Lawrenceville, Virginia: the Town That Blocked Child Immigrants

It’s been five weeks since the meeting. The townspeople don’t need you to specify which meeting. There can only be one in which an outsider would be interested. The meeting during which the town of Lawrenceville in the county of Brunswick in the tobacco country of southwestern Virginia unequivocally rejected temporary housing for 500 Central American children seeking refuge. Residents welcome you into book-lined parlors and set out glasses of water on paper napkins. They sit on front porches and say, sure, come on up, shouting, “cut that out!,” to the furious little boys tussling in the front yard. They stand on the hot sidewalk in church clothes after a late lunch at the only restaurant left downtown and they try to explain.

In this largely African American community that prides itself on its hospitality, something was revealed that night: a full-throated, bared-teeth rage with which not everyone is comfortable or proud.

“It made me think of the Civil Rights Movement and the integration of the schools,” says Kent Hopson, a 46-year-old ambulance driver who lives across the road from the college speaking of the images he saw on the news that night. “I’ve watched documentaries. I’ve read books about it. I thought, ‘Oh, man. I’ve seen that look.’”

The circumstances that created that night’s fury were, in part, the result of mutual desperation. Federal officials needed some place to house the children and St. Paul’s, the town’s historically black college — no longer accepting students and all-but closed — needed money to pay its debts. In the blink of an eye, and unknown to most in town, a deal was struck. The children were to arrive less than a week later.