George,

I read your history of Jefferson School with great interest. You might be interested to know that I attended Jefferson School during the 1965 - 67 time period along with all other junior high school students in Charlottesville. At the time Walker and Buford were under construction and, I guess, there was no room for us elsewhere.

What fascinates me is that I had no idea at the time, that the inter-racial student body at Jefferson was a new and novel occupation for the building. Nor was the distinguished history of the site at all clear to me then. Perhaps this says two things. First that the process of integration, once embarked upon, was not as traumatic in Charlottesville as it certainly was elsewhere. Second, that the history of the African-American community was, then, devalued and dismissed.

I'd be interested in the perceptions of others who have more perspective on this period than I have through the memory of a teenaged recent arrival in Charlottesville.

Russell Perry (electronic mail, January 25, 2002).