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Strike

From: With Good Reason
Length: 29:00

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Before Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycotts, a 16-year-old student led a student strike that went all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end segregation. Read the full description.
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Strike
From
With Good Reason

Moton-museum-logo_small In 1951 a group of African American students at Robert R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, organized a strike to protest the substandard school facilities provided for black students. The walkout, led by 16 year old Barbara Johns, is one of the great stories in the struggle for Civil Rights—a story of courage and persistence against what seemed at the time like overwhelming odds.  Larissa Smith Fergeson  provides the historical context to the walkout; Lacy Ward Jr. interviews two students who participated in the strike and Mildred Robinson describes the effects on students and families when the Virginia government closed the schools rather than succumb to the federal mandate to integrate them.

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Piece Description

In 1951 a group of African American students at Robert R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, organized a strike to protest the substandard school facilities provided for black students. The walkout, led by 16 year old Barbara Johns, is one of the great stories in the struggle for Civil Rights—a story of courage and persistence against what seemed at the time like overwhelming odds.  Larissa Smith Fergeson  provides the historical context to the walkout; Lacy Ward Jr. interviews two students who participated in the strike and Mildred Robinson describes the effects on students and families when the Virginia government closed the schools rather than succumb to the federal mandate to integrate them.