Fuqua School

Last updated

Fuqua School
Fuquaschool2.jpg
Address
Fuqua School
605 Fuqua Drive

Farmville
,
Virginia
23901

United States
Coordinates 37°17′37.9″N78°23′9.3″W / 37.293861°N 78.385917°W / 37.293861; -78.385917
Information
Type Private
MottoScientiā volamus ("Through knowledge, we fly")
Established1959
Head of schoolPaul Chance Reynolds
Grades Pre-K to 12th
Enrollment383 [1]  (2013–2014 school year)
Color(s)   Red and Gold/Black and Yellow   
MascotFalcons
YearbookThe Peregrine
Endowment$6.0 million+
Information434-392-4131
Website http://www.fuquaschool.com

Fuqua School is a private primary and secondary school located in Farmville, Virginia. Founded in 1959 as Prince Edward Academy, a whites-only segregation academy, the school was renamed after businessman J. B. Fuqua made a large contribution to the school in 1993. [2]

Contents

History

After the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that public education must be racially integrated, the Prince Edward County school board closed all of its schools, appropriating no funds whatsoever for public schooling in Prince Edward County for the fall of 1959. [3] Fuqua School was initially founded in 1959 as Prince Edward Academy in response to pending integration, part of a strategy known as massive resistance. [4] [5] Classes began at Prince Edward Academy on September 14, 1959. Over the next few years essentially all of the white children in the district were attending the academy. [3]

According to Lino Graglia, the rural nature of Prince Edward County meant that, unlike in Washington D.C., white parents seeking segregated education were forced to build a private school instead of moving to the suburbs. [6]

The public school system in Prince Edward County remained closed between 1959 and 1964. The United States Supreme Court decision Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County with a vote of 7-2 outlawed the allocation of public funds through tuition grants to fund race-discriminating institutions. When public schools were reopened in 1964 and integrated, Prince Edward Academy stood as an option for families who did not want to participate in integration, thus continuing racial tension among citizens. Because Prince Edward Academy did not accept non-white students, it lost its tax-exempt status in 1978 and began to suffer financially.

In a 1982 interview with the Los Angeles Times , headmaster Robert Woods said that the school had an open admissions policy, but that no blacks had been admitted since they were less intelligent than whites. Woods added that the school did not "teach segregation or integration" because that was "for the parents to do". [7]

It was not until the late 1980s that it ended its policy of discrimination and admitted students of other races. [8] [9] Its association with "old money" and discrimination in the past still causes some tension in the Farmville community, especially among non-whites and students of the local public schools. [9]

By the early 1990s, with aging technology, a very small alumni contribution base, and an increasing debt, Prince Edward Academy was nearing financial collapse. In 1992, former local resident and businessman J. B. Fuqua donated about $10 million to pay off debts and install necessary improvements to the school, such as air conditioning and computers. The school was transformed at that point with a new administration, a new mascot and school colors, in addition to the school's changed name. [2] Fuqua said that his donation was intended to "close the door" on Prince Edward County's history of racial division and earmarked a portion of his gift to minority scholarships. [10]

J. B. Fuqua's support for and interest in the private school did not end with his initial contribution; until his death in 2006, Fuqua donated thousands of dollars to the school each year and regularly visited the school and its students.[ citation needed ]

In 2008, in order to improve its reputation in Farmville, Fuqua School offered African-American high school football player Charles Williams a full scholarship to the school if he would agree to promote it in the town's black community. [11]

As of the 2015–16 school year, 15 of Fuqua's 344 students were black.[ needs update ] Fuqua's administration and students have also been actively involved with recent[ when? ] community efforts to commemorate the 1951 R.R. Moton High School student walkout, a major event in the struggle to end public and private segregation in the U.S. [12]

Academics

The Fuqua campus is organized into three smaller schools, each with their own faculty, staff and daily schedules:

Accreditation

The school is fully accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools, [13] and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. [14]

Extracurricular Activities

The Upper School at Fuqua currently features the following student clubs and activities:

Athletics

The Falcons organize their student athletes mostly into Junior Varsity (6th-8th grade) and Varsity (9th-12th grade) teams. Most teams have a boys and a girls team, but a few are organized only as co-ed teams. Fuqua School typically competes with other Virginia private schools like the Fishburne Military School and Isle of Wight Academy.

Fuqua School athletes (as of the 2022–2023 school year) compete on the following schedule:

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince Edward County, Virginia</span> County in Virginia, United States

Prince Edward County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,849. Its county seat is Farmville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farmville, Virginia</span> Town in Virginia, United States

Farmville is a town in Prince Edward and Cumberland counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 7,473 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Prince Edward County.

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County was one of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954, officially overturned racial segregation in U.S. public schools. The Davis case was the only such case to be initiated by a student protest. The case challenged segregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massive resistance</span> Strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd to resist public school desegregation in Virginia

Massive resistance was a political strategy created by American politicians Harry F. Byrd and James M. Thomson aimed at getting Virginia officials to pass laws and policies preventing public school desegregation, particularly after Brown v. Board of Education. Many schools and an entire school system were shut down in 1958 and 1959 in attempts to block integration.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. B. Fuqua</span> American businessman

John Brooks Fuqua was an American businessman, philanthropist, and chairman of The Fuqua Companies and Fuqua Enterprises. The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University is named after him, as is the Fuqua School in Farmville, Virginia. He was active in politics for the Democratic Party, serving in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly and serving four years as the state party chair.

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References

  1. ↑ "School Detail for Fuqua School". NCES . Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Big bucks bringing new name to facility". Rome News-Tribune. August 24, 1993. Retrieved October 21, 2015– via Google News Archive.
  3. 1 2 Wilbur B. Brookover (Spring 1993). "Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1953–1993". The Journal of Negro Education. 62 (2): 149–161. doi:10.2307/2295190. JSTOR   2295190.
  4. ↑ Kevin Sieff (December 14, 2011). "Star Recruit's Job: Erode a Racist Legacy". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  5. ↑ Keierleber, Mark (August 18, 2021). "Critical Race Theory and the New Massive Resistance". the 75 Million. Retrieved August 20, 2021.
  6. ↑ Lino A. Graglia, The Brown Cases Revisited: Where Are They Now, 1 Benchmark 23 (1984). APA 7th ed.
  7. ↑ Marlene, Cimons (March 1, 1982). "White Academies: Dual School Systems in South Thrive". The Los Angeles Times. p. 1. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
  8. ↑ Evans, Sandra (December 14, 1986). "Era Ends at Once-Segregated Va. School". Washington Post. Retrieved February 9, 2024.
  9. 1 2 Robert E. Pierre (December 16, 2011). "Is the Fuqua School's racist past still present?". Washington Post. p. B02.
  10. ↑ Orth, Kathyrn; Ruff, Jamie (August 14, 1993). "Academy renamed in benefactor's honor/". Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. B4.
  11. ↑ Fuqua School looks to African American football star to shatter racist legacy (Washington Post, December 11, 2011)
  12. ↑ Joining Hands with History: PECHS, Fuqua Students Walk and Stand Together (Farmville Herald, April 24, 2014) Archived April 26, 2014, at archive.today
  13. ↑ Virginia Association of Independent Schools
  14. ↑ AdvancED – Institution Summary
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