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Gov. Ralph Northam has reappointed Joy Cabarrus Speakes, of Cullen, to the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Awards Committee.

Speakes was among the students who walked out of Robert R. Moton High School in Prince Edward with Barbara Rose Johns in 1951 to protest educational inequality in the county and the distribution of resources between African American and white students.

The education scholarship awards program was established to provide public education to those denied an education in Virginia public schools between 1954-64 in places where public schools were closed to avoid desegregation.

“I feel that it is a great honor to serve on this committee and plan to continue to assist in enabling students that were not able to attend school during the school closing to continue their education,” Speakes said.

In addition to serving on the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Awards Committee, Speakes chairs the Moton Museum Family Challenge scholarship fund. Each year the fund awards a $2,500 merit-based renewal for three years to two students who are direct linear descendants of students affected by the closing of schools in Prince Edward County for five years.

“There is no greater investment than an investment in our future leaders,” Speakes said.