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24 May 2006 Longwood honors late faculty member who was a civil rights pioneer
Dr. C.G. Gordon Moss was a longtime Longwood University faculty member who is best remembered for his courageous role in the civil rights movement in Prince Edward County during the early 1960s. Thanks to a gift from the Class of 1956, the office of the chair of the Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy now bears his name. Also, a portrait of Dr. Moss, which was restored recently, and a plaque have been placed on the wall on either side of the door to that office. “Dr. C.G. Gordon Moss was an exceptional man who was a passionate speaker against injustice and unequal treatment,” said Longwood President Patricia Cormier in accepting the gift April 22 during a reunion for several classes, including ‘56. “He became the prominent white face and voice against the closing of the Prince Edward County public schools. The position he took came with many costs, not only to himself but to his family. As we look back on the situation, we wonder why he stood alone; why others could not understand the injustice that he fervently fought against; why a personal stand cost him friendships, positions and disrespect.” Dr. Moss (1899-1982), a Lynchburg native, chaired the history department from 1947-60 and was dean of the college from 1960-64 before retiring in 1968. To the displeasure of some of his colleagues at Longwood and friends in the community, he became involved in the civil rights struggle that heated up after the county schools in Prince Edward County, where Longwood is located, closed in 1959 rather than integrate. For the dedication of the department chair’s office, a former student, Dr. Helen Warriner-Burke (’56) of Amelia, now secretary of the Longwood Board of Visitors, paid tribute to Dr. Moss. “A few years after we were gone from Longwood, people saw a resolute C.G. Gordon Moss as he stood solidly for the defense of the public schools and the equality of man,” she said. “He and his family suffered personal recrimination as a result of his outspoken defense of his convictions. He was bloodied in the embattled struggle for right, including by some of his own colleagues, his fellow parishioners in the little church across the street and his neighbors in the community. His last years were difficult ones weighing heavily on those stooped shoulders, but he was stalwart, unyielding in his determination for justice.”
He served as president of the Prince Edward County Action Program and also was involved with the Prince Edward Council of Human Relations. When the county schools reopened in 1964, his son, Richard, was one of the first whites to enroll in what is now Prince Edward County High School. A photograph of Richard in class, surrounded by several African-American classmates, appeared in a 1963 issue of TIME magazine. Richard Moss, 59, who has lived since 1974 in Columbia, S.C., attended the Milestone Reunion. He followed in his father’s footsteps. For 28 years he taught history at C.A. Johnson High School in Columbia, whose student body is overwhelmingly African-American and drawn largely from inner-city housing projects. He is finishing his first year as a U.S. history and world geography teacher at Gilbert Middle School in Gilbert, and for the last three years he taught at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School in Orangeburg. Richard’s sister, Virginia Moss George, who lives in Lynchburg, is a 1962 Longwood graduate. The painting of Dr. Moss was done, for free, in 1963 by the late Maurice Gompf of Portsmouth, a bank executive and portrait painter who was the father of a then-sophomore (Mary Gompf Perry, ’66, who now lives in Rockland, Me.), and was officially presented to the college, on behalf of the sophomore class, in a ceremony in March 1964. Because it was a surprise for Dr. Moss, it was painted from photographs. The painting was restored by Page Conservation Inc. of Washington, D.C., which also restored the murals in the dome of Longwood’s recently rebuilt Rotunda. The plaque, of white marble, identifies the office as the “Moss Room.” “The Class of 1956 wanted to honor a faculty member, and they all agreed to honor Dr. Moss,” said Nancy Shelton, director of alumni relations, a 1968 graduate who had him for a class her freshman year. “They felt that he played a large role in their lives as students.” Dr. Charles George Gordon Moss was a courtly-looking man with white hair (“He said it turned white the day I was born,” joked Richard, “though he was 45 and my mother was 42”) who often wore a bowtie. He first taught at Longwood in 1926-27 and 1929-30. He returned permanently to the Farmville school in 1944 after teaching at then-Mary Washington College for 12 years. He was a graduate of Washington & Lee University and had an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Yale University. “Perhaps every Longwood student in the ‘50s admired the nattily dressed, distinguished looking professor with the shock of white hair who often arrived in class by stepping through the classroom window,” said Dr. Warriner-Burke, the now-retired foreign language supervisor for the Virginia Department of Education. “Everything about him commanded respect; even his name had a distinguished ring to it.” Dr. Cormier noted that Longwood is “a better place for having Dr. Moss’s example of citizen leadership. We have learned the lessons of openness, diversity and leadership that exemplified his life…I think about the students who will pass this plaque and this portrait each day and their quest to know more about this gentle man who fought to improve the education of all children.” |
