County supervisors tonight are scheduled to vote on a proposal to launch two task forces: one to study the impacts today of Loudoun’s long history of school segregation, and another after that to consider options for reconciliation.
The project to study and reconcile the impacts of school segregation in Loudoun has been a long and evolving one. Loudoun County Public Schools issued a formal apology for segregated schools in September 2020, which county supervisors voted to join.
Supervisors first voted in September 2021 to work with the School Board to study the disparities caused by that segregation and to seek ways to rectify them. In conversations at their joint committee, supervisors and School Board members considered handing that work to the Douglass High School Commemorative Committee. The Douglass School committee voted to help out with that work, and the School Board also amended the committee’s mission statement to include that work in February.
The Douglass School committee has launched a Reconciliation Subcommittee to study how the county should reconcile the impacts of the forced sale of the land for $1 to build the school. Those recommendations are expected to the Joint Board of Supervisors and School Board Committee in spring 2023.
Tonight, supervisors will consider a proposal to break the job into two phases, brought forward by the county’s new Office of Equity and Inclusion. In the first phase, a task force composed of local historians, the University of Virginia’s Center for Race and Public Education in the South, and Georgetown University professor emeritus and Massive Resistance scholar James Hershman would study the impact of segregated education on Loudoun County alumni, faculty, staff, their descendants, and the community. They would report to the Board of Supervisors in December 2023.
The following reconciliation taskforce would include people representing Loudoun’s historically Black villages, Douglass High School and Carver School alumni, and descendants of the Countywide League that raised $4,000 to purchase land for a school for Black students, then was forced to sell it to the county for $1 to build Douglass High School. That group would gather community feedback, recommended remedies based on the study group’s findings, and examine continuing institutional inequities in education. That report to supervisors would be expected in October 2024, with those recommendations possibly funded in the county’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
County Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) and Supervisor Juli E. Briskman (D-Algonkian), who first brought the reconciliation project to the county board, hailed the proposal in a press release Monday.
“The disparities in teacher compensation, under resourced classes or worse, classes without any needed materials, the refusal to provide transportation, desks or even blackboards to the students at Frederick Douglass High School created a separate and unequal education system,” Randall stated. “This purposeful act was carefully designed to harm not only students enrolled in Frederick Douglass between 1941-1968 but their offspring for many generations to come.”
“I am proud we are taking this unprecedented step to learn the whole truth of the community impact of previous boards’ heinous maneuvers to block access to equal education for people of color,” Briskman stated. “I am encouraged that the UVA Center for Race and Public Education believes this is a worthy subject to explore and I look forward to reviewing the report and recommendations for reconciliation so that we can move forward as a community and begin to heal.”
Even after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed racial segregation in schools, Virginia and Loudoun County in particular fought integration, including shutting down schools rather than comply with federal law. In 1968, Loudoun County became one of the last school districts in the county to desegregate its schools, more than a decade after the Supreme Court’s decision. In the interim the county board had supported a change to the state constitution to allow spending public funds on segregated private schools, refusing to make any improvements to Douglass Elementary School and Douglass High School until, according to county staff research, “reasonable assurance was given by the parents of colored children of the County that they conform to the opinion that their education be promoted better by their continued school attendance on a segregated basis,” and fought several court battles.
This article was updated Dec. 9 at 4:35 p.m. to clarify the Douglass High School Commemorative Committee subcommittee's work.
(12) comments
When Booker T. Washington wrote these words over 100 years ago, who would have guessed he was so prophetic:
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
Can't wait to explain to my neighbor, who recently immigrated to the U.S., how he's now on the hook to pay reparations (that's the end state here) for things that happened before he was even born.
If they use taxpayer money to pay repartitions they should prepare for lawsuits. You can not hold current residents accountable for the atrocities of the past. A lot of people in Loudoun weren't even residents or alive when this occurred. Stop with the nonsense. I am in no way condoning what happened but enough is enough already.
Make sure you also explain how he's going to be benefiting from things that happened before he was even born. You know, like free labor and all that.
This study seems like a waste of taxpayer dollars. We all know and its been acknowledged that black people were treated unfairly. However, we have learned from this terrible part of history. The idea of reoperations is absurd, it is basically saying here is some money sorry we wronged you now go away. Why not do something to better increase the quality of education for everyone in the LCPS. Especially after closing schools for almost 2 years and now these kids are behind.
:including shutting down schools rather than comply with federal law. " I never heard of that happening other than in Farmville, but I do know this -- the current School Board, with support from the DEmocrat Board of Supervisors, closed Loudoun Schools in 2020-2021, forcing all of them to do remote learning which left thousands behind. So, it would seem to me that LCPS and this County Board owe reparations to those students, and that shutdown affected all races.
There's no doubt about it, Loudoun County discriminated against Black students and their families for many, many years. Is a study that documents that travesty of justice going to do more than just document the abuses that occurred. No, that's all it can do. It's a shame we don't have a more creative response from the leaders of this effort.
What a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. There is no value added to anyone's benefit. This only perpetuates the NAACP'S mantra of forever being victims.
Complete waste of money!
Segregation ended in Loudoun's public schools THREE GENERATIONS ago. Our local cadre of race hustlers want you to forget that and continue to accept increased tax bills to fund their pet projects.
[thumbup]
Yeah, 3 generations was such a long time ago. There's no way there are any lasting effects from that. *heavy sarcasm*
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