Dirt Don’t Burn: A Black Community’s Struggle for Educational Equality
Wednesday, October 16, 2024 7:20 PM EDT
Johnson Center, 3rd Floor, Meeting Room E
Co-authors Larry Roeder and Barry Harrelson have compiled the story of Loudoun County’s all-Black, rural schoolhouses in Dirt Don’t Burn: A Black Community’s Struggle for Educational Equality Under Segregation. This research was conducted as part of The Edwin Washington Project, a volunteer organization that has organized and uncovered documents detailing the history of these schoolhouses. These documents, which were originally left to rot in an abandoned building, tell a story of Black resilience and determination. Historian Brian J. Daugherity says, “Dirt Don’t Burn documents the important and neglected story of the education of African Americans in Loudoun County, Virginia, during the Jim Crow and civil rights eras.”
