In 1965, New Kent County, located just east of Richmond, Virginia, became the setting for the one of the most important school desegregation cases since Brown v. Board of Education. Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared separate but equal unconstitutional, both public schools in New Kent, the George W. Watkins School for blacks and the New Kent School for whites, remained segregated. In 1965, however, local blacks and the Virginia State NAACP initiated a legal challenge to segregated schools, hoping to initiate desegregation where the process had yet to begin and to accelerate the process in areas where token desegregation was the norm. In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court decision inCharles C. Green v. the School Board of New Kent County forced New Kent County and localities across the state and nation to fulfill the promise of Brown. While the case has been part of the court records since it was decided in 1968, it has remained largely unknown to the general public and many scholars of the era. This article is an attempt to use the tool of oral history to present the people and the story behind Green v. New Kent County and to add another piece to the puzzle that was school desegregation in this country
