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    Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
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    Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
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    Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
    Ebook415 pages6 hours

    Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle

    By Kristen Green

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    About this ebook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, this provocative true story reveals a little-known chapter of American history: the period after the Brown v. Board of Education decision when one Virginia school system refused to integrate.

    In the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia’s Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community’s white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.

    Kristen Green, a longtime newspaper reporter, grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which did not admit black students until 1986. In her journey to uncover what happened in her hometown before she was born, Green tells the stories of families divided by the school closures and of 1,700 black children denied an education. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period in our nation’s past, her own family’s role—no less complex and painful—comes to light.

    At once gripping, enlightening, and deeply moving, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is a dramatic chronicle that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today, and a timeless story about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 9, 2015
    ISBN9780062268693
    Author

    Kristen Green

    Kristen Green has worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Richmond Times-Dispatch. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. This is her first book. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.

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    Reviews for Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County

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    • 4/5
      5393. Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle, by Kristen Green (read 24 Jul 2016) This is a very personalized account of the tragic decision of authorities in Prince Edward County to end public education for the children of the county and use money to set up a 'private' school for white kids only. The author's parents were in the 'private' school when they were growing up and in fact the author herself was in the same school, although by the time she was in school there was a public school for kids regardless of whether they were white or black I was dismayed anew to read of the viciousness of pro-segregation people toward those whites who opposed the actions of the segregationists.. And I found it good to read of the change that most of the people in Prince Edward County express today. The Board of Supervisors in 2008 resolved that it what was done in 1959 was wrong and expressed grief for the evil done to the children by the actions of the Board and the whites in depriving the black kids of education in in the 1960's..
    • 5/5
      A good history lesson for people from the areas around Farmville and the world....Thought provoking for my girlfriend, my daughter and my 2 grandchildren who recently moved into the area....A great book!
    • 5/5
      And yet NOTHING was done in Prince Edward County, Virginia - NOTHING to educate black students for four years, from 1960 - 1964, as white supremacists shut down the public schools rather than educating all children together. In Farmville, home of the author, this disgraceful, illegal, shameful chapter in American history has only one hero: Barbara Rose Johns, who led a walkout of black students to protest the appalling conditions in their stable-like school.Kristen Green, reporter, is in an awkward situation - she benefited from Brown v Board of Education when her grandfather and other town "leaders" founded Prince Edward Academy, a private "academy" for white students. Now grown, returned back to Farmville as a parent married to a bi-racial man, she sets about speaking to residents and family about the events of 60 years ago, and it still ain't pretty. Quotes: "Kenneth B. Clark wrote a brief explaining the psychological harm to black children from living in what was essentially a caste system, suggesting that segregation creates a feeling of inferiority and humiliation that leads to self hatred and the rejection of their own race.""People reveal their racist beliefs in Farmville the way they do in towns across America: when they are comfortable, when they think they are among like-minded people, particularly when they have a glass of alcohol in hand.""A teacher told her students that buses were integrated not because of Rosa Parks but because white women wanted their maids back and were tired of being inconvenienced by the Montgomery bus boycott.""We do not oppose education for Negroes. We just oppose integrated education."" Doug retired with a master's in business administration, but all he accomplished, none of it erased what he had endured as a child. He always wondered, "Where would I be if I had gone to school for those four years. How much further would I be in life?""Where would I have been, " Ricky wondered, "if my foundation had been built?""The school did not integrate. Rather, it changed its admission policy.""The apologies to students shut out of school have never been adequate. Sometimes the community reminds me of a child who expects everything to return to normal once he says he is sorry. In this way, the town never grew up.""Because I attended an all-white school for so many years, I was long uncomfortable around people of color. I equated being black with being poor. People of any race other than white were a curiosity, and I stared."(CAPS, mine) "Historian David Blight: RESPONSIBILITY FOR HISTORY CAN BE GENERALIZED AND SPREAD AROUND SO DIFFUSELY THAT NO PERSON OR PEOPLE ARE EVER DEEMED THE SOURCE OF RADICAL EVIL."This is as much of a must read as Ta-Nehisi Coates's love story to his son.Please read, share, and challenge the minds of racists who say "I didn't do anything. I didn't own any slaves."
    • 4/5
      This was an eye-opening look at the lengths that people took to avoid desegregation of schools in the 1950's in Prince Edward County, VA. The shocking thing for me was that most of this book takes place during my lifetime. I was unaware of these events because it's not been made knowledgeable to many of us as a part of our history. The author does a good job of bringing that period to life for this, her own hometown county. In her research she also becomes aware of her own family's involvement in this battle that closed all of the public schools in the county rather than accept desegregation. She records the break down of the path of opportunity and separation of families for so many of the black children and youth during this time and the resulting steps backward of the region. I am grateful for her preservation of the history of this time and place, and I hope that we can continue to learn from the past and move forward without the fear that is the base of racism. The actions of the past might seem ridiculous to us now, but they were and are still are very real today for many people. The author's hope and belief in the next generation is one that I share.
    • 5/5
      This is the story of a town in Virginia that decided long before the historic case of Brown v. Board of Education was decided that it would never allow segregation to occur in its schools and what the steps they were willing to take to achieve this goal. Instead of complying with the court orders surrounding this case, they simply closed the public schools and opened a private school for white children only. The result was years when black children were denied an education, as were white children too poor or lacking connections to also attend that private school. The author, presently in a biracial marriage, comes back to her hometown to look at those years, the effects those decisions had on so many involved and how her family in particular dealt with the times. While she is not proud of her family history and the tragedies that resulted from those decisions, she seems to have come to some understandings and acceptance of her family’s past. This is a very compelling look at a time period and community that handled things very poorly.