Barbara Johns

Barbara Johns was a young African American girl who played a key role in the fight against school segregation. In 1951, at age 16, she led a student strike at her high school in Prince Edward County, Virginia, to protest poor school conditions and unequal funding compared to white schools. Her actions contributed to the broader legal battle that led to the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Johns’s courage helped advance the Civil Rights Movement and the fight for educational equality in the United States.