Virginia is making a big move towards racial healing. A crowd will unveil the new Virginia Civil Rights Memorial on the State Capitol grounds in Richmond Monday. It will commemorate the Prince Edward County students who walked out of school to protest school segregation.

Legal action followed helping lead to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision integrating schools, but the local struggle didn't end there and now Prince Edward County residents are working on reconciling with their past. County supervisors even voted to express regret for past actions.

Mattie Wiley, County Supervisor - "We are trying to move forward."

County supervisor Mattie Wiley remembers what it was like to be sent far away from home to Ohio just so she could go to school.

Wiley - "That pain will always be there. And periodically somebody is going to walk up to you and remind you how awful it was."

That's because county supervisors decided to shut down the schools in 1959 rather than integrate.

Wiley - "We were out of school, we got out for the summer and they said, oh, you are not going back to school."

Now a new generation of leaders is recognizing the injustice inflicted on Wiley and so many others. County supervisors passed this resolution to make amends.

Wade Bartlett, County Administrator - "It plainly states in the resolution that the closing of the schools was wrong, that it affected people, it affected the whole county negatively."

Their goal is to make a bold statement.   And soon the courthouse bell tower in Farmville will shine as the Light of Reconciliation.

Bartlett - "It's a form of healing, to bring everyone together, to recognize the wrongs of the past."

Wiley knows how far things have come. Being a county supervisor was once beyond her wildest dreams.

Wiley - "I consider this to be an honor, because I feel that I am giving something back to the county that was taken away from a lot of people during that time."

Now, they say they're remembering their history and moving together as one. Prince Edward County is holding a reconciliation dinner at Longwood University Monday evening. The lighting of the bell tower will follow.