Nearly three hundred students and community members from across Hampton Roads, VA turned out Oct. 1 to honor the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that mandated an end to public school segregation. It was part of an event sponsored by Virginians for Reconciliation, Regent University, and Regent Black Law Students Association.
“Our schools are not perfect,” said Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction. “They still have many disparities.”
Speakers, including Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, highlighted the past, present, and future of racial reconciliation in the state.
“You can either light a candle or you can curse the darkness, and so that’s what I think Brown did,” Sears told the crowd. “What Brown did was to make the darkness tremble.”
Dr. Leroy Gilbert, Professor of Regent’s School of Divinity, recalled the personal pain of segregation.
“I must admit I felt traumatized,” Gilbert shared. “Jim Crow laws in the deep South aimed to enforce racial segregation, uphold white supremacy by systematically oppressing Black people.”
During his remarks, Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn expressed gratitude for the doors opened for Black and brown students by the 1954 decision. He also lamented, however, the resistance to the change across the Commonwealth, something that stirred painful memories.
“I remember the palpable tensions of those times when the courts were attempting to implement the mandate of Brown vs. Board of Education,” Goodwyn said, choking up. “I remember driving by Ku Klux Klan rallies and seeing signs and seeing hooded people walking up and down the street.”
Meanwhile, many applaud Regent for opening up space for the discussion, a move they hope paves the way for the spirit of Brown v. Board of Education to overcome systemic challenges that remain in education and beyond.
“Fort Monroe, that was where slavery started,” former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell told CBN News. McDonnell, who now serves as president of Virginians for Reconciliation, went on to say, “Virginia has a unique spiritual and historical role to be part of the solution about bringing people together – black, white, Democrat, Republican.”
“It shows, I think, the vision and the mission of Regent to glorify God. This is an opportunity that we experienced here that gave glory to God,” said Gilbert.
