page_title: Barbara Rose Johns
section_title: Moton High School
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Rose Johns / Moton High School
caption_attribution_description: English: Plaque on the Virginia Capitol grounds commemorating the integration of Virginia schools struggle.
context_page_description: Barbara Rose Johns Powell was a young, American civil rights leader-pioneer and the niece of one of the "fathers of the Civil Rights Movement," Vernon Johns. On April 23, 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. After securing NAACP legal support, the Moton students filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, the largest and only student initiated case consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring "separate but equal" public schools unconstitutional.
context_section_description: While living in Prince Edward County, Powell was educated in segregated public schools. In 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Johns was a junior at the all-black Moton High School in Farmville. Across town was another school, open exclusively to white students. The resources available to each school, and the quality of the facilities, were unequal. Powell's school was designed and built to hold roughly 200 students, though by 1951 enrollment was twice that number. According to a first-person account from Powell's sister, Joan: 
  In winter the school was very cold. And a lot of times we had to put on our jackets. Now, the students that sat closest to the wood stove were very warm and the ones who sat farthest away were very cold. And I remember being cold a lot of times and sitting in the classroom with my jacket on. When it rained, we would get water through the ceiling. So there were lots of pails sitting around the classroom. And sometimes we had to raise our umbrellas to keep the water off our heads. It was a very difficult setting for trying to learn. 
   
  Parents of the black students appealed to the all-white school board to provide a larger and properly equipped facility. As a stopgap measure, the board erected several tar paper shacks to handle the overflow of students. Powell was frustrated with the separate and unequal facilities and decided to take action after missing her school bus and watching a bus for the white students pass her. She approached a trusted teacher to voice her concerns and the teacher prompted her to take action.
caption: Plaque on Virginia Capitol Grounds commemorating Barbara Johns' initiative in integrating Virginia schools
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