Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County - by Kristen Green (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, this provocative true story reveals a little-known chapter of American history: the period after the Brown v. Board of Education decision when one Virginia school system refused to integrate.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.

Kristen Green, a longtime newspaper reporter, grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which did not admit black students until 1986. In her journey to uncover what happened in her hometown before she was born, Green tells the stories of families divided by the school closures and of 1,700 black children denied an education. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period in our nation's past, her own family's role--no less complex and painful--comes to light.

At once gripping, enlightening, and deeply moving, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is a dramatic chronicle that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today, and a timeless story about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home.

From the Back Cover

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

"[Green's] thoughtful book is a gift to a new generation of readers who need to know this story."--Washington Post

In the wake of the Supreme Court's unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.

Kristen Green, a longtime newspaper reporter, grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which didn't admit black students until 1986. In her journey to uncover what happened in her hometown before she was born, Green tells the stories of families divided by the school closures and the 1,700 black children denied an education. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period in our nation's past, her own family's role--no less complex and painful--comes to light.

"Intimate and candid."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Not easily forgotten."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

Review Quotes

"Powerful. . . . The author movingly chronicles her discovery of the truth about her background and her efforts to promote reconciliation and atonement. A potent introduction to a nearly forgotten part of the civil rights movement and a personalized reminder of what it was truly about." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Absorbing. . . . A merger of history both lived and studied, Green's book looks beyond the publicized exploits of community leaders to reveal the everyday people who took great risks and often suffered significant loss during the struggle against change in one 'quaint, damaged community.'" - Publishers Weekly
"This book is both intimate and ambitious: Green gives the reader a far-reaching account of the political and social history of segregation and desegregation in Virginia at the same time that she tells the stories of scores of individuals, herself included, to reveal the very real human costs of this history. Moving and clear-eyed, damning and hopeful: this is an essential read." - Jesmyn Ward, author of Men We Reaped
"Both intimate and ambitious, this is a far-reaching account of the political and social history of segregation and desegregation in Virginia that also reveals the very real human costs of this history. Moving and clear-eyed, damning and hopeful: this is an essential read." - Jesmyn Ward, author of Men We Reaped
"What makes Ms. Green's book essential reading is that Prince Edward illuminates two instructive story lines that can become lost today amid the stirring commemorations of famous civil rights battles and the growing fury over the killing of unarmed African-Americans.... This is not just a work of history but also a story of how resistance to integration still shapes American life." - New York Times
"Journalist Kristen Green grew up in Prince Edward County and attended the all-white private academy, which her grandfather helped found (and which finally acceded to federal government pressure and began accepting students of color in 1986). Now she has produced a well-researched and compassionate account of what happened and its impact on blacks and whites. Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is an especially intimate portrait because Green interweaves public events with her family's role, which was driven by the racism and gaping moral blind spots of her beloved grandparents.... Her thoughtful book is a gift to a new generation of readers, who need to know this story." - Washington Post
"Green is a journalist by trade, and she builds Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County on reams of painstaking research, interviews, and historical documents.... What matters is the scant but vivid voice she gives to the black citizens Prince Edward County silenced for decades, and the light the book shines on how much-and how little-has changed." - Entertainment Weekly
"The decision to write the book took guts, because Green knew she would be publicly castigating not only her grandparents, but other relatives and friends, as well.... Her involvement in the shameful history of Prince Edward County provides the book with an emotional edge not easily forgotten." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Kristen Green was born to write this book.....[She] deftly interweaves the personal and the historical into a compelling narrative that leaves no stone unturned....[N]ot only fascinating but cinematic...[A]n award-worthy book." - Booklist
"In an intimate memoir, a journalist explores 1950s school segregation in a small Virginia town, its effects on the children there, and her family's own connection to the racial divide." - Entertainment Weekly
"Mystery wrapped in history with a touch of suspense and personal horror: Kristen Green's stunner of a book is a ride back into a past you'll wish had never happened. This is historical sleuthing at its finest." - Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run
"An engaging and well-written book on the impact of school closures, told from a unique biographical perspective. Green delivers a deeply moving portrayal of one of the very sad histories in American race relations. Difficult to put down and a must-read." - William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University
"The story of integrating American public schools has gotten drowned out by that of the Civil Rights movement. Return with Kristen Green to her hometown in Virginia to find out how people she loved and admired could have supported such injustice against children. You'll be wiser if you do." - Charles J. Shields, author of Mockingbird: A Life of Harper Lee
"Green's work brims with real-life detail from the journalist's eye and ear and joins the likes of Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home in further developing the dimensions of the South's desegregation struggle." - Library Journal