Meadville Community Center

Meadville Community Center. Vernon Hill, Virginia. Caleb Robinson was born in Jamaica in 1864 and educated at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. In 1893 he formed the McKinley Institute on land he purchased in the Meadville section of Halifax County. He imported northern teachers to train African-American girls in reading, writing and industrial arts at the school. On his deathbed Professor Robinson gave the land to the school's executive board. He had expressed to them his dream of an African-American gathering place to enhance and educate the community, but at the time, the community was a poor one, and his idea lay dormant for a quarter of a century. Then in 1975, three African-American Baptist organizations, along with local leaders, formed an organization chartered as the Meadville Community Center. Through determined community efforts, they financed and built the present Center, which was dedicated October 10, 1978. Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. was the guest speaker at that occasion. The building left the association in debt for over $90,000, but through sales and raffles, personal gifts, church assessments and school children's pennies, the debt was paid and the mortgage burned in 1991. Today the Center, which seats 400-500 people, is a significant educational and community focal point, enriching the lives of the residents of Halifax County and its neighbors.