The story below is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
From desegregating Roanoke schools to breaking barriers at VMI, Terri Hairston helped shape opportunities for women in military education.
Courtesy of Terri Hairston
CNN’s Jeanne Meserve interviewing Hairston on the day that the first women arrived at VMI. Hairston estimates that she probably did some 30 interviews that day.
As an English teacher at Lord Botetourt High School, I cover literature and events from different decades. Last year, on the advice of mutual friend Cheryl Manning, I invited Terri Hairston to come to my class when we did our 1960s’ Unit. A member of the Patrick Henry Class of 1974, Hairston was part of the generation of Black Roanokers who desegregated Roanoke City Schools, which like most of Virginia, fought for over a decade the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision that schools should integrate.
I asked Hairston what it was like to attend Roanoke’s all-Black elementary schools in the 1960s.
“The beauty of going to an all-Black school was that we had teachers who nurtured, loved and disciplined us and had high expectations for us,” she said. “We were told that we could accomplish great things, and we believed our teachers.
Courtesy of Terri Hairston
Roanoke’s Terri Wheaton Hairston with her mother Nadine, taken probably during Terri’s fifth grade year in Roanoke City Schools.
“We didn’t know that our books and band uniforms were old and that our school and sports buildings and facilities were inferior until the schools were integrated and we saw what the White kids had. Our teachers were generally family friends, people we went to church with and part of the Black community.”
At that time there was little to no “commingling of the races” as the saying of the time period went. All of Roanoke City’s neighborhoods were nearly or totally segregated, Hairston said, and though some Whites lived in Northwest or on Orange Avenue, they did not attend school with Blacks.
Interestingly, Roanoke made the first tentative steps toward desegregation through sports. Hairston attended Booker T. Washington Junior High (an all-Black school) her seventh and eighth grade years in 1968 and 1969. And for the first time, she was inside a school building with White youngsters.
“Woodrow Wilson’s all-White basketball team came to the Booker T. gym, and we beat the snot out of them,” Hairston recalled. “We were so far ahead that the refs called the game after the third period.”
But the beauty of sports and the importance of that and other athletic encounters between White and Black schools, Hairston continued, were that these games served as barrier breakers. White Roanoke also learned that Black athletes were equal to (and sometimes superior) to their children and having Blacks on their football, basketball and baseball teams could give them an advantage against other local schools.
At the end of Hairston’s eighth-grade year, Roanoke City schools finally integrated. She and many others were bused first to Lee Junior High School; then as a ninth grader, these youngsters opened James Madison Junior High. Not everything went smoothly.
“My first White teacher seemed like the whole idea of being in a room with students of color was unappealing,” Hairston recalled. “But there were also White teachers who treated everyone equally, plus there were a sprinkling of Black teachers, like Mrs. Inez Handley, brought over from Booker T., that everybody liked.
“Mrs. Handley held everybody accountable. Mrs. Hanley was also special to me because my mother mentored her at Virginia State University, and they remained lifelong friends.”
Hairston once again changed schools when she went to Patrick Henry for her sophomore year. It was also the time when school busing became a contentious national issue, and the same was true in Roanoke.
“We were bused across town to attend P.H., yet the White kids could walk to school, and none of them were bused to the Black side of town to Addison High,” Hairston continued. “We learned pretty quickly that when we got close to P.H., it was time to roll up the bus windows. In the early days, eggs and tomatoes were often thrown at our bus.”
Better days were to come, however.
“My junior and senior year at P.H., everybody – the community, parents, students – seemed to calm down,” Hairston said. “I was on the cheerleading squad both years, and the band was integrated. My mother became the PTA president and encouraged other Black parents to join, and they did.
“In 1973, P.H. won the state football championship, and the White and Black players and coaches really worked together as a team. That season truly was another example of how athletics can bring people together. I’m still in touch with many of my Black and White classmates from that time, and it was so good to see many of them at our 50th football state championship reunion. Good people working together can make progress happen.”
A Part of History Again at VMI
Bruce Ingram
Terri Wheaton Hairston visits Bruce Ingram’s class at Lord Botetourt High School.
During her professional career, Hairston has often been involved with education in some form. In 1990, she began working in Radford University’s Admissions Office where Vernon Beitzel, a VMI graduate, hired her. Beitzel later returned to his alma mater as director of admissions and when the decision was made to allow women to attend the Lexington institution, he hired Hairston in July of 1996 to prepare for and facilitate that process. Hence, she became the first female admissions officer at VMI.
Just as the possibility of integration had upset the status quo in the 1960s, the possibility of women as VMI cadets roiled the 1990s in the Roanoke area and beyond. In fact, the matter was not settled until the Supreme Court made the decision to allow women to enroll, beginning in August of 1997. VMI’s Board of Visitors had also agreed to admit women by a narrow 9-8 vote.
“When Vern introduced me to the press, someone asked what was the first thing I had to learn how to do, and I said ‘learn how to salute.’ My father, who had passed, was a military officer, and it was very important to me to do him proud.”
Soon afterwards, Hairston began a year of travelling the country. Her tasks included going to other military and military-like institutions where women had already been admitted and learn what had gone well and what had not. This was called the “Virginia Military Institute Assimilation Committee” process. As part of the recruitment, Hairston also visited high schools with ROTC programs as well as met with alumni groups in Boston, St. Louis and truly all over the country. And, of course, many of those alumni groups were not in favor of women attending VMI.
“For the first women, VMI attracted sophomores and juniors, who obviously were older and more experienced, plus they would not have to go through the freshmen rat experiences,” Hairston said. “The day these women arrived on campus was a circus. I really felt sorry for them. And there were members of the media and alumni who seemed to be waiting for these women to fail.
“My advice to them was to keep a low profile, be a good student and don’t try to attract attention. Of course, the first few years some of the women did drop out, but so did men. I felt the admissions office and Assimilation Committee did everything we could to prepare these women for what coming to VMI would be like. I was proud of what we accomplished.”
Soon, those early female cadets distinguished themselves. For example, Erin Claunch of Loudoun County became one of the college’s two battalion commanders the fall of 2000. She was also the first woman to receive an institute scholarship to VMI and a true leader among men and women said Hairston.
Today, Terri is happily retired after a 30-plus-year career at several Virginia higher education institutions.
“What I feel most proud of was watching so many of the students become mature, responsible, educated citizens, having had the benefit of the college experience,” she says.
The story above is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!