CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY
The Robert Russa Moton Museum and
Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail
By Helen R. Stiff–Williams
The author is a professor of education at Regent University.
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Hidden in the somewhat remote town of Farmville in Southside Virginia is a national treasure. Within the town of Farmville, a community self–identified as the “Heart of Virginia” lies the “heart beat” that changed the American educational system. This symbolic “heart beat” is the Robert Russa Moton Museum, the former all Black high school where a student–led walkout resulted in the U S Supreme Court declaring an end to segregated public education America.
The Robert Russa Moton Museum is the site of what once was the high school for black students of Prince Edward County, Virginia. The museum was founded in 1996 and is now the anchor site for the 15 locality regional Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail. The trail is organized as a self guided driving tour that includes 41 stops across Southside Virginia. These sites, each in its own way contributing to our understanding of expanded educational opportunity over the past century, are located in Amelia, Appomattox, Brunswick, Buckingham, Charlotte, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Dinwiddie, Halifax, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway Powhatan, Prince Edward Counties, and the city of Petersburg. Of the current 41 stops along the trail, tourists can see in the western part of the region the one room schoolhouse, c. 1910, and the birthplace of Carter G. Woodson in Buckingham County, the site of education in 1800’s rural Virginia in Appomattox County, and the Rosenwald School of Cartersville in Cumberland County. A driving tour of sites on the eastern part of the trail could lead from Virginia State University in Chesterfield County, to the site of the earliest known public high school of African Americans in Virginia located in Petersburg, and on to the Southside Virginia Training Center
located in Dinwiddie County. At each of the sites along the trail, there are detailed interpretations and photographs, such as the picture of the 1906 graduating class of Boydton Academic and Bible Institute at Trail Site #37 located in Mecklenburg County.
At left, a Virginia Historical Highway Marker helps
visitors locate the Moton Museum in Farmville.
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HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MOTON MUSEUM
The Moton Museum, the anchor site for the Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail, stands as a monument to the participants in the student led strike and the lawyers, advisors, and community leaders whose efforts contributed to an end to segregated schools in America. Educational services for black students during that period meant that more than 450 students were being taught in a facility constructed for 180 students. In response to the requests of local black leaders for additional space for educating black students in the county, so called “tar paper shacks” were erected on the site of the overly crowded R. R. Moton High School.
The Moton Museum is housed in a modest one story
building where the dramatic school protest happened
that put this school on the map.
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Because the school facilities and educational resources were so grossly inferior and severely inadequate, an act of civil disobedience, in the form of the student led strike, occurred. Barbara Johns was the 16 year old student leader who planned and executed the strike to bring attention to the need for better facilities and resources for the black students of Prince Edward County. The actions of Johns and others eventually led to the closing of all public schools in Prince Edward County and the legal case of Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward that was eventually folded into the now landmark U S Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On May 17, 1954, the words of Chief Justice Earl Warren rang out across the nation: “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”
MOTON MUSEUM DESIGN
Founded in 1996, the R.R. Moton Museum is the repository for historically significant artifacts from the period of the struggle for Civil Rights in Education, with particular emphasizes upon events in Prince Edward County, Virginia. During 1939, the 10,000 square foot high school facility was constructed and included a layout of classrooms, corridors, a laboratory, and auditorium. As the Moton Museum, the units within the original structure have been organized as galleries to thematically highlight the significant events of the period. With room designations within the original facility, each gallery emphasizes a theme related to a major event or condition of the historical era. The theme for the first gallery is the “Called to the Auditorium” emblematic of the April 23, 1951 student–led strike. The theme of the second gallery is “The Tar Paper Shacks” featuring exhibits and artifacts of the period 1870–1951, explaining the development of segregated public education. The third gallery “Davis v. Prince Edward” covers the period 1951–1954 and focuses on the decision in Brown v. Board. “Massive Resistance” is the theme of the fourth gallery that explores Virginia’s reaction to Brown. The fifth gallery highlights the period 1959–1963 with its theme of “They Closed Our Schools.” For the sixth and final gallery, the theme is “The Free Schools and Griffin” for the period of 1963–1964.
EXHIBITS AND COLLECTIONS
The Moton Museum exhibits profile the heroes of the period: Barbara Johns who led the student walkout, Oliver Hill of Richmond who filed Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County, Rev. L. Francis Griffin who was the leader of the local civil rights movement,
Dean Gordon Moss of Longwood College who was an outspoken white supporter of desegregation, and white public officials who opposed what they perceived as federal government intervention in local affairs. Further, the exhibits depict the transformation of the Prince Edward Public Schools after the reopening following the five year period of closure through the Free School Era and into the modern period of desegregation that continued throughout the remainder of the 20th century.
The current collection of the Moton Museum consists of class pictures, yearbooks, a potbelly stove representative of the ones used in the “Tar Paper Shacks,” commemorative plaques, and a high school letterman’s jacket. In addition to the artifacts, the museum is establishing a collection of oral histories and personal reflections of local citizens, black and white, who lived through the major events of the period, including the student strike, the legal battles, the closing of the schools, and the years of transformation of the school system in Prince Edward County.
The plans for future exhibits are exciting. These exhibits will include large– and small– scaled graphics and maps, reproductions, moving images, audio recordings, and oral history recordings. The planned multi–sensory exhibits, mixing the historical artifacts with the newest technologies, will provide visitors with a total immersive experience. Unlike other civil rights museums, the permanent exhibit will allow visitors to experience the perspectives of both black and white Prince Edwardians as they engaged in private and public conversations about government authority and responsibility, segregation, education and citizenship rights.
FUNDING SUPPORT AND PARTNERSHIPS
Because of the foresight of the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, a civic minded group of African American women, the Robert Russa Moton High School site was purchased in 1995 just as it was about to be possibly sold and torn down. The Council of Women raised the funds and purchased the site so that the School could be preserved as a national treasure. Three years later in 1998, the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior declared the Moton Museum as a National Historic Landmark. The Landmark plaque reads:
On this site in 1951 the student body walked out in protest of unequal educational facilities. The resulting school desegregation lawsuit was part of the 1954 U. S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board, which concluded that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”
Through the years since, funding support for the Moton Museum has grown exponentially. Beyond the contributions made by the Martha E. Forrester Council, other local support came in the form of sizable donations by town of Farmville and Prince Edward County. In addition to small and large monetary contributions from individual donors, in–kind and monetary support has been received from corporations, like Dominion Foundation that donated $200,000 during April 2008. Other forms of support have been provided through the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Martin Luther King Commission, and the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. Through varied partnership arrangements, support has also been received from the institutions of higher education in the region, including Virginia State University, Longwood University, Hampden Sydney College, and St. Paul’s College. According
to Lacy Ward, the director of the Robert Russa Moton Museum, the donations serve to support renovations of the building and restoration of the physical site, collections planning and management, designs for permanent exhibits, and educational outreach services for the 14 jurisdictions in the region.
Also at left, the new Civil Rights Memorial on
Virginia's Capitol Square tells the dramatic story
of the Moton students and the legal fight that they
and other students like them inspired.
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THE FUTURE
Five decades after Brown v. Board of Education, Governor Tim Kaine, state and local officials, and citizens from across the Commonwealth gathered to dedicate the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial in honor of Barbara Johns and other heroic leaders of the period. Like the state memorial, the Moton Museum stands as a monument to the leaders and events of that period. It offers a review of historical events, a view of the local community in transition, and a preview of unity and new happenings to occur in the Southside region of Virginia. As proclaimed on the museum’s website, “the Moton Museum will not simply look to the past” but will serve as an active center for the study of civil rights and racial justice and harmony in education. The museum aims not only to chronicle the past story of the struggle to overcome racial segregation and injustice in education, but, equally importantly, it will operate as a contemporary functioning educational center to promote racial cooperation and harmony.
For more information:
Lacy Ward Jr.
Executive Director
Robert Russa Moton Museum
900 Griffin Blvd.
P.O. Box 908
Farmville, VA 23901
(434) 315-8775
www.moton.org
