"A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM - BARBARA JOHNS PART II"

“A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM – BARBARA JOHNS PART II”

            The Superintendent of Prince Edward County’s (PEC) segregated schools was the son of Presbyterian missionaries named TJ McElwane. Since his appointment in 1918, he had expended a lot of energy on keeping neo-slavery in power in the schools.  However, Barbara Johns was coming for him.  As we noted last week, she was a 15 year old student in Farmville’s rundown, “separate and unequal” black school.  Black parents were working for a new black school, and black leaders like Rev. Francis Griffin, Negro county agricultural agent John Lancaster (yes, there was a separate agency for African-Americans), and Boyd Jones (principal of black Moton High School) were lobbying heavily.  During the summer of 1950, Barbara Johns began to think that she must act. 

           

            As she began her junior year in high school, she talked with teachers about it, and one of them challenged her:  “Why don’t you do something about it?”  It stung her, but it also inspired her.  She met with Connie Stokes, president of the Student Council, and Connie’s brother John, who was a star athlete.  As John remembered it, she spoke with great effectiveness:  “She opened our eyes to a lot of things.  She emphasized that we must follow our parents, but in some instances, a little child shall lead them.”  They signed on and recruited a few more students – but no adults allowed –no parents, no teachers, no principals, no ministers.  The plan?  To go on strike, to boycott classes until the white school board agreed to build a new black high school.  It was a plan hatched and carried out in secret.

            Over the weekend of April 21-22, 1951,  word was passed among the students – take action on Monday.  On Monday morning, Principal Boyd Jones got an urgent phone call, saying that two of his students were at the Farmville bus station being hassled by the white police, and they were likely to be arrested and beaten up.  As soon as he left for the bus station, student monitors passed out notes from Principal Jones to the teachers, calling for an assembly at 11 AM.  Barbara Jones had forged the notes, and when all the students and teachers were gathered, the curtains were pulled back to reveal 16 year old Barbara Johns at the podium, with the strike committee seated behind her and the football team acting as marshals in front of her.  She called for order and invited the teachers to leave.  Seeing a dangerous situation developing, several teachers stepped forward to take over the room, but on Barbara’s cue, the marshals stepped up to block them.  Barbara then took off her shoe and rapped it on the podium – “All teachers must get out of this meeting!”  Most left, but some stayed to try to gain control. 

            Barbara Johns then spoke eloquently from her heart – it was time that they were treated equally with whites, time to have a decent black high school, time for students to take leadership.  The strike committee’s proposal:  they were going to march out of the school right then, and they were going to stay out until the white school board agreed to build a new and decent black high school.  The vote was taken, and the students marched out, up to Rev. Griffin’s First Baptist Church.  The boycott held, despite great stress and duress.  When Barbara Johns got home that night, she told her grandmother Mary Croner, “Grandma, I walked out of school today and took 450 students with me.”  Mary Croner later recalled:  “It took my breath away – you reckon you done the right thing?”  Johns answered:  “I believe so – stick with us.”

            Reverend Griffin helped them contact the NAACP to get legal assistance, and Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson arrived at a meeting on April 25 in a room overflowing with black students and adults.  The lawyers indicated that the NAACP was changing strategy – they no longer were seeking “separate but equal” schools – they now were seeking to end segregation and neo-slavery.  The assembly decided to accept that challenge, and a 14 year old girl, Dorothy Davis, was the first name listed on the lawsuit challenging segregation itself.  It became known as Davis v Prince Edward County, and though it lost in federal district court in Richmond in 1952, the NAACP filed an appeal to SCOTUS.  The Supreme Court agreed to hear it, but it grouped it with several other NAACP lawsuits, consolidating 5 cases into what became Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

            In that case, SCOTUS overturned “separate but equal,” but as we all know, racism and white supremacy run deep.  For her own protection, Barbara Johns was sent to New York for her senior year.  The state of Virginia closed all of its public schools for awhile in response to Brown.  PEC closed its schools from 1959-1963, being the last county in Virginia to re-open the public schools.  If you go to PEC today, you will find the public schools there as segregated as they were when Barbara Johns rapped her shoe on the podium in 1951.  A little child did lead them then, but her teacher’s question to Barbara resonates to us in our time: “What are you going to do about it?” 

(For more information on this story and on all the cases that led to the Brown decision, see Richard Kluger’s excellent book on it:  “Simple Justice.”)