Josephine School Community Museum recalls African American history in Clarke County, Va.

African Americans share roots among other cultural groups who settled the Shenandoah Valley. Unlike the other groups, of course, nearly all African Americans were brought to this part of Virginia against their will. Just outside Berryville, Va., the Josephine School Community Museum commemorates the journey of a tiny, but not forgotten village from its founding by former slaves to the 1960s Civil Rights and school desegregation era.

While some historians have observed that slavery may not have been very popular in parts of the Shenandoah Valley, slave labor was a fact of life on 18th and 19th century plantation farms. After the American Civil War, many former slaves and freed people who lived in the Valley would realize how important both community and education would be for the betterment of their new lives.

One such group purchased land from one of the plantation-farm owners in the late 1800s and formed their own, segregated community just outside the town of Berryville, Va., in Clarke County. Josephine City had its own stores, churches, and one school, according to Josephine School Community Museum volunteer member, Dorothy Davis.  And because at that time, the citizens of Josephine City were not very welcome in Berryville, she says, the community became self-sustaining and very cohesive.