First Black Students to Attend Pulaski High School
Written by Amanda Dean
In September of 1960, the first Black students began to attend the previously all-white Pulaski High School. This process was more complicated than simply walking through the doors, as these Black students and their families fought to attend PHS rather than face the long bus ride to Christiansburg Industrial Institute in Montgomery County, Virginia.
In late 1959, eighteen Black Pulaski students first applied to the state-appointed board, named the Pupil Placement Board. The board’s responsibility was to evaluate whether applications from Virginia’s Black students were adequate to transfer them into white schools. Most applications presented to the Pupil Placement Board were denied in efforts to keep schools segregated.
Once the Pupil Placement Board denied the applications for the Pulaski students, they and their NAACP attorney, Rueben Lawson, appealed to Virginia’s federal courts. Federal Judge Roby Thompson ruled fourteen Black students could attend Pulaski High School since there was no other Black high school in Pulaski County, not because he disagreed with segregation.
Ultimately, thirteen students attended PHS during the 1960-1961 school year. These students included Nellie Crisp, Sandra Patterson, Raymond Gaither, Jr., Clyde Grubb, Jr., Mary Ann Hogan, Robert Lewis, Rosemma Payne, David Payton, Patricia Sue Poindexter, David Poindexter, Richard Smith, David Webb, and James Webb.
The first Black graduates of PHS were Rosemma Payne and Patricia Sue Poindexter.
Using Pupil Placement Board records, the 1960 court decision by Judge Roby Thompson, yearbook archives, and interviews conducted for the CCCC, we were able to uncover more about Pulaski’s “First Thirteen” to desegregate Pulaski’s schools. After the ‘60-’61 school year, many of Pulaski County’s other schools soon began to desegregate, leading into a new era.
If you or someone you know experienced or remembers Pulaski’s school desegregation, please reach out to us to share your story!
