History Proves That “Dirt Don’t Burn”

History Proves That “Dirt Don’t Burn”

By Linda Roberts

The teacher of a western Loudoun segregated Black school grew tired of the daily struggle to keep her schoolhouse warm enough for students to study and learn. Taking matters into her own hands, and tired of asking children to bring a lump of coal to school, Ethel Rae Stewart Smith, wrote a letter in 1956 to school leaders asking for coal to stoke the stove’s fire in her small building.

Smith pleaded for coal to be sent right away as “all we have left is dirt and that doesn’t half burn.”

Little did she know that 67 years later her words would give life to the title of a sought-after book, “Dirt Don’t Burn,” written by local authors Larry Roeder and Barry Harrelson.

Their story is a riveting narrative of a very difficult period of history that eventually led to triumph over the cultural and legal barriers of racism in Loudoun County. The result was equality of education for all Loudoun children.

As Roeder tells it, “Dirt Don’t Burn” is meant to be the voice of Loudoun’s Black community. It was published last year through Georgetown University Press, which approached its authors to write a book.

Roeder and Harrelson have been busy on the speaker’s circuit. One of their most recent was a presentation in western Loudoun at an alumni event for the Banneker Elementary School’s 75th anniversary.

Reviewers call “Dirt Don’t Burn” an inspiring true story of a Black community that sheds new light on the history of segregation and inequality in American education. Others call it is a gripping portrayal of mostly unknown individuals who created change to lifelong prejudices toward Black Americans.

Praise for “Dirt Don’t Burn” includes a different approach to segregation’s background as a vital part of American history, as well as the shedding of new light upon the backdrop of inequality in America during the Jim Crow and civil rights years.

The book provides an appeal to researchers, lovers of history and descendants of the book’s portrayals, as its base is the experience of Black Americans through a plethora of previously lost records and archival documents, say its reviewers.

Hailed as the first serious study of the impact of segregation on Loudoun County’s Black population, Roeder and Harrelson, his longtime friend, also helped found the Edwin Washington Project, which eventually became the Edwin Washington Society. Roeder is CEO and board chair and Harrelson is special editor to the society. The society originated as a non-profit organization created to preserve and retell the history of Black students in Loudoun County.

The organization grew out of research begun by Roeder in 2012 when he was looking into the history of the Conklin School on land that is now South Riding in eastern Loudoun.

It was named after Edwin Washington, who at age 16 in 1867 was making $5 a month working at a hotel in Leesburg. Washington was given “the privilege of going to school,” in between his work duties. This came to mean that he could not attend school on any type of regular basis. Naming the project, and later the society, in his honor came about as a tribute to the Black citizens of Loudoun County.

“Dirt Don’t Burn” is available through Georgetown University Press, numerous local outlets and Amazon.