Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” 

Recent Farmville events offer proof of the noted anthropologist’s observation.

At the Moton Museum’s Community Banquet on Oct. 3, Longwood University President W. Taylor Reveley IV stated that the Moton Museum and its importance in civil rights history was a factor in Farmville’s selection as the site for the vice-presidential debate next year.

“We come together as a community to support Moton, to lift up this history which genuinely is the light of the world,” Reveley said.

Banquet honoree and former principal of Moton and Prince Edward County High School Dr. Clarence P. Penn addressed the audience of 550 local residents of all ethnic backgrounds and said, “You are a fine example of what’s going on in the world today. Rev. [L. Francis] Griffin believed that one day there would be an event like this. He would be so very proud of what you’re doing here tonight.”

Secretary of the Commonwealth Levar Stoney added his personal insight, “I’m the first in my family to graduate from high school, the first to go to college and get a degree. That would not be possible without the brave acts of students in 1951.”

It is doubtful that Barbara Johns envisioned what the future would hold when she led the Moton Student Strike in 1951.

Yet it is her light, supported by many facets of the Farmville community, that continues to shine.