Overview

By Fredreka Schouten | Gannett News Service

FARMVILLE, Va. – On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously declared in the Brown v. Board of Education case that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Rather than comply with the court's groundbreaking decision, white officials in the small Virginia town of Farmville and surrounding Prince Edward County simply shut down their public schools for five years.

The 1959 shutdown came as a bitter betrayal to blacks in Farmville, whose activism had helped lay the groundwork for the Supreme Court ruling.

Most white students in Prince Edward County attended private academies created just for them.

But black families were devastated.

Some sent their children to live with strangers as far away as Iowa, Nebraska and Massachusetts. Others stayed in this small timber and tobacco town and remained out of school until 1964, when federal courts intervened and ordered the restoration of public education.

Many never recovered those lost years.

Click to read and hear their stories >>