“A Brief History,” an excerpt by
Elaine E. Thompson

from:

Essence of a People:
African Americans Who Made a
Difference in Loudoun County , Virginia 

         . . . When the Civil War ended, there was a short period of hope and relative prosperity under the watchful eye of the Freedmen’s Bureau. After Reconstruction, however, African Americans in Loudoun County had to fend for themselves without government support. Most quietly went about the business of creating families, building homes, establishing mutual aid societies, and founding churches. Many remained in the isolated black communities in which they were born; others were scattered throughout the larger towns. While racism circumscribed their lives, their private worlds were more meaningful than the stereotyped images typically portrayed.
         Loudoun County had few recorded lynchings and not much open Ku Klux Klan activity, but the institutional terrorism commonly known as Jim Crow was ever present. African Americans were not threatened as long as they stayed in “their place” and did not upset the status quo. They faced the challenge of surviving a society where white supremacy ruled. The more oppressive life become, the more they saw the need to band together. Consequently, they formed several organizations that continue to affect our lives today. While each neighborhood was unique, the common threads that joined them were the lack of adequate educational opportunity and the denial of civil rights.
        Perhaps the earliest organized protest occurred in 1883 at the Colored Mass Meeting held in Leesburg. [insert link] Delegates representing all sections of Loudoun were authorized to present a petition to the Judge of the County Court requesting the right of African Americans to serve as jurors and as judges of elections. The latter was denied outright, and it was not until 1935 that an African American was added to the jury roll.
        In 1890, a group of men met in Hamilton and founded the Loudoun County Emancipation Association. Their purpose was not only to celebrate the end of enslavement, but also to work for the betterment of the race—educationally, morally, and materially. For more than seventy years this organization promoted community and fostered racial pride and identity.
        Increasingly, schools established by the Freedmen’s Bureau become inadequate, and the school board found endless excuses not to improve them. Groups such as the Odd Fellows in Hamilton and the Willing Workers Club in Purcellville offered the use of their facilities. This tradition of the African American community providing actual school buildings and transporting students at its own expense lasted until the 1940s.
        When Loudoun County finally hired an African American supervisor of elementary schools in 1938, she immediately recognized the injustice and unlawfulness of the situation. She suggested that all parent-teacher associations come together and work under the umbrella of the County-Wide League. This organization became the educational voice for African Americans in Loudoun County . Their most pressing concerns were to get the county to provide school bus transportation and to build an accredited high school. These requests were brought before the Loudoun County School Board, which routinely listened to the complaint of the community and made idle promises or gave excuses, but rarely took any action.
         The idea of African Americans providing land for schools had been discussed for several years. In 1939, the County-Wide League, on behalf of Loudoun’s African American citizens, purchased eight acres of land in Leesburg for the sole purpose of having the county build a high school. League members engaged Charles H. Houston, Dean of the Howard University School of Law and legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to help them. Houston was opposed to the “separate but equal” doctrine, but he decided that was the best route for achieving immediate relief. He advised the community to organize a branch of the NAACP and urged all citizens to pay the poll tax and vote.
         A flurry of activity ensued. Inquiries were made, records examined, petitions presented, and the local NAACP received its charter. The year was 1940. Though almost all of the same people were involved, the leadership shifted from the County-Wide League to the NAACP. Houston , whose services were free, made it clear to the Loudoun County School Board that it was violating the law by not providing educational opportunities for African Americans equal to those provided for whites. To avoid a possible lawsuit, the school board agreed to build a new high school that met standards of accreditation and provide school bus transportation throughout the county. In exchange, the County-Wide League sold them the eight acres of land for one dollar. Frederick Douglass High School opened in September 1941. Following this breakthrough, the salaries of white and African American teachers, while not equal, became closer in scale, and three modern, consolidated elementary schools were built before 1950. Never before had the African American community been so galvanized.
         In 1954, the United States Supreme Court issued its unanimous ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education declaring state-sponsored segregation in schools unconstitutional. Loudoun County did not “act with all deliberate speed” to desegregate its schools. Instead, county officials resisted in every way possible. When twelve black students applied to the Virginia Pupil Placement Board for assignment to the county’s two white high schools, eight were rejected. They filed suit in the U. S. District Court, and the school system was ordered to implement a “Freedom of Choice” plan. This order essentially was ignored and only token desegregation occurred. Finally the Justice Department brought a lawsuit against Loudoun County . The school system was ordered to integrate fully at both the staff and student levels. Fourteen years after the Supreme Court ruling, Douglass High School graduated its last class and in September 1968, Loudoun County ’s schools were integrated.
         While education was the African American community’s main concern, it was by no means the only area of life affected by segregationist policies. Other than teachers, few professionals settled here. Doctors were denied privileges at Loudoun Memorial Hospital . A Purcellville businessman had to sue before “public” libraries allowed him access. The Leesburg Volunteer Fire Department filled in and paved over its “public” swimming pool and closed its ball field rather than permit African Americans to use the facilities.
         As frustrating as the situation was, African Americans were not consumed by these pubic issues. Quite the contrary. Their private lives were, for the most part, fulfilling. They had their own institutions; the joys of family life; the support of friends. Still it took more that a little courage to live in Loudoun County during the time when these honorees were paving the way for those who followed. These remarkable people believed in themselves, never lost hope, and never gave up. They are owed a debt of gratitude.