'The Means to Achieve Our Education Were...Taken Away'
Ms.
Celeste
Wiley,
Fort Washington,
Pennsylvania
I remember the last day of school in 1959. I had achieved excellent grades, and my report card read, "recommended to the third grade." Little did I know then that I would never return to Mary E. Branch Elementary School in Farmville, Virginia. Perhaps the point of no return had already begun about eight years earlier.
In April 1951, the students of Robert R. Moton High School led a strike to bring attention to the deplorable school conditions black students had to endure. The two-week strike became the Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County case in which the Moton High School students sought to have the "equal" in the "separate but equal" clause realized in their school. School conditions for black students were certainly not equal to conditions for the whites.
Although the Moton students lost their case in the lower courts, the Davis case was one of the five cases that would be Brown v. Board of Education, adjudicated in the United States Supreme Court. In 1954, this court declared segregated, unequal schools unconstitutional. The school board of Prince Edward County was not about to allow black and white children to attend school together, so rather than comply with the Supreme Court mandate, the board closed all public schools in the county from 1959 to 1964.
What do you do when the only means to achieve your goals in life are cut off? Such was the situation for hundreds of black families in Prince Edward County. There were five children from my family affected by the school closings, ranging from one ready to enter his senior year, to me, the one recommended to start third grade. Our parents had always encouraged us to get a good education, but without open schools, the means to achieve our education were abruptly taken away.
A few brave, retired teachers and other volunteers conducted training classes in church basements and Sunday school classrooms, giving us lessons according to our age and grade level. The white children that remained in Farmville were doing the same thing; however, the local school board recognized their class work as formal education, so they were promoted each year suffering no loss; not so for us black children.
Through efforts of the American Friends Service Committee, an emergency student placement program was planned, and several black students were placed with host families located in six states and ten communities. Some of the students succeeded, and some did not. Some remained in Farmville, going on with their lives as best as they could, and some returned to Farmville when the schools reopened in 1964. Many did not return at all, choosing to complete their education elsewhere.
Through it all, God blessed my family, and even though I did not formally enter the third, fourth, or fifth grade, I was able to complete my primary and secondary education, ultimately achieving my goals of becoming a registered nurse and lawyer.
