Dr. Michelle Deardorff

For years, students and teachers have been asking Who is the next Martin Luther King? – the wrong question, says Professor Michelle Deardorff, co-founder and director of The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy. Instead, she says, we should be asking, “Who’s the next Fannie Lou Hamer? Who’s the next Barbara Johns?”

Dr. Leslie McLemore

On April 23, 2012, exactly sixty-one years to the day of the historic Moton High School Student Strike, Dr. Deardorff was joined in Farmville by fellow Hamer Institute co-founder, Dr. Leslie McLemore. Together, the two discussed their work helping teachers and students draw deeper, more personal meaning from the Civil Rights Movement.

Members of the Robert Russa Moton Museum’s Moton for America working group convened at Longwood University to hear from the acclaimed Hamer Institute. Since its founding in 1997 at Jackson State University in Mississippi, the Institute has been committed to reshaping the way civil rights history is taught in America’s schools.

Many 21st century American scholars now hope to shed greater light on the important role played by everyday citizens, women and other lesser known, local grassroots actors, like Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Johns, who helped change America from “the bottom up.” Hamer is most noted for her role as a leading field organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and for founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. At age 16, Johns led the 1951 Moton High School Student Strike, which resulted in the only student-initiated case to be included as part of Brown v. Board.

Each summer since 1998, The Hamer Institute has sponsored a number of workshops for students and teachers in grades 6-12. Workshops last anywhere from one to six weeks and include lectures, field trips, music, poetry, and oral history panels. The program allows participants to engage with scholars and activists. For teachers, it demonstrates ways primary sources can be integrated into lesson plans and curricula.

“It’s important for people to see themselves in the history,” says McLemore. Deardorff concurs, adding that “If students knew their own history, they would know that students their own age, students younger than them, transformed America.”

By advancing this “bottom up” narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, The Hamer Institute hopes to inspire students and instill in them a desire to become change agents like Barbara Johns and her classmates. Upon completion of the workshops, McLemore leaves his students with this final question and challenge: “Now what are you going to do differently?”

Justin, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, brings a breadth of knowledge that includes fellowships with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, Virginia and with the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site in Richmond, Virginia. Before accepting his new post, he served as a special projects manager for the museum’s U.S. Education Department-funded regional school reform initiative.

A Cumberland County native, Justin grew up just seven miles outside of Farmville and has deep family ties in the Town and surrounding counties. His great-great-grandfather, the Reverend Jacob Randolph, Sr., served as an early pastor of the Race Street Baptist Church. Justin’s grandmother, Melrose Randolph Reid, was once a student at “the old Moton School” (now the Mary E. Branch Community Center). For over half a century, his late great-uncle, Warren “Kaiser” Reid, operated the Bland-Reid Funeral Home on Griffin Boulevard.

Growing up in Farmville, Justin remembers only being told bits and pieces of Prince Edward County’s civil rights story. He knew members of his family had been affected by the school closings. “But I didn’t begin asking a lot of questions until college,” he says. “That’s when I began trying to put the pieces together.”

The more he learned, the more the history began to inform his work both in and outside the classroom. He switched from being an International Studies major to American Studies, and at one point considered becoming a history professor. He ultimately discovered public history and the positive impact museums could have on communities.

Justin elected to study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, where he visited the District Six Museum, Robben Island and other sites committed to racial reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa. Back on campus, he served two terms as president of the William & Mary NAACP. During his tenure, the chapter successfully advocated for a new million-dollar financial aid endowment, a new student diversity center, and a university-wide study of past and present campus-community race relations, an initiative known today as The Lemon Project. He and a group of friends also established C.O.R.E. (Conversations on Reconciliation & Equality), a monthly, campus dining hall guest lecture-dialogue series.

As an associate director at the Moton Museum, Justin now has the chance to focus in on the community he cares about most. “I know it’s not going to be easy,” he says, “but I’m prepared to reach out, one person at a time.”

Justin wants the museum to be, as one Lock-Out Generation member put it, ‘a place of healing.’ He wants young students to leave knowing the importance of education and to not waste it or take it for granted. He wants all those who come to be inspired to stand up against any injustice. “If we accomplish those three things, then I’ll be doing my job effectively.”

Rendering of planned exhibit detail provided by StudioAmmons

The Robert Russa Moton Museum is one step closer to becoming Virginia’s leading civil rights heritage site with the award of a $350,000 implementation grant, announced by The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in April. The award, part of a $17-million funding round from the NEH, will go towards Phase II of the Moton Museum’s permanent exhibit fabrication and installation.

“We are very pleased to receive this grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities,” says Lacy Ward, Jr., Moton Museum Director. “NEH grants are highly competitive and it is rare that small budget museums like Moton receive such substantial support.”

Overall, the NEH announced 208 grants – an average of about $82,000 each. Of Virginia’s seven NEH grant recipients, the Moton Museum received the largest award, followed by George Mason University in Fairfax, which received $304,565.

“Our successful application is testament to the national significance of Prince Edward County’s public school desegregation saga,” comments Ward. “The award is also testament to the quality of scholarly work performed by Longwood University’s Dr. Larissa Smith Fergeson and the quality of exhibit design by StudioAmmons of Petersburg.”

With this grant from NEH and an earlier grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, the Moton Museum now has nearly $800,000 earmarked toward its goal of $1.8 million to complete the permanent exhibits.

Everyday citizens, extraordinary change

Of the five localities involved in the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision, Prince Edward County was the only locality to have a case initiated by student protest. It is also the only locality to close its public school system for five years – the longest period in the nation’s history – in order to avoid school desegregation.

The Moton Museum will tell the Prince Edward County story from multiple perspectives, taking into consideration how gender, race, and class affected individuals’ position in these struggles. Visitors will have the chance to explore the meanings of equality and citizenship, while considering the role of education in our democracy. They will also be challenged to rethink their historical understanding as they discover how everyday citizens led extraordinary change.

The project shifts the focus of the movement away from prominent national figures and spokespersons, and instead highlights the importance of grassroots resistance to segregation. It eschews a “monolithically bi-polar racial confrontation” in favor of a much more nuanced, localized narrative, noted David Martz, Jr., Senior Program Officer for the NEH Division of Public Programs, which administers the grant.

“The Robert R. Moton High School story contains valuable lessons for all Americans about courage, non-violence, and human dignity that could not be timelier in today’s world.”

About the National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.

AARP Virginia has joined with the D.O.V.E. (Desegregation of Virginia Education) Project, Virginia NAACP and the Urban League of Hampton Roads in a statewide effort to record oral histories and collect materials related to school desegregation in Virginia. The group’s Farmville event will be held at the Robert Russa Moton Museum on Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 11:30am to 4:00pm.

This event is free and open to the entire community and will include free food, a short film, exhibits and empowering workshops for all.

If you, or someone you know, is interested in being interviewed or sharing materials, you can pre-register by calling 1-877-926-8300. Day-of registration will also take place from 11:30am-noon.

For more information:

• Download the event flyer
• Read the AARP event press release
• Learn more about the D.O.V.E. Project

Theresa G is a radio/television personality and actor in Richmond, Virginia and the owner of G Communications, a company specializing in voice-overs, motivational speaking and character portrayals. As a writer, producer and talk show host, Ms. G. has interviewed many personalities including Pastor Shirley Caesar, Kirk Franklin, Bishop T. D. Jakes and former First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton. Through her original writings, she embodies such notable historic characters as Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Sally Hemmings, and now Barbara Johns.

This special event is co-hosted by Longwood University’s Student Government Association, Black Student Association, and Office of Student Diversity & Inclusion.

Photos courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Robert Russa Moton Museum asks that area churches observe Johns-Griffin Day on Sunday, April 22nd, 2012.

A resolution in recognition of their contributions can be read during worship services

Please click here to download the resolution.

Christopher Bonastia

Note: Updated Event Time- 11 am. Christopher Bonastia, author of Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, will be holding a book talk at the Robert Russa Moton Museum on Friday, March 23, 2012 at 11 am.

Christopher Bonastia first learned about the Prince Edward story when he read Richard Kluger’s Simple Justice as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. The book introduced him to the course of events that led to Prince Edward County’s inclusion in Brown v. Board of Education and sparked a life-long interest in the story.

“In the two-plus decades since then, while exploring civil rights history in considerable depth, I have found that the Prince Edward story is rarely included in accounts of the movement,” Bonastia said.

He recognized that Prince Edward was a missing piece in America’s history books. This omission motivated him to not only explore the Prince Edward story but to share it with the world. “I believed that the events in the county should not remain in the shadows of history,” stated Bonastia.

The product of his research is the book Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Bonastia’s book details Prince Edward County’s struggle to move from a segregated to an integrated system after the schools reopened and he hopes that it will teach the public about “the broader context of the school closings.”

“I don’t think one can comprehend why the county abandoned public education without knowing what was happening socially and politically, in the county, the state and the nation,” he said. “It’s crucial to understand how and why the closings occurred, and how people—black and white—responded inside and outside the county.”

“As Skip Griffin told me, the closings ‘didn’t happen like a bolt out of heaven.’”

To access the complete interview, click here.

The Robert Russa Moton Museum is a Civil Rights Museum housed in the former R. R. Moton High School. Moton is committed to the preservation and positive interpretation of the history of civil rights in education, specifically as it relates to Prince Edward County and the role its citizens played in America’s struggle to move from a segregated to an integrated society.

Jill Ogline Titus

Jill Titus, author of Brown’s Battleground: Students, Segregationists, & the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia, will be holding a book talk at the Robert Russa Moton Museum on Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 10 am.

Ms. Titus has long held an interest in Brown v. Board of Education. Her interest in Brown, however, quickly developed into a passion for the Prince Edward story when she learned about it as an intern in the National Park Service’s Historic Landmarks program.

“I couldn’t believe that this story wasn’t up there in the public mind with Birmingham and Selma as one of the greatest battles of the civil rights movement,” she said.

“Once I had a taste of the story, I couldn’t help but want to know more.”

Details about a commitment to segregation so strong as to shut down the county’s public school system captured her imagination; the tremendous impact that the school closings had in Prince Edward County and in the nation as a whole inspired her to dig deeper.

“I think the Prince Edward story challenges a lot of our assumptions about the civil rights movement,” stated Titus. “It puts ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges center stage, it reveals the limitations of many different strategies of protest, and it shines a glaring light on the lengths to which people will go to hold onto power and advantage.”

The result of her research is her book entitled Brown’s Battleground: Students, Segregationists, & the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

According to Ms. Titus, “between the significance of the issues at stake, the long-term impact on children and families, and the particular way the struggle touched almost every resident of the county,” the importance of this story cannot be overstated.

Likewise, she encourages all people to learn more about the Prince Edward story, just as she did.

“I think it’s important for people to appreciate the significance of what this community achieved. By bringing suit against those responsible for the decision to close the schools – and sacrificing so many things to avoid jeopardizing the lawsuit – Prince Edward blacks forced the Supreme Court to confront – and eventually block – a potentially massive shift toward “pay as you go” schooling, thus preserving the ideal of education for all.”

To access the complete interview, click here.

The Robert Russa Moton Museum is a Civil Rights Museum housed in the former R. R. Moton High School. Moton is committed to the preservation and positive interpretation of the history of civil rights in education, specifically as it relates to Prince Edward County and the role its citizens played in America’s struggle to move from a segregated to an integrated society.

The Library of Virginia describes the annual program and its honorees, saying, “The men and women featured as Trailblazers offer powerful examples of individuals who refused to be defined by their circumstances. Their biographies are a testament to the determination and perseverance displayed by extraordinary people during challenging times. Through education and advocacy, these individuals demonstrate how African Americans have actively campaigned for better lives for themselves and their people.”

To view the exhibit, visit the Robert Russa Moton Museum during museum hours before March 10, 2012. For more information or to plan a group visit please contact Patrice Carter at (434) 315-8775 or by email at patrice.carter@motonmuseum.org.

“The 2012 MLK Challenge was a huge success!” stated Jen Rentschler, Assistant Director of Volunteer and Service-Learning at Longwood University. “Over 80 students, faculty, and staff participated and assisted with projects with six different agencies. I think it says a lot about our University as a whole that so many would give up a “day off” to give back to their community.”

That morning, the students gathered at the museum in small groups to discuss what motivated them to participate in the MLK Challenge and to learn more about their community service projects. They then left to work with the community.

The students worked with six agencies in the Prince Edward community – Pregnancy Support Center, Clean Virginia Waterways, FACES Food Pantry, New Creations Childcare, Stepping Stones Preschool, and High Bridge Trail.

Upon the conclusion of their day, each of the students returned to Moton to reflect on the day, discussing what they did, why it was important, and what their experiences were.

Patrice Carter, Programs Coordinator for the museum, echoed Ms. Rentscher’s sentiments. “It was great to see college students be so heavily involved in taking on projects in the community and coming together to discuss the importance of community service.”

The Robert Russa Moton Museum is a Civil Rights Museum housed in the former R. R. Moton High School. Moton is committed to the preservation and positive interpretation of the history of civil rights in education, specifically as it relates to Prince Edward County and the role its citizens played in America’s struggle to move from a segregated to an integrated society.