As a member of the Luther H. Foster Alumni Association and a taxpayer of Nottoway County, Virginia, I am petitioning the Nottoway County School Board and the Board of Supervisors to address their racist history and rename the Nottoway Intermediate School to its legal name, the Luther H. Foster Intermediate School.  Nottoway County had a responsibility to protect Black students from systematic racism and they refused

From 1950 to 1970, the public schools in Virginia were segregated.  The Nottoway County School Board refused to provide a name for the Black school or a gymnasium for the Black students to use.  I was one of the children who attended that no name school with no gymnasium and I suffered being disrespected and discriminated against for 5 years.  What is really ludicrous is that the Board of Supervisors of Nottoway County, provided the funding for the Nottoway County Board of Education to name a Black school after a Black educator and then turned a blind eye to the racist behavior of the Board. 

The history of Luther H. Foster is well documented. In 1950, the Nottoway Board of Education, in addition to its resolution adopting the name of the Negro School, voted to dedicate the new school on June 6, 1950. Luther H. Foster’s family was present.  On November 12, 2021, the present Board of Education inhumanely refused to vote to put the name of Luther H. Foster on the school to honor a Black man. To date, Mr. Foster’s name was never put on the school.

Please sign this petition to request that the Nottoway County Board of Education and the Board of Supervisors stand up for Black Americans by putting the rightful, legal name, Luther H. Foster, on the school for which it was originally named. The members of the Boards must examine their conscience and their past participation in systemic racism against African Americans. 

Black Americans won’t reach true justice until our leaders fully confront and make amends for the public education system’s racist history. There has been no real commitment to right this wrong and no truth and reconciliation for the past racial terror Black children suffered for 20 years attending a school with no gymnasium and a school with no name on it. This matter “must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”  

Please pass this email on to someone you know who needs to be part of this movement for justice and equality.