The Prince Edward Promise

BY KEN WOODLEY, EDITOR OF THE FARMVILLE HERALD

WHEN Neil Armstrong declared on the surface of the moon that he had taken "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" he was merely following in footsteps already taken by citizens of Prince Edward County back on Earth.

When one charts the course blazed across history's sky by the people of Prince Edward, the rocket's red glare illuminates profound contributions of national consequence in two significant and inextricably linked areas‹education and civil rights.

The county is home to Hampden-Sydney College, founded in 1775, a year before the nation, itself, came into being, an institution which holds fast to its distinction as one of only three all-male colleges in the U.S. There were thirteen colonies before the signing of the Declaration of Independence but only fifteen colleges in North America. Hampden-Sydney was one of them, Prince Edward soil feeling the footsteps of those who were among the very first Americans to pursue an undergraduate degree. Historic? Patrick Henry and James Madison were among the college's early trustees.

Longwood University remains rooted in the very center of Prince Edward's county seat, Farmville, where it has stood since the Farmville Female Seminary was incorporated by the General Assembly in 1839. In 1884, the Commonwealth of Virginia perceived a distinctive role for the institution, purchasing the property and creating the state's very first institution of higher learning for women‹again, educational history made in Prince Edward. Several name changes later, Longwood College was born in 1949, a campus that launched the teaching careers of thousands of young women who went on to have an immeasurable impact on hundreds of thousands of children in schools in every corner of the state.

Prince Edward County‹named for Edward Augustus, a son of Frederick, Prince of Wales‹was created in 1754, the county's territory taken from Amelia. Two hundred years later, the United States Supreme Court would issue a ruling in a case known as Brown v. Board of Education. The 1954 decision declared that segregation in the nation's public schools was unconstitutional. The landmark decree can be traced back three years, to April 23, 1951, when African-American students at R. R. Moton High School went on strike against separate and unequal conditions at the Farmville school. Their action, more than four years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus, gave birth to the civil rights movement and played an instrumental role, along with similar legal action against segregated schools in three other states plus the District of Columbia, in the Brown case and decision.

That is the greatest gift the people of Prince Edward County have given the nation‹the constitutional right of every child to a public education. No county in any of the other 49 states has given more. The action of those Prince Edward teenagers, and the support which followed from their families, helped America live up to the words which forged the nation in 1776‹"all men are created equal."

Less known, but not less significant than Brown, is the Griffin v. Prince Edward United States Supreme Court decision of 1964. That case, precipitated by Prince Edward County's decision to close its public schools rather than integrate them, made Brown mean what it said. Griffin v. Prince Edward is the case and decision which makes a public school education the constitutional right of every child in the land of the free and the home of the brave‹a right won by Prince Edward residents for all Americans for evermore.

A giant leap for humanity born of countless bravely determined steps, large and small, by sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers who woke up every morning and looked out the window, opened the door and walked out each day into Prince Edward County, believing in America even when America didn't seem to believe in itself.

Countless names and events helped shape Prince Edward County during the past 250 years, but none so shaped the nation itself, as these, and none give us more hope for the future.

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© Copyright 2003, 2004, Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors, William G. Fore, Jr., Chairman.