47 pages • 1 hour read
Kristen GreenSomething Must Be Done About Prince Edward County
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Kristen Green
Green is a native of Farmville, Virginia, the county seat of Prince Edward County where most of the events in the book take place. Her family was actively involved with Prince Edward Academy from its founding: She was a student there, both her grandfather and father served as board members, her mother was a school guidance counselor, and one brother taught there. After graduating from college, Green became a journalist, working for the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Elsie Lancaster
Elsie Lancaster is a black woman who worked as a housekeeper for Green’s grandmother and mother for more than fifty years. When the schools close, Lancaster sends her daughter, Gwen, to live with her sister’s family in Massachusetts. Gwen does not return to Virginia until much later in life. Lancaster feels she missed out on the full experience of being a mother. Although Green’s grandmother insists that Lancaster is like family, neither she nor her husband ever asked Lancaster about her experience regarding the school closings and her separation from Gwen.
Samuel Cecil and Emma Lee Patterson (Papa and Mimi)
Green refers to her grandparents throughout the book not by name but as “Papa” and “Mimi.” Green writes that they, along with her parents, were her whole world growing up. Papa was a dentist in Farmville, and he and Mimi also owned a farm in the country where Green and her siblings spent a lot of time. Green describes their pleasant times together but has a hard time reconciling her happy memories with her grandparents’ views on race. Papa was a founding member of the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, a group of whites opposed to desegregation in the schools. He was also a long-time board member of Prince Edward Academy.
Reverend L. Francis Griffin
Reverend Griffin was the minister of First Baptist Church in Farmville and a leader in the black community who later became the head of the NAACP in Virginia. He helped lead the fight to integrate the public schools and then to reopen them after they were closed. He was a plaintiff in the case Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which led the Supreme Court to order the Prince Edward County schools to open in 1964.
Barbara Johns
Johns was a junior at Moton High School in 1951 when she organized a student strike to protest the overcrowding and poor conditions at the all-black school. The state chapter of the NAACP supported the strike, which led to a lawsuit that became part of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when the case was heard by the Supreme Court. The 1954 resulting landmark decision led to the desegregation of schools nationwide.
Jason, Amaya, and Selma Hamilton
These are the author’s husband, older daughter, and younger daughter, respectively. Jason is part Native American, and throughout the book Green reflects on how she and her family are treated in Virginia, allowing her some insight into the racial situation in her home state. She also sees glimpses of change, as multiracial families are now more common than they were in the 1950 and 60s; her young children have friends from a variety of backgrounds.
