A woman scrubs the bathroom floor on her hands and knees, hair pulled back in a scarf. Another woman dressed in a business suit applies lipstick at the mirror. Both are mothers. Both are black. One is a congresswoman. The other cleans the toilets and floors in the congresswoman’s office. And soon after their meeting in the bathroom, they become fierce opponents over the right for all students, including poor ones in Washington DC, to attend a quality school.
This is a scene early in the film Miss Virginia, a true-story drama about mom-turned- education-activist Virginia Walden (Ford), who launches the grass-roots organization D.C. Parents for School Choice in 1998. The group’s goal was the establishment of a scholarship program so that low-income children could escape their local public schools and gain access to private schools. READ MORE