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VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON

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Ann Dearsley Vernon was an activist for social change almost from the beginning of the civil rights movement.

As a young graduate student, she was one of three white women who protested racial segregation more than 40 years ago.

In 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University began the sit-in movement at a Woolworth's lunch counter. They were almost immediately dubbed The Greensboro Four.

Vernon and two other white classmates joined them on the fourth day of the sit-in, drawing worldwide publicity to the protest.

The publicity it brought to her school was unappreciated, though, and if not for her father's persuasiveness, she would have been expelled.

On the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision, most famous for outlawing racial segregation in public schools, the Virginia Beach Friends School held a Civil Rights Forum.

Vernon shared her views at the May 18 event commemorated the struggle, successes and continuing challenges of racism. About 200 people attended.

The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, was among the first to affirm the value of every individual, regardless of differences such as race.

This was the first such forum at the Friends School off Laskin Road, but not the last, said Jon Alden , head of the school.

Quakers believe "everyone is inherently equal because everyone has 'that of God' within them," Alden said.

"Any time we can expose our kids to something that will broaden their historical perspective of events that impacts on their lives, I think we are doing a good thing regardless of the color of their skin," he said.

Vernon, 65, who lives in Norfolk, is a consultant at Kane Marie Fine Arts Gallery.

During the North Carolina sit-in, the graduate student at Woman's College of the University of North Carolina felt she was doing something that needed to be done. But there was also apprehension and fear, and finally relief, when they made it safely back to school, she said.

"My parents were neutral on the subject of race. I credit thoughtful teachers and a humanities-based education in both high school and at UNC-G for helping to shape my views," she said.

Friends School senior Shannon Kernan, 17, of Lynnhaven Colony, was escort for the day to Delores Johnson Brown, one of the Norfolk 17, who entered previously all-white schools in February 1959.

Brown, who teaches small children, told Kernan that she accepts no name-calling or mistreatment in her classroom - so strong are her feelings of abuse as a child.

Brown talked about how she lost all her friends after entering a white school.

"They had no friends, white or black," Kernan said. "They got rejected and picked on, messed around with and hit, stuff thrown at them, and bad words while they went to school."

Brown suffered the abuse in silence. When a white boy tripped her, she quietly picked herself up and didn't tell a soul.

Patricia Turner, the other Norfolk 17 member who attended, picked a student from the audience and brought her on stage. Turner asked the girl, who is black, if she has friends at Friends School and she nodded that she did.

Her friends, six white girls she had been sitting with, joined her on stage. Turner shared with the audience that when she was 13, she was not able to stand with white friends.

"She then hugged all at the same time," said Cindy Kube, a Friends School teacher. "It was beautiful."

Caption: Photo Ann Dearsley Vernon was one of three white college students who sat with four blacks in a Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth's more than 40 years ago. carole o'keeffe

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FRIENDS SCHOOL EXAMINES CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT