While in high school Christy S. Coleman began working as a living-history interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg and recognized how museums can help people appreciate the complexity of history beyond heritage and memory. She has held leadership roles at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, in Detroit, and the American Civil War Museum, in Richmond, where she oversaw development of its inclusive and complex interpretation of the Civil War. As co-chair of Richmond's Monument Avenue Commission, she guided often-contentious conversations about how to understand the monuments that memorialized the Lost Cause. Since 2019 Coleman has served as executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a state agency that operates two museums that explore the 17th-century confluence of American Indian, European, and African cultures and the American Revolution. Throughout a career spanning more than 35 years, she has been a tireless advocate for the power of museums, narrative correction, diversity, and inclusiveness.
The author of numerous articles, Coleman is also an accomplished screenwriter and public speaker, and has appeared on several national news and history programs. She served as the historical consultant for the award-winning film Harriett and Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. She has also appeared in the award-winning documentaries Abraham Lincoln, Grant, The Neutral Ground and How the Monuments Came Down.
Coleman has received numerous accolades, including three honorary doctorates, for her leadership in encouraging museums to disrupt comfortable history constructively. In 2018 Time magazine named her one of the "31 People Changing the South," and in 2019 Worth magazine named her one of "29 Women Changing the World."
2022 Strong Men & Women in Virginia History honoree, Library of Virginia and Dominion Energy.
Growing up in Lynchburg, Evelyn Reid (June 3, 1926–March 14, 2000) absorbed her mother's message of service to others. She graduated from Virginia Union University in 1948 and began teaching. In 1951, she moved to Arlington County, where she continued to teach while earning a master's degree in early childhood education from New York University. In 1956, she married Archie D. Syphax, a firefighter whose family had a long history of public service in Arlington.
When Evelyn Syphax could not find a preschool in segregated Arlington that would accept her son, she established the Syphax Child Care Center in 1963. She offered a high quality education while emphasizing respect for each child and his or her culture and ethnicity. She also taught and served as a reading specialist in the county's public schools until retiring in 1972. In 1980, Syphax began a four-year term on the Arlington School Board, where she advocated a program to improve the reading, writing, and math skills of underachieving elementary students.
A champion for children and women, Syphax organized a local Alpha Kappa Alpha chapter to provide scholarships and mentoring programs. She also established a local chapter of the Coalition of 100 Black Women to improve the social and political status of Black women. Syphax also believed in documenting African-American history, helping to lead the fight for a state historic marker at the site of the Freedmen's Village and creating the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington. In 2010, Virginia Union University named its School of Education for Evelyn Reid Syphax.
2021 Strong Men and Women in Virginia History honoree, Library of Virginia and Dominion Energy.
Fannie Beatrice Wilkinson Fitzgerald (July 27, 1930–April 7, 2016) grew up in Amelia County, the youngest of 11 children. Her parents stressed the importance of both religion and education, laying a strong foundation on which Fitzgerald built an inspiring 35-year career. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Virginia Union University in 1953 and began teaching in a sparsely resourced, two-room schoolhouse. After a few years, she applied to graduate programs in Virginia, but was barred from entry because she was African American. Undeterred, she studied at Columbia University, in New York, receiving her master’s degree in special education in 1960. During this time, she also taught at two segregated schools in Prince William County.
Although the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregated schooling in 1954, many Virginia politicians pushed back against the decision with a program of Massive Resistance that led to school closings in some jurisdictions. Amid this volatile context, Fitzgerald and three other African-American teachers, known as the “Courageous Four,” were selected in 1965 to pioneer desegregation in Prince William. They were transferred from all-black schools to teach at white schools and thus helped accomplish the school system’s complete desegregation by September 1966. When asked about this time, Fitzgerald replied, “Children are children. It doesn’t matter what color they are.” In addition to serving as a fourth-grade teacher and a learning disabilities specialist, she was also a supervisor for both integration and special needs programs. In 2008 a Dale City elementary school was named in her honor.
2019 Strong Men & Women in Virginia History honoree, Library of Virginia and Dominion Energy.