The Road to Healing
Give it up for The Road to Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story in Prince Edward County, Virginia, detailing one of the most despicable episodes of government-sponsored racism ever to mar the reputation of our country. You should care because the events in Virginia happened just sixty years ago—rather than allow black students to attend public schools in Prince Edward County, officials closed the schools and eased the way for white students to attend private schools by providing county tax dollars and state tuition grants. More than two thousand black students were denied a formal education during the five years of closures. The story turns hopeful in 2004 when newspaper editor Ken Woodley led efforts to create state-funded scholarships for African-American students. This miraculous program is thought to be the nation’s first act of Civil-Rights era reparation. In his prologue, Woodley writes: “We cannot erase the past. The future belongs to someone else. This moment is ours.”
The Road to Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story in Prince Edward County, Virginia\
Ken Woodley\
NewSouth Books\
Hardcover $27.95 (280pp)\
978-1-58838-354-9
Matt Sutherland
