The Moton Museum

*The following information is taken from the Moton Museum brochure publication and was reproduced with permission.

The former Robert R. Moton High School (see "What Happened in Prince Edward County") was designated a National Historic Landmark in August 1998, giving formal recognition that the 1951 student walk-out and subsequent strike had historic significance to the nation. The projected purpose of the museum is and will continue to promote the stories of the people who actually lived through the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and to preserve these stories as told on videotape or in person.

A Grassroots Movement

Following the reopening of its public schools, the original Moton building was used for several years as an annex, housing the fifth grade students during construction of the addition to the middle school.

In 1995, when the county had no further use for the building, a grass-roots movement began to convert the former Moton School into a civil rights museum. The movement was led by the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, a local group of women activists, who had from the inception of public education in Prince Edward County dating back to 1936, provided educational leadership within the community. It was the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women who began the fundraising for the museum and paid the initial $300,000 to purchase the building from Prince Edward County.

In 1996, Congress appropriated $200,000 and directed the National Park Service to assist in the development of a plan for developing a museum. The Council of Women in 1997 voted to initiate an autonomous Board of Directors for the Robert R. Morton Museum, which was later incorporated.

For more than three years Park Service planners talked with local people about what the museum might be, and in the spring of 2000 presented their master plan, calling for “progressive, balanced growth” across four phases.

The Preliminary Phase, which was completed in 2001, involved purchasing the Moton building from Prince Edward County (accomplished in 2000), with a focus on stabilizing its physical condition of the building, and having basic museum exhibits open for guided tours on request.

In the five-year Phase I, beginning on April 23, 2001—the fiftieth anniversary of the student strike—the museum will be open at regular but abbreviated hours. The NPS plan anticipates up to 5,000 visitors a year to the museum, chiefly from central Virginia.

During this time the board will seek to raise at least $1 million in additional funds. The museum's first professional staff member, a fund-raiser, will be hired; a program of videotaped oral histories, already begun, will be expanded.

Around 2005 or 2006 the museum will seek to achieve Phase II of the National Park Service's development plan, with greatly expanded professional staff and exhibits and full-time operation.

Principally school children from throughout Virginia and neighboring states will come to Farmville to learn about Brown v. Board of Education and the role of Prince Edward County in that case.

Eventually, the Park Service plan envisions a possible Phase III, in which the museum would become a national attraction, drawing a visiting audience of 50,000 or more per year from throughout the nation.

For more information about the Moton Museum and how to contribute to its development, please visit their web site at www.moton.org.

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