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Reparations conversationWilliams: Our nation's foundation isrooted in racism. We won't be wholeuntil we repair what's broken.MICHAEL PAUL [email protected] May 17, 2019
Tags Prince Edward County High School Ken Woodley School Education Politics Publishing Prince Edward Foundation
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If slavery was America s̓ original sin, reparationsremains its unrealized penance.
Conversations about how to address the legacy ofslavery for the descendants of the enslaved tend tosputter on the fumes of guilt, resentment, denial anddefeat before shutting down altogether.
“I refer to it as the barbed-wire history,” said DanitaRountree Green, an author and trauma healingfacilitator. “Every time we come close to it and getpricked, we back up and say, ‘Oh no, weʼre not goingto deal with that.̓ ”
But the idea of reparations, she added, “is so muchmore than money. And just like anything in yourhouse that s̓ broken, the longer you wait to fix it, theworse it gets.”
Coming to the Table-RVA, the local chapter of anational organization committed to racial healing andsocial equity, held a forum on reparationsWednesday at the Virginia Museum of History andCulture.
Titled “Repairing What is Broken,” the event wastimely on a topic that appears to be gainingmomentum.
“I donʼt know if you all have noticed, but a lot of thepresidential nominees, or the would-bes, are talkingabout reparations,” said Green, co-convener ofComing to the Table-RVA along with Martha Rollins.And in January 2018, a working group of the nationalComing to the Table produced a 21-page guide onreparations.
Reparations, Green explained, means “to repair whatis broken. And so yes, that does mean maybe somemoney down the road. But long before we get there,we have to repair our foundation. Where we startedin this country. That is actually what is broken.”
The evening s̓ featured speaker was Ken Woodley,former editor of the Farmville Herald and a man whoshepherded a form of reparations through theVirginia General Assembly: a scholarship program forthe casualties of one of the most notoriously noxiousepisodes in the history of public education in theU.S.
Sixty years ago, Prince Edward County opted toclose its public schools rather than integrate them.The Prince Edward Foundation opened privateschools for white children, with state tuition grantassistance, until the U.S. Supreme Court outlawedthose grants in 1964 and the county reopened itspublic schools.
In his book “The Road to Healing: A Civil RightsReparations Story in Prince Edward, County,Virginia,” Woodley details his journey from ignoranceto awareness, and ultimately, to activism.
Woodley was born in Farmville, where his fatherattended Hampden-Sydney College, but moved toRichmond at age 2, “about the very week that PrinceEdward voted to defund education,” he recalled. Butitʼd be two decades before heʼd learn the truth.
He returned to Prince Edward to attend Hampden-Sydney. He graduated unaware of MassiveResistance, the school closings and the fierceadvocacy of both by the Farmville Herald until afterhe went to work at that newspaper.
As he flipped through the pages of “They ClosedTheir Schools,” by Robert Collins Smith, “I felt at thatmoment that life had parachuted me behind enemylines,” he recalled.
In 2003, the General Assembly was considering aresolution of profound regret and apology forVirginia s̓ role in closing Prince Edward s̓ schools.
And Linwood Davis, a Latin teacher at Prince EdwardCounty High School, was asking the county schoolboard to award honorary diplomas to the more than2,000 county residents who were left without aformal education. Those two ideas planted the seedfor his idea for state-funded scholarships for thoseresidents, whether they aspire to GEDs or master s̓degrees.
That s̓ a microcosm of the sort of thing that needs tohappen on a national scale. We canʼt work out thedetails until we finally start talking seriously aboutthis.
“This moment is ours. It s̓ the only chance we have,”Woodley said. “And even one small coursecorrection over a long journey can bring aboutimportant change.”
The sound you heard just now is folks wailing, “Whycanʼt you get over it?”
Well, because too much is at stake.
“I want you to open your hearts and minds to thenotion that maybe reparations is not just a goodthing for black people,” Green said.
“It s̓ a good thing for all people. If we can go backand reset our moral compass and see each other inthe eyes of each other, we would have a totallydifferent nation that would actually live up to thewords that our founding fathers wrote but never trulyunderstood.”
Four hundred years ago, the first Africans arrived inJamestown. Sixty years ago, something awfulhappened in Prince Edward County. When the U.S.Senate finally got around to apologizing for slavery in2009, the apology came with the disclaimer that itcould not be used to claim reparations.
Our nation is broken, in no small part because it hasnever atoned for its legacy of white supremacy. Itwonʼt be whole until it does.
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Ken Woodley, the former Farmville Herald editor, successfullypushed for a state-funded scholarship program for PrinceEdward residents hurt by that countyʼs school closings.
MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS/TIMES-DISPATCH
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is one of several Democratic presidentialcandidates embracing reparations — but not in the traditionalsense.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
5/19/19, 8(11 PMPage 1 of 1
