EWP DonationNAACP

Title

EWP DonationNAACP

Place

Virginia

Identifier

1037216

Is Version Of

1037216_EWP_DonationNAACP.pdf

Is Part Of

Uncategorized

Date Created

2024-01-07

Format

Pdf Document

Publisher

Digitized by Edwin Washington Project

Rights

Loudoun County Public Schools

Language

English

extracted text

THE EDWIN WASHINGTON PROJECT
26128 Talamore Drive, South Riding, Virginia 20152
www.edwinwashigntonproject.org 703-8672056
10/17/2017

Dear Philip,
So great to hear you are from Saint Louis. So is the Roeder family, though I was born
overseas. Thanks as well for indicating NAACP might make a contribution to the
project. As we discussed over the phone, my project is incorporated as a 501©(3). We
accept donations under the name Edwin Washington Project for funds going to that
effort; but the name of the non-profit, of which I’m President, is Diversity Fairs of
Virginia. The EIN is 47-1765605. The address to send contributions is Edwin
Washington Project, 26128 Talamore Drive, South Riding, Va. 20152.
Any amount will be useful; but I am asking you to consider somewhere in the
neighborhood of $1,000. Funds go to material used to preserve our records and actual
research. There is a lot going on. Of particular interest to the NAACP, my plan is find
all of the documents related to the NAACP, lawyers working for them and the CountyWide League. I’ll be happy to send copies of these to you as we find them. We have
already located quite a few.
The basic goal is to identify all of the “colored” schools in Loudoun, who attended them,
who instructed in them, what the students learned and to compare white vs black
education. We would like to extend this to other neighboring counties as well, in
cooperation with local Black History clubs.
2017 was a very busy year. Thanks to a donor who provided us a high end scanner, we
have made significant progress scanning school records and anticipate completing that
project by mid-2018. We also began identifying which textbooks were used in “colored”
and white schools, briefed many communities in Loudoun and have begun an analysis
of the impact of segregated education on African-Americans. In addition, we
interviewed many people who either taught or studied in the “colored” schools and have
made much progress identifying where the schools were, which is not always clear from
the records. This includes doing an expedition in order to find the ruins of the old

Bluemont Colored School. We had to use an army compass for that exercise. Our
report is included as an attachment.
We need to buy more archival boxes for old records and books. In addition, we are
examining all of the old school, which requires a lot of gas. Records directly related to
“colored” schools in Loudoun are in the archives of Swarthmore in Pennsylvania, as
they relate to Quaker assistance. In addition, there are records at Virginia State
University. We also need to continue digital preservation of all of the records so that if a
fire ever happened, this history will never be lost.
Thanks again for your support.

Warm regards,

Larry Roeder, MS
Principal Investigator

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