For the past decade, Longwood University has held an annual MLK celebration, ranging from a single day of service to an entire week to celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was on Monday, Jan. 15, the minister and civil rights activist's birthday.
This year's MLK Celebration Week was composed of eight events spread out from Jan. 20-27. The “Legacy of Massive Resistance” event was held on Tuesday, Jan. 23 at the Moton Museum, the site of the former Robert Russa Moton High School attended by African American students prior to integration. The school became an important historical landmark after junior Barbara Rose Johns led students to stage a strike in protest of their schools conditions on April 23, 1951, a case that ultimately became one of the five in the class action lawsuit that led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision to declare segregated schools unconstitutional.
For “Legacy of Massive Resistance,” the Moton Museum hosted a screening and a discussion of the PBS Community Idea Stations movie, “Locked Out: The Fall of Massive Resistance,” presented by Director of Citizen Leadership and Social Justice Education Jonathan Page. It chronicles the timeline and effects of Virginia's “Massive Resistance” approach to the integration of public schools.
At the time, Prince Edward County joined in the anti-integration sentiment, attempting to prevent desegregation by shutting down the public school system and transferring their children into private ones, or even leaving town altogether. As a result of the public schools where African-American students attended, the African-American families that were left behind could not send their children to an organized school. In lieu of government-sponsored schools, African-American parents took a grassroots approach, like finding a church where a former Moton teacher would educate the children. However, not all had such good fortune. Many went without any schooling for years.
Attending the event were two people who had lived through the time period, Dorothy and James Holcomb. After Page's introduction, the Holcombs shared their own experiences.
“I went to school in Appomattox,” said Mrs. Holcomb. “The schools closed in 1959, and in 1961 we had to go into the church basement. When the free schools opened, I didn’t go, I stayed there.”
She retired in 2004 from her position at the Virginia Employment Commission, where she was the manager of the local Farmville office.
Mrs. Holcomb had seen excerpts of the film before, but not the entire feature. She said, “I felt like it’s my story all over again, just different aspects of my story."
Mr. Holcomb came back to school at age 21 after serving in Vietnam, he told the audience. He eventually became a gym teacher at Prince Edward County High School, the very same school that had prevented him from continuing his education until he was 21.
They met each other after they both graduated from their universities; he graduated from Virginia State University and she graduated from North Carolina. They eventually married.
Since the Department of Citizen Leadership and Social Justice Education is one of the main sponsors of the MLK Celebration Week, Page said he made sure to come to all of the events, including this one.
“They're really that important,” he said. “I think it's important to be at every one of these events because I really want to talk to participants. I want to talk to folks and find out what their thoughts are.”
MLK Celebration Week is held annually, and four other events were held after this reflection on Massive Resistance. The Department of Citizen Leadership and Social Justice Education sponsors other similar events throughout the year.
