The Virginia Civil Rights Memorial is a monument in Richmond, Virginia, commemorating protests which helped bring about school desegregation in the state. The memorial was opened in July 2008, and is located on the grounds of the

Virginia State Capitol The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government of the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital city of the U.S. state of Virginia. (The first two were Jamestown and Williamsburg.) It houses the oldest elected ...

. It features eighteen statues of leaders or participants in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

on four sides of a rectangular

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

stone block onto which are carved quotes. The memorial was designed by

Stanley Bleifeld Stanley Bleifeld (August 28, 1924 – March 26, 2011) was an American sculptor. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bleifeld earned bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of science in education and in 1949 a master of fine arts degree in painting at ...

, who was chosen by the commission behind the construction of the monument. The memorial cost $2.8 million which was financed by private donations. Virginia-Civil-Rights-Memorial-E-face.jpg, East side of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial Virginia-Civil-Rights-Memorial-W-face.jpg, West side of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial Virginia-Civil-Rights-Memorial-N-face.jpg, North side of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial Virginia-Civil-Rights-Memorial-S-face.jpg, South side of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial

Background

R. R. Moton High School, an all-black high school in Farmville, Virginia, founded in 1923, suffered from terrible conditions due to underfunding. The school did not have a gymnasium, cafeteria or teachers' restrooms. Teachers and students did not have desks or blackboards, and due to overcrowding, some students had to take classes in an immobilized, decrepit school bus parked outside the main school building. The school's requests for additional funds were denied by the all-white school board. In response, on April 23, 1951, a 16-year-old student named

Barbara Rose Johns Barbara Rose Johns Powell (March 6, 1935 – September 28, 1991) was a leader in the American civil rights movement. On April 23, 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, ...

covertly organized a student general strike. She forged notes to teachers telling them to bring their students to the auditorium for a special announcement. When the school's students showed up, Johns took the stage and persuaded the school to strike to protest poor school conditions. Over 450 walked out and marched to the homes of members of the school board, who refused to see them. Thus began a two-week protest. The protest led to a court case where

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

civil rights lawyers Oliver Hill and

Spottswood Robinson Spottswood William Robinson III (July 26, 1916 – October 11, 1998) was an American educator, civil rights attorney, and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after previously s ...

brought suit against the school board. ''

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County ''Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County'' (Docket number: Civ. A. No. 1333; Case citation: 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952)) was one of the five cases combined into '' Brown v. Board of Education'', the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme ...

'' was eventually one of the four cases combined into ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'', the famous case in which the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, in 1954, officially overturned

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

in U.S. public schools. However the policies of Massive Resistance delayed integration until the 1960s when national legislation was passed.

Construction

Governor of Virginia The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia serves as the head of government of Virginia for a four-year term. The incumbent, Glenn Youngkin, was sworn in on January 15, 2022. Oath of office On inauguration day, the Governor-elect takes th ...

Mark Warner and the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 16 ...

established on February 24, 2005, the commission to oversee the monument. Ground was broken on the site of the monument on February 19, 2008. The memorial is located on a corner opposite a Statue of Harry F. Byrd, the architect of the massive resistance movement against civil rights. The monument was on temporary display in

Newburgh, New York Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...

before being installed in July 2008. The ceremony opening the memorial was held on July 21, 2008, and was attended by about 4,000, including Governor

Tim Kaine Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virgi ...

, relatives of those involved in the protest, and civil rights leaders. Stanley Bleifeld, who was the sculptor of the monument, said that because of the continuing nature of the

, he "wanted to make a living memorial, not a statue so that people engage and understand what's behind it."

Statues

Eighteen statues are positioned around the monument. Not every statue depicts a specific person, with statues representing both students and adults. Among those depicted include: *

Spottswood William Robinson III Spottswood William Robinson III (July 26, 1916 – October 11, 1998) was an American educator, civil rights attorney, and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after previously s ...

* Oliver Hill *Leslie Francis Griffin

Quotes

Two quotes are engraved on the granite on each of the long sides of the monument: *"It seemed like reaching for the moon." —

*"The legal system can force open doors and sometimes even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me." —

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

References

External links