2008-2012 (Wordpress)
November 2013-March 2018 (ViewShare)
March 2018-Present (Wordpress)

Scholars and writers on the subject of desegregation of Virginia schools had no individual electronic resource to guide them to the many materials available to them on the subject both inside and outside the Commonwealth. They had to locate these collections individually on their own.

With support from AARP/Virginia, Old Dominion University, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University, DOVE compiled a list of guidelines and best practices for oral history collection and processing workflow in 2012.

Oral history interviews were captured during the Learn Empower and Preserve (LEAP) project in 2012. DOVE organized events in 10 communities across the Commonwealth to have a dialogue about desegregation in Virginia and collect oral histories. 113 Oral histories were recorded via both audio and video capture during this program.

Subsequent interviews were collected during visits to the Glayden School in Leesburg, the Gum Springs Community Center, and visits to individuals' homes.

The scholarly significance of oral history is in documenting people's memories and life experiences, which otherwise might have never been recorded as written documents. From an educational perspective, oral histories add richness and personal perspective to the historical record and can engage students and scholars in a lively study of history. There are some experiences that can only be captured accurately and in minute detail in an oral history interview.

Oral histories collected during the LEAP's Eastern Shore swing may have been the first known records focusing on that area's school desegregation.

Oral histories on school desegregation in Virginia

Principal partners include DOVE members and volunteers who have conducted oral history interviews with individuals who experienced school desegregation in Virginia firsthand. These include Zach Logan, who organized and conducted a series of interviews, with assistance from students at Warren County High School, related to the closing of the schools in Warren County, Virginia, in 1958. Another noteworthy project was organized by Carla Savage-Wells, and conducted by students at Old Dominion University, related to school desegregation and the civil rights era on the Eastern Shore in Virginia.

To help ensure that memories of the school desegregation process are preserved, DOVE created an Oral History Toolkit with potential interview questions, a consent form, a list of best practices, and other relevant information, to share with those who might conduct oral histories on the subject. In addition, DOVE has offered in-person support and expertise to oral history projects. As part of the DOVE/NAACP/AARP traveling exhibit, DOVE volunteers also conducted oral history interviews which have been preserved as part of the DOVE Digital Collection at Old Dominion University.

These interviews with individuals who experienced school desegregation firsthand will allow scholars and other interested persons to learn about the school desegregation process from sources outside of traditional records, such as newspaper accounts and court records.

Workshops for school teachers to improve content knowledge and lesson plans related to school desegregation in Virginia.

One of DOVE's longstanding goals has been to share knowledge of school desegregation in Virginia to allow the public to obtain a better understanding of the nature, challenges, and legacies of the process.

In 2015 and 2017, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded "Landmarks of American History and Culture" grant funding to Dr. Yonghee Suh of the School of Education at Old Dominion University and Dr. Brian J. Daugherity of the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University to organize workshops to bring school teachers from around the United States to VCU to study school desegregation in Virginia. During the workshops, participating teachers visited historic sites, listened to guest presentations, and discussed reading and teaching assignments related to school desegregation in Virginia. Teachers also developed and honed lesson plans related to the subject to utilize in their own classrooms.

This project has allowed DOVE, a partner on these NEH applications, to provide content knowledge of school desegregation to approximately 150 school teachers from around the United States, and to make lesson plans that were developed by a number of these teachers accessible to other teachers and to the general public.

Old Dominion University collected all interviews and other materials (e.g., photographs) from DOVE's traveling exhibit, and created a digital collection that is available globally for everyone -- from family members to teachers to researchers -- to use. Additional interviews collected through DOVE are also added to the digital collection.

Many of the interviews were transcribed by WHRO staff and are included in their eMediaVA web site which is used by teachers throughout Virginia.

Since 2013, the entire DOVE Collection on ODU's site (including 110 oral histories) has been accessed over 11,500 times. Forty oral histories on the eMediaVA site have been viewed 844 times since 2013, presumably by K-12 teachers and students.

Users have a place to explore and find out who to contact.

The Moton Story: Children of Courage is a six gallery, 5,500 square feet permanent exhibition that chronicles the stories of Prince Edward citizens as they moved their community and all of America from a segregated to an integrated society between 1951-1964. Visitors can sit in the same auditorium where on April 23rd, 1951, Barbara Johns and her fellow classmates made history.

Between 2008-2011 the work at the museum included creation of the film Strike: A Call to Action that chronicles the student walkout of April 23rd, 1951. It also included restoration of the Auditorium (Gallery 1), preparation work for exhibit galleries (II-VI), renovation of the Gift Shop, Offices, Board Room, and Restrooms. In 2012 - 2013 work continued onsite at the Moton Museum. This included the fabrication and installation of the exhibit galleries (II-VI), and the parking lot and bus pull off. Later work has included the our Tar Paper Shack Building and landscaping.

In 1951 in Farmville, Virginia, sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns bravely organized and inspired her fellow 450 students to walk out of school and protest the overcrowded and inadequate conditions at Prince Edward County's all-black Robert Russa Moton High School. This strike launched a 13-year struggle for better educational opportunities in Prince Edward County that emblematized the youth-driven efforts for civil rights across the United States. The court case that arose from the strike was one of the five cases decided by the Supreme Court in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. It was the only case initiated by students.

Following that court decision, in 1959 Prince Edward County became the only school district in the nation to close its public schools for five years rather than desegregate. "Massive Resistance" was the strategy by Virginia's white politicians in the late 1950s to prevent public school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education. Under the leadership of the Rev. L. Francis Griffin and with the aid of the Kennedy administration, another suit made it to the Supreme Court to reopen the public schools in 1964. The story of civil rights in Prince Edward County and Virginia teaches people about the capacity of everyday, local people to use their constitutional rights to create lasting social change. It is a powerful and moving story of resilience. The museum and exhibition also makes a impact by helping individuals relate historical content and events to their own lives. Museums and historic landmarks have the distinct ability to immerse visitors in a sense of time and place. The authenticity of historical sites, objects and artifacts, and first-person accounts help visitors engage with history on a deeper level. To see and hear the voices of people involved in the Moton story is a powerful experience.

One of the principal reasons behind the creation of DOVE was the lack of knowledge and understanding about the process of school desegregation in Virginia, among the general public as well as school teachers, librarians, and archivists around the state.

With support from AARP/Virginia, Old Dominion University created a captivating and informative portable exhibit, and identified partners in sites throughout Virginia. George Mason developed protocols for recording oral histories and trained volunteers. In April 2012, the DOVE team held its grand opening event for the "School Desegregation: Learn/Preserve/Empower" traveling exhibit, in Melfa, Virginia, on the state's Eastern Shore.

In the 2012 and 2013, the exhibit traveled to over a dozen events. The events included talks about the state's history of school desegregation, the film "The Lost Class of '59," and oral history gathering. The exhibit provided a backdrop for community and individual discussions of their experiences integrating schools.

In 2013 and 2014, education classes at Old Dominion University continued the "School Desegregation: Learn/Preserve/Empower" project by conducting oral history interviews.

The events received local, state, and national publicity in newspapers, TV and on the internet. The traveling exhibit raised public awareness of this important history in communities throughout Virginia. For many communities and for many individuals, it was the first time they had discussed the lived experiences of students and teachers during school integration. Over 7,000 people visited the exhibit. Over 160 people told their stories in oral histories and contributed photos that are available in DOVE's digital collection. Oral histories in some areas are the first known records of desegregation for those schools.

With a series of anniversary events, New Kent County brought local and national attention to what some have called "The Radical Supreme Court Decision That America Forgot"

April 28 - May 27, 2018

New Kent County commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the 1968 landmark U. S. Supreme Court Decision, Charles C. Green vs. County School Board of New Kent County, VA that forever changed education in the United States. The decision of Green vs County School Board of New Kent County, was handed down on May 27, 1968 and established the duty of the school boards "across the U.S." to convert to a school system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated and all children can attend the same schools.

In a 2018 article, Atlantic Magazine stated its impact: "In Green v. New Kent County, the Court saw school desegregation as a reparative process—likely the closest thing to reparations that the American judicial system has ever endorsed." Yet in the prior 50 years, this historic act had slipped from the history books, and even the county's schools failed to teach it consistently.