History
The school was built and opened in September 1954 as Fairfax County's sole high school for black students after members of the black community, exasperated by having to send their children as far as Manassas or the District of Columbia, agitated for a school closer to home. Four months after the opening, the Supreme Court declared separate education for students of different races was unconstitutional. But not until September 1960 did 19 black Fairfax high school students began classes at eight previously "white only" schools.
When Fairfax County Public Schools totally integrated, the school opened as Luther Jackson Intermediate School in September 1965. Taylor M. Williams was the only principal of Luther Jackson High School. He continued as principal until he became Area I Superintendent in 1971. A showcase in the foyer proudly displays archival information of Luther Jackson, the school.
Dr. Luther P. Jackson, for whom the school was named, distinguished himself as a historian and an educator whose nationally recognized writings identified the contributions of African-Americans in Virginia's history. He headed the History Department at Virginia State College in Petersburg, provided leadership in the Virginia Teachers Association, organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and established the Negro Voters League of Virginia. The N.A.A.C.P. recognized his efforts to enhance the voting rights of African-Americans in Virginia. He contributed numerous articles to the Norfolk Journal and Guide concerning the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy. This scholar, man of action and model of character continues to be an inspiration to the community, staff and students of the school that proudly bears his name.
Read more about this topic: Luther Jackson Middle School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I assure you that in our next class we will concern ourselves solely with the history of Egypt, and not with the more lurid and non-curricular subject of living mummies.”
—Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Prof. Norman (Frank Reicher)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)