Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Jesse Dukes, a radio producer, and Larissa Smith Fergeson, a history professor at Longwood University, interview residents of Prince Edward County who had been affected when their schools were shut down in 1959 and did not reopen until 1964, a byproduct of the Virginia political campaign against desegregation known as Massive Resistance. When faced with a court order to integrate its schools, Prince Edward County opted to close its entire public school system for five years. These interviews originally aired in April 2011 on With Good Reason, a radio program produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and hosted by Sarah McConnell.