**Chap­ter Five: Hen­ri­co Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, 1907 — The Small and the Mighty**

In Hen­ri­co Coun­ty, Jack­son Davis, influ­enced by Book­er T. Wash­ing­ton’s edu­ca­tion­al phi­los­o­phy, reached out to the Jeanes Fund to sup­port Black edu­ca­tion. Wash­ing­ton, renowned as a Black edu­ca­tor, advo­cat­ed for self-help and prac­ti­cal skills over protests, hop­ing to grad­u­al­ly improve the eco­nom­ic sta­tus of Black cit­i­zens. Davis pro­posed to use the fund­ed salary for Vir­ginia Ran­dolph, a super­vis­ing teacher who exem­pli­fied the edu­ca­tion­al approach he admired.

Vir­ginia Ran­dolph expressed grat­i­tude for her selec­tion as the first super­vis­ing Jeanes teacher, believ­ing it was due to her com­mit­ment to edu­cat­ing Black chil­dren as pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens. Her work at Moun­tain Road School became foun­da­tion­al, inspir­ing oth­er dis­tricts to request their own Jeanes teacher, a role that gained trac­tion across the South.

Ran­dolph’s suc­cess was root­ed in her com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment. She attend­ed local church ser­vices and events, shar­ing her stu­dents’ achieve­ments and estab­lish­ing trust with par­ents. These efforts includ­ed health checks, evening class­es for adults, and teach­ing hygiene, which reflect­ed her belief in edu­ca­tion’s trans­for­ma­tive pow­er. Virginia’s tire­less ded­i­ca­tion earned her the admi­ra­tion of fam­i­lies, lead­ing her to expand edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams, includ­ing Sun­day School and health ini­tia­tives for her stu­dents.

Despite the com­mu­ni­ty’s eco­nom­ic hard­ships, Vir­gini­a’s relent­less efforts result­ed in a new school being built in 1915, fund­ed large­ly by local fam­i­lies’ con­tri­bu­tions. As the school thrived, it gar­nered atten­tion far and wide due to her method­olo­gies, which focused on a holis­tic approach to edu­ca­tion.

Tragedy struck in 1929 when a dev­as­tat­ing fire destroyed the Vir­ginia Ran­dolph Train­ing Acad­e­my. Vir­gini­a’s dis­tress was pal­pa­ble as she wit­nessed the loss of her life’s work, but her resilience shone through as she began plan­ning for recon­struc­tion soon after.

In her long teach­ing career, Vir­ginia adopt­ed many chil­dren and looked after var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty needs, embody­ing a nur­tur­ing spir­it. Even as she strug­gled finan­cial­ly, she con­tin­ued bak­ing bread and lat­er turned towards farm­ing edu­ca­tion, hop­ing to empow­er her stu­dents toward self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

Her lega­cy extend­ed beyond Hen­ri­co Coun­ty, train­ing oth­er edu­ca­tors and pro­mot­ing a vision of com­pre­hen­sive edu­ca­tion. Vir­ginia Ran­dolph didn’t retire until 1949, hav­ing ded­i­cat­ed near­ly six­ty years to teach­ing. Even after her pass­ing in 1958, her impact con­tin­ues to res­onate in the local edu­ca­tion­al land­scape, where stu­dents and teach­ers remem­ber her com­mit­ment and pas­sion for uplift­ing Black com­mu­ni­ties through edu­ca­tion. Her sto­ry is a tes­ta­ment to resilience against sys­temic oppres­sion, high­light­ing the pro­found effects of a sin­gle ded­i­cat­ed edu­ca­tor’s work on future gen­er­a­tions.