When Longwood’s Board of Visitors created the Moton Legacy Scholarship in 2014, it emphasized the new award would honor a student whose achievements and future plans echoed Barbara Johns’s fight for equality of opportunity in education in Prince Edward County in 1951.
But the Board also took pains to emphasize there were many imaginable ways to honor Johns and the Moton strikers – that working and sacrificing for opportunity could take many forms.
On September 19, Longwood announced the 10th anniversary winner of the Moton Legacy award, one of its highest honors – and the recipient whose journey has been the most remarkable yet.
Four years ago, in the summer of 2021, Somaya Ahmadi ’26 was in Kabul, Afghanistan. She had started college but held little hope of continuing her education. The city was falling into the hands of the Taliban. At Kabul International Airport, Somaya stood with her mother, father, grandmother, and younger siblings as they fled the country, leaving behind a homeland once again poised to shut down virtually all hope for women pursuing an education.
They were thinking foremost of safety and survival. But it turned out they had a few blessings going for them.
First was a family unit that valued education and was determined to stick together no matter what. And second, they had allies in a place she had never heard of: Farmville, Virginia. Through a series of almost impossibly serendipitous connections, Somaya was texting with people loosely connected to her aunt, Kobra, who graduated from nearby Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg in 2010.
The family managed to board a military plane packed with refugees. They expected the UAE to be only a temporary stop on their way to America, but it became their home for nearly a year.
They worked diligently through complex immigration paperwork to secure permission for the whole family to establish legal status in the United States. When they received word, some were cleared to fly but not all, the close-knit family decided to stick together, whatever it cost. Months passed, and their family’s American dream – and Somaya’s dream of graduating from college – seemed to slip away.
While the Ahmadis spent hours toiling over paperwork in the UAE, their Farmville-area advocates were also working hard, helping the family understand the necessary applications, steps, and approvals in the immigration system and securing sponsorships and work. It took nearly a year, but all permissions were secured, and in 2022 a plane landed in Dulles Airport with the entire Ahmadi family aboard.
From her new home in Southside Virginia, Ahmadi found her way to Longwood, where she has become one of the outstanding academic performers in the Class of 2026 and a beloved community member.
She will graduate later this year with a degree in computer science. In the audience behind her will be her mother, father, grandmother, younger sister and brother, and many of the people who helped her realize her dream.
Ahmadi visited the Moton Museum in her early days of being in America. The group who brought the family to town were eager to show her family the history of their new home community, but the story took on new meaning in one of Ahmadi’s first classes as a Longwood student.
This scholarship gives me the chance and opportunity to carry the dreams of those girls back in Afghanistan who have never had the chance at an education.
Somaya Ahmadi ’26 Tweet This
“When I came to Farmville I heard a lot about the strike, about Barbara Johns, but when I took a sociology of education class at Longwood, it helped me go deep into it,” she said. “It was something I had always felt. It helped me to truly understand injustice in education. It existed in Farmville, and it still exists. It’s what girls are experiencing in Kabul.
“Through that class I saw the courage of the students who wanted equal schooling and saw the resilience of all the girls back home who are still fighting to learn,” she said. “The stories are deeply connected with each other. The stories are a world apart, but they share the same determination to rise. This scholarship gives me the chance and opportunity to carry the dreams of those girls back in Afghanistan who have never had the chance at an education.”
“Somaya’s story is a powerful reminder of why education matters so deeply,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Cam Patterson ’10, M.S. ’17. “To see a student who once had education taken from them by the injustice she experienced in Afghanistan now thriving at Longwood – both through her academics, campus involvement, and community service- is profoundly moving. Somaya has found such a deep connection to the Moton Story and is committed to using her experiences and all that she is learning here at Longwood to help others create opportunities for access to education as she moves forward with her career and professional goals. That is one of the best examples we have of the Citizen Leaders that Longwood seeks to develop."
Johns and her fellow student strikers were plaintiffs in the case that became Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that outlawed segregation in public education, confirming the Constitutional right of all Americans to equality of opportunity in education.
Later this year, a statue of Johns will be unveiled in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, honoring her, along with George Washington, as the two Virginians chosen to represent the Commonwealth in the famed Statuary Hall.
This year also marks the 10th anniversary of Longwood’s Moton Legacy scholarship, which counts among past recipients teachers, public servants, and those pushing higher education forward, all making a difference in their world in the example of Barbara Johns. The award covers any remaining tuition costs for a graduating student who has demonstrated a commitment to the cause of equality of educational opportunity.
The journey from Kabul to their first year in America was marked by challenges and difficulties, as the family worked hard and saved while adjusting to life in a new country. Yet through it all, the family’s dream of a college education endured, remembering that educated women had not been the norm in Afghanistan.
“We lived together—all of us and my aunt Kobra,” she said. “Many Afghan women were offered scholarships to study in the United States, but their fathers and brothers did not allow it. When Kobra received a scholarship from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College), our family allowed her to follow that path, and she went. By doing so, she opened a door that had seemed closed for the rest of us.”
“Graduating college is very important to us,” she continued. “My mother and father wanted to study and graduate, but because of the situation in Afghanistan, their responsibilities, and cultural norms they couldn’t go. But once my aunt went to college, everyone saw how successful a woman can be with an education and how wonderfully they can live their life. She was a role model. After that, our education was a huge priority. My parents support us a lot and work hard so that we can get educated.”
Now there are two Ahmadi girls in college. Somaya will graduate in December from Longwood. Parwin will graduate from Randolph in 2027. The end of Somaya’s journey has been made easier by the Moton Scholarship.
I can tell others to never give up, stay strong, and follow your dreams no matter how hard life can be.
Somaya Ahmadi ’26 Tweet This
“My parents were so happy when I told them I had been awarded the Moton Scholarship,” said Somaya. “I am so happy and excited to walk across the stage in May. On that day I will have my parents and my sister, all of the wonderful friends I have made in Farmville, and hopefully my brothers there to share in that moment. It’s something I’ve waited four years to accomplish. It will be among the most emotional moments in my life.”
As she nears graduation and the next chapter of her life, Somaya has a message to anyone for whom obstacles are in the way of their education – a message that resonates locally in the legacy of the Moton students and subsequent generation who struggled for their own educational opportunities.
“I can tell others to never give up, stay strong, and follow your dreams no matter how hard life can be.”
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