Nannie Berger Hairston: Southwest Virginia Civil Rights Leader & Community Builder

Nannie Berger Hairston was a crusader for social justice. Born in West Virginia in 1921, just over fifty years after the Civil War, Hairston grew up in a world of segregated schools and deep racial division. She graduated, married, and started a family, but when her husband, John, lost his job in the coal mines, the Hairstons moved to Christiansburg, Virginia, at the height of Jim Crow. Against overwhelming odds, they rose as leaders in their community. By the time of her death in 2017, Nannie had become an icon: a resilient, wisdom-filled force for justice. She was a bridge builder and coalition maker in the civil rights movement—and her life offers powerful lessons for today. Join oral historian Sheree Scarborough for a compelling look at how Ms. Hairston’s story of courage and community can inspire our own path forward Sheree Scarborough is an oral historian with thirty years of experience capturing and preserving community stories. She is the author of African American Railroad Workers of Roanoke: Oral Histories of the Norfolk & Western, drawn from her own interviews. Her work has been featured with the Library of Congress, NASA, the University of Virginia, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, among others. She holds an MA and is ABD in American Studies from the University of Texas.