When a teenage Joan Kelly Crowder stepped through the double doors of Fairmont Heights Junior-Senior High School for the first time, in flat black shoes and a burgundy empire dress, she knew she was home. Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. Greeted by the smells of home-cooked food, the iron and hair grease of fresh press and curls and the newness of her classmates’ clothes, Crowder felt free to be herself in this all-Black space in a majority-White county.
Preserving a powerful legacy in a county transformed by Black people
March 27, 2023
