She was only 16, but her role in the Civil Rights Movement was one of great importance. And now the commonwealth of Virginia is again ready to honor Barbara R. Johns for heroically leading a school strike in 1951 that led to the abolition of segregated sc
by Christian K. Finkbeiner She was only 16, but her role in the Civil Rights Movement was one of great importance. And now the commonwealth of Virginia is again ready to honor Barbara R. Johns for heroically leading a school strike in 1951 that led to the abolition of segregated schools in the Old Dominion and across the country. Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell recently unveiled a portrait of the heroine at the State Capitol, once a ruling seat of white supremacy. Johns, who died in 1991, joined former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder as the only African Americans with portraits hanging in the historic capitol building that was built in part by slave labor. Her portrait is displayed in the rotunda. The new honor for Johns contrasts with McDonnell’s controversial declaration of April as Confederate History Month, which saluted those who fought to keep Black people enslaved — a proclamation that attracted national criticism. However, in his January inaugural address, the governor twice cited Johns as an educational role model, saying at one point that she was “willing to risk everything for the simple opportunity of a good education.” Her likeness is already displayed on a statue in the Civil Rights Monument that was erected in 2008 near the Executive Mansion in Richmond when Democrat Tim Kaine was governor. Johns was a junior in high school when she took her bold action that shook the state and its segregationist regime. But, the teenager was fed up with the separate and unequal education treatment she and other students endured because of the vicious, government-backed bigotry in her hometown of Farmville, Virginia. She was angry that she and 450 other Blackc students were being crammed into the aging and leaky Robert R. Moton High School that county officials built to accommodate 180 students. With the backing of her family, Johns recruited other student leaders for a protest against the school’s inferior condition. On April 23, 1951, she led an unprecedented student walkout and strike to demand a new school. The two-week student protest drew the attention of a trio of legendary Richmond civil rights attorneys: Oliver W. Hill Sr., Spottswood W. Robinson III and Martin E. Martin. They filed suit in federal court against county officials –– a case that eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court and became part of the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. The Supreme Court’s ruling in that landmark case threw out the doctrine of “separate but equal” in declaring enforced racial segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Johns’ parents, who feared for her life after the strike, sent her to live with relatives in Montgomery, Ala. She later married the Rev. William Powell, raised five children and worked as a librarian until her death at age 56. Special To NNPA from The Richmond Free Press