Cooperative Living May 2021 - 16

Unflattering Past
(continued from page 13)
and bagged them. I hesitate to even
guess what they were made of. We were
not sure what kind of toxic materials
they were. "
They turned out to be valuable
additions in developing a record of
classroom assignments. " One of our
main objectives is to determine who
the students were, who the teachers
were and what was taught, so we can
have that biographical information, "
Roeder says.
CATTLE-CAR LEARNING
In November 1944, while Jim Crow
ran rampant in rural Virginia, parents
of students at Grant School in Loudoun
had a simple request of school
Superintendent Oscar L. Emerick:
Please don't shoehorn 96 students
into two rooms. Cattle-car learning
is no way to educate young people.
" We are also afraid that an epidemic
might break out because of crowded
conditions. We are wondering if it
is possible to get another room, "
according to the letter, signed by
parent Melvina Beale and 15 others.
The request, simple and politely
stated, was one of dozens of petitions
rolled up, stuffed at the bottom of a
box and neatly tied with a piece of
string. After the string was untied, the
papers naturally flattened in a week
and rate as one of the project's most
remarkable finds.
" Today, it wouldn't be anything
strange, but in that context of the 1930s
and 1940s, it was exceptionall, " Arciero
strange, but in that context of the 1930s
and 1940s, it was exceptiona
A section of a daily program made out by
the teacher showing what African American
children were learning in 1898, hour by
hour, grade by grade.
says. " These people signed their names.
They put their name on a document,
knowing that could come back and
possibly lead to retaliation. "
Collected at churches and by going
door to door, the petitions were about
the only way Blacks could ask in
segregated Virginia for smaller class
sizes or toilets that worked. Even if they
qualified to vote by passing a literacy
test, they still had to pay a $1.50 tax.
If they failed to pay, they could not
appear before all-white governing
bodies to seek better education.
In one 1940 petition, parents asked
school board members to inspect the
aging Training Center because oil from
open drums saturated floorboards.
" If a match were dropped on the floor
" If
" If a match were dropped on the floor
or if the electric wire short circuited
match were dropped on the
shor
children would be trapped and their
lives could be saved only by a miracle, "
they warned.
while school is in session, scores of
chool
A year later, the Training Center
gave way in part to Douglass High
floor
School. True to the times, Black citizens
raised $4,000 through bake sales,
rummage sales, dances and field days
to purchase 8 acres for the new school.
The county took over the deed for $1.
" The building was one piece of it,
but it was the endurance and the
stamina of the families, " says Sherri
Simmons, an assistant principal at
Douglass from 2009 to 2019, when it
was used for special and alternative
education. " It's more than tradition. It's
tradition and evolution; it's preservation
and it's conservation. It's a place where
children and families found hope. "
The most poignant petitions came
from a teacher who didn't want her
students to freeze. In January 1955,
Estelle R. Stewart, a teacher at
Willisville School, a one-room school
built in 1918, petitioned the school
board to send some kindling wood
" right away " to keep a woodstove
burning.
The following January, she repeated
her plea, this time to Emerick. " Please
send some coal up right away. All we
have left is dirt and that doesn't half
burn, " Stewart wrote. Her entreaty was
the title of an Edwin Washington
Project conference and a forthcoming
book, both titled, " Dirt Don't Burn. "
" It's a real story of educational
heroism, " Roeder says.
NEW RESEARCH TOOLS
Oscar L. Emerick was a legend in
Loudoun. A native of Purcellville, he
was educated at Eastern College (now
closed) in Front Royal, Va., and the
University of Virginia before becoming
principal of a white high school in
1911 at 22. Six years later, he was
named superintendent of county
schools and held the job for 40 years
through a depression, two world wars,
expansion and segregation.
Emerick was a legend, but he also
was a hoarder. To the joy of Edwin
Washington Project researchers, he
kept copies of everything - notes and
replies, teacher evaluations, letters from
parents, and suggestions where to place
" No Trespassing " signs to deter kids
from cutting across property lines.
He also kept a large bound ledger
with page after page of pasted
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