Civil Rights in Central Virginia: Vivian Camm made history through quiet defiance

FIRST IN A SERIES: Civil Rights in Central Virginia: With Barack Obama poised to become the nation's first black President, The News & Advance looks at significant post-1950s civil rights moments in Lynchburg.

One day in 1977, Garland-Rodes Elementary School principal Vivian Camm made local civil rights history.

Not that many people in Lynchburg noticed. There were no television cameras to record Camm’s act of quiet defiance, no police to oppose it, no cheering crowd to support it. And yet, the symbolism it carried and the personal courage it required were undeniable.

“If change is going to happen,” Camm recalled last week, “some people are going to have to (be) made uncomfortable.”

All Camm did was take down two paintings that hung in the main hall. But not just any paintings — these were portraits of Confederate generals Samuel Garland and Robert Rodes, after whom the school (now the site of the Virginia School for the Arts on Rivermont Avenue) was named.

Camm had no quarrel with the two men in gray, nor did she object to having them honored for their ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield. Just not in her recently integrated school, where the presence of Garland and Rodes was a daily reminder to the black teachers and students that their city had once fought to preserve slavery.

“The portraits were very large, just enormous,” Camm said, “and it was impossible to escape them. When I crossed by those pictures, it was like their eyes were following me, and it always gave me a creepy feeling. Then, up on the second floor, there was a picture of Confederate money.”

This was Camm’s first principal’s post, and she had come to Garland-Rodes with high expectations.

“When desegregation finally happened, a program was set up to ‘twin’ schools with each other,” she said. “In our case, we were twinned with Armstrong School, with Garland-Rodes designated as K through third grade. Garland-Rodes was generally regarded as a good school in a good neighborhood that was underachieving on test scores. It was a place where I felt like I could make a difference.”

In her earlier positions at other schools as a reading specialist, however, Camm had gotten the sense that Lynchburg’s education community was still slow to come to grips with integration.

“I was at Bedford Hills,” she said, “and the school was getting ready to put on a play for the PTO. When I went to a rehearsal, I saw that there were no black kids in the cast, not one. So I went to Don Martin, who was then the principal, and asked him about it. We called in the teacher in charge of the play, and she looked embarrassed and said: ‘I’m sorry. I never thought about that.’”

Similarly, Garland and Rodes had remained at their posts long after Camm thought it was time for them to go.

“I had gone to Dr. (Joe) Spagnolo, the superintendent then, and asked for some money to fix up the general appearance of the school,” she said. “I wanted to repaint the walls a brighter color, do a few other things. It was an old school, and it was kind of depressing.”

Spagnolo complied, and Camm then took this as a mandate to remove the Confederate paintings.

“I thought about asking the parents or the other teachers,” she said. “Finally, one day, I just decided to do it. I took the paintings down and put them in a closet, and I put up some other pictures of children playing together. Black and white children.”

Not long afterward, Spagnolo called Camm to tip her off that a delegation of Garland-Rodes parents was coming to see her.

“We met in my office,” she remembered, “and it was very civil, no raised voices. I told them that the Civil War had been over for a long time, and it was my feeling that we needed to move on. They listened politely and left. Afterward, I think, they went back to Dr. Spagnolo, but he backed me up.”

At the end of the school year, Camm added, two veteran white teachers at Garland-Rodes retired “because they didn’t like some of the changes I had made to the school.”

After her tenure at Garland-Rodes, Camm served as an assistant superintendent to Jim McCormick, then was appointed to a term on the Lynchburg School Board. She and her husband, Leslie (also a former principal) are now retired, and both are still savoring the election of Barack Obama.

“I cried,” Vivian Camm said. “More than once. The funny thing is, one of my grandsons was a big John McCain fan, and he complained because my refrigerator was taken up with Obama stuff. Maybe that’s good.”

As for the portraits of Samuel Garland and Robert Rodes, Camm thinks they’re hanging in a museum somewhere.

“That’s appropriate,” she said. “That’s where they belong.”

Coming Wednesday: December 1960 marked the beginning of a wave of sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters.

Coming in The News & Advance:
INAUGURATING THE PRESIDENT
Monday, Jan. 19: Commemorative Barack Obama Inauguration Section
Tuesday, Jan. 20: Live coverage online, plus a look at where you can watch the inauguration in the area
Wednesday, Jan. 21: Special Barack Obama Inauguration Edition