Russell Grove Presbyterian Church and School

Russell Grove Presbyterian Church and School. Amelia Court House, Virginia. Russell Grove Presbyterian Church and the Russell Grove School were established as a result of the efforts of Mrs. Samantha Jane Neil, a Presbyterian missionary and teacher of African American children after the Civil War. At first the school was primitive, with rough walls, boards painted black to act as chalkboards, and no desks. Parents pooled funds to pay the teachers and a man to cut wood for the wood stove, the school's only source of heat. The curriculum for the school from 1865 to well into the 20th century consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, rhetoric, history, and physiology. As the school grew, a new building was constructed in 1892 in nearby Burkeville. Renamed Ingleside Seminary, it provided education for young African American women of both Amelia and Nottoway counties. In 1933 construction on Russell Grove High School for African Americans began on land purchased by the students' parents. Until then, Ingleside Seminary was the only place for African Americans in Amelia County to receive a secondary education. By 1950 Russell Grove High School's curriculum had grown to include vocational and college preparatory classes, with drama, athletics, and a variety of student clubs. It had 14 faculty members and 227 students that year. In 1956 a consolidated elementary school for African Americans, also named Russell Grove, was built across the road from the high school, marking the end of one- and two-room schools in Amelia County. When desegregation arrived in Amelia in 1969, Russell Grove Elementary School had 1,150 children in its integrated classes.