civil rights Archives

Healing The Wounds Left By Massive Resistance

Kate Seltzer | March 26, 2019

Topics: chop suey books, civil rights, Ken Woodley, Massive Resistance, prince edward county, scholarship program, The Road To Healing, Virginia history

More than 2,000 black children were robbed of an education during Virginia’s Massive Resistance campaign against school integration. Ken Woodley wants to give it back.

Ken Woodley, author of The Road to Healing, will be speaking at Chop Suey bookstore this afternoon.

The Road to Healing centers around Woodley’s first-person account of the political struggle for, and subsequent passage of, the first Civil-Rights era reparations in U.S. history. The project aims to make amends for Virginia’s leadership and participation in Massive Resistance beginning in the mid-1950s. As part of this movement, Prince Edward County shut down every public school for five years beginning in 1959 — effectively robbing more than 2,000 black children and about 200 white children of an education.

“I had the idea for the state to create a scholarship fund to give that educational opportunity back, realizing of course that those individuals were no longer children and that they were in their fifties,” Woodley said.

None of us are responsible for the past, but what we are responsible for is our moment in time, the moment in time we share. We need to do the most we can, the best we can for each other. If there is a wound, and we have a way to bring healing to it, I think it’s our moral and civic responsibility to do so.

Woodley said the idea for the scholarship fund came to him on his morning drive to his job as editor of the Farmville Herald — a publication which once staunchly opposed integration of schools — back in 2003. He heard on the radio that the Virginia General Assembly was debating a resolution of “profound regret” for the state’s role in Massive Resistance. At the same time, he recalled a discussion by the Prince Edward County School Board about awarding honorary high school diplomas to those who had been locked out of schools during Massive Resistance.

“Those two discussions flowed into one in my head just immediately,”
Woodley said. “I just had a complete full-blown idea for a reparations program that would take an individual from GED all the way up to a masters or a doctorate degree if that was the journey that they wished.”

Woodley began his advocacy for the scholarship that very day. Throughout the legislative battle that ensued from February of 2003 to June of 2004, Woodley kept a diary of every interaction he had with every elected official and Civil Rights icon he spoke to.

“I kept every single email,” he said. “I just kept everything. I put it all in boxes that I marked ‘Brown Scholarship crusade, never ever throw away.’”

The initial plan, Woodley said, was to eventually donate all these records to a museum. That changed in 2015, when his 36-year employment with The Farmville Herald ended with its sale and substantial downsizing.

“I felt that I would have to be the one to point the finger at one, possibly two people who would have to be downsized,” Woodley said. “It was terrible to face that decision. I could not bring myself to do that to my colleagues.”

So, Woodley “downsized” himself, hoping that his salary would be enough to prevent further budget cuts. With an unanticipated amount of free time on his hands, Woodley decided to chronicle the narrative of the Brown Scholarship fund.

Woodley enters the story in 2003, but it really begins on April 23, 1951: with sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns, who led a student walkout in protest of segregation at Robert Russa Moton High School in Prince Edward County. Barbara Johns’ case was eventually taken up by the NAACP and Oliver Hill, and became one of the five cases reviewed the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. Just as Prince Edward County was the epicenter of Massive Resistance, it was also the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, 250 individuals benefit from the Brown Scholarship program, but that didn’t always look like it would become a reality. The scholarship required legislation to create the program and a budget amendment to allocate its funding. At first, the Virginia House of Delegates voted to create the scholarship program — but with no funding.

“The scholarship is inherently the money!” Woodley said. “A scholarship without the money is a lie.”

Then, the Virginia Senate voted to allocate $100,000 over two years to the scholarship fund, a far cry from the requested $2 million.

“Nobody believed people would use it,” Woodley explained.

In the end, half of the funding for the scholarship program was financed by billionaire John Kluge. The other half passed through the General Assembly on Veto Day of 2004.

“There was really no turn that GA politicians couldn’t twist, no twist they couldn’t turn,” Woodley said. “Until the very end, when it’s just the bottom of the 10th inning, it came to be.”

According to Woodley, it all would have been worth it if even one person received an education they wouldn’t have otherwise without the Brown Scholarships. He emphasized the need for future reparations, including what he calls a “domestic Marshall Plan,” would include “significant investments in education and infrastructure and sustained massive investments in urban and rural communities with significant African American populations.”

Woodley says the story of the Brown Scholarships should serve as a model for the country, especially given the rise of white supremacy.

“The full arc of Prince Edward’s story of racial reconciliation is one that I believe should and will give hope to the nation,” he said. “And God we need it so bad, more than I could have ever imagined.”

Woodley turned his records of the fight to create and fund the Brown Scholarship into The Road To Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story In Prince Edward County, Virginia. He’ll be reading from the book tonight at Chop Suey Books, located at 2913 W. Cary St. in Carytown, beginning at 6 PM. Copies of the book will be for sale at the event, and Woodley will be available for signings afterward. For more info, click here.

Confronting Racism: A Conversation to End Hate

Sarah Honosky | August 30, 2018

Topics: art, civil rights, discrimination, equality, hate, racism, RVA ARt, sexism, Virginia Holocaust Museum

This September, a nationally-recognized exhibit is coming to the Virginia Holocaust Museum to start a conversation on which lives depend. “Break Glass: The Art of V.L. Cox – A Conversation to End Hate“ is a striking collection of found-object sculptures meant to shape a timely narrative about civil rights and equality.

“Discrimination never stops with one group, that has been my message since day one,” said Cox, an Arkansas native. “If you allow one group to be dehumanized and treated as second-class citizens then it will automatically bleed over into others. Discrimination is like a virus, it spreads.”

From the series of doors once installed on the Lincoln Memorial steps to protest a discriminatory Arkansas religious freedom bill, to an original 95-year-old bloodstained Klan Robe, the works offer a cathartic commentary of the discrimination and prejudice that plagues American southern culture.

After seeing the exhibit at the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, VHM’s director of education Megan Ferenczy knew immediately the works would be invaluable installations in Richmond’s museum.

“This is really relevant to what we do here,” said Ferenczy. “It doesn’t necessarily focus on the Holocaust, but it focuses on the larger issues of discrimination, intolerance, and hatred in our own country.”

Ferenczy explained that most importantly, the works create a conversation that is crucial to the ignition of positive progress. Although many of the works aren’t directly commenting on the treatment of the Jewish population in America, they further an essential dialogue in a space where creating conversation is the mission.

“The purpose of it is to confront this legacy of racism,” said Angela Rueda, assistant curator at the VHM. “It’s shining a light on this legacy, where hate and bigotry hides, and then using that as a platform to start a conversation…to create a space where people can confront this and…reach a place of civility.”

“White Bread” – This piece was created after Cox read about “Klan Camp” for kids held this summer at the National Ku Klux Klan headquarters in Harrison, Arkansas. The teddy bear is facing backwards to represent the loss of innocence, and addresses children and early indoctrination

Many of the pieces are massive, like lifesize hooded figures, columns, and doors. “You enter the space and you’re immediately confronted with it,” said Rueda. Superficially, many of the pieces present messages that feel at odds with the space–like the gut punch of walking into a room and coming face to face with a Klan member–but deeper reflection reveals the stark juxtaposition of the intended use of these objects, and the way they are being offered to the exhibit’s audience.

Closer examination of each piece unveils hidden messages that, even when subtler than the iconic imagery of the white hood, still hits just as hard. For example, a mixed-media American flag–”Stained”– is actually created from pages of the Bible, ripped from their binding to represent the harm done when these verses are torn from context and used to oppress others.

“Stained”- Represents the damage the extreme faction of the ‘Tea Party’ has done to our country when the pages of the Bible are ripped out of context and used to harm others. Stained is created with over six hundred and six (606) individual pages of the Bible made into tea bags with real tea leaves inside.

Cox worked with ministers of different denominations when creating this piece, careful to tell her story, but to include the voices of others as well. “People rip pages out of the Bible every single day to harm others, you’re taking them out to show them that that’s wrong,” said Cox.

Rueda posited that while most people entering the museum are ready to face the atrocities of the Holocaust, they are not always ready to turn their eye inward on our own country, and the current perpetuation of hate and injustice in America today.

“This stuff is in our backyard. It’s right here in our state,” said Rueda, a fact made apparent by the recent one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August. Despite declarations of progress and advancement, white supremacists and fascists were more empowered than ever to hoist their Nazi-ideologies sans hood, and revive World War II era anti-semitic chants, like Nazi slogan “blood and soil.” It’s vital to confront these issues as a current national epidemic, and not arbitrarily confine them to a past that isn’t so long gone.

“It all starts with conversation,” said Cox. “People don’t talk to each other anymore. We communicate behind keyboards, and behind cell phones. It’s important that we get to know each other again.”

According to Cox, the best way to do that is through art. “You can look at something and you’re impacted by it,” she said. “You see it, feel it, it moves you. It communicates something to you, and that’s been going on since the beginning of time.”

“When archeologists do a dig in an ancient civilization, the first thing they look for are objects. They look for murals, they look for mosaics, they look for hand carved tools. That’s what tells them about this society, this civilization,” said Cox. “The arts are very powerful.”

Works like this help create the language future historians will use to understand our culture, but more importantly, it’s inserting that language into our current narrative. Through her work, Cox provides a context that can begin to change minds–even those as deeply rooted in Southern culture as rural Arkansas, or as historically chained to toxic narratives as our own former capital of the Confederacy.

Cox is from deep in the Bible Belt, where miscommunication, isolation, and misconception are to blame for much of the area’s deeply intolerant rhetoric. Arkansas has only 70 percent broadband access, Cox explained, and much of south Arkansas lacks cell phone service. The ability to surf the web is a luxury not everyone can afford. “Sometimes messages get cherry-picked, twisted, and turned around to be a misleading statement, and then it’s spread into the population.”

That makes the circulation of intelligent and thoughtful conversation critical, and is part of the reason why Break Glass is presented hand-in-hand with a number of educational components and opportunities.

The VHM is holding a professional development workshop for teachers to give educators the resources they need to have difficult and essential conversations with their students. “It empowers teachers and gives them the tools to have these conversations,” said Ferenczy. “If these conversations aren’t happening in the classroom, then where can they be had?”

They also invited reformed former skinhead Christian Picciolini to speak at the museum on Oct. 17, presenting to students, then later in the evening to the public. Once a leader of an American white power organization in Chicago, he is now the co-founder of a non-profit peace advocacy organization who works to get others out of a life of violent extremism.

Education is crucial to break the cycle of ignorance. Though it would be easier if our history remained rooted in the past, the cyclical nature of prejudice guarantees the repetition of inequality if a dialogue is never created.

“IT’S TIME WE START OVER AND TALK ABOUT HATE”

“The arts step up in times of need, in dark times,” said Cox. “They play a powerful role in our society in reaching across boundaries and bringing about change.”

For some, the Holocaust is ongoing, and it’s only through conversations like those created by Break Glass that we can shatter the established national narrative.

“There really isn’t ever an end to the Holocaust, is there? Yes, maybe we hold people accountable, and maybe justice in some legal sense is served, but for Holocaust survivors, the Holocaust is still going on, for their children it’s still happening,” said Ferenczy. “This hatred still exists, it never went away.”

Break Glass opens on Sept. 28 and will run through Feb. 11 at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. Admission is free and open to the public.

Photos Courtesy of V.L. Cox. Top Image: “Soiled” A 1920 (95-year-old) bloodstained Klan robe installation. The robe was kept intact, and Vox purchased the vintage metal signage to show the true level of hatred this robe and installation represents.

“I Have a Dream” – August 28, 1963

Landon Shroder | August 28, 2018

Topics: 1963, civil rights, I have a dream, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr., racism, speech

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr delivered one of the most powerful, impactful, and gripping speeches in American history. The speech, given at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, brought around 250,000 people to Washington D.C. and in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln called for an end to racial discrimination and for the US to live up to its highest promise and ideals (something it has still failed to achieve).

Which is why 55 years later, amongst the tribalism, white nationalism, and xenophobia of 2018, King’s speech is still so essential. Not just for the sweeping oratory, prose, and poetry that most people in the US and throughout the world are familiar with, but also for what the Reverend(s) William Barber and Liz Theoharis of the Poor People’s Campaign recently said in an interview with The Guardian, “Like Dr. King, we must refuse to believe that the great vaults of the nation are bankrupt. Reigniting the movement of poor people that Dr. King and others called for in 1968 is the best way to honor his legacy. We are doing what he said –grassroots leaders in states across the country are building a moral movement to reclaim our nation’s lost soul.”

On the 55th anniversary of King’s “I have a Dream” speech, take a moment to read his address (below) and reflect on what 2018 has come to mean, not only for ourselves, but for our cities, communities, and country.

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.

So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the worn threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of Civil Rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama — with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification — one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be plain and the crooked places will be made straight, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brother-hood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. “From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Civil rights era art still reflects current struggle

Caley Sturgill | July 19, 2017

Topics: African American art, art, Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, civil rights, gallery, richmond

In 1943, the nation’s first black-owned art gallery opened its doors in Washington, D.C. Nearly 75 years later, its pieces have been brought back to life in Richmond at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia (BHMVA).

A Special Kind of Soul, on display June 14-October 14, features works from 22 original artists showcased in the Barnett-Aden Gallery from civil-rights-era Washington D.C. The gallery provided crucial exhibition opportunities for emerging African American artists, who were traditionally shut out of the mainstream art world.

Amid an era of strict segregation, the gallery was ahead of its time. It caught national attention for its promotion of work from both black and white artists.

“At that time, we were deep into living segregated lives,” said Adele Johnson, Interim Director of BHMVA. “Artists didn’t have an opportunity to voice their opinions through their work to a large audience. Just as it is today, art is an opportunity for them to express themselves.”

Driskell, “Untitled.” Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia

In the walls of 2017’s black history museum, the pieces have found a new home during a notably similar era. Johnson cited parallels between the gallery’s 1930’s-1960’s human rights efforts and modern politics even after three quarters of a century have passed.

“We’re facing some of the same struggles now that we faced then,” Johnson said. “There are still issues related to gender, related to race and religion, on and on. . . but between then and now, there are numerous outlets and people are more accepting of the artists’ voices. There are more opportunities to be heard, so I think that’s a big difference between now and the early years.”

The artwork in the gallery comes from 22 of Barnett-Aden’s original artists and varies across artistic mediums. Much of the gallery’s work was auctioned off and dispersed among art collectors, including Richmond’s Margaret and John Gottwald who donated the pieces for A Special Kind of Soul. In addition to paint and print, the exhibit hosts sculptures, lithographs, and intricate wood- and linoleum-cut pieces.

“Elizabeth Catlett is one of the more well-known artists in this exhibition, and her work is really special,” Johnson said. “In a lot of the prints you’ll see her concern about social injustice, making sure people understood the contributions of women to society. And the detail that’s in her pieces is absolutely amazing. It must have taken days, weeks to do the work.”

Inside the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Catlett’s work saw public eyes for the first time alongside many other pieces now housed in Richmond. Decades after Barnett-Aden closed its doors, in 2017 BHMVA captures the same spirit as its predecessor.

“Barnett-Aden was the first of its kind, and our museum is the first black history museum here in this community,” Johnson said. “I think we both have a vision, which is to tell the stories and make sure that African Americans have the same opportunities that their counterparts do. There are a lot of similarities there.”

Alston, “Untitled.” Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia

Richmond’s BHMVA aims to show the moments in America’s past that are often left out of today’s politics and educational systems. The gallery preserves African American history, Johnson noted, by exposing the public to its pieces that might otherwise be forgotten.

“We tell the untold stories, the under-told stories, the forgotten stories,” she said. “If we don’t, who will?”

BHMVA presents rotating exhibits in addition to permanent pieces on its first floor. Its works give visitors a firsthand look into life during the Civil Rights Movement.

“About a month ago, we had a gentleman come in who was a member of the Richmond 34,” Johnson said, citing the historical group of Virginia Union University students who organized a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960. “We have photographs on the wall, he said ‘I heard my picture was in here,’ and sure enough he was front and center in it. You can tell somebody about the Richmond 34, but to come in and see the photos, that’s what makes a difference.”

A Special Kind of Soul follows BHMVA’s Murray DePillars: Double Vision, which featured works of the longtime VCU School of the Arts dean and prominent Richmond artist. Johnson welcomed the new show after saying a tough goodbye to Double Vision at the museum.

“I was emotionally, physically sad to see it go down,” she said. “But when A Special Kind of Soul went up, it felt like a rebirth. You can see the same pieces every single day, but they’ll still mean something new to you each time.”

The new exhibit draws its name from Barnett-Aden. By featuring underrepresented artists, African American in particular, the gallery gave voices to a marginalized part of its community. Charles White, an original artist, credited Barnett-Aden’s owners James Herring and Alonzo Aden.

“Black artists are particularly indebted to these two beautiful people,” White said. “Barnett-Aden represents a special kind of soul.”