by Tom Chillemi –
Those who attended the 2022 Founders Day Black History Presentation on Feb.12 were reminded of some Black history.
Middlesex High School teacher Michael Pierce recalled a famous court case that began in Prince Edward County in Virginia. Barbara Johns was a 16-year-old high school student in Farmville. Like most segregated African-American schools of the era hers was woefully inadequate. In 1951 Johns organized a student walkout in protest of the unequal conditions, which drew the attention of the NAACP, explained Pierce. A lawsuit was filed and the case was argued by Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, and in 1954 it was one of the five cases considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. In a unanimous decision the high court ruled that racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional.
