders across the south in the country. And i think Prince Edward county leaders felt particularly embarrassed and particularly nervous that they would be held up as an example and forced to integrate for communities across the nation did. So they really took measures that other communities didnt think were necessary. To prevent them from having to integrate their schools and they began conversations very early about what they would do if they were put in the position that they would have to desegregate their schools so within six months, the decision being handed down, the newspaper, the Farmville Harold was calling for Community Leaders to do anything but desegregate their schools and said if push came to shove, that they should chalk schools rather than desegregate them. Right at the gate, white leaders in that community were calling for these drastic measures to abort segregation. Prince Edward County is considered the heart of virginia, they call themselves, and theyre located an hour and 15 minutes south west of richmond. The demographics in the era of the School Walkout were pretty equal. It was pretty much like 5050 blacks and whites and some people believe that is part of what led to this pushback by white members, not white leaders of the community, not to desegregate schools and instead to close schools. There is a belief that because the black population of Prince Edward county was higher than it was in other parts of the state, perhaps white leaders felt threatened. Felt they needed to do more to control blacks. White leaders were pretty upset about the walkout and i think they were embarrassed. And white leaders had refused to provide a better school, a Bigger School for black students and families for so long. They had done these measures like the tarpaper shacks which were just stopgap measures and were not appropriate. So when the court, when the case went to the court, white leaders decided to move ahead with buildings, building a new school, a new black high school for the black students and i think they hoped that this would put a stop to the lawsuit and detract attention from them. I think the plan was, if they built this New High School than black families would get what they wanted and the lawsuit would go away. It wasnt until the summer of 1959 that the order was handed down inalto f desegregate the school and at that point county leaders were prepared. They had in recent years gone to a monthtomonth funding system so it they needed to shut down the schools, they could do it at a moments notice. They had been preparing the idea of having private schools and social halls and they had gotten pledges, they made some white members of the community so they were ready to go when this happened. So as they had promised, they did exactly what they suggested they would do and county leaders voted not to Fund Public Education which essentially shut the schools that summer. So white leaders want launched into action, trying to make those pledges become real dollars. Setting out to find churches and social halls all over the county where whites could be educated so they wouldnt have to miss a single day of school. I think black Community Members and leaders were taken off guard. When white leaders voted to close the school. They were immune to the threat, they didnt think anyone would go through with this. Attorneys were like, the schools are closed yet. Theyre not going to do this. There was a real sense that this wasnt going to be the reality. And the other problem was that there was no way for anybody to know how long schools would be closed. Absolutely no one imagined they would be closed more than a year, even if they could see them being closed. But it was hard for anybody to imagine they would be closed for more than a year. So the schools ended up being closed for five full school years. And families took really different actions during that time. Many, many families were not able to send their kids anywhere during that time so some of the local churches got together and offered Training Centers in the basement of the churches. And they really work schools, they were meant to be schools because the White Community said a private school should be opened like they had done for the white children but lacked leaders knew that would work against their cause of desegregation and a shut that down quickly. The Training Centers were more a way to keep children engaged, so they were not meant to be a school day and they were taught by volunteers. That was an option for some kids. There were so many examples of what people did but some children works not across county lines every day to go to school in adjacent counties. I write about one person who rented a house in an adjacent county and he made it look like they lived there and then he would drop off his kids behind the house every day on his way to work at the railroad and it instructed the children not to enter the house until they heard the bus coming down the county roads and even then they walked to the back of the house, through the house to the city guarded up the steps to that bus and never to tell anyone that they did not live any where near there because they knew their education was at stake. When that work successfully he invited some of his friends to drop their children off there and pretty soon 21 kids were getting on the bus there and the bus driver would laugh and say theres no way you guys are all siblings. A lot of them are the same grade. He knew they were blood relatives but this was one way some kids got educated there were a lot of other kids who went to live with relatives , especially in the north. At some point the quakers got involved and offered them to match children with families elsewhere in the us and so some of these students went to live with white families in ohio. There were a wide range of things, ways that families dealt with this but the vast majority of children were not educated and those who were old enough often went to work in the fields with their parents, typically selling tobacco because that had more money and a lot of those kids who were old enough to work neverreturned to school. The whole time that the schools are closed, court cases are making their way through the system. And i think as black members of the community and naacp cp attorneys had high hopes the Kennedy Administration would resolve this issue. And i think the kennedys spoke specifically about Prince Edward. I do believe jfk wanted to be able to be of help to them. He found once he was in office that he really did have to go through the court system as well. And he and the attorney general, Robert F Kennedy were met with frustration that way and finally john f. Kennedy told his brother, youve got to do something about Prince Edward. We have to address this in some way. So Robert Kennedy pointed one of his assistant attorney generals to come to Prince Edward and come up with a solution. They did come up with a solution for that fifth year that schools were going to be closed. They were able to open preschools and it was funded with foundation money, donations. And its going to be an integrated school and integrated boards that oversaw it and they teach in new york and across the country offered to come in and teach. They did innovative teaching styles where the kids were grouped according to ability and they work but by age but rather by ability. But this provided a solution for the 50 year and they were able to get county officials to agree to get them to use certain public buildings. In order to do this and he used some of the Public School systems and buses but thats what the 50 year look like. While the schools were open during the fifth year, the Supreme Court decision was handed down that actually required schools to be funded and that is what led them to finally reopen. They had to reopen and be integrated so with these white schools still in place and becoming more permanent by the moment, during that fiveyear period, the schools went from being just in Church Basements to a building being built for a high school and plans to have permanent buildings for k12. So when the school did reopen there were very few white students in attendance. And they reopened that black high school, exactly where it had been and its now open as everyones high school. I grew up in Prince Edward county virginia and my family is all from there. And i attended the White Academy of Prince Edward academy at the time. And my parents children, they were growing up in the schools and were both sent to the Church Basement in the rotary clubs and ended up both graduating from Prince Edward academy. And deciding to raise my three brothers there and deciding to send us to the academy which was still segregated. So i grew up there in a place with a rich history, the brown versus board of education decision, the walkout, the only community in the nation to push back by closing schools for five years. And not knowing you know, the story. Not knowing that. Its something that wasnt taught in the private school and my friends in Public School say it was tough there either. It was part of the denial of history. I think a lot of white leaders there feel like they sent their sorry. What more can we do . There is a desire to kind of push this history under the rug because its painful. And i think so many of the black family that i talked with, they were shut out of schools, they havent talked about this with their own siblings. Like, siblings had never sat down at the table and said what did you do while the schools were closed . I remember my hands, what was your life like . Different siblings had different experiences based on how old they were and whether their parents could afford to send more than one child away. So it was also a story that black families didnt want because they were still feeling robbed about it. It was still painful. I want people to understand exactly what happened there in American History but i want them to understand that its okay to confront the hidden histories, these shameful parts of our history and really grapple with them. And if thats something were going to have to do as a country to be able to move
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