Before it became Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Caroline Ware’s farm in Wolf Trap served as the staging area for a noteworthy yet little-known battle in the civil rights movement’s long struggle against segregation.
A constitutional history and social sciences professor at Howard University, Ware hosted a picnic on May 14, 1944 for friends and students, four of whom got arrested after refusing to move to the back of the bus they boarded to return to D.C.
Recently uncovered by a local historian, the women’s actions have now been commemorated with an interpretive plaque unveiled at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens (9750 Meadowlark Gardens Court) on Wednesday (Feb. 5) by NOVA Parks and the Virginia and Fairfax County NAACP.
The unveiling event aligned with the beginning of Black History Month and Transit Equity Day, which is celebrated every Feb. 4 on civil rights activist Rosa Parks’s birthday. First conceived in 2017 by the Labor Network for Sustainability, the occasion is intended to highlight the need for accessible, safe and environmentally friendly public transportation.
While Parks’s refusal to surrender her bus seat on Dec. 1, 1955 and the resulting Montgomery bus boycott are widely recognized as the “start” of the Civil Rights Movement, she was continuing a tradition of challenging racial discrimination that included protestors like Claudette Colvin and Ware’s students, according to Jasmine Carr, a cousin of Rosa Parks and co-chair of the Fairfax County NAACP’s membership committee.
“There are two things in my opinion that can continue to move equity forward and not just transportation, but in all areas. One is to foster the hope of our next generation of leaders and two is to remember our history,” Carr said at the plaque unveiling. “And I feel like this event today does that perfectly. Hopefully, the reminder of these four brave women can inspire us all with the same courageousness and bravery.”
Historian’s research leads to discovery
Ware and her husband, Gardiner Means, donated the 74-acre property that they simply referred to as “The Farm” to NOVA Parks in 1980, charging the regional park authority with preserving its natural beauty. NOVA Parks was able to expand the site by another 21 acres to create Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, which officially opened in 1987.
However, it took some digging by NOVA Parks historian Paul McCray to uncover the site’s connection to civil rights history.
McCray says he was doing some online research about Meadowlark last November when he came across a book of letters that Ware exchanged with activist and legal scholar Pauli Murray, who met her as a law student at Howard and helped draw Ware into civil rights activism.
“I thought that [book] might have some descriptions of Meadowlark and found a reference to this story in their letters,” McCray said in an emailed comment to FFXnow.
McCray then scoured additional books and the archives of Virginia and D.C. newspapers. He also obtained appeals documents from the Fairfax County Circuit Court and arrest records from the Fairfax County Police Department, though the sheriff’s office’s records from 1944 had been destroyed.
The newly installed interpretive sign — which continues a push by NOVA Parks to promote diversity through community partnerships, historical exhibits and programming under its five-year strategic plan — provides an overview based on McCray’s research so far, but he says there’s still more to learn.
“Some of the details were just confirmed within the last few weeks and we’re eager to learn more,” McCray said. “I’m still trying to connect with someone at Howard to see if there might be records about the women.”
What the Meadowlark sign says
According to the sign, after the picnic at her farm, Ware drove eight students to a nearby bus stop on Beulah Road so they could return to Howard’s campus in D.C. The students sat at the front of the bus in defiance of Virginia’s relegation of Black riders to the back of streetcars and other public transportation — one of the many Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation.
When told to move, four freshman students — Ruby O’Hara, Ruth Anne Robinson, Doris King and Cynthia Kennedy — went to the rear, but their junior and senior counterparts — Marianne Musgrave, Ruth Powell, Angela Jones and Erma McLemore — stayed put and were arrested by Fairfax County police.
Ware raised $400 for the students’ bail, putting up The Farm as surety, and contacted the NAACP to secure legal representation for them.
At a trial on June 2, 1944, NAACP attorney Leon Ransom unsuccessfully argued that a bus traveling across state lines should be subject to federal law, which didn’t mandate segregation, not Virginia laws. The students lost an appeal to the circuit court, but before the case reached the state level, the Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney dropped all charges, possibly fearing that the Jim Crow law might be overturned if it reached the state or U.S. Supreme Court.
Virginia’s segregation interstate public transportation was ultimately declared unconstitutional in 1946 by the Supreme Court on the same interstate commerce grounds that Ransom had argued.
Asking Ware to drive by the Lincoln Memorial after losing their circuit court appeal, the students greeted the landmark with a call of “Abe, here we are, still at it!,” a nod to the 16th president’s role in ending slavery through the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the 13th Amendment.
“This powerful moment serves as a reminder that the struggle of equality and justice is a continuous journey, echoing the sentiments of those who came before us,” NAACP Virginia State Conference environmental and climate justice chair Karen Campblin said at the unveiling ceremony. “Their contribution to the fight for equality extended far beyond their single act of resistance.”
Fight for civil rights continues, speakers say
Highlighting and learning from the history of civil rights activism in Virginia and elsewhere in the U.S. has become especially essential at a time when many gains are being challenged or rolled back, several speakers observed.
Now more than ever, civil rights, diversity, equity and inclusion matter! We unveiled a sign to honor 4 Howard University students who defied Jim Crow on a bus in Fairfax County 11 years before Rosa Parks acted.
I joined the Virginia & Fairfax County NAACP & Jasmine Carr, niece of Rosa Parks today.
— Supervisor Walter Alcorn (@walteralcorn.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 6:20 PM
As the Trump administration dismantles federal initiatives intended to rectify the effects of segregation and combat discrimination, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Jeff McKay said there’s an “elevated” need for the local government to consider equity when developing programs and providing services, as codified by the “One Fairfax” policy adopted in 2017.
As an example of the policy’s impact, he recalled meeting a woman who shared how a new bus stop in her Route 1 neighborhood improved her life by giving her access to transit and a higher-paying job.
“Thank goodness we have that policy in place so that the residents of this county and the people that work in this county know that we are wearing our values on our sleeve, and those values are to promote equity, diversity and inclusion and make sure that every single person feels welcome in our community,” McKay said.
