Virginia Civil Rights Memorial

On April 23, 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Johns and several fellow students led a strike to protest the deplorable conditions at their racially segregated Prince Edward County school. The Rev. L. Francis Griffin united parents in support of the strike and encouraged the students to contact NAACP attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson. The lawsuit that followed was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court and joined with four other cases as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), in which the Court ruled that racially separate educational systems are inherently unequal and unconstitutional. These Virginians, along with countless others, courageously fought for the principles upon which the nation and this Commonwealth were founded.

Richmond, Virginia · United States