african american civil rights

At the beginning of 1965, the U.S. seemed on the cusp of a golden age. Americans had been shocked by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 but they still exuded a sense of consensus and optimism. Political liberalism and interracial civil rights activism made it appear as if 1965 would find America more progressive and unified than it had ever been before. In 1965 President Johnson succeeded in getting passed through Congress legisation that included Medicare, immigrantion reform, and a powerful Voting Rights Act. But 1965 also ushered in the birth of the tumultuous era we now know as "the Sixties" when American society and culture underwent a major transformation. Civil Rights and voting rights demonstrators were attacked, black leaders were questioning whether non-violent protest was effective, and the Vietnam War escalated. As the mood darkened, the country became deeply divided.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's unanimous Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to comply. Instead the county closed its public schools and locked the doors. The community's white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public school for their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, Black parents had to teach their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years the schools remained closed. Eventually they would reopen but Prince Edward Academy would not admit Black students until 1986. The author grew up in the county and in telling the story, her own family's role---no less complex and painful---comes to light.