Image of the Week
Click image for larger view.
As part of the Black History Month Blog, VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives will post weekly images of African American life and history in Virginia from its collections.
This week’s image is of First Rock Elementary School, Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1962. It was one of nearly a dozen schools for African Americans in the county. The main building shown on the right was used for grades 1,4-5. It had a pupil capacity of 120 and was built in 1939. The "temporary" building in the foreground on the left was used for grades 2-3. This was a frame building covered with roofing paper built in 1949 and had a pupil capacity of 40. The building had no windows. The school’s out house and another building can be seen in the background.
The image is from VCU Libraries’ Separate But Not Equal: Race, Education, and Prince Edward County, Virginia. It is an online exhibit that explores the history of the Prince Edward County, Virginia school segregation issues of the 1950s and 1960s. It contains documents and hundreds of images taken from the papers of Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Professor Emeritus at VCU, whose interest in the topic spans four decades. Included in this exhibit are images documenting the disparity between black and white county schools, documents written by Dr. Peeples and others analyzing the issues, a selected bibliography of materials, and links to sites on the topic.
--Ray Bonis, Archival Assistant - Special Collections and Archives