In 1951, the 450 students at the all-black R.R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, walked out of their school in protest against its unequal conditions, as compared with the all-white Farmville High School. The students became plaintiffs in one of the cases that came to comprise Brown v. Board of Education (Davis v. County School Board). County officials closed all the public schools for five years, from 1959 to 1964, to circumvent the desegregation ruling. This Essay explores the ways in which the quest for equal education by blacks in the county led them through a cycle of victimhood and victory.
Click on a link below to access the full text of this article. These are third-party content providers and may require a separate subscription for access.