'My Foundation Was Taken Away'
Mr.
Warren L.
Brown,
Farmville,
Virginia
In the summer of 1959, I was all prepared to ride the big yellow bus to school. It never came. I can remember going home crying and asking my mother why the bus was not coming. She said to me, crying herself, "The bus is not coming today or tomorrow. The schools are closed." I never will forget that day as long as I live. My brother, Walter was in the fifth grade when schools closed. My sister, Frances, missed three years of school because of the closing. [The schools had closed to avoid court-ordered desegregation.] We were very poor, and my mother could not afford to send us away to attend school. However, my brother was sent to Cumberland County to live with my father's family. This bothered me because I didn't understand why I couldn't go to Cumberland, too.
We would go to the basement of First Baptist Church in Farmville, where older students and some adults would try to teach us. Most of the children did well, but for me, I had a hard time. I didn't understand anything that was going on. I was lost. I just gave up and played for four years. I felt because I was from a poor family, the people around me didn't think it was worth the extra time to teach me. My mother did the best she could do. She had a fifth-grade education and worked two jobs so we could have a place to live and food to eat. Education was not a No. 1 priority for my family. Hard work and survival were, though.
It was the summer of 1963 when they opened what was called "free school." I was 10 years old at the time. The only education I had was I knew how to spell my name and write the alphabet. In the summer of 1964, public schools reopened. I was placed in the fifth grade. I didn't know what was expected of me.
I repeated the seventh grade but somehow managed to graduate from high school in 1972. I was offered two scholarships to play basketball. Not knowing the importance of a good education, I turned them down. I got married in December of 1978, and this was when I realized the importance of an education.
I worked for the Department of Corrections. I was a police officer for the town of Farmville. I was a lineman for Virginia Power. I am currently a deputy sheriff with the Prince Edward County Sheriff's Department. I serve as the middle school's resource officer and D.A.R.E. [Drug Abuse Resistance Education] instructor. I feel my life has been a success, but I will always wonder where I would be if schools had not closed.
I often ask my wife what it was like being in the first, second, third, and fourth grades. She says, "It was like a building block, a foundation for education." My foundation was taken away.
