Davis v. Prince Edward County - Feb. 27, 2011

Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board, Farmville, Virginia
February 27, 2011

Film and discussion with plaintiffs from the Virginia case

View the Invitation

Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the filing of the Topeka case in Brown v. Board of Education
This program will feature a film that highlights the issues surrounding the strike by Farmville, Virginia students who walked out of the all-black Moton High School to protest the conditions in the school, which was badly in need of repair and overcrowded, with the original building being supplemented with tar paper shacks. The efforts of the students that day were the first step toward desegregation of public schools in Virginia. Eventually, the Davis case would be joined with the other cases of Brown v. Board of Education which struck down legally-sanctioned segregation in public places. Prince Edward County closed its schools for five years rather than integrate.

In March of 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy noted that:

“The only places on earth not to provide free public education are Communist China, North Vietnam, Sarawak, Singapore, British Honduras—and Prince Edward County, Virginia. Something must be done about Prince Edward County.”

Ultimately, Prince Edward County was forced to open its schools by the courts. On September 8, 1964, about 1,500 students, all but eight of whom were black, returned to classes in the Prince Edward County public schools for the first time in five years.

Photo: Life Magazine, March 1, 1953

Presented by the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research and the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site as part of the 2010-2011 program series, Commemorating Our Nation's Struggle for Freedom: From Civil War to Civil Rights.

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