Documentary highlights segregation-era school in Cumberland County

One of Virginia’s few remaining schools for Black students during segregation is highlighted in a new documentary that delves into its history and examines the present-day challenges to its survival.

The Pine Grove school was built in Cumberland County in 1917 with the help of the Rosenwald rural school building program, which was created by Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute with financial help from Julius Rosenwald, who was then the president of Sears, Roebuck & Co.

About 5,500 Rosenwald schools were built during segregation, with more than 380 in Virginia, according to Preservation Virginia. A survey by the organization found that 67% of Virginia’s Rosenwald schools, or 256 buildings, have been demolished.

Pine Grove was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s most endangered historic places in 2021.

(Read more: A Rosenwald school in Washington County was recently approved for a state historic marker .)

The documentary “Pine Grove: More Than a School,” by Richmond-based Departure Point Films, tells the story of the school through the words of former students and historians who reflect on the school’s legacy and current state.

“There was no opportunity to educate Black children in our community before Pine Grove,” Muriel Miller Branch, a former student and president emeritus of the Agee-Mayo-Miller-Dungee Pine Grove Project, says in the documentary. The AMMD Pine Grove Project is a coalition that includes former students, residents, environmentalists, social justice activists, educational institutions and historians.

The Rosenwald program was an effort to improve public education for southern Black students during segregation. Educational opportunities for African Americans during enslavement were discouraged through punishment.

It cost $1,550 to build Pine Grove in 1917, equivalent to $41,621 today. Black families in the community raised $500, taxes contributed $1,000, and the Rosenwald fund contributed $50 for the school, according to the documentary.

The land, which had been part of a slave plantation, was donated by Pine Grove alumnus Tyrone West’s great-great-great-grandfather, Wooly Miller.

Mary Eliza Booker, the first teacher at Pine Grove, graduated in 1917 from the Hampton Institute, a historically Black college and university. Booker taught seven grades at the same time. Without electricity, daylight had to be capitalized on using large windows for light.

“We did a lot of independent study,” said former student Michael Scales. “We looked forward to the opportunity to advance in grades so we can actually go back and help the younger students.”

The school closed in 1964. Scales’ father and seven other Black residents bought the school at an auction for $700 and turned it into the Pine Grove Community Center.

“They rescued Pine Grove, and they had a vision for Pine Grove, to make it alive again,” Branch said.

The community center hosted activities such as voter registration drives and remained active until at least 1991, according to the documentary.

Years of inactivity led to taxes piling up, until the AMMD Family Association paid them off in 2018 and focused on the school’s preservation.

But about a month later, the group learned that plans were in the works for a landfill nearby, Branch said.

Green Ridge Recycling and Disposal began working with the local government in 2018, according to company spokesperson Jay Smith. The company submitted its location proposal to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in January 2020, and last November it received approval for the site, which is adjacent to the school and includes Black burial sites.

“It’s really frustrating to think that the same disrespect and discrimination that so many people experienced in their life could continue to see their final resting place be desecrated,” Justin Reid, a public historian, said in the documentary.

Community concerns, including those from Pine Grove school representatives, have influenced the landfill’s design, according to Smith.

Changes made since the landfill’s inception include reducing the size of the project, implementing a double composite liner system to decrease risk of leaks and not relocating Pinegrove Road, according to Smith. The burial sites will be in a buffer zone away from the disposal area to ensure that they are not disturbed.

The facility will pay Cumberland a host fee of at least $500,000 a year, and an additional combined $50,000 for environmental science education and recreational facilities, according to its website. Green Ridge has given more than $520,000 to Cumberland County since 2019, for things such as scholarships and building new parks.

The landfill is now working to get the design permit approved, according to Smith.

The Environmental Law and Community Clinic at the University of Virginia began representing Pine Grove and the AMMD Family Association in January 2020.

“We’ve helped draft comments and engaged with regulators,” said Cale Jaffe, the clinic’s director. “Mostly what we’ve done is listen to the community and see their vision and make sure that vision gets translated to the decision makers.”

The most environmentally damaging projects are more likely to be next to communities of color and low-income communities than anywhere else, Jaffe said.

In the documentary, Reid questions whether the short-term revenue outweighs the long-term negative consequences.

“This landfill is set to sunset in 30 years, and so, am I going to be the first generation that can’t raise my family in this community because of the negative environmental impacts of this landfill, even though we’ve been here for at least seven generations?” he said.

“When you say that the landfill doesn’t negatively affect the structure, that’s false,” Reid said. “It does affect the structure, because the structure is connected to the surrounding community.”

The documentary will continue circulating until September and was accepted into the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama. The film is available to watch at filming parties by request .

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