Background
R.R. Moton High School, an all-black high school in Farmville, Virginia, founded in 1923, suffered from terrible conditions due to underfunding. The school did not have a gymnasium, cafeteria or teachers' restrooms. Teachers and students did not have desks or blackboards, and due to overcrowding, some students had to take classes in an immobilized, decrepit school bus parked outside the main school building. The school's requests for additional funds were denied by the all-white school board.
In response, on April 23, 1951, a 16-year-old student named Barbara Rose Johns covertly organized a student general strike. She forged notes to teachers telling them to bring their students to the auditorium for a special announcement. When the school's students showed up, Johns took the stage and persuaded the school to strike to protest poor school conditions. Over 450 walked out and marched to the homes of members of the school board, who refused to see them. Thus began a two-week protest.
Further details about this story can be found in Taylor Branch's Parting The Waters, America In The King Years 1954-63, published by Simon and Schuster in 1988. This book mentions that the headmaster was told over the phone that the police were about to arrest two of his students at the bus station. He failed to recognize this call as a ruse, so that he went to town. Only thereafter were notes calling to a special assembly delivered to the classroom. Whether Barbara Johns forged these notes is not mentioned.
This book also gives a different account of the teaching conditions. It states that some classes were held in "three temporary tar-paper shacks" built to house the overflow at the school. It was so cold during the winter that teachers and students had to keep their coats on. No classes held in a school bus are mentioned, although the school's bus is said to be hand-me-down from the white school, and was driven by the history teacher.
Barbara Johns was the niece of Vernon Johns, the famous, black Baptist preacher and civil rights leader.
Read more about this topic: Davis V. County School Board Of Prince Edward County
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