Professor Shares Family Experiences of Growing Up with Segregation

Dr. Jerry L. Jones, an E&H professor of information management, recently completed his book titled Go and Come Again, which delves into four generations of African American education in the region, with particular focus on the struggle with segregation.

In the book, Jones discusses his own experiences as a young man who grew up in Glade Spring and was bused to Bristol, Va., to attend a segregated school. He discusses the factors that motivated him, the son of a single mother, to seek a college education and a graduate degree before working as a college educator.

“We don’t seem to have a lot of documentation of the segregation experience in this region,” Jones said. “This book is an attempt to fill that void by telling the stories of many African Americans who were educated in a segregated system that often offered them an inferior learning environment.”

Jones, born in 1947, is no stranger to segregation. When his mother, Mary Waugh, graduated from the seventh grade in the 1920’s, no high school existed for black children in her county; she and one of her brothers were homeschooled during the eighth grade before transferring to other localities to continue their education.

Go and Come Again details the public school experiences of generations of Jones’ ancestors, from his great-grandfather (a former slave) to his own situation of being bused close to 60 miles a day for high school.

In writing the book, Jones desired to illuminate the educational experience for African Americans in the region.

“I really wanted to exemplify many of the different encounters that people had with segregation and education in this region.”

He has taught at Emory & Henry since 2001. Before coming to Emory & Henry, he worked as a professor at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, Virginia, and as a high school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland.

Jones received a doctorate degree in education from Virginia Tech. The author of a college textbook, Structured Programming Logic, Jones has completed additional studies at East Tennessee State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Morgan State University, University of Memphis, Purdue University and Indiana University.

Go and Come Again is now available online and at the Emory & Henry Mercantile.