Last weekend the Democratic Party of Virginia celebrated Black History Month by honoring the life of Barbara Johns. Johns was a civil rights activist that at 16 years-old led a strike of her classmates to protest the substandard conditions at Robert Russ Moton High School.

Her idealism, planning, and persistence ultimately garnered the support of NAACP lawyers Spotswood Robinson and Oliver Hill to take up her cause and the cause of more equitable conditions for Moton High School. After meeting with the students and the community, lawyers Spotswood Robinson and Oliver Hill filed suit at the federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. The case was called Davis v. Prince Edward. In 1954, the Farmville case became one of five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka when it declared segregation unconstitutional.

Below are photos from our panel discussion and reception held on February 20, 2016. Senator L Louise Lucas served as moderator for the panel discussion.