Equality is the ideal we have yet to achieve. Jefferson wrote of equality in our Declaration of Independence. Our Constitution did not recognize it. Lincoln guided the country through a Civil War for equality, but then the country slid backwards again. But we must try.

W.E.B. Du Bois had supported and tracked inequality, progress and hope for schooling in the African American community of Prince Edward County in 1898. The state of Virginia revised their post Civil War Constitution in 1902 to permit racial segregation. In 1951, the inequality had long been unconscionable. While white students had cafeterias, gymnasiums, school busses and laboratories, black students needed warm clothes and umbrellas inside tar paper shacks.

Frustrated by the systemic racism that prevented adults—who faced retribution for asking for change—from fixing the problem, the students decided to act by themselves. 16 year old Barbara Johns addressed her fellow students, banging her shoe on the podium, and called a strike, asking for cooperation and saying “don’t be afraid”. The students all went on strike, and their minister said they should contact the NAACP. Barbara Johns called Richmond lawyer Oliver Hill to help.

Their case, which lost, became part of the Brown v. Board of Education appeal, but the Prince Edward County school district refused to follow the Supreme Court ruling. A new school was built, but rather than comply with integration, even after Little Rock, the Governor of Virginia closed schools for five years. Martin Luther King visited in 1962. JFK and RFK publicly excoriated Prince Edward County in 1963. Finally, the Supreme Court ruled again, saying “time… has run out”.