‘Resilience Amid Resistance': New marker reveals Virginia's fraught journey to school integration
Two graduates of Rockingham County Public Schools joined plaintiffs in two key lawsuits that led to the desegregation of schools in Virginia, unveiling a new state marker to tell their stories. Pictured from left are Pria Dua, Charles Alexander, Bett Kilby and Elizabeth Kidd. (Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)
A state historical marker titled 'Resilience Amid Resistance' now stands on the Western District U.S. Courthouse grounds in Harrisonburg, where a Virginia judge twice upheld the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to desegregate schools in America, allowing local Black students to attend white schools and access an equal education.
Betty Kilby was the lead plaintiff in one of the Virginia cases stemming from localities' failure to comply with the high court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling, part of the state's Massive Resistance policy to buck desegregation, history referenced in the marker unveiled on Saturday. At the unveiling ceremony, Kilby said that when her father James Wilson lost his land and lived an enslaved lifestyle, he vowed his children would have a better life and fought in court to get them an education equal in quality to that of the white children in Warren County, where the family lived.
A judge ruled in the family's favor, ordering Kilby's local high school to be integrated, according to a personal narrative Kilby shared with the American Psychological Association. Although the state then closed the school for six months to delay Black and white pupils learning together, the Virginia Supreme Court dismantled Massive Resistance in January 1959 and the school reopened, with Kilby and 22 other Black students attending at first by themselves and then alongside white students.
Attending the desegregated school from 8th grade to her senior year was traumatic and intimidating, Kilby recalled at the event, saying she had been called names and was attacked by white students.
'It was pretty consistent all five years, and it got worse in my senior year because my whole attitude changed,' said Kilby. 'I didn't care whether I lived or died.'
The marker's unveiling in the city of Harrisonburg fell on the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The emblem of Virginia's fraught educational history was the brainchild of two then-high school students, as part of the Farmville Tour Guides Project. The project's goal is to connect modern-day students with the stories of students who lived through the turbulent Civil Rights Era and paved the way for generations of integrated education.
'We wanted to keep going solely for the reason of continuing to be able to share their story,' said Pria Dua, a Rockingham County Public Schools graduate, adding that she and her collaborators wanted to make the monumental court desegregation decisions a permanent symbol.
Elizabeth Kidd, a Rockingham County graduate who worked with Dua, said the two met many 'incredible people' during the research process. She said it was only fitting to support telling their stories.
'A lot of them, still today, are still trying to get their story out there, or make known this history that happened and I think the marker was kind of just like sitting there for us as a way for us to keep working,' Kidd said.
Although it was a lengthy process, Kidd and Dua said one of the keys to installing the marker was the support they received — from the community, lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt, and the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, which approved the manufacture and installation of the historical marker last September.
Virginia has more than 2,600 state markers, which are primarily maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, except in those localities outside of VDOT's authority.
Rocktown History, a museum, archive and genealogy library, covered the unspecified costs of the marker. According to the Department of Historic Resources, the cost to create a marker is approximately $3,000. For localities outside of VDOT's jurisdiction, there is a $415 charge for the post.
The students worked with Harrisonburg City Council, judges at the federal court, Virginia Board of Education member and former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton and Kaine to obtain approval for the marker to be placed on federal property.
The Farmville Tour Guides Project, the student-led independent study that has operated for over a year and one of the driving forces behind the new marker, allows students to explore Virginia's Civil Rights history through accounts of figures like Barbara Johns. In 1951, Johns led a student strike at R.R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County in protest of the unequal conditions of her segregated school. The protest, along with lawsuits by the NAACP, were crucial to the success of the Brown v. Board of Education case.
Joan Johns Cobbs, a Moton student striker, plaintiff in the Brown v. Board case and the sister of the late Barbara Johns, was one of several guests at Saturday's ceremony.
Other guests included Charles Alexander, the youngest plaintiff in the Allen v. Charlottesville case, in which federal judge John Paul Jr. issued the first school desegregation order in the commonwealth to favor the NAACP against Charlottesville City Public Schools. Alexander is a member of the 'Charlottesville 12,' named for the first 12 Black students who attended the city's all-white public schools in 1959. Ann Rhodes Baltimore, the first Black graduate of a desegregated school in Virginia, was also present.
With cases of Black history being omitted or minimized in school curricula, Alexander told the Mercury before Saturday's marker unveiling, it's important to continue passing on such historical stories of segregation and discrimination.
He hopes the public would remember the story of his fellow plaintiffs, similar to that of Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to desegregate an all-white school in the South.
'We just didn't all of a sudden appear; there were folks that sacrificed, gave up their jobs and made a commitment for this to come about, and so we need to share that,' Alexander said.
The Farmville Tour Guides Project also stemmed from a desire for students to learn about Black Virginians' historic struggle for equal educational opportunity. The project was founded in 2015 by Beau Dickenson, supervisor of history studies at Rockingham County Public Schools, and history teacher Owen Longacre at Spotswood High School in Rockingham County.
Dickenson said both educators were surprised to see that the Moton story was not covered in Virginia's public education curriculum, which spurred them into action.
'We just thought that that was such a tragic shame given the significance of that event,' Dickenson said. 'It felt like it had been omitted from history. So we wanted to amplify that story, but we also because of the nature of that story thought this has to be something different than just a field trip. This needs to be something that's active and engaged.'
Dua and Kidd also worked with three other students on the Knocking Down Walls documentary about school desegregation featured nationally on Good Morning America.
Holton, the event's keynote speaker, said amid the concerns and questions about how students are doing in Virginia's public schools, students like Dua and Kidd are examples of incredible work pupils in the state are undertaking. Holton is the daughter of former Gov. Linwood Holton, who ended Massive Resistance in Virginia.
'I'm going to be at a Board of Education meeting next week (and) I'm going to tell them that the kids are all right,' Holton said. ' The future is in great hands, and these incredible teachers — this is public education at its best.'
Holton also talked about the courage of the plaintiffs, the attorneys, and judges in desegregation cases. She said judges were threatened and one even had a cross burned in front of their home, a once-common practice of the white supremacist terror group, the Ku Klux Klan.
Holton said she hopes judges in Harrisonburg, and nationwide, 'will be inspired by this marker every day as they walk past it going into the courthouse and courthouses like it all across the country to that resilience amid resistance that we all need to have that's so crucial to what makes our country work.'
Saturday's unveiling, hosted by Rockingham County Public Schools, Rocktown History, and the City of Harrisonburg, was capped off with students from the Farmville Tour Guides Project presenting a companion exhibition on the fight for school equality across Virginia at the Moton Museum in Farmville, formerly the high school where Johns led the historic student protest.
Dickenson said the exhibit showcases how students are engaging in civic life and using history to inform action.
Cainan Townsend, executive director for the Moton Museum, said the efforts by area students to apply for the marker, develop a museum exhibit and seek out historical information have been impressive.
'I think it's really young people deciding that our history is more than battle sites,' Townsend said. 'Our history is more than just these 10, 15 (and) 20 people you think are important. There are important stories from all parts of Virginia, and by increasing the volume and the diversity of these historical markers, I think that's a great way to show that.'
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