This is my entry into the Lens-Artists Challenge, a weekly photography challenge on WordPress. In this week’s challenge, Anne from Slow Shutter Speed challenges us to: tell and show us your thoughts on abandonment.

Huzzah! This is my wheelhouse. When I have a camera in my hand, I’m always drawn to abandoned things. There’s a whole psychology behind a love of abandoned places. In another life, I was a history teacher, so I’m fascinated by the history of these places. Who lived there? What happened to them? When was it built? Who owns this property now? Because someone has to own it.

I have many, many photographs of abandoned places and things. And this challenge has given me a little kick in the rear to update my photography portfolio with a new category — abandoned. But today, I will just share one photo, because (fair warning) I’m about to go off on a history tangent.

Routt’s Hill School: A Forgotten Relic of Virginia’s Past

This is Routt’s Hill School, a one-room schoolhouse in Remington, Virginia.  It was one of eight Rosenwald Schools in Fauquier County that were built to provide education for African-American students. Routt’s Hill School was built in 1926, on the site of the former Fox Hill School, built by freed slaves in 1866.  After the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public schools, Routt’s Hill closed its doors to students.

This is where I tell you that desegregation in my little corner of Virginia was a hot mess. Fauquier County was among the very last counties in the state of Virginia to desegregate its schools.  Complete desegregation didn’t happen here until 1969 — 15 years after Brown.

How’d that happen?

Virginia worked really hard to undermine the Brown decision.  I suppose The Supremes have to take part of the blame for releasing a decision that ordered desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”  Virginia interpreted that to mean “a week from never,”  and pretty much said, “alright, we won’t segregate, but we won’t integrate, either.”  And then Virginia joined the subterfuge known as Freedom of Choice, which was a system embraced throughout the south, putting the burden of integration on individual students and not the local school boards.  (African American students could “choose” to attend an all-black school, or apply to attend an all-white school, with predictable results).  That system kept schools in Virginia effectively segregated until 1968, when The Supremes ruled in Green vs. New Kent County that all public schools were to desegregate under the following timetable:  Do it.  Do it now.

Honestly, I took this photograph a few years ago – I haven’t been down there in ages. I heard rumors of a possible restoration, but I also heard rumors that a real estate company purchased the land and destroyed the building. Either way, I’m glad I have the photo. As Mother Nature reclaims abandoned places, there’s a peculiar beauty to them.

Click here to see the rest of my “abandoned” photos, along with my entire (work in progress) photography portfolio.

If you would like to participate in the Lens-Artists Challenge, click here for more info. And don’t forget to link back to the host in your post.

Cheers!