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  • Title: Barbara Rose Johns - R.R. Moton High School
  • Location: Farmville, VA
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Barbara Johns and her fellow students became symbols of Virginia’s school desegregation crisis of the 1950s. R.R. Moton High School was the scene of a strike that began on April 23, 1951 that was led by her and her fellow students of the then all-African American institution to protest their inadequate and unequal educational facilities. The strike led to the court case Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which was combined with others before the U. S. Supreme Court as Brown v. Board of Education. That case was the basis for the landmark decision that struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine governing public policy. The decision gave birth to Virginia’s massive resistance movement during which Prince Edward County closed its schools until 1964 rather than desegregate. Studies were underway at the time of listing in the registers for developing the school building into a civil rights museum.