They closed their schools.

One hundred people came together at the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, VA, to participate in a school reunion. But this wasn’t just any reunion. This was an event to honor Prince Edward County students who were affected by the public school closings from 1959-1964. The Moton Museum invited StoryCorps Door-to-Door to come to Farmville for the weekend to record the stories of some of these students and teachers.

Former Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, VA, the site of the Moton Museum

Following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which held that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the public schools in Prince Edward County, VA, resisted integration. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors for Prince Edward County refused to appropriate any funds, effectively closing all public schools. The schools remained closed until September 1964 when the Supreme Court, in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, held that closing public schools for the sole purpose of race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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