Browse Items (47 total)

Edna Lewis created nationwide interest in southern cuisine and demonstrated that food could be more than just nourishment, but also a celebration of life.

Orange County

Educator Edna Meade Colson strove to improve educational opportunities for African Americans in Virginia.

Petersburg

The daughter and wife of missionaries, Elizabeth Coles Bouey organized the National Association of Ministers’ Wives.

Richmond

Esther Cooper fought for improved educational opportunities for African American students in Arlington County.

Arlington County

Evelyn Thomas Butts led a successful challenge of Virginia’s poll tax all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Norfolk

Born into slavery, Fields Cook became a prominent African American leader in Richmond and Alexandria in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Richmond and Alexandria

Florence Saunders Farley has fought against racism and bias to open doors in science and politics for African American women in Virginia.

Roanoke and Petersburg

Gowan Pamphlet was born enslaved, but persevered to become a well-known preacher, gain his freedom, and establish a Baptist church in Williamsburg that continues as an active congregation today.

Williamsburg

Henrietta Lacks's cells, known in the medical world as HeLa cells, were the first human cells to be grown successfully outside the body for more than a short time.

Clover

After his family was suddenly sold out of the state in 1848, he shipped himself in a wooden crate to freedom in 1849.

Richmond