Susie G. Gibson High School

KM-8

Susie G. Gibson (1878-1949), teacher and community activist, was Bedford County’s supervisor of African American education for 22 years. Her work was sponsored by the Jeanes Fund, established in 1907 to enhance opportunities for Black students in the rural South. Susie G. Gibson High School opened just northeast of here in 1954 to serve African Americans in Bedford, Town and County. Designed by architect Stanhope Johnson, the school reflected an effort to equalize educational facilities rather than desegregate them. Gibson’s name was dropped in 1970, when the U.S. government required county schools to desegregate fully. In 2020, the building became the Susie G. Gibson Science & Technology Center.

Department of Historic Resources, 2021

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Bedford County Register of Births Bedford Democrat, 9 Sept. 1954. Who’s Who in Bedford County, 1947. “Bedford County History and Geography Supplement,” 2nd ed., 1949. Bedford Bulletin, 13 Jan. 1949. Susie G. Gibson Death Certificate, 1949. Carole Field Lacy, “Susie G. Gibson—Bedford County Educator,” Bedford Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1 (Feb. 2008), 6-7. Norfolk Journal and Guide, 1 Sept. 1928, 31 Aug. 1946. Richmond Times-Dispatch, 19 June 1944, 13 April, 3 July 1953. Roanoke Times, 16 Nov. 1952, 12 April 1953, 26 March 1955. U.S. Census, 1880, 1900, 1930 Tracy Bryant Richardson, “Susie G. Gibson High School: A History of the Last Segregated School in Bedford County, Virginia,” Ed.D. diss., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2012.