On Thursday high school students from Rockingham County traveled to Farmville in order to lead an immersive walking tour of the Commonwealth’s unique civil rights history. In 1951, Farmville was the site of a landmark student strike at R.R. Moton High School in protest of segregation that later evolved into a class-action lawsuit that went before the Supreme Court in 1954 as Brown v. the Board of Education.

The student-led field trip were accompanied by Brown plaintiffs and veterans of the 1951 R.R. Moton High School student strike, including Joan Johns-Cobbs — the younger sister of Moton strike leader, the late Barbara Johns. These honored guests joined the students for the day, viewing on-site student presentations and participated in a formal Q & A at the Moton Museum.

This project, known as the “Farmville Tour Guides Project” is a grant-funded independent study that requires students to research a chapter of Virginia’s civil rights history in preparation for the field trip. The project is made possible through a grant from the Rockingham Educational Foundation, Inc. and in cooperation with the Moton Museum and Longwood University.