From: Charles H. Houston, attorney for the County-wide League and the Parent Teachers Association and certain citizens.
Washington, D. C. March 16, 1940

MEMORANDUM TO THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNTY-WIDE LEAGUE AND THE PARENT TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF LOUDOUN COUNTY, VIRGINIA

         1. I have been informed that in the budget for 1940-1941 the County Board of Education has recommended to the Board of Supervisors that it authorize application for a $40,000.00 loan from the State Literary Fund for putting up a new high school for Negroes. This is fine: but do not be fooled by empty gestures.
          In the first place, before the citizens came in Tuesday March 12, I overheard the Board of Education reading a letter from the State officials in Richmond in which the state officials said the literary fund income is exhausted, and they are not receiving any more applications for loans. I understand that the literary fund may be in position to receive applications a year from now; but what the Negro children of Loudoun County need is decent education in the year 1940, not a mere hope that they may get a new building in 1941 or 1942 or 1943 or 1950. Next, who knows how many applications for loans from the literary fund are already on file in Richmond, so that the Loudoun County application may have to go at the foot of the list, to be acted on nobody knows when.
         Do not misunderstand me: I think it is fine that the Board of Education has recommended the loan of $40,000.00. This is a step forward. But under present circumstances it is no answer to the question of immediate equality of education.
         The present Loudoun County Training School building is a fire trap. I am writing Mr. Emerick that we shall have to proceed in court to enjoin the school children from being taught in such fire trap, unless steps are taken immediately with reference to the fire escape and with reference to the drum of oil under the steps. If a fire breaks out, any number of children on the second floor may be killed; and these children and their parents are entitled to demand that they be placed in a safe building right away.

         2. Next, I understand the Board of Education made no recommendation about bus transportation. That is another crucial point. When it came to really doing something immediately for benefit of Negro education, the Board instead recommends a loan from the literary fund for some indefinite time in the future. The children and parents who are still being denied transportation for the children to public schools are not one step further toward transportation now than they were before the board meeting.

         3. Stop and ask yourselves just what benefit have you derived from the action of the Board of Education. As your counsel I cannot permit you to go to sleep thinking that the entire problem has either been settled or is on the way of being settled. So far as immediate benefit is concerned you have got exactly nothing, from the reports which reach me. The moral is register and vote, and stick together for the next steps which must be taken to get some real education for Negroes.