Reverend J. Samuel Williams Jr. to keynote April 24th event
The Moton Museum and First Baptist Church of Farmville invite the public to a special Johns-Griffin Day commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the 1951 Moton Student Strike. The program takes place Sunday, April 24th, from 3:00-4:30PM, at the historic First Baptist Church, located in Downtown Farmville at the corner of Fourth and Main streets.
The Reverend J. Samuel Williams Jr., president of the Moton High School Class of 1952, civil rights activist and pastor of Levi Baptist Church, will deliver this year’s keynote. Joining Williams will be several Downtown Farmville pastors, including: Reverend James Ashton from First Baptist Church, Reverend Michael Kendall from Farmville United Methodist Church, Reverend Ronnie Kiehm from Farmville Baptist Church, Reverend Nancy Meck from Johns Memorial Episcopal Church, and Reverend Matthew Shannon from Beulah AME Church. The First Baptist Church Youth Choir will render the music. Education activist, writer and former Farmville Herald editor, Mr. Ken Woodley, will emcee. Light refreshments will be served.
The event, named in honor of civil rights leaders Barbara Johns Powell and the Reverend L. Francis Griffin Sr., commemorates the April 23, 1951 Moton High School student strike in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. It was inside the First Baptist Church that Moton students and families formally joined the NAACP legal campaign to end school segregation. These local families ultimately comprised 75 percent of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregated public schools.
For more information about this event, contact Justin Reid, Moton Museum Director of Education & Public Programs, at 434-390-2380 or justin[dot]reid[at]motonmuseum[dot]org.