Powhatan Beaty was born enslaved in Richmond. He fought for freedom just outside the city in the final days of the Civil War.Soon he, along with other black Union soldiers, could be commemorated on Monument Avenue, in the former capital of the Confederacy, alongside statues of the slaveholders...
Cities and counties around Virginia will be allowed to remove the Confederate monuments they own and maintain under legislation the General Assembly sent to Gov. Ralph Northam on Sunday.The vote comes two and a half years after a fatal white supremacist rally in Charlottesville around a statue of Confederate...
By Zach Armstrong/ Capital News Service
When William Christiansen married his college sweetheart, he was disturbed that they had to disclose their race to the registrar, considering they are an interracial couple.
“It reminded me and my wife of a time when interracial couples were unable to get married,” said Christiansen. “It's...
By Donna M. Cox, University of DaytonFrom the moment of capture, through the treacherous middle passage, after the final sale and throughout life in North America, the experience of enslaved Africans who first arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, some 400 years ago, was characterized by loss, terror and abuse.The Abolition...
WASHINGTON — Lynching is not considered a hate crime under federal law, but that’s expected to change soon.The U.S. House voted 410-4 on Wednesday to approve a bill called the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. The bill would specifically list lynching as a hate crime, which is identified as a crime that targets...
A handful of Democrats in the Virginia Senate are pushing for some ground rules as the party moves to grant local governments around the state the authority to remove Confederate statues on public property.Both the House and the Senate voted this week to restore local control over war memorials,...
These are the circumstances black Virginians faced in 1890, the year the General Assembly established the forerunner of Lee-Jackson Day to honor the two Confederate generals from the Civil War:Seven black people had been lynched in the commonwealth just the year before, according to the book “100 Years of...
The rich may get richer and the poor poorer, as the saying goes, but in a world increasingly altered by climate change, the poor may also be getting hotter — especially if they’re people of color.So finds a study released Monday in Climate journal by Science Museum of Virginia...
By Nicole Maurantonio, University of RichmondAs Christmas approaches, many families undertake a familiar ritual: an annual sojourn to the attic, basement or closet to pull out a box of treasured ornaments bought, created and collected over years, even generations.Hanging these ornaments on the tree is an opportunity to reconnect...
Gov. Ralph Northam's office says he will push for legislation creating a process to replace a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington."This is something the governor and his team have been working on for several months,"...
