Prince Edward County

A. Prince Edward County: Connections to Lynchburg

Henry Powell shared this experience with O.C. Cardwell:


"...I came to live in Virginia early in 1950. I taught school in Prince Edward County. I have something interesting to tell you about that, too. I think maybe the first month that I was in Prince Edward County, a young lady came to the house one day. She was petitioning and she asked me and my brother to sign this petition aimed at correcting the terrible high school conditions for Black children that existed in Prince Edward County at that time. This young lady was Ms. Barbara Johns [Vernon Johns' niece] who is now my sister-in-law. On the petitioning, she gained a husband, my brother. . . As a result of the Supreme Court suit, they closed the school, so I lost my job.

The interesting thing about this is, here I am high and dry, down in Prince Edward, no job, bills piling up and no money. I wondered just what am I going to do. Well, about that time a Black guy came to my house one day.

He said, "You wanna go back to school?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said he was representing a group of Blacks who wanted to find a school for Black children. "To sweeten the deal, I've got $1,500 I'll give you if you say yes." 1

Well, $1,500 in those times was enough to almost make me stand on my head and yell "Yes!" But because of what was involved, I couldn't say yes; I had to say no. I guess in a way I can say I've paid my dues as far as equal rights are concerned. I can't imagine during the five years Prince Edward County schools were closed how much money I could have made if I had been a teacher or principal". 2

B. Prince Edward/E.C. Glass desegregation

 

Lynda Woodruff recalled a 1961 picnic for Prince Edward students. These students, who had family or friends in Lynchburg, had come to Lynchburg to live and to go to school because their public school has been closed:


Virgil Wood had that whole picnic. I’ll never forget. It was right after we had heard the decision that we were going to Glass. The same time, Virgil had busloads of kids come up from Prince Edward County. And so I remember feeling—that whole experience of being with those children and knowing what happened in Prince Edward, then knowing that the next year, January, I feared we would have the same thing.” [i.e.  that she and Owen Cardwell  would somehow be responsible if the Lynchburg Public Schools were to shut down, too. Lynda Woodruff was thirteen years old at the time.]3

 

Notes

1. A group of White citizens in Prince Edward County set up a private organization, Southside Schools, Inc. to educate African-American children but the N.A.A.C.P. counseled Black parents not to participate as they were entitled to a free public education.
2. "No Matter How Long,"an unpublished manuscript by O.C. Cardwell, pp. 58, 59.
3.  Interview, January 15, 2002

Links

Henry Powell’s autobiography
VCU Libaries: Seperate But Not Equal:Race, Education, and Prince Edward County, Virginia

Recommended film:

With All Deliberate Speed,” (90 minutes), 2004. Directed by Peter Gilbert (“Hoop Dreams.”)