Movie star. Legal history. Societal change?
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This Legacy Luncheon, General Session you won't want to miss
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Emmy-nominated actor, producer and director Tim
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Photo by U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
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Reid will bring a touch of Hollywood as well as personal Virginia history as one of the featured panelists at the 124th Annual Meeting of the VBA. The VBA Committee on Special Issues of National & State Importance revisits the topic of education with a focus on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision 60 years ago. |
| Legacy Series Luncheon Presentation |
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Savage Inequality in Virginia Public Schools
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African-American education before Brown v. Board of Education
 William B. Obrochta, manager of educational services at the Virginia Historical Society, discusses the evolution of Virginia's public education system up to the 1950s. Tim Reid's short film "Strike" about the 1951 walkout at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville that protested racial inequality will be shown.
Look for it Friday, Jan. 24, from 12:30-2 p.m. Separate registration and fee required. The luncheon and program costs $40 per person.
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What is the Enduring Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education?
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Panel discussion moderated by Justice John Charles Thomas
Tim Reid joins NSU history professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander and Harvard dean James E. Ryan in a discussion of whether, 60 years after a momentous decision, the ruling made the difference it was supposed to make.
 Dr. Newby-Alexander of Norfolk State University, where she directs the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies, is the author of "An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads" and co-author of "Remembering School Desegregation in Hampton Roads, Virginia." She wrote the script for "Strike," a film that depicts the protest led by 16-year-old Barbara Johns. The Prince Edward County school became the student birthplace of the American Civil Rights Movement.
The 1951 Moton Student Strike produced 75 percent of the plaintiffs in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision desegregating U.S. education. In 1959 Prince Edward County closed public schools for five years, prompting the Supreme Court's 1964 Griffin v. Prince  Edward decision declaring "the time for mere 'deliberate speed' has run out." Ryan, a scholar of education law and policy, formerly of the law faculty at the University of Virginia, joined Harvard as dean of the Graduate School of Education in September. He has served on the U.S. Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission, and wrote "Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America." The 2010 book explores segregation and inequality at an urban and suburban high school in the Richmond area. The audience also will screen "Turning Point," another film by Tim Reid. This one, created at the time of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board, shows afresh the arguments made. It also features several people you know filling the roles in presenting and ruling on the U.S. Supreme Court case.
Before Reid became known as TV's Venus Flytrap on "WKRP in Cincinnati," and was nominated for Emmys for his work on "Frank's Place," he grew up in segregated schools in Norfolk. He and his wife, Daphne Reid, co-founded New Millennium Studios in Petersburg.
Look for this general session on Friday, Jan. 24, from 2:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m. at the Williamsburg Lodge and Conference Center during the 124th Annual Meeting. This year's meeting will be held in collaboration with the Old Dominion Bar Association.
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