Cooperative Living February 2020 - 15

f inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever
ace. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others
rived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
" We are proud to say:
'The race is not given to
the swift or to the strong,
But to he who holds out
to the end.' "
- Jean Jackson and Elizabeth
White in 1949 George
Washington Carver Regional
High School yearbook
And that is the clue to Carver's success.
Teachers and administrators made a
difference for potential dropouts like
Hutcherson, who went from an uninvited
guest to a fine student and a cog on
offense and defense for the 1963 Virginia
Interscholastic Association football state
champions.
" All we wanted was an opportunity.
We didn't want to be ahead of anybody or
over anybody. We wanted level ground.
Carver gave us that, " he says.
RECLAIMING CARVER
Culpeper County school started
integrating, slowly, in the 1960s. By the
end of the 1967-68 school year, Carver
had fewer than 15 students and
eventually became a vocational school,
among other uses.
The museum has been a slow-moving
dream, under consideration for more than
15 years. In 2016, Culpeper County
agreed that the Carver alumni association
could repurpose the former school library
as a showplace that focuses on the stories
of its students and how they fit into the
larger narrative of their times. The grand
opening in February 2019 was a moving
experience.
Charles Johnson of Orange was a
member of the first graduating class in
1949, unbeknown to his son Alan, who
reached out and ran his finger across his
dad's name on an exhibit of former Carver
students.
" That's something I did not know
beforehand because he never talked a lot
about his youth, " says Alan Johnson, who
has gotten involved with Carver history.
" Sometimes in those days people had
hard lives. They didn't talk about the
past. "
A graduate of segregated
education, Charles Jameson
is the first African American
in the Culpeper Minutemen
Chapter of the Sons of
the American Revolution.
co-opliving.com
The museum's first exhibit, entitled
Origins, explored the founding of the
school; another display acknowledged
Carver athletics, including the
championship football team and the
celebrated women's basketball team.
In February, the museum is planning a
traveling exhibit on the vote, featuring
the first voting rolls of African Americans
in the four counties, with a women's
history exhibit to follow in March.
Overseeing the displays is a 16-footlong
mural of life at Carver and the
community painted by artist J. Hubert
Jackson of Culpeper, who attended from
1956 to 1961.
" We don't yet have a permanent
exhibit because we have so much
information that we can do two fresh
exhibits every year for the next five
years, " Miller says. The museum plans
more traveling exhibits, oral histories and
partnerships with local organizations to
keep the Carver tale alive.
" We grew up here, " says HintonJackson.
" You came here at 12 and 13
and left as young adults. So it was a very
significant time frame in your life and
it helped shape you in many ways. " 
View our video on the Carver 4-County
Museum at co-opliving.com.
February 2020 | Cooperative Living | 13
Band activities were
a major part of life at
Carver High School.

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Cooperative Living February 2020

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