"Barbara Rose Johns" (1935-1991)

She was born in New York City her family was rooted in Prince Edward County,Virginia.Her

daddy,Robert,and mama Violet,had migrated north to find work,like so many other African Americans.During World War II,Barbara lived on a tobacco farm with her maternal grandmamma Mary Croner.She picked tobacco in her free time and also worked in the country store owned by her uncle,Rev.Vernon Johns,who was a strong influence on her life.He was a prominent member of the African American community in Prince Edward County and had a reputation as a militant minister.Barbara's grandmama's on both sides of the family,Mary Croner and Sally Johns,were both strong women were not afraid of whitesIn  1951,Barbara was a 16-year-old junior at the segregated Robert Russa Moton High School,in Farmville,Virginia.Frustrated by the refusal of the local school board to build a new high school for African American students,she decided that something had to be done to change the situation.The school she attended was constructed to hold slightly more than 200 students,and already had twice that number.Classes were held on school buses and in the auditorium.When parents appealed to the school board for a new school,the board put up several tar-papers shacks as a stopgap measure to accommodate the overflow of students.Barbara met with several students she could trusted and asked if they would help her organize a student strike;they agreed.Their plan was to get the principal away from the school and then call the entire student body together to vote on the strike committee called all the students together in the auditiorium and Barbara revealed their parents' support.They then asked the NAACP to represent and advise them.The NAACP agreed to help them long as they were willing to sue for an integrated school,not simply one that was equal to the white school.At a community meeting,Barbara silenced the few adults opposed to the suit.The parents overwhelmingly supported the strike.The Farmville case became one of the five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka when it declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954.