A New Hope for Dreams Suspended by Segregation

[Rose Siding]

Warren Brown was about to enter first grade in 1959 when officials chained up the public schools in Prince Edward County rather than allow black children to sit beside white children in a classroom.
...
This fall, however, Mr. Brown, at the age of 51, plans to go to college to study criminal justice.

Five decades after Virginia ignored the actions of Prince Edward County and other locales that shut down their public schools in support of segregation, the state is making a rare effort to confront its racist past, in effect apologizing and offering reparations in the form of scholarships.

With a $1 million donation from the billionaire media investor John Kluge and a matching amount from the state, Virginia is providing up to $5,500 a year for any state resident, like Mr. Brown, who was denied a proper education when public schools shut down. So far, more than 80 people have been approved for the scholarships, and the number is expected to rise. Several thousand are potentially eligible, many of them now well into their 60's.

.......MORE......

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/education/31school.html

According to the article, one private citizen, Ken Woodley, initiated this program:
"We can't rewrite history, and we shouldn't," said Mr. Woodley, who began working at The Herald in 1979 as a reporter. "But we can make history, and it needs to be made...."

[deadparrot]

1. That's awesome. Education should be a #1 priority,

especially for those who were denied such a right because of factors out of their control.

[TahitiNut]

2. The greatest benefit ...

... will be to the students fortunate enough to come in contact with such 'classmates' and already intelligent enough to listen and learn.

As far as someone 50+ years old finally getting a scholarship ... where do they work in Busholini's Fascist Federation of Amrika?

[Mairead]

5. "where do they work?"

Exactly. It's a token acknowledgement, and comes at least 20 years too late.

[Pirate Smile]

3. NYT: A New Hope for Dreams Suspended by Segregation

FARMVILLE, Va. - Warren Brown was about to enter first grade in 1959 when officials chained up the public schools in Prince Edward County rather than allow black children to sit beside white children in a classroom.


Leola Bailey, Alda Boothe, Warren Brown, Rita Moseley and Barbara Springwere among those locked out of Virginia schools in the 1950's.

Without the resources to send him away, his mother kept him at home for four years, until she found a local church offering classes to black children.

Mr. Brown graduated from high school in 1972, winning basketball scholarships from three colleges, only to turn them down because he feared the academics would have been too challenging.
"I didn't get a proper foundation," he said. "If you're not prepared, what good is the school going to do for you?"

-snip-
Five decades after Virginia ignored the actions of Prince Edward County and other locales that shut down their public schools in support of segregation, the state is making a rare effort to confront its racist past, in effect apologizing and offering reparations in the form of scholarships.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/education/31school.html?hp

[Erika]

4. At least there is acknowledgment of the damage done

by Southerners to the blacks.

So many right wingers today actually praise the whites for enslaving the blacks and freeing them from their African roots.

We've got a bunch of sick right winger Bushbots.