and gymnasium were outdated. At the same time, Storer did not have the support of the local community. The hostility from the white community, most of whom wished Brown had never heard of Harper's Ferry, and some of whom made no secret of what they thought of a "nigger college", led to some management decisions that sapped the College's support internally. The College had to sell land to meet expenses. With no state money coming ever again, or so they expected, there was no way to survive. So it closed in 1955. The college's former campus and buildings were returned to federal control, specifically to the National Park Service (NPS), authorized in a 1962 appropriation, as part of what was then Harpers Ferry National Monument and is now the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. It is currently (2021) one of NPS's four regional training centers. In 1954, the NAACP achieved a victory with the US Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. "The West Virginia Legislature withdrew its annual appropriation from Storer because of the Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in public schools, and the resultant policy of integration in state schools. The Legislature [described as "unsympathetic"] said the appropriation was intended to finance studies by Negro students at Storer but is now unnecessary because Negroes now are eligible to enroll at other state colleges. The enrollment at Storer has been exclusively Negro." The state appropriation was $20,000. In its final year, the College had 88 students. Storer had been accumulating debt for a decade, and could not survive without the state appropriation. In June 1955, Storer College closed its doors forever. Education at Storer Understanding that former slaves needed to learn more than the three Rs to function in society, Storer founders intended to provide more than a basic education. According to the first college catalog, students were to "receive counsel and sympathy, learn what constitutes correct living, and become qualified for the performance of the great work of life." In its early years, in the press to expand literacy among the freedmen and their children, Storer taught freedmen to read, write, spell, do sums, and to go back into their communities to teach others these lessons. Storer believed that "morality" went hand in hand with education; for admission, students had to "give satisfactory evidence