A former Old Dominion University administrator will be Virginia's first-ever director of diversity, equity and inclusion, the governor's office announced Monday.Janice Underwood, ODU's former director of diversity initiatives, will be the first person to fill the position Gov. Ralph Northam created in May amid his pivot to addressing racial...
Jenny Aghomo was excited about the new teachers and friends her daughter would meet if the majority-black school she attended in Richmond merged with a nearby majority-white school as part of a plan to increase the diversity of both student bodies.Then Aghomo heard what some parents from that majority-white...
HAMPTON -- In August 1619, enslaved Africans first arrived in Virginia. During the Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which aimed to set millions of slaves free.Witnesses to both live among us.They are the Algernourne Oak at Fort Monroe in Hampton, which tree experts...
You might have heard about the commemoration taking place later this month."Four hundred years ago this month, the first African slaves arrived in North America on a ship landing at the Jamestown colony in what is today Virginia." -- PBS Newshour, Aug. 1.That 1619 event was "the first documented...
Renovation has begun on the Alderman Library, the main library at the University of Virginia. Library materials have been moved to other stacks, preliminary construction will begin in January 2020, and the library will be fully closed in May 2020, re-opening in 2023. The university has invested $160 million...
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia is asking a Charlottesville judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against a University of Virginia professor who linked a local man’s defense of Confederate statues to his family’s history of slave ownership.Edward Dickinson Tayloe II is one of the plaintiffs in...
Outside, U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis led an energetic crowd from the steps of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond for the dedication of the newly minted Arthur Ashe Boulevard. Inside the museum, a town hall featuring several members of the Congressional Black...
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House is slated to hold a hearing today on legislation that would establish a commission to consider reparations for the descendants of slaves.At least two Virginia lawmakers -- Democratic Reps. Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer -- are among the dozens of co-sponsors backing the legislation.
The...
Inspired by bills that require some jobs historically held by black people to be paid at least minimum wage, Gov. Ralph Northam established the Commission to Examine Racial Inequity in Virginia Law.“The purpose of this commission is to review the Virginia Acts of Assembly, Code of Virginia and administrative regulations...
