School Transportation

E-142

Virginia public school boards began providing transportation to white students early in the 20th century but frequently denied this service to African Americans. Black children often had to walk miles to school, leading to nonattendance. Across Virginia in the 1930s, black community organizations raised funds for buses. Lucian Hunter, supported by the Chickahominy Baptist Association, acquired Hanover County's first school bus for African Americans ca. 1934. His sons Clarence, Earl, and Chester drove students to the Hanover County Training School. Petitioned by Hunter and others, the school board voted in 1935 to contribute funds toward this service. County schools were desegregated in 1969.

Department of Historic Resources, 2016

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Hanover County School Board Minutes Norfolk Journal and Guide, numerous issues (copies on file) “A Study of Transportation of Public School Pupils in Virginia for the Session 1936-1937,” Bulletin of the State Board of Education (March 1938). “Memories of Deacon Philip Fox” Reminiscences of Mr. Milton Brooks, Mrs. Zanderine Smith, and Ms. Sarah Cephas. Http://dc.lib.odu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/dove/id/180/rec/3 Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12 Feb. 2009. Hanover Herald-Progress, 21 Feb. 2002. Doxey A. Wilkerson, “The Negro School Movement in Virginia: From ‘Equalization’ to ‘Integration,’” Journal of Negro Education (Winter 1960), 17-29. Doxey A. Wilkerson, “Special Problems of Negro Education,” United States Government Printing Office, 1939. Kara Miles Turner, “’Getting It Straight’: Southern Black School Patrons and the Struggle for Equal Education in the Pre- and Post-Civil Rights Eras,” Journal of Negro Education (Spring 2003), 217-229. Leslie R. Perry, “Pattern of Discrimination in Education,” Phi Delta Kappan (April 1949), 296-300. James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (University of North Carolina Press, 1988).