Here is something for Prince Edward County to celebrate and in which it can take great pride.

The Virginia Tourism Corporation is promoting “six things for history buffs to do and see in 2014” and one of them is our Moton Museum.

Our Moton Museum is in fine company.

Or, put it this way, instead:

Historic Jamestowne, the National D-Day Memorial, the Mill Mountain Star in Roanoke, the Cape Henry Lighthouse and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel are in fine company.

They are the five other sites touted by the state as key destinations for history lovers this year.

Quite a feather in our Moton Museum’s cap.

And put it this way: quite a boon for Prince Edward County and the Town of Farmville, which benefit tremendously by the presence of the museum, benefits that will grow yearly as the museum becomes better known across the nation.

On the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s website feature presentation of these six destinations one is able to click this icon: “Fall in Love with Farmville.” Those from around the state, the nation and the world who do so will learn about Longwood University, historic downtown Farmville, High Bridge Trail State Park, historic churches and cemeteries, Farmville’s train station and farmers market.

And all thanks to our Moton Museum.

There are so many historic destinations in this state and the Virginia Tourism Corporation picked our Moton Museum as one of the six it has chosen to promote in 2014.

And it is a thoroughly merited distinction.

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the historic United States Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision against segregated public schools. The landmark decision keyed on the Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward case, which had been joined with four other cases around the nation into the Brown.

Seventy-five percent of the plaintiffs in Brown were students who participated in the 1951 student strike at R. R. Moton High School against separate and unequal school facilities for black students. Those students gave birth to the civil rights movement in this country, their strike coming more than four years prior to Rosa Parks’ decision not to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The only reason 2014 doesn’t celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s nation-shaping Davis decision is that the cases were listed alphabetically and Brown nudged Davis in becoming the name of the overall case and decision.

Kudos, then, to the Virginia Tourism Corporation for recognizing our museum’s importance to Virginia and US history.
Well done, Moton Museum.

—JKW—