Scholars discuss segregation, racial relations

Elementary school protest helps change Virginia race politics

Showing that students can influence politics, a visiting scholar spoke Monday in Grafton-Stovall Theatre on segregation and an elementary school protest.

Joanne Gabbin, from the honors department, explained that civil rights activist John Stokes was a student leader in the Prince Edward County student protest against the condition of their schools. He went on to be a teacher and principal in Baltimore, Md., city schools and was featured in the PBS Documentary "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow."

Stokes said in Farmville, April 23, 1951, black students walked out of an elementary school to get an equal building.

Stokes showed figures from 1903 concerning Prince Edward County public elementary schools. There were 10 schools for 287 white students, while there were 11 schools for 974 black students.

"I used to teach third and fourth grade, and I believe they can come up with a better idea of equal than that," Stokes said.

He then presented figures from 1910. There were 42 schools for both white and black students, but there were 976 and 1,882 students, respectively.

In a period from 1912 to 1927, Prince Edward County built seven high schools, Stokes said. Only one — the seventh, Robert Russa Moton High School — was for African-American students, he added.

"I don't think a third grader could come up with the formula to make that equal," Stokes said.

He said "colored schools" were built of wood, had outdoor toilets, potbellied stoves and no other sources of heat. "White schools" were built of brick, had indoor toilets and heat. Farmville High School had a cafeteria, auditorium and gym.

Tired of going to school in shacks heated by nothing more than a potbellied stove, Stokes, his twin sister Carrie, Barbra Johns and Irene Taylor began meeting to discuss what they could do about their situation. They called their plans "The Manhattan Project."

On April 22, the group decided to set its plans for a walkout in motion. They lured the principal out of the building, called an assembly and tricked the teachers into leaving. After that, the entire student body left the building and marched around the school, according to Stokes.

Stokes explained that a news blackout was placed on the march censoring the protest, so Carrie, Stokes and Johns drafted a letter to the National Association of the Advancement of Colored Persons. This letter put in motion the events needed to get the students their school.

He said the case of the children in Prince Edward County was especially instrumental because it was the only children-led protest. He explained that parents still sent their children to school in the two weeks of the protest.

"Buses picked them up at home and put them out at school," Stokes said. "Our chauffeurs picked them up at school and took them home. I was a chauffeur."

He also explained that a cross was burned in the Moton schoolyard, but the only news organization that covered the event was the Richmond Afro-American newspaper. Every other newspaper denied that the event happened.

Schools were closed from 1954-'59 as a result of the protest.

Stokes said, "You have to fight for what you believe in because no one will fight for you." He also urged the audience to vote and to write their congresspeople.

Junior Andrew Price said, "I thought, on the whole, it was a really interesting presentation. I was expecting more of a history lesson and less personal stories, but it was still very fascinating."