Browse Items (66 total)

On May 17, 1954, after nearly two decades of legal challenges against racial segregation in public schools and higher education, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that school segregation was…

James Lafeyette was born enslaved about 1748. He lived on a plantation owned by William Armistead in New Kent County. Although he is sometimes identified as James Armistead, he never signed his name or self-identified as having the surname Armistead.…

This broadside advertises an excursion by train from Lawrenceville to Norfolk as a fundraiser for St. Paul Normal and Industrial Institute. James Solomon Russell (1857–1935) founded St. Paul Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville to serve the…

Prior to the Civil War, Virginia did not have a comprehensive public school system. Some localities provided some "free schools" or "charity schools" for the children of indigent white families. African Americans, free and enslaved, were excluded…

After the American Revolution, some Virginians, inspired by the language of liberty, freed their enslaved laborers. By 1800 the population of free Black men and women had increased to nearly 20,000, primarily in urban areas like Richmond and…

In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown and a small group of white and Black men slipped across the border between Maryland and Virginia (now West Virginia) with a plan to occupy the federal arsenal, armory, and rifle factory at Harper's Ferry.…

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), also known as the Klan or the Invisible Empirehas emerged mostly in Southern states in three different time periods of U.S. history. Each iteration of the group changed slightly to promote their beliefs and values in ways…

After the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that school segregation was unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia's white political leaders at the state and local levels led a Massive Resistance movement,…

On May 17, 1954, after nearly two decades of legal challenges against racial segregation in public schools and higher education, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that school segregation was…

After the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that school segregation was unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia's white political leaders at the state and local levels led a Massive Resistance movement,…