Photo above shows participants in this week's dedication of the Light of Reconciliation Memorial in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. The lady in the wheelchair is Mrs. Louise Willis Foster, who signed, as a parent, Davis vs. Prince Edward County n 1951 and is the last living litigant from those days.
June 3, 2009
Prince Edward Courthouse was the setting of a moving and historic tribute to the heroes who played a significant role in school desegregation in the 1950s. A permanent memorial honors the students of Robert Russa Moton High School and Barbara Rose Johns who against the odds as young students conducted a walk out to draw attention to the separate but unequal condition of schools in Prince Edward and much of Virginia. Their walk out became a national story overnight, and eventually helped end segregation in public schools in the United States.
A marker informs visitors about those dramatic and tumultuous times in our nation's history, and many who were alive and part of those events attended the ceremony including Mrs. Louise Foster, a Prince Edward County resident and the last living parent and original litigant in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. The Moton former students were the first to view the Light of Reconciliation Memorial.
In 1959, Prince Edward County closed its public schools in defiance of the desegregation ruling by the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The schools remained closed until 1954 when a second Supreme Court decision, Griffin v. County School Board forced the county to open its schools.
For more information contact Prince Edward County Assistant County Administrator Sarah Elam Puckett at (434) 392-8837.