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Title
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EWP 5-4 HS study Version March 26 (1)
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Place
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Virginia
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Identifier
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1024024
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Is Version Of
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1024024_EWP_5-4_HS_study_Version_March_26_(1).pdf
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Is Part Of
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Uncategorized
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Date Created
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2024-01-07
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Format
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Pdf Document
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Number
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e22a937819ef9fa9418f19e03a90f617625d8d6b82c2bf7387ae963b7a2762d2
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Source
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/Volumes/T7 Shield/EWP/Elements/EWP_Files/Access Files/Upload temp/1024024_EWP_5-4_HS_study_Version_March_26_(1).pdf
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Publisher
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Digitized by Edwin Washington Project
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Rights
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Loudoun County Public Schools
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Language
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English
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Replaces
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/Volumes/T7 Shield/EWP/Elements/EWP_Files/source/Ingest One/5 Curriculum/5-4 Study of High School Training for African Americans/5-4 EWP Study on Black High School Access/5-4 Early Drafts HS Study/EWP_5-4_HS_study_Version_March_26_(1).pdf
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extracted text
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The African-American Struggle
for High School Education in Loudoun County, VA,
1865 to 1941
Larry Roeder
The Edwin Washington Project
The Fourteenth Amendment is arguably one of the most important amendments to the U.S.
Constitution. It addresses citizens’ rights and their equal protection under the law. In combination
with other amendments, it has also led many in the country to the proposition that all American
children—even those in the country illegally—should have equal educational opportunity in spite of
differences in gender, race, ethnic background, religion, or disability, or class. Despite this
liberating legislation, African-Americans have had to endure much poverty and prejudice to this
day. In the following paper, Larry Roeder, principal investigator of the Edwin Washington Project,
explores the educational experiences of African-Americans in Loudoun County, Virginia, between
the 1830s and 1941. Roeder’s historical narrative is based on the study of thousands of documents
and icons that he and his team have collected, organized, and analyzed, records, which were lost for
several decades and then almost destroyed. The scholarship contributes significantly to the growing
body of research on African-American citizens determined to realize their right to a high-quality
education, in this case and for the first time, as expressed in what are called “the higher branches.”
When Douglass High School was erected in 1941 in Leesburg, Virginia as a dedicated institution
offering African-Americans accredited secondary education, 1 it was rightly considered a
monumental political achievement by parents, the County-Wide League,2 the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and their friends. It also remains
a place of reverence to today’s African-American community, and it is hoped that the building
will stand forever as a vivid counterpoint to racism, a persistent symbol of how to peacefully
achieve civil rights, especially the right to education. Prior to Douglass, African-Americans
could only experience a limited secondary school program on the second floor of the Training
Center on Union Street in Leesburg or even more limited programs in the one-room
schoolhouses across the county. Black students had far less exposure than afforded white
students. Until now, almost nothing has been written about efforts to provide African-Americans
in Loudoun with any level of high school instruction before 1941. So what we have tried to learn
the extent they had at least minimal exposure to higher branch classes in the one-room schools,
what barriers they faced, and what led up to Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) agreeing to
offer a real high school curriculum. This story is perhaps the most underreported aspect of the
larger struggle for equal education from the end of the Civil War to the start of public schools in
1870, through to 1941 with the establishment of Douglass High School. 3
Sources
Official records and interviews with former students and instructors from the segregated era were
used to answer questions raised by myself and over twenty volunteers of the Edwin Washington
Project, an organization mandated by LCPS to discover what happened to African-Americans in
their schools. We began by consulting records held by LCPS, what we now call the Edwin
Washington Archives.4 We also drew from records housed in the Balch Library, Oatlands House
and Gardens,5 the Library of Virginia, Virginia State University, the Circuit Court of Loudoun
County, the Founder’s Library of Howard University, the Lovettsville Historical Society and
other locations. Also useful were the research by Jeanes Supervisor Gertrude Alexander,6 the
personal case files of NAACP attorney Charles H. Houston,7 and varied sources related to the
experiences of administrators, parents, teachers, and students in Loudoun’s segregated schools.
We also drew heavily from the scholarship of Archie G. Richardson, who retired in 1969 as the
Associate Director of Secondary Education in the Virginia Department of Education, at that time
the state’s highest ranking African-American in public education.8 Historians strive to be as
objective as possible and this narrative is based on facts; but is also influenced by the reflections
and feelings of the investigators as they unearthed and analyzed thousands of documents and
files that had nearly been burned simply because they were old. Some of those files were
personal, hand written pleadings by African-American parents wanting the best schooling
possible for their children.9 Taken together, the research has revealed a heroic struggle to
overcome enormous political, social, and economic hurdles in order to give children the best
education possible, including high school.
While the official LCPS records are extensive and more complete than in other locations like
neighboring Clarke County, many original documents were lost over time, so we have treated the
papers as representative samples. We focused on freedman and Quaker files issued before 1870,
then term reports, teacher registers, the superintendent’s annual reports, petitions by citizens, and
a scattering of miscellaneous documents created after 1870, when the public-school system came
into being. We calculated the number of white and African-American pupils who benefited from
higher branch coursework using teacher registers and the superintendent’s annual reports. These
documents sometimes also listed text books and courses. Term registers and term reports for the
one and two-room schoolhouses provided classroom rosters; however, it’s not always clear
which student benefited from higher branch lessons or the nature of the work they pursued. We
assume that older students took these classes, but a bright younger student could easily have
benefited from them as well.
Post-Civil War Education for African-Americans
Most African-Americans were illiterate at the end of the Civil War, as were many young white
pupils in agricultural counties like Loudoun. Indeed, illiteracy was a persistent problem in
America well past World War One regardless of race; but African-Americans were especially
hobbled due to pre-emancipation laws prohibiting schooling.10 Although there were no public
schools in Loudoun before 1870, and certainly no high schools for African-Americans, it’s
important to remember the beginning of Black education in the county because its lessons were
the fertile soil that fostered an effective struggle for racial equality. To begin, we were surprised
to learn that freedmen and Quaker supported schools did provide some higher branch classes. In
fact in a report on instruction at Tate (the Lincoln Colored School) in April 1870, Caroline
Thomas said that seven pupils were engaged in higher branch learning.11 If so, this would have
been one of the earliest exposures of African-Americans to such education in Loudoun.
I think it is a very good thing to go to school and learn to
read and write. It is the first opportunity we ever had, and we
ought to make good use of it. I think it will be a great
improvement to us. We ought to love our teacher and mind
her and respect her; and if we love her she will love us, and
we ought to love and respect everybody.
─Edwin Washington
A preliminary examination of records showed that as of September 30, 1866, nine free
schools had been established in Loudoun, of which four were sustained by benevolent societies
and one managed by a “intelligent, educated colored man,” undoubtedly William Obediah
Robey.12 This was the second freemen school in Leesburg. The schools were popular, and
evidence indicates that African-Americans took every chance to educate their children and
themselves, a phenomenon throughout Virginia from the start of the freedmen’s schools, so
Robey and other educators would have offered math and reading, seen as tools to enable
economic growth and protection from being cheated in contracts. Additionally, reading and
writing permitted the sharing of news and provided African-Americans with the ability to write
petitions to improve the schools. Reading also exposed the formerly enslaved and their children
to their connotational rights such as the right to petition the government for toilets in schools.
They also learned about the right to hire lobbyists like those in the NAACP and the County-Wide
League to convince the local government to erect Douglass High School, though only after much
debate. However, despite their best efforts, due to the paucity of funds, early places of
instruction in Loudoun for African-Americans were mostly old churches and inexpensive
buildings; e.g., Robey’s school was in his home. Whites usually did better Unfortunately, we
don’t have any of Robey’s files, which is a great loss, as he was unusual for being an AfricanAmerican teacher before 1870. We do know that he was born in Fairfax County in 1820, was a
free Black and a carpenter by trade. At age twenty-one he moved to Washington, D.C. for an
education; and though he had not formally studied for the ministry, he was licensed in 1850 to
preach by the Winchester Presbytery.13 One assumes his teachings combined ethics with the
basics of writing and math; but very sadly, his records were burned in the 1960s, a strong
argument for digitizing historical documents, a core mission of the Edwin Washington Project.
Robey taught in his home, which was supported by Leesburg’s African-American
community, and initially had approximately twenty students, sixteen of whom were over the age
of sixteen. The school grew rapidly and by December 1868 forty students were in attendance.
Robey’s commitment to teaching continued even after the school closed in 1869, and he began
teaching the lower grades in the public schools. We do not know when he was hired but he
taught in Leesburg until 1888.14 Unfortunately, we have no record of higher branch learning in
his school, though some form of ethics, religion, or philosophy would have likely been taught.
Historian Ronald Butchart has reported that teachers in the southern states were overwhelmed
by the formerly enslaved, who desired to no longer be an inferior class.15 We can see their zeal
reflected in the workload of Quaker instructor Caroline Thomas who found herself teaching
children and adults night and day. Thomas is an important figure in our research because she
was Edwin Washington’s instructor, and Washington was the first African-American teenager
we have documented negotiating the right to an education. An observer wrote, “The teacher
[Caroline Thomas] is earnest and zealous in her work, both in the school room and among the
colored people generally.”16 The observer continued, “During the winter she has held school
several evenings in the week for adults and assisted in organizing and supporting a literary
association which provided an opportunity for reading and counsel. She believes this form of
labor among these people is one of the most important aids in elevation.”17
We have a general understanding of Quaker teachings as might have been introduced by
Thomas. Classwork ranged from the basics of writing and arithmetic to Latin, physiology, and
algebra, the latter three being higher branch coursework.18 In 1867, Thomas remarked,
I have one class in Short Division, one in Multiplication, one in Subtraction and three in
Addition. With a very few exceptions, most of these children could not make a figure when
they first came to school. I have one class in Definitions; have some very good readers and
spellers and think my first class is now prepared to take some other studies – either Grammar
or Philosophy, or both.19
A report on Thomas’s lessons stated,
A number of examples in Arithmetic have also been forwarded by Caroline Thomas, of
Leesburg, Va., … accompanied in some instances with proofs of their results which are
really wonderful; some of them involving over forty, and some over fifty figures in their
execution.20
Sewing instruction for the girls was taught in the afternoon every week. Thomas wrote that some
of her students did “right well.” Especially impressive was her effort to teach writing as
evidenced in a report about her instruction in 1867, below.21
I send thee a specimen of the kind of composition I receive. This one is written by
a boy who wait on table at the hotel. He gets five dollars per month and board, with
the privilege of coming to school between times; of course, he does not come very
regularly, and Court weeks he cannot come at all. I almost tremble for his future,
exposed as he is to temptations. The composition is just as he handed it to me, and
if there is any merit in it, he must have all the credit; it is his first attempt. Here it
is.22
The Struggle For Secondary Education
In 1875, formal secondary education was approved by the Virginia General Assembly,23
and by the mid-1880s some public schools in Loudoun County, primarily larger ones
(those with two to four classrooms), began offering courses above the seventh grade.
Called the "higher branches,” these courses were generally Latin, history, geography,
higher arithmetic, mathematics, philosophy, grammar, and science (without lab work).
Today we would call them high school courses. They were often individual lessons
focused on particular books such as William Webster Wells’ Essentials of Algebra for
Secondary Schools24 or Steele’s Hygienic Physiology: Fourteen Weeks in Human
Physiology.25 Until the 1920s, for African-Americans, the course work was always in one
or two-room schoolhouses and formed only a portion of the day’s primary schooling – if
permitted at all.
In fact, limiting the allowable hours of higher branch courses offered to anyone was
normal in Virginia country schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The
district school board had the authority to offer both elementary and higher branch
courses; but it was prohibited by the State Board of Education from offering courses that
would “interfere” with the “regular and efficient instruction in the elementary
branches.”26 If a school had only one teacher, she or he could devote five hours or more
(but not less) to elementary branches.27
The first public high school in Loudoun was for whites, opening in 1910 in Lincoln, but
individual white and Black students were also provided opportunities to take higher branch
coursework in the county’s one-room schools. For example, Latin and algebra were offered in
Salem (white) in AY 1906/1907, and algebra was offered to African-Americans at the Leesburg
school in AY 1920/1921.28
Underfunding the Black schools was a persistent problem, and it is certain to have
exacerbated racial inequality. This was in part because the State of Virginia was still recovering
from the Civil War and to service a massive debt, therefore, budgeted no funds for high schools.
Cities and counties could charge tuition, but not more than $2.50 a month per pupil. In Loudoun,
the monthly tuition was $1.50 to $2. This was often more than a typical Black worker earned in
two days, so even if a Black high school had been built alongside Lincoln, few could have
afforded the price of admission.29
Also fostering inequality was segregation, the philosophical cornerstone of the Loudoun’s
public-school system until integration in 1968. Legislators’ stated goal was to build a racially
separate system that was also equal; however, whites had significantly broader exposure to funds
and higher branch courses than did Blacks. Superintendent of Loudoun’s schools Oscar
Emerick 30 wrote in 1926 that “[E]ducation should make it possible for each individual to be an
intelligent participant in an everchanging society. Education in the United States should
enable…every individual to live creatively to the optimism of his capacity in a representative
democracy.”31 While Emerick’s stated goal was certainly commendable, segregation
undermined the potential for success. For example, between AY 1886/1887 and AY 1904/1905,
the average annual number of whites taking higher branch courses across the county was 220.
For African-Americans in the same period, the average was two! Even accounting for the larger
white population, that’s a significantly disproportionate difference in enrollment, perhaps the
result of the already mentioned rules on higher branch access. School officials would have
required African-American pupils, indeed all students who wanted to take such classes, to gain
permission from the local all-white school board. This restriction was certain to have put a
damper on any Black family wanting a path to higher learning for their child or access to
employment requiring secondary schooling. Keep in mind that had more African-Americans
acquired those jobs, whites would have viewed them as competitors, hence the educational
ceiling.
Because few school registers have survived, it is impossible to provide a firm number as to
how many African-Americans took advantage of the limited opportunity to engage in higher
branch coursework. However, we do have a full set of annual reports covering AY 1887/1888 to
1925. In 1888, there were eighty-six schools for whites and thirty-one for African-Americans.
As for the student population, in 1913 (a sample year) 3,170 white pupils were enrolled in
school, eighty percent of a possible population of 3,964. That same year 1,015 AfricanAmericans were enrolled, sixty percent of a possible population of 1,685. Actual attendance was
a bit lower for both races. Fifty percent (1,962 white pupils) attended on average every day,
whereas 631 African-American pupils, or thirty-seven percent, attended on average every day.
No African-Americans attended high school that year because none existed for them; however,
six did acquire higher branch exposure vs. 523 white pupils.32
After 1910, Lincoln High School became known as Loudoun County’s finest public
secondary institution, attracting white students from around the region. By 1929, it also had the
largest program with seven teachers.33 Contributing to the school’s high quality were attendance
fees, private contributions by the local Quaker community, and governmental aid. Lincoln
teachers were paid more than those in other locations, and equipment and books were of high
quality.34 However, African-Americans wanting similar formal secondary schooling had to raise
tuition funds and pay for travel to private schools outside Loudoun, often associated with
churches, such as the Manassas Industrial Institute in Prince William County, or a pair of public
high schools in Washington, D.C.: Dunbar35 and Armstrong Technical. Interviews of parents
uncovered in the Founder’s Library of Howard University revealed these costs were often an
insurmountable barrier,36 a reminder that access to any right is only meaningful if affordable.
The first building to be informally called a high school for African-Americans was on Union
Street in Leesburg. Often called the Training Center, it had two floors. From the 1920s to 1930,
the first floor was used for primary coursework and the second for a mix of primary and high
school coursework, the later initially only for limited hours. In fact, the second floor was at
times called Leesburg High School, though the Virginia Commission on Accredited Schools
(VCAS) didn’t officially recognize it as such until the curriculum was expanded to a two-year
program in 1930.37 The building was constructed around 1883 as a two-story frame with five
classrooms for primary education. An addition on the western side in 1935 may have been made
of wood from the old Sycoline Colored one-room school.38 Research by Eugene Scheel
indicates that high school instruction in the building may have been offered as early as 1910, the
same year as Lincoln High School;39 however, the earliest evidence we have uncovered is that a
few hours of higher branch coursework were first offered at Leesburg in the early 1920s. Indeed,
a memo dated 1936 describes “the colored high school at Leesburg” as only in “its
beginnings.”40 Still, given record gaps, an earlier start date is certainly possible.
We do know that by AY 1923/1924, Training Center pupils were divided, with the younger
students studying on the first floor, apparently with no access to higher branches. An older set of
students was on the second floor under the supervision of John C. Walker, who provided two
hours of higher branch lessons per day and four hours of primary lessons; in other words, a third
of the day went to a form of high school education. In addition, he taught math classes during
the summer.41 Like Walker, the other instructors of the Training Center were determined to
improve their school’s offerings, but their effort was made harder because funds gave only
limited access to the necessary books, laboratory equipment, and other essentials given to white
schools.42 There was also a significant difference in income between Blacks and whites;
therefore Walker’s salary was supplemented by parents to teach their children eighth grade
subjects before the courses were added to the official curriculum. In addition, the local League of
Patrons43 raised private funds for books, encyclopedias, etc.44 That was no small financial feat,
and must be seen as an important, even heroic component of the larger determination of AfricanAmerican families to stand by their children’s education.
In the 1920s, while Leesburg was the center for higher branch offerings for Blacks, other
“Colored” one-room schools also provided limited offerings. Edith Blackwell White at
Hughesville daily offered a half hour of higher branch studies from AY 1920/21 to AY
1922/23.45 In AY 1920/1923 and AY 1924/1926 Alice Scott offered at Purcellville a “small
amount of time” for higher branch vocal music.46 St. Louis offered 2.5 hours of higher branch
coursework in AY 1921/22. Anna Bell Ferrell at Waterford offered a half hour of higher branch
coursework in AY 1920/21.47 Beatrice Scipio, one of Loudoun’s best-known instructors from
the era, offered six hours a day at Bluemont of higher branch coursework in AY 1923/1924, as
well as six hours of common courses, a term for elementary school. 48
A Turning Point
Nineteen thirty brought in a changing wind. In May, supporters of the Leesburg “colored”
school signed a petition asking for a principal with a high school education who had also
graduated from a normal school.49 What is interesting about this is that Walker, who pioneered
high school instruction in the building in the 20s, had graduated from Virginia Normal in
Petersburg. Having already accumulated thirty-three years of teaching experience by AY
1918/1819, he instructed grades 6-8 from that year to AY 1929/1930, grades 6-7 from AY
1930/1931 to 1936, and then grades 5 through 7 until AY 1940/1941. He was also principal
from AY 1928/1929 to 1933/1934.50 Archie Lucas was principal at least from 1934 to AY
1939/194051when replaced by G. William Liverpool until AY 1940/1941.52
Also in 1930. Edyth Harris, age twenty-four, appears in the records.53 This very energetic
instructor expanded the high school curriculum to two years with the goal of offering a threeyear program by the fall of 1931. Unlike those who studied under Walker, her students were
recognized as full-time high school pupils, an historic upgrade; but there were hurdles.54 The
memo on this program idea that she sent to Emerick, said, “In order to make High School a
permanent unit in the educational system… there are some matters which should have immediate
consideration.”55 Expansion to three years required an assistant and an additional room. In
addition, she noted that the increased demand required her to teach night classes.56 In this, she
was not the only leader in training centers throughout the state to complain. Richardson’s
research showed resource disparity was a typical problem in African-American country
schools.57 Unfortunately, we are missing the term reports for AY 1930 to AY 1933, which might
have offered insights; but we do have term reports and other documents for AY 1934/1935 to
1941 when operations were moved to Douglass High School. The good news is that Harris
succeeded in improving the high school curriculum, with the first group of five students
graduating in 1935.58
Recognizing that Harris’ program was expanding, Emerick remarked in February 1938 that
the Leesburg school had “recently started a four-year high school course and therefore more
space, more land, and increased teaching staff are needed in order to provide suitable high school
courses.”59 The observation is very important because local oral tradition usually credits
Douglass as the first accredited high school program for Blacks. The Training Center has that
honor, though Douglass certainly was the first high school building. The curriculum Emerick
referred to in 1938 seems to have been offered in 1935 by covering grades 8-11.60 This was
evidence of a very active Harris, who also formed a choir, organized plays, and raised funds to
provide textbooks to the indigent. She also covered “high school grades from AY 1930/1931 to
AY 1939/1940, and even taught French, a novelty in African-American classrooms. Whites had
been learning French and Latin for years.”61
The Continuing Struggle for Equality
In 1940, members of the Loudoun school board tried to justify the maldistribution of resources
between white and Black schooling by arguing that African-Americans didn’t pay their fair share
of taxes, so they did not deserve the same amount of funding received by whites. Countering
them, NAACP attorney Charles Houston asserted, “[T]his is an old moss-grown and fallacious
argument,” and pointed out that without the patronage of working-class African-Americans,
white landowners and merchants “would be unable to pay the taxes levied upon them.”62
Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, African-American students
should have been treated equally; but they were not. Resistance was strong, even after the Brown
decision (1965) by the local county government and the General Assembly, as well as lobbyists
for segregation like The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, which had a
chapter in Loudoun.63 Certainly, discrimination was acute and long-standing. In 1929, for
example, the average salary for a white public schoolteacher in Loudoun was 915 dollars vs. 472
dollars for an African-American teacher.64 Just three years before, feeling that the salaries of
African-Americans teachers were “insufficient to meet the high cost of present living
conditions.”65 they requested an increase. Their plea went unfulfilled; but they pressed on,
teaching children for fifty years in some cases. Citizens of today’s Loudoun County rightfully
see those teachers as civil rights icons, like John C. Walker, who in AY 1940/1941 had served as
a teacher in Loudoun for fifty-five years.66
The existence of inequities is not surprising. Consider that by 1918, according to the Inglis
study presented to the Virginia General Assembly, there were only three accredited high schools
for African-Americans across the state. Armstrong (Richmond), Booker T. Washington (Norfolk
City) and Mt. Hermon (Norfolk County). Elsewhere was only “slight provision for the high
school education of colored children, but in most of them high school education was almost
entirely lacking, or negligible,” Inglis wrote.67 In AY 1925/1926, according to the U.S.
Department of the Interior, only eighteen localities in Virginia offered a public high school for
African-Americans.68 Another 1928 study “found indifference to Negro education surprisingly
characteristic.”69 Emerick reported in September 1929, “[High] Schools have been located at
almost every point in the county where the residents asked for one and offered to pay a part of
the cost of building.”70 He failed to mention that for African-Americans, there was only an
unaccredited partial program in Leesburg, yet at the same time eight high schools for whites
were scattered about the county.71
To acquire a better education for their children, parents exercised their constitutional rights
by petitioning the Loudoun County School Board in writing.72 Many joined the County-Wide
League to lobby for quality changes73 and they hired an NAACP lawyer to argue for an
accredited, dedicated high school building, for busing and safety issues.74 The government
pushed back with many budgetary and legal arguments, and perhaps fearing reprisals, some
African-Americans even tried to remove the attorney; but those efforts failed due to the desire of
the majority of the Black citizenry.75 Richardson said on May 4, 1940, that some supporters had
been “a bit indiscreet.” Their effort failed because “it was not supported by the majority of Negro
people in the county.” Therefore, Richardson recommended that Emerick and the school board
follow the advice of Lucas, Principal of the Training Center, and Gertrude Alexander, local
Jeanes Supervisor for Colored schools,76 guidance which he felt would resolve matters.77 There
was also competition due to much enthusiasm across the county for a new building, and this led
some African-American residents to unsuccessfully petition for the new high school to be built in
Purcellville, once a Loudoun cultural center and site of annual Emancipation Day celebrations,78
but Leesburg was the preferred site for most.79
County documents frequently call the Union Street school “Leesburg Training School,"
"Leesburg Industrial School,” or “Training Center80,” instead of a high school. Agreement on
calling such facilities “Training Centers” was a compromise reached by James Hardy Dillard
with anti-Black politicians. Dillard devoted his professional career to supporting Black
education,81 was a liberal southern academic who supported segregation but also the education of
African-Americans.82 He was associated with the philanthropic efforts of the John F. Slater
Fund which by AY 1915/1916 had established centers in Alleghany, Caroline, Nottoway,
Roanoke and York counties. Dillard’s goal was “to afford an opportunity to the exceptional
Negro boy and girl to further his or her education,” a goal he expanded to include all rural
children.83
Because we are missing many records, we don’t know precisely when the Leesburg Training
Center took on that name, perhaps in 1930,84 given the significant improvements Harris brought
to bear. Before then, the building was mainly known as Colored School A, though some also
called the second floor the Leesburg High School. During this period, such centers expanded to
fifty-eight counties but it’s useful to know as well that a standard high school education for
African-Americans in Virginia didn’t exist as late as 1926. The term “training center” has been
called demeaning, but Dillard and other progressives of the time felt the compromise was needed
to gain support from powerful white leaders who didn’t want African-Americans to be properly
educated at all. Thus, it would be unfair to attack the motivations or zeal of the staff of these
centers. Inequity was just another hurdle to overcome on the road to success.
Richardson wrote that a center or training school was unique in that it required teachers to be
more prepared than in other kinds of schools. He elaborated by saying that the teachers in such
schools needed “experience, common sense, human sympathy, understanding and wisdom.”85 A
center or training school was unique in that despite low wages, it required teachers to work
harder than in other kinds of schools. The community also expected a great deal from its
teachers, Richardson noted; and despite problems, these schools still flourished. In the same
document, he explained that the County Training School was attempting to provide “elementary
work, four years of regular high school work, agriculture and home economics.” He viewed the
school as “the most practical secondary school for Virginia’s Southern Rural Negroes.”86
High School Accreditation
By 1929, there were nine accredited high schools for whites in Loudoun.87 As was previously
stated, an accredited high school building for African-Americans did not exist until the 1941
creation of Douglass.88 It’s therefore correct to call Douglass the first building dedicated to the
purpose of providing a high school education for Blacks; but Report of Progress for Virginia
Accredited High Schools, 1940/1941 89 indicates that the Training Center (called Loudoun
County High School that year) was also accredited.90 If so, this could only have happened due to
heroic efforts by underpaid staff who worked in a significantly underequipped building.
While the records show a clear path beginning with the offering of limited access to higher
branch courses, then a full high school curriculum at the Training Center, the African-American
community understood the need to do better by lobbying for a dedicated facility. We can see this
in the efforts of the County-Wide League, which led to the pleadings of ordinary citizens and the
eventual construction of Douglass High School. A good example is William McKinley Jackson
of Middleburg. Jackson was a stone mason with a fourth-grade education who was determined to
offer his daughter, Eva, a chance for college. He complained that the absence of an accredited
high school in Loudoun prevented his daughter from gaining entrance to college, forcing him to
send her to the more expensive Manassas Industrial School in the next county.91 His letter,
which is referenced in a complaint to Emerick by the NAACP and the County-Wide League,
noted that Eva entered Manassas in 1939. The same petition also included expenses to
demonstrate the financial hardship of sending a child to an accredited school.92 Another AfricanAmerican student wanted to study home economics, but the course was offered only in the white
high schools.93
The practice of accrediting high schools began in AY 1912/1913 with VCAS. A result of
their efforts, which continued until AY 1927/1928, was that schools offering less than two years
of coursework were not considered high schools by VCAS, even if called such by their patrons.
Indeed, by the time Emerick became Loudoun’s Superintendent of Public Schools in 1917, there
were levels of high schools. Those offering only two years of classes were considered “thirdgrade.” Those offering three years were “second grade.” Only a four-year institution was
eligible for consideration as a “first-grade high school.” The Leesburg facility was never
considered a high school of any kind by VCAS before Harris arrived; but as her program
expanded, VCAS conceded that Leesburg was a true high school.94 Richardson even wrote a
letter in which he called the Training Center “the Colored High School in Leesburg.” The same
letter advanced support for what would be the future location of Douglass. Interestingly, and
probably due to safety concerns with the Training Center, the plan was to place both elementary
and high school students in the same newly constructed building; but if that proved impossible,
Plan B was to leave the elementary school students in the Training Center building, pending
construction of a second building. Plan B was eventually realized.95
Loudoun’s Quaker community was singularly supportive within the white community of
Black education, and despite the broad political support for segregation, its inherent inequality
was understood by many others as well as Emerick. While he supported segregation in speeches
during the massive resistance program of U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., Emerick also from
time to time indicated a need for fairness; but the pace of the changes he supported was slower
than African-Americans needed. As an example, in a memo of April 13, 1936, on construction
needs, Emerick wrote that “the [C]olored high school at Leesburg is in its beginnings. It will
undoubtedly grow considerably in the next few years.”96 However, despite the recognized
inevitable need for growth, Emerick’s memo makes it clear that the school board did not intend
to have multiple locations for African-American high schools, unlike what was offered the white
population. “We can expect to find a rather pressing need for future building enlargement,”
Emerick predicted, “as it is the present idea that all high school facilities for colored children will
be entered there.” Emerick wasn’t moving quickly; but perhaps reflecting the increased pressure
on him by parents, the County-Wide League and the NAACP, he struck a different tone in 1944,
saying to the school board that if they did not deal with the maldistribution of resources between
white and Colored students, the courts would force action within four years!97
There are numerous examples of complaints being forwarded to Emerick and the school
board. Because the county didn’t provide much money for heating the Training Center, Walker
had to collect supplementary funds from parents and concerned citizens.98 Equipment was not
provided for biology or chemistry, so parents had to provide it from their kitchens. Parents
complained about the lack of in-door toilets.99 Fire escapes were not installed until 1938.100
Further, as NAACP legend John Houston pointed out in March 1940, the oil-soaked floor and
open oil drum under the stairs, along with an inaccessible fire escape, made the school a true
death trap.101
What About the Students?
One of the mandates of the Edwin Washington project is to document students who, like Edwin
Washington, exemplified the determination to learn. Two particular examples are interesting in
this light. Annie Rivers gained high school training in 1892, perhaps because of her father’s
espionage exploits; and Fannie Parkie, who became a teacher, pushed documentation of high
school coursework at the Training Center back to the early 1920s.
Annie Rivers. From an examination of the 1892 register for Lovettsville Colored, we are left
with the impression that Annie O. L. (or A. L.) Rivers was an early beneficiary of higher branch
coursework, perhaps because she was the oldest at age nineteen or perhaps the local AfricanAmerican community rewarded her because Annie’s father, Joseph Rivers, risked his life as a
spy for the Union Army. Annie continued at Lovettsville Colored in the November 28 to
December 23 session; but the table of statistics in the register doesn’t show higher branches
being offered to her again. The same is true for the 1893 and 1894 tables of statistics which
show Annie continuing her education but giving no indication of higher branches being offered.
By 1894, Annie was twenty years of age and appears to have dropped out at the end of the
March 5 to 30 Session, a cessation likely the result of the rule that anyone twenty-one years of
age or older could not attend the public schools without special permission.102 We know of some
white students who gained such permission, but no examples of African-Americans.
Other African-Americans of about Annie’s age attended Lovettsville Colored in AY
1898/1899: John Ben Franklin Curtis (age eighteen) and Jas Lewis Lee (age eighteen), as well as
William Streams in 1899. But we don’t know if they were instructed in the higher branches
because the registers for those years did not include that field of data.
Fannie F. Parkie. According to a report by Oscar Emerick dated August 23, 1929, “Leesburg
Colored School has three teachers and offers a part of the first-year high school course.”103 Yet
we know from Fannie Parkie’s records that high school coursework began under Walker as early
as 1923, perhaps earlier. Fannie Parkie (also spelled Parkey) of Leesburg taught at the Sycoline
Colored School from AY 1924 to 1926.104 In the AY 1925/1926 term report for Sycoline, the
section for biographical information indicates that Parkie attended “Leesburg High School,”
which had to have been the Training Center.105 Parkie was then twenty-three years old and had
taught for three years, probably starting in AY 1922/1923. This was half a decade before Harris
created a formal high school program. We have access to some of her records at Leesburg
Colored Graded School A (the Training Center) where she was a student in primary school and
studied under Walker. She took specific high school classes ending in 1923 and we assume she
went straight from taking these classes to teaching.
In AY 1921/1922, two hours a day were devoted to higher branch studies at the Training
Center. Parkie attended as an eighteen-year-old. She also lived a half mile from the school and
attended 133 of the 138-day term. In addition to normal classes, she took physical geography and
algebra, the latter with six other students in a class of thirty-six. Algebra was a high school
course. In AY 1922/1923, two hours a day were devoted to higher branch coursework at the
Training Center. Parkie, now nineteen, again attended, though only for seventy-seven of the 134-
day program. She took algebra again, as well as physical geography and general science. We
suspect that the general science book would have been Steele’s, which was a popular high school
choice.106 The textbook for physical geography was by Maury, perhaps Matthew Fontaine
Maury. If so, it contained a classic discussion of the ocean.107
Based on school and teaching records, Parkie lived in Leesburg at least from AY 1921 to
1926 and taught using a local teacher’s permit.108 The Training Center also apparently
participated in the school fair in 1921, a first for African-Americans,109 so this would have been a
great opportunity for the fresh educator to compare notes with teachers in other schools across
the county and perhaps even white high school students.
Some Students Chose Not To Start or Complete a High School Program
We know from interviews archived at the Founders Library at Howard University that while
there was real zeal by many parents to send their children to high school, others were satisfied
working in the service industry.110 To understand why, it is useful first to contrast AfricanAmerican and white pupil enrollment populations across the state. A study by Richardson
(Table 1) shows a sharp disparity between Black and White high school enrollment.
Table 1. African-American vs. White Pupils’ Enrollment
Percentage
Session 1906-1907
Negro
White
1.1
8.8
Session 1926-1927
Negro
White
7.1
40.0
Session 1944-1945
Negro
White
34.1
52.5
Source: Archie Richardson, The Development of Negro Education in Virginia, 1831-1970
(Richmond: Phi Delta Kappa, 1976), Pg. 22.
A revealing survey was done of Negro education in AY 1938/1939 in which Richardson
theorized that the average child in the one-room school had parents holding less than a sixthgrade education. Loudoun was heavily agricultural, so many students felt a seventh-grade
education provided enough livelihood. Although 329 African-Americans were eligible for high
school coursework, only sixty continued their studies. In other words, 269 graduated from the
seventh grade; but they chose to go no further. Keep in mind that most Black children lived in a
home bereft of literature and did not usually have experiences that fostered careers beyond a
rural environment. They found employment chiefly as domestic servants and were made to
believe that they would have “few chances in life.”111
As was previously noted, another reason some students didn’t attend high school was
a lack of access to public transportation. Even if students wanted to attend high school,
some parents felt that they lived too far from the school their children wanted to attend.
Since the district did not provide transportation, alternatives were required, such as a
private bus or station wagon, but that was unaffordable to many. Other Black students
relied on friends with private vehicles, often using donated gasoline. None the less, they
repeatedly tried to obtain bus transport, as was seen in a 1930s (not dated precisely)
petition from over 130 parents of students at Willisville, St. Louis, Middleburg, Bull Run
and Gleedsville one-room schools wanting buses to take the children to the “Loudoun
County Training School.”112
A study of the attendance and transportation of African-American Training Center students
(Table 2) reveals that between AY 1935/1936 and AY 1938/1939, the Center had an enrollment
of 412 primary and 223 high school students. Whereas 52 (12 percent) were bused), 173 (27
percent) were forced to walk. Interviews by the NAACP revealed that when buses were not
provided, fewer students attended, either due to the inconvenience or the cost of supplementing
the bus.
Table 2. Attendance and Transportation Study at the Training Center, AY 1935/1936 to
AY 1938/1939.
Primary
Pupils
1935/36
1936/37
1937/38
1938/39
Totals:
100
95
108
109
412
High
School
Pupils
40
60
66
57
223
Bused
0
15
15
22
52
Had
to
Walk
40
45
51
37
173
Source: EWP Archives: 9.3 AY 1940 Construction and Pop Study, Pg. 20.
The confluence of poverty and a lack of public transportation was the theme of a letter to
attorney Charles Houston. Henry Young, representing the parents of Willisville, wrote,
“[W]e certainly need a bus for our children and above all a High School, for we have too
many boys and girls ready for High School to be turned out in the world to go to
destruction when they can be in school.”113 Similarly, Elizabeth Warner of Bluemont
wrote in March 1940, saying that a lack of a bus prevented her child from going to the
Training Center. “I am poor and have no way of getting [my children] to Leesburg.”114
According to Mrs. M. K. Jennings, who lived in Hughesville, a feeder village to
Willisville, “there are children who have finished from the Willisville School for three
years or more and no provision has been made for them to get to high school.”115 But the
problem for Jennings was just about inconvenience and costs. The same memo pointed
out that passing white bus drivers ran African-American children off the road and threw
stones at them!
The transportation implications of closing Bluemont Colored in 1934 was recognized
as an injustice even by some white neighbors by asking the school board to provide bus
transportation for the children to Rock Hill Colored.116 To put pressure on the
government, beginning in 1940, the County-Wide League began asking their members to
send reimbursement bills to the school board. These bills were for the expenses the
children had acquired in other counties and for transportation costs African-Americans
would not have had to incur were they provided buses. Such complaints, which were
based on an understanding of the right to equal protection under the 14 th Amendment to
the Constitution and U.S. Code117 placed political pressure on the school system to
resolve these inequities118 and are another vivid example of Black determination for
equality.
Unlike the white population, which had numerous formal high school choices, there was just
one for African-Americans in 1941 Loudoun. It is therefore an irony to read an article in 1939
by Lloyd Womeldorph, principal of Lovettsville High School, who complained that too many
pupils were not completing secondary schooling. He additionally remarked that “due to the easy
accessibility of high schools to all sections, no child in Loudoun should be denied the privilege
and opportunity of securing a high school education. He reiterated, “This is [the child’s]
birthright and a great injustice is being done when he is deprived of that right.” Of course,
Womeldorph was referring to white students.119 African-Americans had only the Training
Center in 1939, and as seen in Emerick’s 1936 memo,120 there were no plans for a second or
third school for African-Americans. The broad access for African-Americans didn’t occur until
the end of segregation in 1968. When Bushrod Murray was teaching at Mountain, a one room
school, he reported that of the twenty pupils who had graduated from the seventh grade since
1930, only six went on to high school, due to poverty and lack of transportation.121 One has to
wonder what would have become of those transportation-deprived African-Americans had they
been able to attend high school.
If we assume that students nineteen or twenty years of age could have benefited from high
school learning, then the 1905 School Census for Jefferson District 122 may be instructive, as
well as the Annual Reports and Special Census Reports 1887 to 1940/1941.123 The annual
numbers of white students accessing higher branch learning across the county generally
exceeded 200, sometimes nearly 400. Access by African-Americans was far lower, usually in
the single digits, though we know students were gaining access at Leesburg. The average
attendance of African-Americans at the Leesburg facility alone between AY1934/35 and
A/Y1940/41, when it closed was 46. Of course, age would not have been the sole determining
factor for not attending or completing high school. Scholastic ability, personal drive, and
logistical support from the family also mattered. When reviewing these numbers, our team
realized that they varied sometimes by month. In one period, ten pupils might take higher
branches whereas in the next perhaps only three.124 We looked at the highest number of offered
classes in a given academic year when comparing white and African-American experiences.
Conclusions
Whites had far more exposure to higher branch coursework than African-Americans, including
access to a fully equipped public high school by 1910; but by the early 1920s, the limited access
of Blacks evolved from lectures in the one-room schools to more formal schooling at the
Leesburg Training Center in Leesburg, as well as a continuation of educational access in the
smaller schools. The limited program was upgraded in 1930 to a one-year high school program
that evolved by AY 1940/1941 into an accredited high school in the same building, then
transitioned in AY 1941/1942 to a dedicated high school building called Douglass. This
evolution could only have come about because of the determination of parents, teachers, and
allies like the NAACP.
Limited exposure before 1941 was retarded by prejudice, even though in other areas of education,
leaders like Superintendent Emerick were progressive, looking for modern methods of teaching,
administration, and fund raising. Unfortunately, prejudice against Blacks was endemic in Virginia politics
and meant that salaries for African-American instructors were significantly lower than for their
white counterparts. Funds provided for construction, repair, and maintenance of white schools
was far larger than for African-American facilities. Equipment for African-American schools like
the Training Center were often inadequate, forcing parents to donate kitchen supplies and their
own meager funds. To gain repairs to the one-room schools where limited higher branch learning
might take place, the African-American community felt they had to offer their own labor and
funds, instead of relying entirely on the state. As Richardson noted, this was a problem across the
entire state.125
No public transportation was provided any African-American student before 1941, forcing
parents to pay for transport from their own pockets, which was not always possible. Not only did
this hinder attendance to one-room schools, especially in bad weather, it reduced attendance at
the Training Center and thus also reduced the number of students who could move on to college.
While white students had access to high schools around the county, there was never more
than one dedicated high school program for Blacks, first in the upper floor of the Training
Center, then in 1941, Douglass. This decision by the white officials was strategic.
There were significant improvements in the education of African Americans of Loudoun
County. Between the end of the Civil War and the 1920s, first in freedmen schools, then in the
public one-room schools, a handful of African-American pupils managed to benefit from higher
branch classwork. Students in these courses had lectures related to a high school level textbook
or topics rather than involvement in a full day’s curriculum. White pupils had far broader access
to subject matter than Blacks.
Despite financial and logistical hardships, the African-American community built from
scratch a high school program on the second floor of the Leesburg Training Center in the early
1920s. This program laid the foundation for a full program on the second floor by 1940 to
include the sciences and French.
The African-American community effectively used the power of petitions, lobbyists like the
County-Wide League, policy advice from senior African-American educators in Richmond, and
legal advice from the NAACP to achieve improvements in the primary grade schools and to
effectively convince the white government to permit construction of Douglass High School,
though only after land was donated to the county by the Black community.
During this research, our team has been impressed by the persistent protest of the AfricanAmerican people against segregation’s injustice, which we saw in their fervent demands for
education, and the ways they resisted oppression—through discussion, petitions, and the threat of
lawsuits. Perhaps the most vivid records are in the form of hand-written petitions by parent who
carried them farm to farm for signatures in order to convince the government to take some
specific action, to hire a better teacher, keep a school from falling over in the wind or to gain
toilets. In one case, we came across a formerly enslaved citizen who signed a petition in support
of the Training Center.126 George Henry Russ was born in 1850 on the Oatlands Plantation in
Loudoun,127 then in 1889 was a delegate to the African-American delegation in the Eighth U.S.
Congressional District, arguing against racial prejudice. Hundreds of signatures to petitions are
now being examined by our project to unearth the biographies of everyone who signed, people
many local citizens have called “heroes of education.” Even some white resident signed
petitions in support of African-American causes, which was an important revelation.
African-American teachers regularly advocated for their students in segregated teacher
institutes, which were committees of instructors pushing for better medical care, course work,
training for teachers, etc. Transportation was always a problem and in 1932 when the road to the
Saint Louis school was found to be impassable, the instructor Laura Cook, built an alliance of
local families who complained directly to the Superintendent. Sadly, in order to gain any
support, they felt the need to say, “We are willing to contribute labor towards the work.”128
As a final point when considering the inequities embedded in Loudoun’s social order, one
would be expected to cite the wisdom of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas, 1954. This decision stabbed a knife into the heart of the theory of
segregation: that Blacks and whites should learn separately due to the inferiority of the later race.
However, reflecting on this paper’s larger meaning, I am drawn to John Marshall Harlan,
Supreme Court Justice from 1877 to 1911. He was the lone dissenter to the odious Plessy v.
Ferguson decision, which Brown overturned. Like the African-American community, which was
a distinct minority, he too was a minority, of one against seven, who wrote, “Our Constitution is
color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”129 That is the wisdom
which was advocated by the Loudoun Chapter of the NAACP, the County-Wide League, and
African-American parents, children, educators and their friends – a wisdom which resonates
today when we see about us prejudice against Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Native
Americans, immigrants and other minorities. It’s a Loudoun County legacy to be honored and
not forgotten.
Larry Roeder is the principal investigator of the
Edwin Washington Project which has been tasked
by Loudoun County Public Schools with
documenting the experiences of African-American
students and teachers in segregated schools. A
former soldier, diplomat, and politician, he spent
most of his career in reducing risks from conflict
and natural and man-made disasters. He has written
or edited many articles and books including
Diplomacy and Funding for Humanitarian NonProfits. In 2019, the participants in the EWP were
recognized as the best volunteer team in Loudoun
County. Visit Larry at roederaway@gmail.com/ or
www.edwinwashigntonproject.org.
Notes
1
In this paper, a synonym for higher branch learning is high school level education.
The County-Wide League was an association of most of the Black PTAs in Loudoun County.
3
The Virginia legislature actually permitted free schools as early as 1846 if counties wanted
them; but whites of Loudoun demurred for fear of attendance by freed Blacks.
4
Edwin Washington was the first African-American youth whom we can document as having
asked for and obtained schooling in Loudoun, though many other anonymous pupils and parents
predated him. The Edwin Washington Archives: (EWA) is the name given by the Edwin
Washington Project (EWP) to boxes of records covering education in Loudoun County between
the 1830s and 1968, when integration arrived. The records were lost for decades and then found
by the staff of the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) in the Training Center, then a largely
abandoned, non-electrified, unheated “Colored” schoolhouse in Leesburg, Virginia. The archives
cover both white and Black schools, as well as topics that transcend race.
5
Oatlands was one of the many great plantations of Virginia with an economy that totally
depended on slavery. Now part of the National Trust, the managers have reached out to the
families of the formerly enslaved to develop their history.
6
The Jeanes supervisors were African-American teachers paid partly by the Jeanes Foundation
to manage southern rural schools and communities serving the African-American Community
between 1908 and 1968. The foundation was also known as the Negro Rural School Fund
7
Charles Hamilton Houston was a giant of American jurisprudence, who took on a different
attitude than some leaders who argued for a Black nation. Instead, he believed in resolving racial
2
disharmony by relying on the Constitution, which may explain some of his zeal for the
community in Loudoun. It is also clear from the preponderance of evidence that they had the
same point of view. See Charles H. Houston Papers, Collection 163-1 to 163-52., Manuscript
Division, the Founders Library, Howard University.
8
Archie G. Richardson, The Development of Negro Education in Virginia, 1831-1970
(Richmond: Phi Delta Kappa, 1976).
9
EWP Archives: 2.5A, Colored Petitions.
10
An exception to the pre-emancipation ban on educating the enslaved would be the children of
the enslaved and freed who shared class space with white children without prejudice at Oakdale
School in Lincoln. Operated from 1815 by the Quakers, this is the oldest brick schoolhouse in
Loudoun County. Werner L. Janney and Asa Moore Janney, John Hay Janney’s Virginia, 1978,
EPM Publications, McLean, Virginia.
11
Caroline Thomas, Teacher’s Monthly School Report for Tate Colored School, April 1870,
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, Washington, D.C.
12
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869, Roll 45, 489-490, U.S.
Archives.
13
Betty L. Morefield, “William Obediah Robey,” in Essence of a People (Leesburg, VA: Black
History Committee of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, Aug. 1, 2018). See also “Letter
from Loudoun County,” Alexandria Gazette, June 16, 1866, 2.
14
Ibid.
15
Ronald Butchart, Freedmen’s Education in Virginia, 1861-1870, retrieved Oct. 8, 2018, from
Encyclopedia Virginia, https//www.encyclopediavirginia.org.
16
Henry M. Laing and Edith W. Atlee, “Friends Amongst the Freedmen,” Friends’ Intelligencer
24, no. 12 (1868): 186.
17
Ibid.
18
William. T. Alderson, “The Freedmen’s Bureau and Negro Education in Virginia,” The North
Carolina Historical Review 29 (1952): 75.
19
Caroline Thomas, “Friends Among the Freedmen” 7 (April 24, 1867), Friend’s Intelligencer
24 (1868): 137.
20
Caroline Thomas, “Friends Among the Freedmen” 6 (March 3, 1867), Friend’s Intelligencer
24 (1868): 75.
21
Caroline Thomas, “Friends Among the Freedmen” 9 (June 27, 1867), Friend’s Intelligencer 24
(1868), 332.
22
Ibid., 333.
23
Act Approved March 31, 1875, Chapter 354, 439, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of
Virginia, Passed at the Session of 1874-5 (Richmond, VA: Superintendent of Public Print, 1875).
24
William Webster Wells, The Essentials of Algebra for Secondary Schools (Boston: Leach,
Shewell, and Sanborn, 1897).
25
Joel Dorman Steele, Hygienic Physiology: Fourteen Weeks in Human Physiology (NY:
American Book Company, 1889).
26
Randolph Publishers and Booksellers, The Virginia Public School Register (Richmond: J.W.
Randolph, 1895), 7.
27
Ibid.
28
AY is the abbreviation for “academic year” which usually lasts for fewer than twelve months.
29
Eugene Scheel, “High Schools Once Flourished Across Area,” The Washington Post, October
21, 2003.
30
He was superintendent from 1917 to 1957.
EWP Archives: 5.1 AY 1926, Oscar Emerick on the Purpose of Education. Subsequent
citations from the EWP Archives will indicate the number of the object, the year of its origin, the
name of the originator, and the topic addressed. Topics and Reports are capitalized to reflect the
organization of the EWP.
32
EWP Archives: 3.3 Annual Reports.
33
Oscar Emerick, “Loudoun County Public Schools Among Leading Schools of State,” Loudoun
County Magazine (Sept. 5, 1929), 1.
34
These figures are from numerous Term Reports.
35
Some early Loudoun teachers attended Dunbar High School. For example, Geneva Brown
graduated from Dunbar and instructed at Guinea Colored in Lovettsville during AY 1920/1921.
See EWP Archives: 6.3.3. AY 1920/1921, Term Report for Guinea Colored.
36
Charles H. Houston Papers and EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 Mar. 16, Houston to Emerick
on Inequities, 1-3.
37
Douglass High School Anniversary, 1941-1991; Douglass Alumni Association, Leesburg, VA,
1991. We assume the content of the recollections is based on the events recalled at the 1991
meeting of the Douglass Alumni Association (hereafter DAA recollections) and at the Fiftieth
Reunion.
38
EWP Archives: 9.3. AY 1940. “Colored School Chart,” in Construction and Pop Study, NP.
See also deed books in the Circuit Court Archives of Loudoun County, Book 6T, Folio 498 and
Eugene Scheel, Loudoun Discovered 2 (Leesburg: Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, 2002,
1984/1985); DAA.
39
Eugene Scheel, “High Schools Once Flourished Across Area.” Scheel, who is a well-regarded
historian and map maker in Waterford Village, used as a source in the 1970s a former student
from the Training Center named Emma Jackson.
40
Oscar Emerick, Memo, Building Problems, EWP Archives: 9.3.2 AY 1936 Apr 13, White and
Colored School Bldg.
41
DAA recollections, 1991.
42
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AY 1921/1922 and 1922/1923, Term Reports for Leesburg Colored
Graded School A.
43
Each schoolhouse tended to have a supportive League of Patrons who provided funds. This
was separate from the Parent Teacher Association system.
44
DAA recollections, 1991.
45
EWP Archives: 6.3.3, AYs 1920/1923, Term Reports for Hughesville Colored. Edith
Blackwell White was a high school graduate who also went to the normal school in Washington,
D.C. and instructed grades 1-7 at Hughesville from 1914 to 1923. By 1940, she had acquired two
years of college. See 4.5 Colored Teacher Cards.
46
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AYs 1920/1923 and AY 1924/26, Term Reports for Purcellville
Colored. Alice M.W. Scott instructed higher branch music. Born about 1870, Scott died in 1930
She started teaching about 1911. She studied at Howard and also at a normal school. See 4.5
Colored Teacher Cards.
47
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AY 1920/1921. Term Report for Waterford Colored. Anna Bell Ferrell
instructed higher branch coursework for 1.5 hours a day.
48
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AY 1923/1924, Term Report for Bluemont Colored. Beatrice Scipio,
one of the best-known instructors from the era, provided six hours a day for higher branch
learning, as well as six hours a day for common school branches (elementary), according to her
31
own report. It is unlikely that Scipio actually offered 12 hours of instruction by herself; but the
notions she made are specific, and Scipio had a high reputation. In fact, current residents
remember her as one of the best instructors. Therefore, we believe the numbers were not in
error. Instead, she likely offered two levels of instruction in parallel, either by having on a
rotating basis one set of students read while others heard instruction or perhaps with the aid of
another. However, the official list of African-American instructors for that academic year do not
show another at the Bluemont school, so we believe she probably used the rotation option. EWP
Archives: 4.5 Yr. 1923 1924 Colored Teachers list
49
EWP Archives: 2.5.A AY. 1930, May. Leesburg wants High School and Normal School
Graduate. Normal schools were not college degree programs, though often given at
Universities. In Virginia, normal schools or institutes began around 1880 under various formats
as facilities for instructing prospective or even active teachers during the summer on how to do
their profession, thus addressing a frequent complaint by parents and Superintendents. We have
seen a number of those complaints in Loudoun records. The first major program for AfricanAmericans was at the University of Virginia at Lynchburg in 1880, attended by 240 AfricanAmericans. Buck, Pg. 85. Loudoun's African American teachers frequently studied at Hampton
Institute (now Hampton University) and Virginia Normal (now Virginia State University) and
other schools in Washington, DC and West Virginia. The original intent of the Training Center
program also included teaching techniques of instruction; but that goal quickly fell away,
focusing instead of regular school courses, including some high school work.
50
John C. Walker in EWP Archives: 4.5.A Colored Teacher Cards.
51
DAA recollections, 1991. According to alumni, Lucas introduced tennis and track into the
curriculum. See also EWP Archives 6.3.2 AY 1939/1940, LC Training Center Colored and EWP
Archives 6.3.2 AY 1940/1941, LC Training Center Colored. George Liverpool in EWP
Archives: 4.4 AY 1914 to 1949 Superintendent’s Record of Teacher’s certificates (1941/1942).
John C. Walker in EWP Archives 4.4 AY 1914 to 1945 Superintendent’s Record of Teacher’s
certificates (1940/1941).
52
George Liverpool in EWP Archives: 4.4 AY 1914 to 1945 Superintendent’s Record of
Teacher Certificates (AYs 1941/42).
53
Harris’ first name was spelled Edythe and Edyth.
54
Edith Harris in 4.5 Colored Teacher Cards.
55
EWP Archives: 2.5.A AY Feb 7, 1931, Edythe Harris Wants Help for HS Program at Training
Center.
56
DAA recollections, 1991.
57
Richardson, Negro Education in Virginia, 34.
58
The earliest graduates were Lillian Juanita Coe of Leesburg, Everett Carl Cook of Middleburg,
Nancy Mary Cook of Middleburg, Edythe Belle Lee of Purcellville, and James Clifton Winston
of Leesburg. DAA recollections, 1991.
59
EWP Archives: 9.2.3 1938, Feb. Oscar Emerick. “Additional Physical Needs of Our Schools.”
60
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AYs 1934-1941, 5-8.
61
Edith Harris in EWP Archives: 4.5.A Colored Teacher Cards.
62
Staff Writer, “A Time Worn Fallacy,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 1940, 6.
63
EWP Archives: 15.6 Defenders of State Sovereignty. See also Collection SC 0025, The Balch
Library, Leesburg, Virginia.
64
Oscar Emerick, “Loudoun County Public Schools Among Leading Schools of State,” Loudoun
County Magazine, Sept. 5, 1929, 1.
65
EWP Archives: 2.5.A AY 1926 March 6. Colored PTA Wants Increased Salary.
EWP Archives: 4.4 AY 1914 to 1945. Superintendent’s Record of Teachers Certificates.
67
Alexander J. Inglis, Virginia Public Schools Education Commission’s Report to the Assembly
of Virginia (Richmond: Waddey, 1919), 200.
68
David T. Blose, “Statistics of Education of the Negro Race 1925-1926,” Bulletin 19 (1928):
42.
69
Michael Vincent O’Shea, Report to the Educational Commission of Virginia of a Survey of the
Public Educational System of the State (Richmond: Superintendent of Publishing, 1928): 290.
70
Emerick, “Loudoun County Public Schools,” 1.
71
Aldie, Ashburn, Leesburg, Lincoln, Lovettsville, Lucketts, Round Hill, Unison-Bloomfield
and Waterford. Hillsboro offered two years and Middleburg one year.
72
EWP Archives: 2.5A Colored Petitions.
73
EWP Archives: 15.5 County-Wide League.
74
EWP Archives: 15.18 NAACP.
75
EWP Archives: 15.18 AY 1940 March 21. Houston to Emerick on Local Dissent.
76
Gertrude Alexander supervised the Black schools and was partly paid by the Jeanes Fund.
77
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940, May 4. Richardson to Emerick.
78
EWP Archives: 1.1.3, AY 1940, April 8. Purcellville Option.
79
Purcellville was a reasonable choice in that it had access to highways and railroads and had
been the location of the annual Emancipation Day celebrations since 1910; but most Black
residents preferred Leesburg.
80
Scheel, “High Schools Once Flourished Across Area.”
81
Joe M. Richardson and Maxine. D. Jones, Education for Liberation (Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama, 2009), 250.
82
Clayton McClure Brooks, The Uplift Generation: Cooperation Across the Color Line in Early
Twentieth Century Virginia (Charlottesville: Univeristy of Virginia Press, 2017), 31-33.
83
Richardson, The Development of Negro Education in Virginia, 28, 33.
84
DAA recollections, 1991.
85
Richardson, Negro Education in Virginia, 34.
86
Ibid., 38.
87
Emerick, “Loudoun County Public Schools,1.
88
EWP Archives: 2.5.a AYs 1930s. African-Americans Request Accredited High School
Building. Many petitions are undated, so the process of dating involves an examination of the
people who signed to determine when they died as a gauge for approximation.
89
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 AY 1940. Report on Progress for Virginia Accredited High Schools,
notes by G. William Liverpool, principal of Loudoun County Training Center, 30-31.
90
A note was also made in the same report of the effort to purchase a large plat of ground (for
Douglass) described as “a new and adequate school plant.”
91
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 March 18 McKJackson to Emerick.
92
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 March 16 Houston to Emerick.
93
The Edwin Washington Project is engaged in a detailed study of how the home economics
curriculum was used to alleviate hunger, poverty, and problems of sanitation during the Great
Depression. See also EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 Mar 16 Houston to Emerick.
94
EWP Archives: 1.1.3 AY 1939 Dec 15 Richardson Recommendations.
95
Ibid. Richardson made a number of recommendations as to the positioning of the new
structure and suggested that Emerick consult with Raymond Long, Supervisor of School
66
Buildings, State Department of Education, Richmond. Long frequently consulted with Emerick
on building designs. Richardson also recommended that both elementary and high school
students use the new building if possible, thus enabling an evacuation of all children from the
Training Center which he felt should be abandoned as soon as possible. Other memos already
cited show the building was a fire trap. Elementary students continued to use the old building
until 1958, when they were moved to Douglass Elementary. Unfortunately, School Board
records from that period are missing from the archives; but we do have 3” x 5” cards that showed
a continuation of children in the Training Center past 1941. EWP Archives: 6.6 Leesburg, then
Douglass Elementary Grades 1-7.
96
EWP Archives: 9.3.2, AY 1936 April. White and Colored School Building Needs.
97
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1944 Nov. Emerick to School Board on Resource Equality, 3.
98
In 1938/39, John Walker complained that he didn’t have access to a large dictionary or
encyclopedia, and though he had a case of maps, they were old. See EWP Archives: 6.3.2.
Virginia Teacher’s Term Report for 1938/1939 for “Leesburg Negro.”
99
Frank Raflo, “Within the Iron Gates,” Loudoun Times-Mirror, 1988, 347.
100
EWP Archives: 9.2.3 AY 1938 Feb. Oscar Emerick, “Additional Physical Needs of Our
Schools.”
101
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 Mar 16 Houston memo to Emerick. Covers fire trap and other
issues. The danger of fire and thus the safety of the children was cited by Houston in his note as
a rationale for moving more quickly than Emerick proposed related to constructing the new high
school.
102
Randolph, Public School Register, 7.
103
Emerick, “Loudoun County Public Schools,” 1.
104
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 Term Reports for AY 1924/1925 and AY 1925/1926 for Sycoline
Colored School.
105
EWP Archives: 6.3.3 Term Report for 1925/1926 for Sycoline Colored School.
106
Steele, Hygienic Physiology.
107
Mathew Fontaine Maury, The Physical Geography of the Sea (NY: Harper, 1855).
108
EWP Archives: 4.4 AYs 1914 to 1945, Superintendent’s Record of Teachers Certificates.
109
EWP Archives: 15.21 School Fairs.
110
Charles H. Houston Papers.
111
Richardson, Negro Education in Virginia, 37.
112
EWP Archives: 2.5. Yr. 1930s. Various Schools Want Transport to L.C. Training Center.
113
Henry Young, letter to Charles Houston, March 12, 1940, retrieved from Charles Houston
Papers, Folder no. 5.
114
Elizabeth Warner, letter to Charles H. Houston, March 1940, retrieved from Charles H.
Houston Papers, (Folder no.7).
115
Mrs. M. K. Jennings, 1940, letter to Charles H. Houston on Behalf of Howardsville and
Bluemont Parents, retrieved from Charles H. Houston Papers (Folder no. 7).
116
EWP Archives: 2.5. AY 1934, October, petition from Bluemont Parents Requesting
Transportation to Rock Hill Colored School.
117
The U.S. Code cited by Houston implements the Fourteenth Amendment: “All persons within
the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to
make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of
all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens,
and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every
kind and to no other.” Contemporary citation is 42 U.S. Code § 1981. Equal Rights Under the
Law.
118
EWP Archives: 1.1.1 AY 1940 Mar 16 Houston to Emerick. See also EWP Archives: 1.1.1
AY 1940, March 21. Houston to Emerick. Covers complaint by Daisy Allen and Amanda Coe,
as well as access to Board of Education minutes and other matters.
119
Lloyd Asbey Womeldorph, “Encourage Pupils To Complete Work Is Parents’ Duty,”
Loudoun Times Mirror, Sept. 1, Section 2, 1939,1.
120
EWP archives: 9.3.2 AY 1936 April. White and Colored School Building Needs.
121
The six students were residents at the following: One studied at Hampton, presumably to
become a teacher; one at Washington D.C.; two at Leesburg (the Training Center); and one at
Manassas, which would have been the Manassas Industrial School run by Black evangelist
Jennie Dean. See also Gertrude Alexander, Survey, Washington, D.C.: Law Offices of Charles
Houston, 1939, in Charles H. Houston Papers (Folder no. 4).
122
EWP Archives: 2.4.2 AYs 1882 to 1921 District Accounts and Census and EWP Archives:
2.6 AY 1925 School Census from Defense of High School in EWP Archives: 2.6 Leg Files. The
survey measured numbers of children by race, sex, age, ability to read, deaf and blindness,
attending private schools Each child was listed by name and parent or guardian. At the end of the
census is a list of “colored” parents, which included addresses.
123
EWP Archives: 3.3 AY Reports.
124
The records don’t always indicate the actual number of classes, only that X number of pupils
took higher branch courses.
125
Richardson, Negro Education in Virginia, 10.
126
EWP Archives: 2.5.A AY 1930s Community League of Leesburg Wants a Change in
Teachers.
127
Now called Oatlands House and Gardens.
128
EWP Archives: 2.5.A AY 1932 Jan. 21, Saint Louis Road Needs Improvement.
129
Charles Thompson, “Plessy v. Ferguson: Harlan’s Great Dissent,”reprint of 1996 article:
https://louisville.edu/law/library/special-collections/.