On May 17, 1954, The United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, handed down its decision on Brown v. Board of Education concerning black plaintiffs in five jurisdictions. Along with Linda Brown’s case in Topeka, Kansas, the NAACP represented plaintiffs in Clarendon County, South Carolina; Prince Edward County, Virginia; the District of Columbia and Wilmington, Delaware. Warren wrote, “that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
This decision asserted that segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; therefore, segregation in public schools was deemed unconstitutional. Brown served as a catalyst to argue against other forms of segregation that followed the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, in which the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine was born.
Following the 1954 decision, the Warren Court ordered states, in what is known as Brown II, to desegregate with “all deliberate speed.” The NAACP had argued for immediate desegregation; however, the Supreme Court’s mandate allowed the states to determine what “all deliberate speed” meant. As a result, years would pass before many public schools would desegregate. Anti-integrationists in Virginia launched one of the most organized and protracted “massive resistance” responses in the South.
This exhibition explores African American education in Buckingham County, Virginia from segregation to desegregation. Visitors will learn more about the unique struggle of African Americans in Buckingham County while keeping the broader state and national context in view.
The exhibit focuses on uncovering the lost stories of African Americans in Buckingham County during the height of Jim Crow segregation, through resistance to the 1954 Brown decision, and the eventual integration of public schools.
In 1970, through community cooperation and courageous efforts, black Buckingham residents saw their schools fully integrated. This project reveals how black residents played a central role in the development and structure of the county’s educational system.