A Leaf Out of Her Book
This is your moment. Seize it!
— Barbara Rose Johns
This is an “unofficial” member of the Dead Feminists broadsides series, a small letterpress keepsake printed as a commemorative keepsake and printed at Longwood University in Farmville, VA.
This print celebrates the life and work of Barbara Johns, who in 1951, at the age of sixteen, led her fellow students of the segregated R.R. Moton High School in Farmville in a strike for equal education. The students later filed one of the five lawsuits (and the only student-initiated one) that were consolidated into the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.
Our tobacco-leaf-shaped paper is inspired by Farmville’s and the Virginia Piedmont region’s histry as a tobacco producer, and the five leaf veins stained into the paper with tobacco juice represent the five school integration cases. We created this print during Black History Month as visiting artists at the book arts and letterpress studios at Longwood University. Professor Kerri Cushman designed the handmade paper with student assistant Juan Guevara and formed each sheet by hand. Chandler stained each sheet by hand with tobacco juice, and Jessica printed the broadsides at a public open-studio session. You can learn more and see process photos on our blog.
To benefit the R.R. Moton Museum, now housed in the former Moton High School building, we split the edition of prints with them. Purchasing this mini-broadside from the Moton Museum shop makes sure that all proceeds directly benefit their work.