Black History Month series: Culpeper County schools integrate, eventually (2024)

Zann NelsonRight the Record

Since the 1870 legislation mandating all Virginia counties provide free public education, a dual system separating Black and white students existed.

A scarcity of guidelines and policies allowed for a disparity in educational standards, including inferior school buildings, lower wages for Black teachers and inadequate or unavailable textbooks.

In 1870, Culpeper had mostly one-roomers, including 22 white schools and eight Black schools with a corresponding enrollment of 777 and 468, averaging 35.3 students attending each white school while 58.5 students were enrolled at each Black school. By 1905, Culpeper had added three graded schools for Black students and four for whites. These schools, according to local records, included first through seventh or eighth grades.

The first county high school for white students opened in 1907. It was not until 1948, 41 years later, that George Washington Carver Regional High School offered young Black students the opportunity for advanced education without having to leave the area. It served the counties of Culpeper, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock. Prior to its opening, students seeking a high school education would be forced to board out in Manassas, D.C., or even Pennsylvania, if their parents had the funds or family connections.

Despite the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision mandating the desegregation of all dual school systems, Culpeper County would not fully integrate and formally desegregate the public education system for another 14 years.

Records report racial integration occurred in Culpeper in 1963 and indeed it did, though minimally and not exactly what the Supreme Court intended. In 1963, a student could apply to be transferred to a different school — a white student had the option to attend the all-Black A.G. Richardson or Carver High School and, similarly, a Black student could attend Ann Wingfield, Sycamore Park or the Culpeper County High School.

If one did not apply, they remained at their current school. Furthermore, acceptance was not automatic as approval was required from the state Pupil Placement Board.

On August 29, 1963, Mary Stevens Jones reported in the Culpeper Star-Exponent, “For the first time in history, some local schools will be integrated in respect to race and some classes will be segregated by sex.”

It should be noted that segregating classes by gender was an experiment conducted at the elementary level in test classes. Though a front-page article, the content was about the opening of an unremarkable school year, not an historical event.

Not until the 15th paragraph did Jones add, “Fifteen Negro students have been approved by the State Pupil Placement Board for entrance in nine grades of Culpeper’s previously all-white schools. One or more have been placed in all grades of Sycamore Park and Ann Wingfield Elementary schools and Culpeper County High School except the fifth, ninth and twelfth grades.”

Fifteen Black students may have been approved but according to interviews with those who were among the first, only seven could be recalled: four in the high school and three at the two elementary schools. The school busses remained segregated, the Black students were not allowed to participate in sports and all social activities at the high school were canceled.

The next two years witnessed a few more transfers, but the dual school system continued. The passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 included the power to withhold federal funding from public school systems that refused to comply with the mandate to desegregate. On March 7, 1966, the Culpeper County School Board published the federally approved School Desegregation Plan of Culpeper County, including a schedule of implementation and assignment of student placement based on residence.

The publication was mandatory and gave notice of instructions for parents as well as declarations of non-discriminatory practices. Implementation for grades 1-8 would occur for the 1966-67 school year and, for grades 9-12, the following year. With now-integrated school buses and absent incident, the elementary classes achieved complete desegregation on schedule. However, a new high school was being constructed to accommodate an increased student body and was not ready for the 1967-68 school year.

George Washington Carver graduated its last class in June of 1968 and close its doors as an all-Black segregated high school. In the fall that year, the first time in its 219-year history, Culpeper County offered only one school system that served all its students.