Welcome to Poetry Friday! We are hosted this week by Rose at Imagine the Possibilities HERE. Thank you for hosting, Rose!
While browsing at my local library, I found this brand new and inspiring gem: WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN TOO: Black students, white supremacists, and the battle for Americas’s schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia. This middle grade book was published in 2023 by Simon and Schuster.
The author, P. O’Connell Pearson, is a former history teacher and a children’s writer. Readers will find the stories of so many everyday Americans, black children and parents, who risked their lives to fight for a public education.
The first person we learn about is sixteen year old Barbara Johns of Farmville, VA:
" . . . during the fall of 1950, Barbara was thinking about one thing in particular. . . .When would something be done about her school--Robert Russa Moton High School in rural Prince Edward County, Virginia?
Her high school was cold and wet inside. There was no gym, cafeteria, and the school built for 180 students held nearly 500. The chairs and blackboards were worn out, the books outdated. The high school for white kids was just the opposite. Barbara Johns decided to organize a strike.
The author brought the time and place to life. I read the 238 pages in one day.
The author shares a great deal of African American history. But the story centers around this:
When the Supreme Court decided in 1954, with Brown V. Board of Education, that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, The government of Prince Edward County, VA, decided to get rid of public schools altogether.
In 1959 funds were completely denied for their public schools. Public schools shuttered for five years. Most white kids, however, were able to be educated. Those who could afford it would attend a private white-only schools.
It was a dark difficult time for black children. To get an education, some were able to leave home, as young as five, to live with relatives, friends, or any other county they could find a school. The separations are heart wrenching. For those who couldn’t find a school, those five years took a huge toll in learning and future opportunity. There was a great deal of suffering. Many good people, white and black, who stepped up to help the community get through this time.
Eventually the Supreme Court stepped in again. In May 1964, it ruled that the county schools had to reopen that September. The community would struggle for years to establish schools and catch up.
I hope kids and parents will read this book. It will help them put into historical context what they are hearing and seeing today.
Barbara Johns’ old damp wet, school is now the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, VA. I’d like to visit and learn more about here and other heroes. Outside the museum is a marker about Barbara and the strike she organized in 1951. After reading the marker, one student was heard saying, “You never think that you can do something—but we did!”
Thanks for reading. It was fifty degrees today in Central New York. Spring is coming. It did rain but . . . whatever. Thank you Rose, for hosting.