‘One room, a whole lot of love’: Historic segregation-era Cornland School restored as museum in Chesapeake

CHESAPEAKE — A globe of the world before Russia became a country. An American flag with 48 stars. An oil lamp, three wooden pencils and a hand bell. A beloved pillar-like potbelly stove anchoring the center of the room. A signature from “Kathryn” penned in 1933 in a book nestled under an antique wooden school desk.

About 80 years ago, those were a few items students of the Cornland School — once called the Benefit Colored School — would see in a historic one-room schoolhouse built at the turn of the 20th century to educate young African American students in Norfolk County during the Jim Crow era of mandated segregation.

On Saturday, some returned to those days in grade school. Alumni, local and state elected leaders, community members and dozens of others met near the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in the historic village to celebrate the revitalization of the Cornland School , now a museum anchoring a historic reminder of African Americans’ struggle for education in the form of a rustic, humble one-room school house built in 1902.

The inside shows a historically accurate snapshot of where hundreds of Black students across nearly 50 years had one teacher from grades 1 through 7. In addition to the relics, the schoolhouse now features educational plaques detailing life at the time with an interactive display of oral testimonies from alumni. Outside stands a May Pole donned with colorful ribbons.

At Saturday’s event, alumni were reminded of a special field day called May Day as they circled the May pole at a gingerly pace, smiling widely and adding a few leg kicks and ribbon twirls. Meanwhile, inside, a hand bell that once signaled the start of the school day reverberated as handfuls of eager learners stepped into the 40 x 20 one-room building for a guided tour.

It’s one landmark at the center of the ongoing Historic Village at Dismal Swamp project — that’s been in the works for more than a decade. For alumni, it’s about history, recognizing how far they’ve come and realizing there’s work to be done.

“It’s not just a building,” said Wanza Snead, 79. “This is a memory of (looking) at where you were then and where you are now. We’ve got so much to be thankful for.”

Snead and her husband, Randolph, were crucial in getting the project completed.

The school is a symbol of resilience and perseverance in African Americans’ pursuit of education at a time when odds were stacked against them. Alumni recall walking as many as 8 miles to and from school, even as white students and bus drivers passed, taunting and harassing the Black students who didn’t have the same transportation privilege.

“It’s the only place that I had to come to get an education,” said Clentoria Johnson Bridgers, who attended the school throughout the 1940s.

While the schoolhouse harbored an overwhelming sense of community, it was also one of necessity. Students had to make do with tattered hand-me-downs from white schools, no electricity, no running water and no sewage. Big pots of beans or stew were cheap, but hot meals weren’t frequent. One student’s family member lit a fire in the potbelly stove that became a beloved fixture in the schoolhouse as it provided the only source of warmth.

Even so, teachers still managed to honor special requests such as “no onions” for students when making stew for a hot lunch. They taught how to cook and how to embroider and craft. Older students helped by tending to the younger children. They managed to get homework done despite the list of chores many had when they returned home.

“One room, a whole lot of love,” said alumna Pauline Nixon Sykes Smith, 89. About Saturday’s event, she said, “It’s almost like we were back at school and this is recess.”

The schoolhouse was moved from its perch on Benefit Road to the Dismal Swamp as part of the restoration project. Del. Cliff Hayes, who represents Chesapeake and served two terms on City Council, said the Cornland School’s location along the city’s African American Heritage Trail now is reminiscent of where slaves would forge paths to freedom. The dense forests of the Great Dismal Swamp and the ideal transit route provided refuge for freedom seekers.

Council member Ella Ward has spent more than a decade spearheading the project in what she deems a “labor of love.” She engaged with around two dozen alumni and raised funds for the endeavor with the help of city staff and elected officials, residents, alumni, historians and the Cornland School Foundation.

Ward, a former teacher, administrator and vice principal in Portsmouth who’s served on the Chesapeake School Board and Virginia Board of Education, said Cornland School’s story is one piece of history not told in textbooks.

“It means so much to me because I lived through some of the same things that these alumni have gone through,” Ward said, adding she attended a slightly bigger, but still humble, schoolhouse in what was formerly known as Nansemond County.

“It shows that nothing is impossible as a union,” said Snead’s daughter, Oula Niece Saunders. “You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.”

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com