Douglass Elementary in Leesburg Earns History Award from AASLH

The Frederick Douglass Elementary School Memorial has earned Loudoun County Public Schools a Leadership in History award from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).

For 68 years, the AASLH Leadership in History Awards has been given to those deserving recognition for their work in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.

The Memorial, which traces the history of school desegregation in Loudoun County from 1930 to 1970, is on permanent display in the lobby of the new Frederick Douglass Elementary School building in Leesburg, which opened in August 2012. The new building was constructed on the site of the former Frederick Douglass Elementary School, which was built in 1958 as a segregated school for African-American students.

Douglass Elementary served as a segregated school until 1968 when all public schools in Loudoun County were integrated. In 1982, the school closed and the building became a support facility.

When the Loudoun School Board decided to construct in 2009 the new Frederick Douglass Elementary School, the old building was demolished, and school officials made a commitment to commemorate the original school permanently. 

In October 2011, prior to demolition, LCPS and the Black History Committee of the Friends of Thomas Balch Library hosted a “Roundtable and Reflection Day” during which dozens of former administrators, teachers and students shared their memories of the school. In addition, Dr. Wendi Manuel-Scott, director of the African and African American Studies Program at George Mason University, conducted a dozen oral history interviews with former school staff and students.

The exhibit is a local desegregation timeline, with touch-screen monitors programmed to correspond with national and state timelines and excerpts from the oral history interviews. In addition, two display cases contain donated artifacts from the former school.  

“We are thrilled to receive this Award of Merit from AASLH,” said Sara Howard-O’Brien, an LCPS land management supervisor and the project manager. “The memorial is the result of a truly collaborative effort between the school system and the community. I would particularly like to acknowledge the Black History Committee, as well as the staff of the Thomas Balch Library, the GMU African and African American Studies Program, and the numerous community members who contributed to the project.” 

A representative for the Black History Committee offered spoke of their pride in the project.

“The Black History Committee is honored to receive this Award of Merit as acknowledgement of the historical importance of the people and events depicted in the Fredrick Douglass Elementary School Memorial,” said Donna Bohanon, events chairperson of the Black History Committee of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library. “We are also proud of the collaborative efforts of individuals and organizations within our Loudoun County and Northern Virginia community that created such a beautiful memorial. We hope this award serves as encouragement for other communities to take on similar historical projects.”

The American Association for State and Local History is a Nashville-based not-for-profit professional organization of individuals and institutions working to preserve and promote history.