On the 71st anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, students, educators, and civil rights leaders unveiled a new historical marker in Harrisonburg. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
In the federal courthouse in Harrisonburg in 1956, two years after the Brown v. Board decision, Judge John Paul ruled that Charlottesville City Public Schools could not deny 12 Black students admission to formerly all-white schools. This was the first Virginian court order to end school segregation, and after two years of appeals in that case, Paul made a similar ruling in a lawsuit against Warren County Public Schools. In response, the Virginia state government launched a "massive resistance" campaign against integration, closing schools in both localities and Norfolk for months.
On Saturday, around 200 people spilled into the street and sidewalks around the courthouse to witness the unveiling of a new historical marker commemorating these events. The day's speakers included two of the child plaintiffs whose fights for education are memorialized on the marker, including Charles Alexander, a.k.a. Mr. Alex-Zan, of Charlottesville.
CHARLES ALEXANDER: About 67 years ago, I was six years old when I came to court. Imagine, a six year old coming to court! … And when I think of Harrisonburg, and John Paul, I think of courage.
The other was Betty Kilby, the lead plaintiff in Warren County.
BETTY KILBY: We were teenagers. I was just 14. We walked through a crowd of protestors, screaming and threatening us. We were traumatized, but we were trained in nonviolence. We were told that we were soldiers – soldiers in the midst of a war to get an education.
The marker was born out of an independent study project in which Spotswood High School students Pria Dua and Elizabeth Kidd interviewed Judge Paul's nephew – who is also a judge named John Paul. From there, it grew into 14 hours of interviews with those on the front lines of school desegregation, from which the students created a documentary called "Knocking Down Walls," which is available online.
As Dua, now a University of Virginia student, told WMRA,
PRIA DUA: We were so grateful throughout our years of research to not have history presented to us from just books and court cases, but … getting to hear the lived history from the people who made it, and getting to really emotionally connect with it on a much deeper level than any class could have provided us.
Also speaking at the dedication was Anne Holton – lawyer, judge, professor at George Mason University, and Virginia's former first lady and secretary of education. Her father, Gov. Linwood Holton, declared "massive resistance" over when he took office in 1970, and enrolled his own children in the majority-Black schools where they were assigned by federal courts.
ANNE HOLTON: I've lived a lot of this history personally. I thought I knew a lot of it. But watching your documentary, reading the story behind the plaque we unveil today, I learned a lot myself.
Among the plaintiffs in attendance was Ann Rhodes Baltimore – the first African American student to graduate from Warren County High School in Front Royal. She was also the only student to graduate from there in 1959 – because after the county was forced to admit the 23 Black students, all of the white students stayed in quickly assembled private schools for the remainder of the academic year.
ANN RHODES BALTIMORE: It was heartbreaking, really, because I missed out on all the things that a senior would experience, you know. There was no prom. There was no graduation … It took 19 years for the Warren County School Board to even give me my diploma. … My oldest son graduated from high school the year that I got my diploma.
Because there was no high school for Black students in the county then, she spent two years being bused out to Fauquier County, and her junior year traveling to Berryville, which was still more than 20 miles away – all while there was a high school in the town where she lived.
RHODES BALTIMORE: I could have walked to the school!
She recalled that first day attending Warren County High School, on February 18, 1959, walking past a crowd of screaming white segregationists.
RHODES BALTIMORE: You listen to your parents. "Don't turn around, don't look back, and don't say a word. Just keep walking." And that's what we did to get up that hill and go to school.
She wore her class ring to the dedication on Saturday – the one she had to go to multiple jewelers to obtain – the rich, red stone set in gold declaring her the class of 1959.
RHODES BALTIMORE: But this marker, I think it's wonderful. … They've made us feel like what we did was really valuable. We did the right thing.
Many of the plaintiffs and their family members sang along with Devonte Garcia, a recent JMU graduate, who performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Even the church bell cried out.
DEVONTE GARCIA [singing, playing piano]: … Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee, shadowed beneath thy hand – [bell tolls] – 'til we forever stand, true to our God, true to our God …
