June 4, 2025, 8:30 a.m. ET
On May 29, 2025, The Richmond Seen attended Closed Schools, Open Wounds at the Black History Museum. What started as coverage became a reflection on history’s lasting grip on today’s classrooms.
There’s nothing more of a community staple than the schoolhouse. Parents drop their kids off, and children ride the bus there daily—a trusted second home that promotes maturity and learning. It’s where friendships begin and where the extension of community takes shape. It’s every parent’s biggest dream for their children: to attend a school where they are loved, groomed, and seen.
But, as we heard recently at the Black History Museum of Virginia, that dream was quickly halted. The schoolhouse became the center of Massive Resistance here in Virginia following Brown v. Board of Education.
Recently, BHMVA hosted Closed Schools, Open Wounds: Virginia’s Education History from Massive Resistance to Modern Disparities. The panel discussion, curated by Ellis Sawyer, featured Chad Morris, Valerie Slater, Esq., and Dr. Danielle Wingfield, Esq.
The panelists explored Massive Resistance and showed how today’s disparities are rooted in the very same systems that blocked progress after Brown v. Board—except now, as one panelist said, they’re masked in “race-neutral” legal and policy language. Tactics like book bans, curriculum censorship, parental rights debates, and school choice rhetoric are all part of a modern wave of resistance against equitable education.
Public education today has been resegregated through housing discrimination, redlining, charter schools, and rezoning. These tools reinforce the school-to-prison pipeline and exclusionary discipline practices (like suspension or expulsion) that disproportionately affect Black children. Black students are often criminalized for behavior other children are excused for.
A quiet reminder of the spaces left behind and the disparities that still shape the education of Black children today.
Ms. Slater shared an example: a student, following their IEP plan, sat in a designated safe space to decompress—only to be forcibly removed by security, which led to felony charges.
Post-integration, we lost community-centered education. Black schools, teachers, and administrators disappeared. And rather than gaining equal educational opportunity, Black students entered hostile white spaces. One panelist asked, “What was integration if it dismantled everything Black and replaced it with nothing that loved us?” Ms. Slater further emphasized how community care—like the neighborhood grandmother who made sure every child was fed—has been replaced with police presence and CPS calls.
The conversation then shifted to restoration and the road ahead. Chad Morris highlighted the importance of fatherhood programs, rites of passage, and support for justice-involved families.
Panelists also called for investment in community schools, mentorship for youth, the preservation and teaching of Black legal and community history, and advocacy for policies that restore family integrity. These are the steps that can help us recenter what the schoolhouse was always meant to be: a trusted, nurturing part of the community.
To learn more about topics such as this-become a member! Visit the site at https://blackhistorymuseum.org and join today!
