The Robert Russa Moton Museum is honored to welcome award-winning scholar and author Dr. Terence Hicks for a special Moton Author Series presentation and book signing of Prince Edward County, Virginia School Closing: A Compilation of Research Studies.

This important volume brings together rigorous scholarship examining one of the most defining chapters in the Moton story — the five-year closure of Prince Edward County’s public schools following the 1951 student strike and the Davis v. County School Board case. Through research grounded in history, education, and civil rights, the book deepens understanding of how the school closings reshaped lives, families, and the national movement for equal education.

Dr. Hicks’s distinguished career bridges scholarship and public impact. A tenured Full Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at East Tennessee State University and former dean at both ETSU and Prairie View A&M University, his work centers on educational access and historically marginalized communities. In 2024 he received both the Virginia Social Science Association Scholar Award and the Legacy Award — honors shared by figures such as civil rights attorney Oliver Hill, whose legal leadership in Davis v. County School Board stands at the heart of the Moton story. This recognition places Dr. Hicks among scholars whose work advances equity, historical truth, and community-centered scholarship.

As a Virginia-educated scholar whose work engages the very history preserved at Moton, Dr. Hicks joins a living circle of researchers, educators, and descendants dedicated to documenting and understanding the Prince Edward County school closings. His presence continues the Museum’s tradition of bringing scholarship into conversation with lived experience.

A nationally and internationally recognized social scientist, Dr. Hicks’s research focuses on first-generation college students and historically marginalized populations in higher education. His work has been presented throughout the United States and internationally, including Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Mexico, England, Spain, and at the World Conference on Education and Teaching in Rome, Italy. He is the author of 11 academic books and more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and scholarly presentations, with his work widely cited, adopted across secondary and postsecondary curricula, and featured in national media.

Program

• Author presentation by Dr. Terence Hicks
• Audience conversation and Q&A
• Book signing and photos with the author

Free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

We invite our community, educators, scholars, and all who carry connections to the Moton story to join us for this meaningful evening of history, reflection, and shared understanding.