Madison Smith
May 8, 2025
The 1986 Montgomery County Reconnaissance Survey provides an architectural and historical overview of structures and communities throughout Montgomery County. While the report’s main focus is on documenting standing structures and evaluating their historical significance, it does make specific references to Black communities, particularly in the context of post-emancipation, rural settlements, churches, and schools. These references, although limited, offer glimpses into how African American life was spatially and socially organized in the aftermath of slavery. They also point to the need for further study, as many such communities have been overlooked or erased in public memory.
The report notes the formation of small, dispersed Black rural communities following the Civil War, as formerly enslaved people acquired land or settled on marginal tracts. Yet, these settlements often lacked formal town plans and were typically built around key institutions like churches and schools, which served as anchors for community life. Most Black residents worked as common laborers or tenant farmers, and debt peonage was widespread. In Wake Forest, some black families were able to become landowners via inheritance or hard work, but others found themselves tricked by false white creditors. (1) The dynamics of land ownership in these communities reflected both the persistence of racial exploitation and the remarkable efforts to Black families to establish autonomy and permanence. The land became not only a source of subsistence but also a symbol of dignity and independence.
Many of these areas are not identified by name, but are referenced through their structures– “Black schoolhouse,” “colored church”. Several of these African American churches were central to Black life in Montgomery County, and despite being modest in design, they were historically significant as centers of community, resistance, and self-determination. For example, log or frame churches built by freedmen in the late 19th-century are documented, sometimes with associated cemeteries. In an oral interview, one resident of New Town spoke of a time that the town residents who lived on “Bitter Hill” wrote a petition to get a road built on the hill, and won. (2) This act of grassroots organizing reveals how even small victories in infrastructure could reflect broader struggles for visibility, mobility, and equity. These buildings often served multiple purposes, as places of worship, schools, meeting halls, and centers of political organization. Their dual role as spiritual and civic institutions made them vital to sustaining Black life under Jim Crow.
Schools and educational institutions established during segregations were also a central part of Black communities. The Christiansburg Institute was founded in 1866 and played a central role in education, offering pathways to colleges like Tuskegee and Hampton. At the same time, Black leaders demanded better schools and facilities, and in some cases, were successful. (3) One such instance of this can be seen in the County-Wide League, a civic group that preceded the NAACP and advocated for better schools and transportation. (4) Unfortunately, no records from this association have survived, but knowledge from beneficiaries has shown that the League sought recreational and educational opportunities for Black residents of the county. Despite systemic barriers, the educational aspirations of African Americans in the region remained strong, and institutions like the Christiansburg Institute symbolized the link between education, empowerment, and civil rights. The County-Wide League’s activism underscored how local Black communities organized collectively long before the national Civil Rights Movement gained momentum.
Often one or two room buildings, schools represented vital educational opportunities despite limited funding and state support. The Virginia Public Free School System was set up in 1870 by Dr. W. H. Ruffner, superintendent of public education. Ruffner counted two graded schools, one “colored” with an average attendance of 120, and a white school with an average daily attendance of 20. In 1885, his successor, F. D. Surface, counted eight graded schools with 18 teachers. (5) The report notes that at the beginning of 1907, there were only two high schools in Montgomery County, but there may have also been a “colored” high school in Shawsville. (6) In 1929, there were nine “colored” schools in Montgomery County with a total “enrollment of 520 and a teaching staff of 28”. (7) These statistics reflect both the expansion of public education and the persistence of racial disparities. The higher attendance at the Black graded school in 1870, for example, speaks to the demand for education among freedpeople and their descendants, even as structural inequality continued to limit access and resources.
Despite enjoying educational success in the time from the Great Depression to 1954, the period was incredibly hard on Black residents. Where most undertook mine and railroad work, others labored as restaurant workers, domestic servants, and farmhands where they took home below average wages for the period. (8) Employment opportunities were segregated not only by race but by class and region, with Black workers often relegated to the most labor-intensive and least secure jobs. Nonetheless, they contributed significantly to the economic foundation of Montgomery County while continuing to invest in their communities through church, family, and school.
In an interview conducted by Michael A. Cooke in 1991, Christine Price tells her story of how her family came to live in the Newtown neighborhood of Blacksburg, VA around 1921. Her father was injured in a coal mine, leading him to find work elsewhere as a farmhand. Her account reflects the danger of Black labor in the coal industry, as well as the familial and spatial shifts prompted by injury, migration, and economic need. It also offers a rare, personal window into Black residential patterns in early 20th-century Montgomery County.
In 1896, Blacksburg annexed the formerly independent New Town, the same year Plessy v. Ferguson declared “Separate but Equal” the law of the land. From that point on, public policy and independent actors worked in tandem to enforce segregation in schools, public facilities, transportation, and housing. In the case of New Town, its early residents did not have the same school resources as Blacksburg’s white population, yet over time they built a community through churches. (9)
Despite these mentions however, there is a significant under-documentation of African American sites due to a lack of standing structures, limited access to oral histories, and gaps in historical records, calling for further target research to better understand the historical geography of Black life in Montgomery County. Other than deed records, there is limited documentation of formal RRCs in Montgomery County during this period. Unlike urban areas where such covenants were widespread, Blacksburg’s smaller size may have resulted in less formalized restrictive practices where only a handful of land owners were responsible for the handling of RRCs.
Despite these mentions however, there is still a significant under-documentation of African American sites due to a lack of standing structures, limited access to oral histories, and gaps in historical records, calling for further target research to better understand the historical geography of Black life in Montgomery County. This archival silence is not accidental, but rather a product of historical neglect imposed on Black populations through economic displacement and racial exclusion. Cooke emphasizes this neglect in his article “Race Relations in Montgomery County, Virginia 1870-1990”, where he examines the evolution of African American life and race relations in Montgomery County, Virginia, focusing on the lived experiences, labor patterns, educational achievements, community formation, and resistance efforts of Black residents. Through oral histories, court records, and institutional archives, Cooke reconstructs a layered and often invisible Black Appalachian history. His work underscores the need to treat African American rural experience as central, not peripheral, to the county’s historical narrative.
(1) Cooke, Michael A. “Race Relations in Montgomery County, Virginia 1870-1990.” Journal of the Appalachian Studies Association 4 (1992): 95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41445626
(2) “Oral History with Christine P. Price, March 4, 1991 (Ms1991-019),” VT Special Collections and University Archives Online, accessed May 8, 2025, https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/items/show/13458
(3) Cooke, 97-98.
(4) Cooke, 98.
(5)Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Montgomery County Reconnaissance Survey, Volume I.” Special Collections. 239. July 1986. Accessed May 8, 2025. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/SpecialCollections/MY-057_Montgomery_Co_Recon_Survey_1986_CRMI_report_Vol_I.pdf
(6) VDHR, 274.
(7) VDHR, 275.
(8) Cooke, 99.
(9) Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries. “A Town Divided: Segregation and Montgomery County.” VT Special Collections and University Archives Online. Accessed May 8, 2025. https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/new-town-digital-exhibition/segregation