Honoring Black History: 79-year-old Prince Edward woman returns to school after segregation-era shutdowns

PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Martha Bailey Brown will often tell you that her life feels like an assignment from God.

Brown is a 79-year-old sophomore at Longwood University in the Farmville, and for the first time in more than 60 years, she's returning to the classroom to finish an education that was taken from her and hundreds of other Black students during a time plagued by separation and racism in the country.

"I feel now that I'm on assignment," Brown told 8News Anchor Autumn Childress. "I go to class. I enjoy the young people, and it keeps me young."

Brown grew up in the Prospect area of Prince Edward County and attended Prince Edward County Schools during the 1950s when 'Separate but Equal' was deemed constitutional under the law. She recalled as high school students at Robert Russa Moton High School, the county's only Black high school, protested unequal conditions, rundown textbooks, tar paper shacks and unreliable transportation.

In 1951, led by then-16-year-old Barbara Johns, hundreds of fed-up Moton students walked out of the school in a protest that would eventually become a landmark case in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that schools should desegregate.

Instead of integrating, though, Prince Edward County voted to shut down all of its schools in 1959 for five years. Brown was 12 years old when her principal shared that she, and her fellow classmates across the County, would not return to the classroom.

"He spoke to us to say [that] school won't be opening in September.... to stay alert, keep your ear out. He said to us 'Do well and don't forget to pray," Brown said.

"There was something about the air of that day that let us know something was up. There was no celebrating," Brown said.

During the school shutdown, many white students could afford to attend private schools; however, Black students were forced to go outside of the county to continue their education, or, like Brown, forced to teach themselves. But Brown said despite the obstacles, she never lost hope.

"As a child, I didn't feel frightened by it. I didn't feel deterred. My biggest thing was that my friends were leaving," Brown recalled. "People say 'I can't believe you're not bitter about that.' I don't have an answer about that. It's the foundation I'm standing."

Prince Edward County schools remained locked down for five years, and by 1964, many students, like Brown, had "aged out" of school, meaning they were adults and not able to graduate from high school. That meant many pivotal years for Brown, and hundreds of other black students in Prince Edward County, were gone.

"I'm 18 and I have no transcript. No one could accept me because I had no transcript. There was no proof that I had ever been to school," Brown said. "Because of the shutdown, I never went to a prom.... never wore a cap and gown."

"I was comfortable knowing this was not my fault," she said.

Brown told 8News that after the schools reopened in 1964, she relocated to Maryland where she started a career and a family. She said she had reconciled with the fact that she would never attend a university because of the school shutdowns.

But that all changed instantly in 2021 when Brown was told about the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Program. This scholarship was passed by the Virginia General Assembly "for the purpose of providing a public education to persons who were denied an education in the public schools of Virginia between 1954 and 1964, in jurisdictions in which the public schools were closed to avoid desegregation."

Brown said she applied for the scholarship and was accepted almost immediately. It was a moment that she said felt surreal.

"It was not a plan I had... it was guide. I was being guided to do so," Brown said. "I don't see how doors would open that quickly without that."

After the scholarship acceptance, Brown decided to attend Longwood University, the college located footsteps away from the very school she was locked out of 65 years ago. And, if you ask her, she'll tell you the entire journey is divine.

"It tears me up. When I think of all of the places I could have been... and to be sent back. Whatever I had to go through, I passed that test. I don't know where this is leading. I choose to believe that God is my guide. He's been so all of my life. All of it," She said.

(Courtesy of Martha Bailey Brown)

(Courtesy of Martha Bailey Brown)

(Courtesy of Martha Bailey Brown)

Now, every day, as Brown sits in the front row of her classes as a Communication Studies major, she said her mission is to be an inspiration to others and a reminder that all things are possible.

"Hold on to the integrity that's in you and you can do anything you desire. I ain't letting nobody turn me around — keep on walking and marching," Brown said.