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This is the biography of Barbara Johns(secondary source). It consists of quotes from Johns. This is the website of the Robert Russa Moton Museum(reliable source).

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Civil Rights Activist, School Desegregation

"It was time that Negroes were treated equally with whites, time that they had a decent school, time for the students themselves to do something about it.
There wasn't any fear. I just thought - this is your moment. Seize it!"

Barbara Rose Johns was born in New York City in 1935 to Violet and Robert Johns. She moved to Prince Edward County during World War II to live on a farm with her maternal grandmother Mary Croner. She spent most of her youth living and working on her grandmother's, and later her father's, farm.

After years of frustration with Prince Edward County school which she describes (later in a memoir) as having inadequacies such as poor facilities, shabby equipment and no science laboratories or separate gymnasium, Barbara took her concerns to a teacher who responded by asking, "Why don't you do something about it?" Barbara describes feeling as though her teacher's comments were dismissive, and as a result she was somewhat discouraged. However, after months of contemplation and imagination she began to formulate a plan. As Barbara describes it,

"the plan I felt was divinely inspired because I hadn't been able to think of anything until then. The plan was to assemble together the student council members.... From this, we would formulate plans to go on strike. We would make signs and I would give a speech stating our dissatisfaction and we would march out [of] the school and people would hear us and see us and understand our difficulty and would sympathize with our plight and would grant us our new school building and our teachers would be proud and the students would learn more and it would be grand...."

Seizing the moment, on April 23, 1951, Barbara Johns, a 16 year-old high school girl in Prince Edward County, Virginia, led her classmates in a strike to protest the substandard conditions at Robert Russa Moton High School. Her idealism, planning, and persistence ultimately garnered the support of NAACP lawyers Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill to take up her cause and the cause of more equitable conditions for Moton High School. After meeting with the students and the community, lawyers Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill filed suit at the federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. The case was called Davis v. Prince Edward. In 1954, the Farmville case became one of five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka when it declared segregation unconstitutional.

Following the strike, Barbara was sent to live with her Uncle Vernon Johns in Montgomery, Alabama, to finish her schooling. After graduating from high school, she attended Spellman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and ultimately graduated from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Barbara Johns went on to lead a quiet life; she married Reverend William Powell, raised five children and was a librarian in the Philadelphia Public Schools. Barbara Johns Powell died in 1991.

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Biography: Barbara Rose Johns Powell, 1935-1991 - Moton Museum

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Barbara Rose Johns, a civil rights activist, was one of the key figures in Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka. Learn more about her life and work.

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Barbara Johns' Memorial
(primary source)

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In what ways did
segregation change and
remain the same in the Civil
Rights era?
This strike led to the famous case Brown v. The Board of Education which desegregated schools.

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Did it create important changes in their time?

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Did it create important changes in their time?

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According to Clayborne Carson, the walk-out orchestrated by Barbara Johns did create important change. Her protest led to multiple well-known cases, such as the Brown v. The Board of Education case that desegregated schools in America.

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Was Johns' Walk Out a
progression of the Civil
Rights Movement? Why?
Yes because thanks to Johns' strike, black students gained the right have the same amount of knowledge as white students.

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Why was Johns' protest
significant?
Her protest is significant because it was one of many protests that led to our now desegregated America.

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A sign from the strike(primary source)

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This page talks about the strike and provides some background information(secondary source). This is the website for an exhibit that used to be presented at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History(reliable source).

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Davis v. the School Board of Prince Edward County

Moton High School is just a few miles from Appomattox, Virginia, the site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant to end the Civil War. In 1951 African American students from the school fought their battle for access to equal education.

Led by Barbara Johns, a determined eleventh-grader, a group of students organized a strike for a better school. The students rallied their fellow classmates, an entire community, and NAACP attorneys to their cause. Their courage and commitment brought their demand for justice before the nation.

Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County Legal Case Summary
Place: Rural Farmville, Virginia
Grievance: Overcrowded, underfunded segregated schools for African American children
Plaintiffs: Ninth-grader Dorothy Davis and 116 other students and parents of Farmville
Decision: A federal district court ruled against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court

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Farmville, Virginia - Separate Is Not Equal

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Davis v. the School Board of Prince Edward County Moton High School is just a few miles from Appomattox, Virginia, the site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant to end the Civil War. In 1951 African American students from the school fought their battle for access to equal education.

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From the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States(reliable)

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From the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States(reliable)

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Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, was grossly overcrowded and did not have a cafeteria, a gym, locker rooms, or a nurse's office. In April 1951, sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns and other student leaders organized a protest walkout by the school's 450 students. The striking students asked Virginia NAACP lawyers Spottswood Robinson, Oliver Hill (1907–2007), and Martin A. Martin to assist them in getting a new, equal school. The NAACP agreed to take the case if their parents consented to seek desegregation instead. In May 1952, the district court ruled in Davis v. County School Board, 103 F.Supp. 337 (1952) that there had been “no hurt or harm to either race” as a result of school segregation but did order the school board to equalize the black facilities. The NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that equalization of facilities would still not provide the equal education guaranteed black children by the Fourteenth Amendment.

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About Gale In Context: U.S. History

Uncover information on hundreds of the most significant people, events, and topics in U.S. history from a variety of sources.

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About Gale In Context: U.S. History Uncover information on hundreds of the most significant people, events, and topics in U.S. history from a variety of sources. Don't know how to login? Depending on this location's preferences, the log-in process could include your library card number, a student or user ID, or another provided password.