Segregated Scout Camps

African American Scouts from throughout Piedmont Area Council had the opportunity to experience long-term summer camping, but never at the same time (and not always in the same place) as white Scouts. In 1939, the council operated Camp Bolton Smith near Camp Tye Brook during a special week for approximately thirty-five black Scouts, with aide from Tye Brook’s aquatics staff. Memphis investment banker Bolton Smith, the camp’s namesake, was a vice president of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America and was an early proponent of extending Scouting opportunities to African Americans.

In 1941, African American Scouts in the area attended summer camp at the Campbell County Training School in Rustburg.

In 1942 and 1943, Camp Winonah was used. Located just east of Appomattox, the camp was established in 1933 by famed educator Mozella Price for underprivileged black boys and was opened to female campers three years later.

In 1944, a program for program for African American Scouts was scheduled to be held at Green Pastures near Clifton Forge, but was canceled due to a Polio outbreak.

During the second half of the 1940s, Piedmont Area Council leaders searched for a separate site on which to develop a permanent camp for African American Scouts. The most promising location was near the community of Sycamore in Pittsylvania County, and would have provided camping for three to five troops. However, with the development of Camp Monocan in 1948, this quest was abandoned in favor of offering a special week during the summer for black troops; this was a common practice for many Boy Scout councils until Scouting began the process of desegregation in the mid-1960s.