The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE — Historical markers have been approved for Alleghany County and Clifton Forge to draw attention to Virginia’s African American social history.
The markers were approved earlier this year by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Richmond.
The Clifton Forge marker will highlight the life of a Black educator who had an influential career during segregation. R. Arliner Young, born in Clifton Forge, became in 1940 the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in zoology at the University of Pennsylvania. She taught zoology at Howard University for many years and conducted research at the elite Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts.
The approved marker for the Longdale area of Alleghany County will highlight the lives of African Americans during the era of Jim Crow segregation.
The U.S. Forest Service established Green Pastures Recreation Area in Alleghany County after the NAACP decried the lack of outdoor facilities for African Americans. Nearby Douthat State Park admitted whites only. The Civilian Conservation Corps built a lake, a beach, picnic areas, hiking trails, and more between 1938 and 1940, and Green Pastures drew African Americans from around the region.
The Clifton Forge marker honoring young will be dedicated on Sept. 24 at a 2 p.m. ceremony.
In 1916, Young enrolled in music at Howard University. Five years later, she took her first science course with Dr. Ernest Everett Just, who was a prominent black biologist and head of the Department of Zoology. Under Just’s tutelage, Young graduated in 1923 with a bachelor’s degree and returned to teach at Howard.
Young entered the master’s program at the University of Chicago in 1924 and was asked to join Sigma Xi— an honorary science research society. Young joined scientists like Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman in membership.
In the same year, Young’s first scientific publication, “On the Excretory Apparatus in Paramecium,” appeared in the journal Science. She was the first Black woman to research and publish in her field.
Young finished her master’s degree in 1926 and continued to work with Just. She taught at Howard and spent summers working at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., assisting Just with work on fertilization of marine organisms.
Just even asked her stand-in for him as head of the Zoology Department while he traveled to Europe in 1929. That fall, Young returned to the University of Chicago to complete her Ph.D. under biologist Dr. Frank Lillie.
After some setbacks, Young completed her Ph.D. in Zoology in 1940. She accepted an assistant professor position at the North Carolina College for Negroes in Raleigh.
Young later moved to Shaw University in Rayleigh, where she became the chair of the Biology Department.
In 1944, Young joined the NAACP. She worked for the Tobacco Workers International Union and spent her free time traveling around North Carolina, helping register voters and recruiting to bring about social change.
But her efforts got her blacklisted from working in North Carolina. She moved to teach in Texas and received a position at Jackson State University in Mississippi in 1960.
During this stage of her life, Young lived in poverty and her health was failing. She voluntarily committed herself to the Mississippi State Mental Asylum and was released in 1962. She then took a position at Southern University in New Orleans.
Yong died in 1964 but her legacy lives on. She is now viewed as a pioneer in STEM, which is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
In 2005, she was recognized in a Congressional resolution recognizing the success of African American women in the U.S.; also mentioned were Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson (the first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. from MIT) and Dr. Mae Jemison (the first Black woman in space).
Green Pastures is now under the control of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. It will operate as an extension of Douthat State Park.
Since the early 2000s, a group of volunteers has worked closely with local advocates, including long-time residents, the Alleghany Historical Society, and the U.S. Forest Service to maintain the historic recreation site.
The recreation site was established during the Jim Crow era, when the country was still legally segregated, and when Black people were denied full rights as citizens.
It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt who directed the Forest Service to designate a recreation site open to African Americans. The construction plan was approved, and in 1938 the Dolly Ann Civilian Conservation Corps Camp F24 started construction. The site officially opened to the public on June 15, 1940.
Green Pastures quickly became the most popular recreation spot for African American communities as far away as Northern Virginia and Maryland. The park was equipped with a small man-made lake, the original Civilian Conservation Corps’ built bathhouse and picnic shelter, barbeque grills, hiking trails, horseshoe pits and even a softball field.
After World War II, Green Pastures was renovated and re-opened as an integrated public site. In 1963, it was renamed “Longdale Recreation Area” after the surrounding community. It closed in 2017.
In 2018, the site was placed on the list of Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Places by Preservation Virginia. Since its closure, there has been a grassroots movement to reopen the recreation site and restore it to its former condition.
A breakthrough came in 2020 when Gov. Ralph Northam and the General Assembly agreed to provide funding for Green Pastures. And earlier this year, ownership was transferred from the federal government to the state.
A small-scale ceremony will be held on Sept. 24 to celebrate the reopening of Green Pastures. Attendance will be limited due to COVID-19 concerns. Organizers hope to hold a larger opening event later in the fall.
