Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium: Barbara Johns' diary will be read on Wednesday, Jan. 20

As part of Longwood's observance of Dr. King's birthday, volunteers will take turns reading from the diary of the late Barbara Johns, leader of the historic 1951 walkout by students at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, at noon Wednesday, Jan. 20, on the steps in front of Lankford. Johns, then a 16-year-old junior, led her classmates in walking of the segregated school to protest intolerable conditions for Prince Edward County's African-American students. This will be the first extended public reading of Johns' diary, which is currently unpublished and was supplied by the Moton Museum, housed in the former R.R. Moton High School near the southern end of the Longwood campus.

For more information, view the news release.