By 1870 Campbell County had several freedmen’s schools. William H. Stewart taught freedmen at Long Mountain Church. Thomas Y. Scott taught
at Yellow Branch, Booker Purvis at Mount Zion. Ellen Wills, who had been a student in the Camp Davis Normal Class in Lynchburg and who had
previously taught in Bedford County, served the freedmen’s school at New London.
The first school for blacks in the Pleasant Valley community was a log cabin built by Albert Megginson (1831-1923). Two of his daughters were
the first teachers. Emaline Megginson Hamler and Daisy Megginson Elliott were graduates of the Morgan College Annex in Lynchburg.
When funds provided by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald became available for a new school in Pleasant Valley, Albert Megginson led the
campaign for matching funds. The new school, its style typical of Rosenwald schools, was built in 1923 and named for Megginson.
Alla A. Duiguid Booth (1882-1959) taught for many years in Campbell County, serving the schools at Pedlar Mountain, Long Mountain, Pilot
Mountain, Red House, and Chapel Grove. She also taught at Rustburg Elementary
Entire exhibit
Overview: During and after the slave-holding era, Central Virginia’s African Americans struggled and sacrificed to educate themselves and their
children. Slaves violated the law to teach each other to read and write. Emancipated blacks knew that education was the cornerstone of their
freedom. With the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau and northern philanthropists and missionaries, African Americans quickly established schools in
Lynchburg and the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, and Campbell.
Black Central Virginians advocated tax-supported public education for all children. After racially segregated public schools opened in 1871,
African Americans worked tirelessly to oppose educational inequality and to improve their poorly funded schools. Over and over, black citizens of
Lynchburg and the surrounding counties demonstrated their belief in the motto that appeared on a freedmen’s school blackboard in the 1860s:
"Knowledge is power. Try, try again."
Exhibit Topics: The Slave-Holding Era, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Vocational Education, Self-Help and Advocacy, Philanthropy, Higher
Education, Public Schools (Lynchburg, Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Campbell), Virginia Seminary, Separate But Equal?
VS.8.a demonstrate knowledge of the reconstruction of Virginia following the Civil War by identifying the effects of Reconstruction on life in Virginia
Gallery One: Civil War and Reconstruction
Civil War and Reconstruction
During the Civil War, fugitive slaves often fled to Union-occupied areas where military officers provided food, shelter, clothing, and medical
attention. Fugitives sometimes had a chance for informal schooling. So did blacks who joined the Union Army, since literacy was important to
being a good soldier.
The movement to emancipate the slaves carried with it the challenge of educating them for the responsibilities of freedom. After the war,
abandoned Confederate military camps like Camp Davis, located near Twelfth and Kemper Streets in Lynchburg, became schools. The Camp
Davis School was established by Jacob Yoder under the auspices of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, a branch of the
United States War Department.
Reconstruction-era teachers in Lynchburg included Elizabeth Frances "Fannie" Harvey, a white woman who taught privately and was hired by the
Freedman’s Bureau to teach in the Jackson Street Church. Samuel F. Kelso, born to parents who had both been slaves, taught in the Twelfth Street
School and served as a trustee of the Polk Street School. Robert Perkins, also a trustee of the Polk Street School, taught on Federal Street. George
W. Perritt taught both in private freedmen’s schools and in Freedmen’s Bureau schools. Laura Spencer taught at the Court Street Church School
and Jesse Owings at Court Street School No. l. Other African American teachers in Lynchburg during Reconstruction included Emeline and
Carrington Ellis. Thomas Y. Scott taught freedmen in Campbell County, as did Booker Purvis. All of these individuals had acquired some education
despite laws denying them the opportunity to learn to read and write.
Freedmen’s Schools
According to one historian’s description of a typical freedmen’s school, lessons began at 10 a.m. in a classroom decorated with portraits of Lincoln,
Garrison, and Whittier. On the blackboard the teacher wrote words of encouragement: "Knowledge is power. Try, try again." Students studied
reading, writing, and arithmetic using Clark’s First Lessons in English Grammar and Towle’s Speller. They also learned geography and held a
question-and-answer session on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The school day ended with singing at 2:30 p.m.
Jacob Yoder, a Mennonite from Pennsylvania who established Lynchburg’s first Freedmen’s Bureau school for African American children, is
pictured with a colleague and pupils in the early 1870s.
At the end of the 1866 spring term, Jacob Yoder’s pupils held a "Program of Exhibition." In his diary Jacob Yoder recorded that the event was well
attended by the community and was "eminently a success."
The Camp Davis School was established in Lynchburg by the Freedmen’s Bureau. The one-story frame building was part of an abandoned
Confederate military training camp located near Twelfth and Kemper Streets. By May 1866, enrollment at the Camp Davis School had reached
322. Four teachers, including Jacob Yoder and a superintendent, taught at the school. In 1866 the school moved to the African Methodist
Episcopal Church on Jackson Street, a more convenient location for the students. Fannie Harvey, a white woman, taught at this school.
Elizabeth Frances "Fannie" Harvey (1826-1899)
Fannie Harvey, a white woman, taught black children in Lynchburg for over forty years. Orra Langhorne, who visited Fannie Harvey’s schoolroom in
1880, observed that "Miss Harvey is one of those truly called to teach. . . . Instead of the switch or ruler, which so often forms the badge of office
with instructors, her table is covered with plants and minerals, the nature of which ‘Miss Fanny’ carefully explains to her pupils, and the interest the
children show in collecting such things testifies to the confidence and affection they feel for their teacher." Langhorne went on to observe that
Fannie Harvey’s students "generally are under the usual disadvantage of poverty, a great many of them being compelled to lose much time from
school to work in the Tobacco factories, their wages being, very often, an important part of family support."
Samuel Kelso (1825-1880)
Samuel Kelso, the son of Virginia slaves, became one of Lynchburg’s first African American teachers. A colleague of Jacob Yoder’s, Kelso taught at
the freedmen’s school on Twelfth Street and served as a trustee of the Polk Street School. In 1867-68 Kelso was elected as a delegate to Virginia’s
Constitutional Convention. He introduced the state’s first resolution supporting free public schools for children of all races. Kelso was one of many
southern blacks who advocated strong public schools.
VS.8.b demonstrate knowledge of the reconstruction of Virginia following the Civil War by identifying the effects of segregation and "Jim Crow" on
life in Virginia
Entire exhibit, but see especially
Gallery One: Civil War and Reconstruction (notes above; rest of notes follow), Self-Help and Philanthropy
Gallery Two: Vocational Education, Higher Education, Public Schools (2 panels)
Gallery Three: Virginia Seminary, Separate But Equal?
Self-Help
Central Virginia’s African Americans not only pressed for schools for black children but also donated funds and land. The American Baptist Home
Missionary Society, along with black churches such as Jackson Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Lynchburg, Mount Zion in Campbell County,
and Rose Chapel in Amherst County, played pivotal roles in creating and supporting schools.
As early as 1866, Emmeline and Carrington Ellis were conducting an independent school for free blacks on Thirteenth Street in Lynchburg. In 1868
black citizens asked the Freedmen’s Bureau to start a school at Camp Davis. This action led blacks to organize the Educational Association of
Lynchburg, also known as the Howard Educational Association, and to push for establishment of the Polk Street School.
In 1876 a committee of black citizens, determined to secure the advantages of education for their children, requested addition of a black high
school. Their lobbying led to establishment of the Jackson Street High School, which opened in 1881. A year later, black citizens’ successful
petition to the school board resulted in appointment of Jacob Yoder as principal of Lynchburg’s black schools. In 1908, with the formation of the
Civic and Educational League by the city’s leading African American citizens, advocacy for better schools and better educational opportunities led
to instruction in Latin in the high school, black teachers for the high school, and salary increases for these teachers.
In 1880 white teachers filled the majority of positions in the black schools, with only 785 of Virginia’s 1,256 African American schools having black
teachers. But as teacher training programs enlarged the pool of black teachers, they gradually replaced whites. All over the South, petitions were
made to local school boards to hire black teachers for black schools.
Most African Americans preferred that their children learn from other African Americans. Black teachers provided strong models for black students
and tended to be more sympathetic than whites to the situation of black students, as well as more willing to mingle with their pupils’ families and
with the larger African American community. Working for the good of the community that hired them, these teachers were in turn supported with
monetary donations, supplies, and room and board. African American teachers reflected racial pride. By 1884, fourteen of the nineteen teachers in
Lynchburg’s black schools were African Americans.
Philanthropy
Northern abolitionists saw clearly that southern blacks needed formal education. As the Civil War ended and towns across the South came under
Union control, northern missionary societies sent teachers, ministers, and others to provide food, clothing, and other necessities, as well as
education and religious training. The federal government also contributed to the education of freed slaves through the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Motivated by religious zeal, political ambition, or a combination of the two, churches and wealthy individuals began to establish philanthropic
organizations.
The energetic efforts of benevolent societies and the Freedmen’s Bureau were greeted with enthusiasm by Lynchburg’s freedpeople. Within six
months of the surrender at Appomattox, there were four black schools in Lynchburg, with eight teachers and one superintendent attending to a daily
enrollment of five hundred students. But despite their enthusiasm, southern blacks refused to allow either white southerners or northern
philanthropists to control their schools. And white southerners criticized northern philanthropists for their patronizing and disdainful attitude toward
the South and for what sometimes appeared to be their attempts to monopolize education.
Northern philanthropists provided teachers, buildings, materials, and funds for southern black schools but did little to challenge white supremacy. In
an effort to appease southern whites’ hostility to their efforts, northern philanthropists accepted racial segregation. They did not address the root
problems of poverty, racial injustice, and disfranchisement.
Anna T. Jeanes
Motivated by a desire to promote Christianity, Anna T. Jeanes, a wealthy, single Quaker from Philadelphia, became interested in southern blacks’
struggle for education. At her request and with her financial support, Booker T. Washington organized a board of trustees with the goal of providing
supervisors as consultants and helpers for poor rural schools. The Jeanes Foundation, established in 1907, became known as the Negro Rural
School Fund. Until the late 1960s, when black teachers and students were absorbed into integrated schools, the Jeanes Foundation paid for
supervisors in Amherst and Bedford Counties.
The Jeanes Foundation was modeled on the work of Virginia Cabell Randolph, a black teacher in the Richmond area (not to be confused with the
Lynchburg educator of the same name) who emphasized vocational education, visited her students in their homes, and helped improve their health
and sanitation. She became the first Jeanes Supervisor and worked in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.
Julius Rosenwald (d. 1932)
Julius Rosenwald, an early partner in Sears, Roebuck and later president of the company, became interested in philanthropy "that addressed
fundamental issues of equity, access and opportunity." Rosenwald wished to promote self-reliance among African Americans by requiring them to
add their own sacrificial contributions to his. At the time of Rosenwald’s death, the South had seen completion of 5,357 Rosenwald schools. His
total contribution of $4.4 million was matched by $18 million in government funds, $1.2 million from private foundations, and $4.7 million from
individual African Americans. Rosenwald schools were built in Amherst and Appomattox counties.
The Megginson Elementary School in Campbell County is typical of the Rosenwald school style.
George Peabody
Born in Danvers, Massachusetts, a school dropout at age eleven, George Peabody went on to establish a successful wholesale dry goods business in
Baltimore. In 1867 he established the Peabody Education Fund, directing his energy toward promoting education in the South. According to
History of Negro Education in the South, Peabody told the fund’s trustees that he wished his money to go to "promotion and encouragement of
intellectual, moral, and industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and Southwestern states . . . ."
Lynchburg’s black schoolchildren knew of George Peabody. When Orra Langhorne visited Fannie Harvey’s class in Lynchburg in 1880, the students
discussed school funding. "Miss Fannie" asked the children, "What benevolent man bequeathed a large sum of money to aid Southern education?"
and the students replied, "Mr. Peabody." The Peabody Fund was the first educational philanthropy in the United States.
John L. Slater
With the 1882 inheritance of his uncle’s textile business in Connecticut, John L. Slater donated a million dollars to create the first philanthropy in
the United States devoted exclusively to African American education. Inspired by the success of George Peabody, Slater specified that his fund be
used "for the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity by conferring on them the blessings of
Christian education." Grants from the Slater Fund helped develop black colleges and high schools as well as institutions for teacher training and
industrial education.
Vocational Education
Initially, higher education for African Americans trained them to be teachers of and leaders in vocational education. This practice reflected the
view that opportunities for African Americans would continue to be limited.
One of the most influential and controversial proponents of vocational education was Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). Born into a slave family in
Franklin County, Washington attended Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (1872-75) and went on to develop Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute on the Hampton model. Washington believed that blacks should be educated for industrial and agricultural work. He was criticized for
emphasizing vocational education at the expense of academic development and civil rights. Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901),
was translated into many languages and influenced, among others, the educational philanthropist Julius Rosenwald.
Two photographs from a 1914 Campbell County school fair display the products of the students' vocational education.
Permilia "Amelia" Elizabeth Perry Pride (1857-1932)
Amelia Pride was the daughter of William Perry (1823-1873) and Ellen Dunn-Bailey (1827-1871). Both her parents were fair-skinned non-whites.
William Perry, a master carpenter and building contractor of moderate wealth, was well respected in the Lynchburg community. Amelia was
educated in Lynchburg schools. Sixteen when her parents died, she enrolled at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton
University). She earned a degree from the Hampton teacher education program in 1879.
Hampton’s emphasis on self-help and practical, vocational education left an indelible mark on Pride. In 1898 she opened a sewing school in the
building of the Polk Street Colored School, where she served as principal. Five years later she founded the Theresa Pierce Cooking School for black
children across from her home on Madison Street. These two schools would develop into the curriculum for domestic sciences and home
economics in Lynchburg’s public schools. Amelia Pride also founded a retirement home for elderly black women and helped to start the Eighth
Street Baptist Church.
Theresa Pierce Cooking School, c. 1910
In 1903 Amelia Perry Pride established the Theresa Pierce Cooking School for black children. At the cooking school students learned how to
prepare and host meals. Frustrated by her students’ poor nutrition, Amelia Pride also taught them gardening and their parents food preservation. This
image is believed to be students at the Pierce Cooking School c. 1910.
Virginia Hughes (1909-2001) recalled going to weekly cooking classes at the school on Madison Street between Eighth and Ninth, in a room in the
basement. About a dozen girls attended the classes and cooked simple dishes such as muffins. Measuring for recipes was part of learning
arithmetic. "Whatever we cooked, we had to eat," Mrs. Hughes remembered. The children scrubbed the table before and after using it.
1915 book, Food, What It Is and Does, teaches the basics of nutrition and food preparation.
Spoon c. 1910
1911 Mason jar, such as those used in teaching food preservation.
1920 pamphlet, Happy Healthy Womanhood, taught women the basics of hygiene, nutrition, and overall female well-being.
Muffin tins c. 1900
6. Apron c. 1910
Higher Education
The restrictive race customs of the day dictated instruction that prepared African Americans for manual labor. Men learned such crafts as
plastering, joinery, and painting. Women were taught domestic sciences, such as ironing, dressmaking, and food preparation. The emphasis on
vocational education reflected the view that job opportunities for African Americans were and would continue to be limited.
1. Plastering Department, Hampton Institute, c. 1900
2. Joinery Class, Hampton Institute, c. 1900
3. Painting Shop, Hampton Institute, c. 1900
4. Laundry Class, Hampton Institute, c. 1900
5. Dressmaking Class, Hampton Institute, c. 1900
Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute (Morgan College Annex)
A branch of Morgan College of Baltimore, Maryland, the Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute was established in 1892 and destroyed by fire in
1917. The Jackson Street Methodist Episcopal Church purchased the land for the school at a cost of $12,000 and $5,000 for the building. The
church continued its support by assuming an additional $14,000 debt. The first principal was Frank Trigg, Jr., who presided over 200 students. The
curriculum at Morgan College Annex included a college preparatory program and a "normal" (teacher training) course.
Frank Trigg, Jr. (c. 1859-1933)
Born a slave in Richmond, Frank Trigg received an education because he lost his arm in a farming accident and could no longer do farm work.
Trigg attended Richmond public schools and graduated with honors from Hampton Institute. Additional education included Norwich Academy in
Connecticut. One of the first black educators in Lynchburg, he served as principal of the Polk Street and Payne Elementary Schools and of the
Jackson Street School and the Morgan College Annex. He was co-founder of the Virginia Teachers’ Association and was instrumental in developing
a normal school program attended by Lynchburg’s black teachers during the summer months.
Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (Virginia State University), 1916
The mission of the school stated,
The primary aim of the Institute is to prepare teachers for the colored public schools of the State. . . . The institute, however, has a secondary aim.
This aim seeks to prepare every student entering its doors for the pressing duties and obligations of the daily life.
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (Hampton University)
Union General Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1868, planning to gather there the South’s
most promising black students. Armstrong created a strong educational program to produce teachers and leaders. Founded when nine out of ten
African Americans were illiterate due to laws that had prohibited the teaching of slaves, Hampton was devoted to teacher training, industrial
training, and a combined instruction curriculum in agricultural and mechanical skills, with a strong academic emphasis.
In 1903-04 the school expanded from a three-year to a four-year degree program. In 1916 Hampton received accreditation as a four-year secondary
school. In 1922 and 1928, the first bachelor’s degrees were awarded and the first graduate students admitted. Hampton’s self-help philosophy and
emphasis on vocational education were important influences in Central Virginia. By 1890, one third of Lynchburg’s African American teachers were
Hampton graduates.
Beginnings of Lynchburg Public Schools
In 1869 a new Virginia State Constitution was ratified, providing, for the first time, a system of tax-supported public education. The new constitution
called for free schools for all citizens, with separate schools for whites and African Americans.
In 1871 the Lynchburg Public Schools opened with twenty teachers and 718 students. Dr. Robert S. Payne, chairman of the school board, oversaw
three school buildings: the Court Street School for white girls, the Monroe School for white boys, and the Jackson Street School for African
Americans of both sexes.
Jacob Yoder was appointed superintendent of the black schools. All previously established free schools for black children, including the Polk Street
School, affectionately known as "the chicken coop" and originally owned by the Freedmen’s Bureau, were incorporated into the new public school
system.
The first African American teachers were hired in 1879. Alice Walker Kinckle and Susan E. Merchant were hired as full-time teachers, working as
assistants to Fannie Harvey. Ottawa Ann "Ottie" Gladman was hired as a part-time teacher in 1879 and became full-time in 1880. Other black
teachers in Lynchburg’s public schools between 1879 and 1881 included Amelia Elizabeth Perry, Frank Trigg, and Rosa Daniel Kinckle.
In 1881, the year that Jackson Street High School opened, the Lynchburg Virginian reported that "the schools are constantly increasing in
membership and are improving in scholarship and morale, thanks to the free system, which the colored people appreciate, and will be likely to
sustain."
Payne School was built in 1885, and in 1891 an old soap factory on Salem Street was cleared out to hold the consolidated classes from the
Jackson Street African Methodist Episcopal Church and Camp Davis. In 1910, when City Council appropriated $200,000 for new public schools,
included was the eight-room Yoder School for African Americans on Jackson Street.
Nineteen-sixteen saw completion of the four-room Armstrong School, named for Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a founder of Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute.
Amherst County
Reconstruction brought educational opportunities to African Americans in Amherst County. Churches, benevolent white citizens, and northern
missionary groups all did their part. Mrs. India Williams of Sweet Briar donated land. The county’s first missionary teacher from New England, known
as "Buttermilk Jones," taught in the Clifford area. A school was established at Scott Zion by a young African American who had been hired by a
northern church. San Domingo was part of a Roman Catholic diocese, and St. Mary’s was founded by black citizens with the help of a former slave
owner. Schools were also established at Galilee, Oak Hill, Mount Airy, Mount Olive, Rose Chapel Baptist, Timothy, and Union Hill.
The earliest schools were usually one-room log cabins with small windows. Students sat on long wooden benches, and equipment consisted of slate
boards, pencils, and a rough table. Teachers were often white men from outside the county. By 1870 there were seven schools with an enrollment
of 266. Five Rosenwald schools were built in Amherst. The Jeanes Fund paid county supervisors; the Slater Fund paid teacher salaries.
Appomattox County
During Reconstruction, Appomattox teacher Thomas Lythgoe wrote his Lynchburg colleague Jacob Yoder that "the people are so anxious for a
school that I cannot very well refuse them." Lythgoe taught at Tower Hill. The Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief Society sent Charles McMahon to
teach at Plymouth Rock and Martha Brent to teach at Spout Spring.
In 1871 the Appomattox public schools opened with six schools for 352 black children. Their five teachers were all black men. Only 10% of the
Southside district’s "colored" school population was enrolled, while 21% of Stonewall’s population and 32% of Clover Hill’s was enrolled. The
percentages of white children enrolled were higher, ranging from 24% to 45%. The schools were open for five months of the year.
Philanthropists such as Julius Rosenwald provided funds to build some of Appomattox County’s early black schools.
Bedford County
The first school for African Americans in Bedford County opened in 1866 in the town of Bedford, then known as Liberty. Established by the
Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief Association, the school was taught by Alvin Varner. Other Reconstruction-era teachers of black children included
Ellen Wills at Allen Creek and William H. Richardson at Holcomb Rock.
A deed dated June 3, 1873, showed that Bedford landowners intended to provide land for a black school, with the sale of land designated
specifically "for the purpose of establishing a public free school for the benefit of the colored people of said school district." A school was opened
in the Otter district in 1875. The next year the Promise Land School opened two miles south of Moneta. Promise Land was "a one room log house
with a large fireplace and no windows except board blinds that had to be closed on cold and rainy days." In this space sixty students learned
reading, spelling, and arithmetic from an African American man named Hines and then from Ann Pearce, an African American woman from
Lynchburg.
Campbell County
By 1870 Campbell County had several freedmen’s schools. William H. Stewart taught freedmen at Long Mountain Church. Thomas Y. Scott taught
at Yellow Branch, Booker Purvis at Mount Zion. Ellen Wills, who had been a student in the Camp Davis Normal Class in Lynchburg and who had
previously taught in Bedford County, served the freedmen’s school at New London.
The first school for blacks in the Pleasant Valley community was a log cabin built by Albert Megginson (1831-1923). Two of his daughters were the
first teachers. Emaline Megginson Hamler and Daisy Megginson Elliott were graduates of the Morgan College Annex in Lynchburg. When funds
provided by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald became available for a new school in Pleasant Valley, Albert Megginson led the campaign for
matching funds. The new school, its style typical of Rosenwald schools, was built in 1923 and named for Megginson.
Alla A. Duiguid Booth (1882-1959) taught for many years in Campbell County, serving the schools at Pedlar Mountain, Long Mountain, Pilot
Mountain, Red House, and Chapel Grove. She also taught at Rustburg Elementary.
Virginia Seminary
Originally known as the Virginia Baptist Seminary, Virginia Theological Seminary and College was the first post-Civil War college in Lynchburg.
Interest in an "all-Negro" theological institution emerged at the 1886 meeting of the Virginia Baptist State Convention, when Seminary founder
Phillip Morris argued successfully for such an institution controlled by blacks and independent of whites. By 1887, six acres of land had been
purchased in Lynchburg, and in 1888 the school was incorporated. Difficulties with funding emerged early on, and in 1891 the Virginia Baptist
State Convention agreed to accept financial support from the Seminary from the Home Mission Society. This agreement meant a partial loss of
black control.
Along with theological instruction, the Seminary offered college preparatory work, teacher training, vocational education, and liberal arts courses.
By 1894 enrollment had reached 408. The school provided additional educational opportunities for African Americans at a time when instruction
in the public high schools lasted only three years.
Highly esteemed among African American educators, the Seminary continued to resist white dominance and to include academic courses in the
liberal arts. When the Home Mission Society tied its $1 million annual donation to the stipulation that the Seminary become a secondary school
with a vocational emphasis, Gregory Hayes, the school’s second president, returned the donation.
The 1916-17 academic year revealed the success of the school with an enrollment of 310 students representing twenty-two states and four foreign
countries. By 1917, four hundred students had graduated from Virginia Seminary. Of these, 118 had entered the ministry, eight were serving as
missionaries, twenty were doctors, ten were dentists, ten were lawyers, four were nurses, thirty were professors, two were college presidents, two were
principals of academies, eighteen were employed as civil service workers, and many others were teachers.
Throughout its early decades, Virginia Theological Seminary and College was guided by a vision of self-help based on confidence in African
Americans’ determination and willingness to sacrifice to achieve their goals.
Virginia Seminary is now known as Virginia University of Lynchburg. It is located at 2058 Garfield Avenue.
Separate But Equal?
In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the United States Supreme Court affirmed racial segregation as national policy, declaring that "separate but
equal" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional. The case arose from a Louisiana law providing for separate railway cars for whites and
blacks. Many such "Jim Crow" laws were passed in southern states, at least in part to stop poor whites from making political and economic alliances
with blacks that could threaten the established order in the South.
"Separate but equal" translated into "separate and unequal" for many publicly funded institutions. Two photographs of Virginia public schools, c.
1915, illustrate the vast difference in educational facilities provided for black and white students.
