AFT convention delegates in 1963 look over a display describing the union's work at Freedom Schools in Virginia.

In 1959, public school officials in Prince Edward County, Va., closed the county's schools rather than integrate them.  The county instead established "private" schools to maintain segregation, and for four years, black students of Prince Edward County, Va., received no education.

In 1963, a privately funded effort, the Prince Edward Free School Association, was created to provide an education for the nearly 1,700 black children who were being denied schooling.  The AFT was among the early supporters of the program, and in the spring of 1963, AFT vice president Richard Parrish led a task force to Prince Edward County to survey the situation.  He reported that more than 1,200 black students had never set foot inside a regular classroom.

That summer, scores of AFT members from New York City joined students at Queens College to provide emergency remedial education for the black students of Prince Edward County.  This was followed by more volunteers to staff what became known as "Freedom Schools" throughout the year--in churches, community centers and any available space.  The Freedom School program expanded to other states--continuing in one form or another through 1969--educating more than 12,000 students and involving more than 500 teachers from around the country.