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{ 177 } CHAPTER 9 STANDING TOGETHER The desperate conditions in the schools proved what many had suspected all along, that a court decision alone would not turn the tide in Prince Edward County. S. W. Tucker and Henry Marsh continued to play an important role in the struggle after 1964, working to dismantle the tuition grant program that shielded the majority of white parents from the consequences of starving the public school budget. But their efforts focused on the big picture: destroying the legal basis for segregation across the state. Local activists pursued a different , though complementary, goal: changing the patterns that governed interracial interaction in Prince Edward County. Cultivating an authentic sense of justice that could transcend racial hostilities demanded real community relations work among black and white citizens alike. Under Nancy Adams, the AFSC Community Relations Program turned its energies toward building an interracial coalition to demand improvements in the public schools and entice white parents to abandon private education. Helen Baker noted in the fall of 1964 that “Prince Edward County may at this time be undergoing its most critical period.” Acknowledging that AFSC did not relish the idea of playing “nursemaid” to a community, she nonetheless argued that the organization had served as the one consistent “positive agent in attempting to bring this whole community to a successful resolution of its educational problem,” and thus must continue the fight.With assistance from both Baker and Adams, a coalition of black adults calling themselves the Concerned Citizens for Public Education (later changed to Citizens Organization for Public Education, and then simply Citizens for Public Education) came together in April 1964. Devoting themselves to studying the operations of the Free Schools and educating themselves about the proposed public school plans, the members voted in June to extend membership to interested whites. Several immediately accepted the invitation.1 The following month, forty-seven members of the new coalition met with Superintendents McIlwaine and Harper, who became highly annoyed when the group asked detailed questions about school financing. When the wife of the Longwood College librarian explained that shewas merely trying to understand 178 } Standing Together McIlwaine’s statements, he replied that it did not matter if she understood or not, that the operations of the schools were none of the group’s business. For his part, Harper told the attendees that “he did not consider himself a fish in a goldfish bowl,” and that an administrator could not run a decent school system with citizens constantly poking around.2 President Warren Scott, a young black farmer, and Program Committee chair Josephine Thompson, a black fashion designer who had once worked in New York City, threw themselves into their leadership roles. Scott obtained from Neil Sullivan an itemized list of Free School equipment to be turned over to the public schools, and Thompson’s committee submitted an extensively researched report to the school board laying out the group’s vision for the public school system. Noting that “we feel that it is mandatory that we have an exceptional system of education for the children of Prince Edward County, in view of the fact that they have been denied the advantage of free public education provided by the county for five years,” members sketched out a program modeled on the approach taken by the Free Schools.3 They requested fully certified teachers, a well-funded special education program , building improvements, a hot lunch program, and the opening of Farmville High to reduce overcrowding in the existing buildings.Theyalso demanded salaries no lower than the state minimum, a countycompulsoryattendance law, a school nurse, bus service, free school books, a black history program, and teacher/student ratios of 1:20 on the elementary level, 1:15 in the high school, and 1:10 in the special education program.When schools opened in September without so much as a nod to these requests, committee members decided to investigate conditions for themselves. Obtaining permission from McIlwaine to visit the four open buildings, committee members conducted a thorough evaluation, conferring with principals about their needs. The top three items on their resulting list of crisis areas were the remedial reading problem (especially prevalent in the eighth and ninth grades), high student absentee rates, and overcrowding in the elementary schools.4 A few months after the reopening of the schools, the group reorganized itself into three subcommittees and took on the name Citizens for Public Education (CPE). Josephine Thompson headed the School Resources Committee, Charles Butler took charge...

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