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Please join us for a session highlighting Black Virginians' dedication to education throughout the Commonwealth’s history using the 2023 SOLs as a guide. Virginia’s story will be broken into four eras: slavery, Reconstruction, Plessy v. Ferguson’s world, and post-Brown. Participants will learn stories that reaffirm Black Virginia’s desire for education, sometimes at a tremendous cost. Topics covered include the Williamsburg Bray School, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, Hampton’s Emancipation Oak and Mary Smith Peake, Jim Crow School conditions, and Massive Resistance. The Moton School Story will have a particular focus as it is an example of Jim Crow education, resistance to desegregation, and education conditions post-Brown v. Board of Education.

About the Speaker

Leah Brown is the Associate Director for education and collections at the Robert Russa Moton Museum. In this role, she creates onsite and digital outreach programming, coordinates educational tours and manages the museum’s collection. 

Brown joined Moton’s team in 2019 as assistant director for education, transitioning to associate director in 2022. Her love of history inspired her to choose museum education as a career that blends a love of learning about diverse topics with teaching. She specializes in American history with a special emphasis on Virginia.

Prior to her appointment at Moton, Brown served as the Digital Outreach Educator for the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, a Museum Educator at the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum and a Senior Tour Counselor at the Virginia Tourism Corporation. Brown attended North Carolina State University where she obtained a Master’s in Public History in 2014.