Prince Edward County, VA Black Students Protest to Reopen Public Schools.
These photos were taken by police in the summer of 1963, and some students were arrested for this peaceful protest.
Over the next few weeks, millions of students around the country will head back to school. Some students look forward to the coming academic year while others wish they had more time off for their summer break. In the summer of 1963, Black students in Prince Edward County, VA marched peacefully and some were arrested for protesting the closure of public schools for the fourth year in a row. Refusing to comply with court ordered school integration, county officials closed all public schools in 1959, and they would remain closed through 1964. The same all white county officials allocated funds for a segregated private school for white students. During those years, Black families were forced to make the traumatic decision of having no public education for their children, sending their children away from home for education elsewhere, or moving out of the county. When students took to the streets of the county seat of Farmville to peacefully protest this great injustice, police took photos to identify the protestors and later made arrests. The situation in Prince Edward County was a dramatic example of Virginia’s policy of “massive resistance” to the famous Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that made segregated public education unconstitutional. It took decades for Virginia to apologize for its racist implementation of massive resistance and to offer meager compensation to surviving students of Prince Edward County who lost five years of public education. The video posted below comes from the Moton Museum in Farmville which is housed in the building of the former segregated Black high school.
As another academic year begins, Virginia continues to debate how the history of our state should be taught. The current administration has made it a priority to eliminate what they call “inherently divisive concepts” related to our racial history. The brave student protestors of 1963 were considered to be divisive for challenging the injustice of closing their public schools. These students and the shameful actions of Prince Edward County and Virginia officials need to be taught today rather than ignored or downplayed because or their potential for being “divisive.” The journey toward true justice for all must acknowledge the divisions of the past and of today, so we can truly recognize and treat each other as people equally made in the image of God.