When the Schools Closed: The School Integration Debate in Prince Edward County, Virginia

Daliah Barg, Audrey Krimm, and Caroline Soffer Junior Division Website

Process Paper We chose our topic for several reasons. The first is because in school earlier this year we all wrote in-depth research papers with roughly the same topic. From writing these papers we became very knowledgeable on school integration, which led us to want to research it even more for NHD. Another reason for why we chose our topic is because it takes place in Prince Edward County, which is where one of our group members was born so she has a connection to it. For the research paper, all of our group members had school integration debates, but school integration in Prince Edward County was the most specific and local so we chose to use it for our website. When we started doing research for our topic, we found that the local libraries like McKeldin library at University of Maryland did not provide us with much information because our topic took place in a rural area of Virginia. So we decided to take a trip to rural Virginia itself to do some research. At a college library in Prince Edward County, we looked through the microfilm and found many primary sources giving us much insight on the topic. When we started NHD our group used many of the primary sources to give us a deeper view on what happened. We also conducted in person and written interviews with former Prince Edward County students who were affected by the school integration. We got interested in the website after we realized that putting one together would be a chance to use our skills, as well as having a new experience since no one in the group had made one before. We started to create the website by setting up a weebly account and browsing through the instructions. From there we found pictures and videos that represented our topic. We researched more and found online primary sources to

enhance the website. Putting it all together was fun but challenging because finding material that will tell our topics story and be visually appealing was difficult. When it was done, we checked over it for any mistakes or problems, until it was ready. Our topic relates to Nation History Day because it was heavily debated, and had a major impact with successes, failures, and consequences. When it took place in the late 1950s into the early 1960s, there was much controversy in the idea of integration leading to much debate on the thought of integrating the public schools. When it was finally decided that the schools should be integrated, the debate showed its signs of successes by letting all students have an equal education together, its failures by making many people go against their beliefs, and consequences by changing the public schools for future generations. That is how our topic relates to the NHD theme.

Word count (475)