umbrellas to keep the water off our heads. It was a very difficult setting for trying to learn. Parents of the black students appealed to the all-white school board to provide a larger and properly equipped facility. As a stopgap measure, the board erected several tar paper shacks to handle the overflow of students. Powell was frustrated with the separate and unequal facilities and decided to take action after missing her school bus and watching a bus for the white students pass her. She approached a trusted teacher to voice her concerns and the teacher prompted her to take action. Organizing the strike and filing suit Barbara Johns met with several classmates and they all agreed to help organize a student strike. On April 23, 1951, the plan Barbara Johns initiated was put into action. The principal of the school was tricked into leaving by being told that some students were downtown causing trouble. While the principal was away, Barbara Johns forged a memo from that principal telling the teachers to bring their classes to a special assembly. The teachers brought their classes and left the assembly per request. She then delivered a speech to all 450 students, revealing her plans for a student strike in protest of the unequal conditions of the black and white schools. The students agreed to participate, and on that day they marched down to the county courthouse to make officials aware of the large difference in quality between the white and black schools. The student leaders went in the office of School Superintendent T. J. McIlwaine who told them they were out of place. Johns had hoped that the strike would end with the county officials sympathizing with the students and building them a new school, but was instead met with indifference and struggle. For the remainder of the day, students picketed the school, both inside and outside, with placards proclaiming, "We want a new school or none at all" and "Down with tar-paper shacks." On April 25, 1951, Oliver W. Hill and Spottswood Robinson, lawyers for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), arrived in Prince Edward County to help the students of Robert Russa Moton High School, who had gone on strike. While the strike was being carried out, Barbara Johns and other fellow student leaders sought legal counsel from the NAACP. The NAACP agreed to assist as long