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By Kay Spivey Walsh

Why would people from across the United States gather in Franklin to tour a local high school and a senior living facility, as well as commemorate the ride in between?

The Franklin High School Class of 1974 will do just that as a part of their 50th Class Reunion in November. They entered the 9th grade in 1970 when Virginia ended racial segregation in the public schools. This class was caught in the middle of this historically significant event, both literally and figuratively.

At that time, Hayden High School (now Hayden Village Center) housed African American students, and Franklin High School housed white students. To accomplish total integration, Hayden was designated as the junior high, and Franklin High School kept its name.

Even with the addition of mobile classrooms, neither facility had room for the 9th grade. As a result, half the class attended Hayden Junior High in the morning and then, at lunchtime, they were bused to the high school. Then the students at FHS were bused to Hayden. They were the only class in FHS history (and possibly in the nation) to be bused between two schools.

The Class of ’74 had grown up watching nationwide civil unrest on the evening news. Just two years prior, in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. National news had spotlighted the problems of Virginia’s Prince Edward County Public Schools, where schools closed for 5 years rather than integrate. Now, the issue was personal for the Class of ‘74.

Both white and African American students were leery of walking into a school where previously they had not felt welcomed. Unfounded or not, the fears and tensions were real.

Extracurricular activities became key in the adjustments.

The 1970 Broncos football team began practices before school opened.

“There was some animosity among the team at first,” said Larry Jones, a member of the FHS football team. “African Americans and whites both tended to hang with familiar friends. Some had not spent time interacting with those of another race until they were thrown together in classes or on a practice field. No one knew what to expect.”

The players recognized that if they were to succeed, they had to be a team. They had to have each other’s backs, to treat each other equally.

Laughingly, Jones said, “We applied equal justice to every hit. We hit just as hard whether the player was African American or white.”

Jones said, “I’d like to think the team set the standard for others. I hope the team showed others that when you come together as one, you win. I hope the team modeled that when you get knocked down, you jump back up.”