The Spring Conference was held in Farmville, VA, at Moton Museum, a national historic landmark, ground zero for equality in American education. Sixty years ago this year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a case that desegregated schools and had a 16-year-old Farmville, Virginia girl at its roots.

Barbara Rose Johns was that girl. She was a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing unfair conditions at Moton High School, Barbara Johns walked out. It was the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.—jumpstarting the American Civil Rights Movement.

At the conference we learned about segregation, massive resistance, the deciding case, and the crucial role of the news media in that struggle. Here are some photos from that conference.