What is Best for the Children

But Only When the Children are White

Listen to “What Is Best for the Children.”

I entered the segregated Langston Elementary School as a kindergartner in September 1964 in Miss Green’s class. As a child, I was completely unaware of the battle the adults in our community were engaged in with the Arlington County School Board. Our parents, the John M. Langston Citizens Association, the Arlington Branch of the NAACP, and the local Congress of Racial Equality were all working to convince the School Board to have Langston remain a neighborhood school.

There were discussions and proposals throughout the next two years to determine what would happen to the students and the school building once segregation of Black and White children was scheduled to end. The School Board feared that White parents would not want their children to attend the school in the Black community. This was despite the fact that the Halls Hill neighborhood was surrounded by White communities. Many of the White children who would be assigned to Langston lived only a few blocks from the school.

The proposed plan that would have kept the Langston Elementary School as a neighborhood school following integration. This planned was not approved.

This plan described in the article above would have bussed far fewer students than “Plan 6,” one of the previously proposed plans. However, many of the parents of the White children preferred “Plan 6.” The School Board “made it clear” that race was not to be considered but that was an obvious falsehood.

It had been well-documented that school boundaries for Langston were gerrymandered to segregate the races at the school. The School Board was taking heat for the way they were addressing the integration of the three segregated elementary schools, as documented by multiple newspaper articles, one of which is excerpted below.

The final decision was made to disenfranchise the Black students and the Halls Hill community. In June 1966, Langston was closed as a neighborhood elementary school. Proposal 6 was approved. The 300 students were transferred to five White elementary schools. This was because the School Board succumbed to pressure from White parents concerned about Black children comprising the majority of students at any of the previously Whites-only schools. The School Board made sure that Black children would not exceed 35 percent of the school population.

The Halls Hill community was denied a neighborhood school, unlike every other established Arlington community. However, the School Board assigned kindergarten classes to the Langston building – both White and Black children! That decision was an insult to the Halls Hill community. And as my old elementary school friend, King Prather’s message advised, the influence of two Black males teachers in elementary school impacted him greatly. How many White children could have been positively impacted by the influence of the Langston teachers and administrators?

On the Arlington Public Schools website the information about Langston is not included in the history of desegregation of schools.

In my experience, I have found that the Arlington County School Board has rarely (if ever) made a boundary decision that favors Black, POC, or poor children over the middle and upper-class White majority. Unfortunately, this record continues today.

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September 20, 2020September 20, 2020

Iconic Arlington Educator: Mrs. Elizabeth Snyder Hill

Principal and Teacher at Langston School from 1922-1961

Mrs. Elizabeth Snyder Hill was an icon as a teacher at Langston. She began teaching on Halls Hill at the Sumner School in 1922, three years before the Langston School building opened. On Friday, May 19, 1961, she was honored by the Halls Hill community for her 39 years of dedicated service. This week I am going to share the program from that event, which is just one of the many items my mom, Idabel G. Jones saved from events in the Halls Hill community over the years.

You can see that Mr. James H. Brown was president of the Langston Elementary School Parent Teacher Association and my mom’s best friend, Mrs. Patience Spriggs (there is a typo on the cover) was the chairman of the event.

Mrs. Hill was a teacher for hundreds of Halls Hill children during her career, including both my parents and many of my siblings. And of course, Mrs. Hill was a graduate of an HBCU (Historically Black College and University), Howard University. She also received a Master’s Degree from New York University. The teachers at the segregated schools were excellent, and Mrs. Hill was one of the staff that set the standard, according to all the stories I have heard. She also was quite firm in the manner in which she managed her classes, and the school during the years she was principal.

Businesses that contributed toward the event as advertisers.

Mrs. Faggins and the members of the Crescent Club were all Halls Hill residents. You can see that Prestons’ Pharmacy was a supporter of Halls Hill almost 60 years ago. This page and the ones that follow show the community supporters and organizations that contributed toward the event and were obviously a big part of the Halls Hill community.

This page has the local eye doctor and Mr. Vance Green’s barber shop, which still stands, today it’s where Rick’s Tattoo Shop is located. Mr. Green lived on North 19th Road. The other advertiser is Rev. James E. Browne, Sr. who was an electrician, as well as the assistant pastor at Mount Salvation Baptist Church. Rev. Browne and his family lived next to Langston School on Culpeper street.

The people involved in the program are not well known from a community perspective except for Mr. James H. Brown speaking for the PTA. This Mr. James Brown, without the “e” lived with his family on 22nd street. And Mr. Alfred Clark, the captain of Fire Station 8 was also the president of the John M. Langston Citizens Association at that time.

The Langston School staff and the people responsible for the program.

OK, lots of familiar names here. There are some typos, like Mr. Gravitt, not Granitt. But I remember almost every person listed on this page. And one of them is my mom, Idabel Jones, the assistant dietician, working under Rev. Browne’s wife, Mrs. Hazel Browne. And rounding out the kitchen staff is Mrs. Eunice Carter. Rev. Browne took a pic of them after the finished the lunch shift one day outside the multipurpose room door of the school.

My mom, Mrs. Idabel G. Jones, Mrs. Eunice Carter, and Mrs. Hazel Browne. See Fire Station 8 in the background.

I don’t know who the “Two Physicians,” are but I am assuming it’s Drs. Harold Johnson and Oscar Ellison, Jr., the two Black doctors serving the Halls Hill and Falls Church areas. The Modern Beauty-Barber Shop was familiar to my family because Mrs. Adele Williams and her family were close friends of our family.

Chinn Funeral Home purchased a full page ad.

The Citizens Association and the Mount Salvation Baptist Church ads along with a beauty salon purchased ads for this important community event.

Calloway’s full page ad was the final page of the program.

Mrs. Hill was much loved by the Halls Hill community. I know my mom was truly touched by her influence as she saved this program in almost perfect condition since 1961 until her death in 2017. We discovered the program in her papers and I am so happy to share it with all of you today. I know there are many people who read the blog who may remember her.

My Halls Hill Family: More Than a Neighborhood

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October 12, 2018October 16, 2018

The People: Rev. James Eugene Browne, Sr.

Rev. James Eugene Browne, Sr.

The Rev. James Eugene Browne was the assistant pastor of Mount Salvation Baptist Church when Rev. N.R. Richardson was the senior pastor. Rev. Browne and his wife, Hazel initially resided in the Cherrydale community in when they came to Arlington from Texarkana, TX.

Rev. Browne spoke about the racism and influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Cherrydale in the 1930’s in the period when they first came to this area.

The family eventually moved to 2011 North Culpeper Street in the Halls Hill neighborhood. They had two children, Lillian Browne Fernanders and James E. Browne, Jr.

Rev. Browne often told the story of the Halls Hill streets not being paved when they initially moved to the neighborhood. This caused his shoes and pants to be dusty and dirty if he walked to the church. As a result he drove each week, even though Mount Salvation was only a block away.

Rev. Browne led youth groups at Mount Salvation in their activities with the Northern Virginia Baptist Association, taking them on many trips across the state and southeast region for conferences and events. Mrs. Browne was the manager of the Langston elementary school cafeteria for many years, and she also ran the summer playground programs for Arlington Recreation.

Rev. Browne was a former president of the John M. Langston Citizens Association, the neighborhood civic organization on Halls Hill. He was also very active in the Arlington NAACP, serving in leadership roles for many years, including president during the fight for school desegregation in the late 1950’s.

What memories do you have about Rev. and Mrs. Browne from Langston elementary school, Mount Salvation church or just in the neighborhood?

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