Browse Items (29 total)

Black men gained the right to vote when the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1870. Later in the 19th century, white men in Virginia passed laws requiring literacy tests or payment of poll taxes that made it more…

Waterways provided the people of the Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads regions with access to food, supplies, and transport long before English colonists arrived in 1607. As English settlements displaced and removed Indigenous people from the land near…

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event of the Cold War that took place during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. In October 1962, a United States spy plane captured evidence of the Soviet Union (present day Russia) moving nuclear weapons into Cuba…

In the summer of 1963, violence erupted in Danville, Virginia, as Danville policemen led by police chief Eugene G. McCain aggressively arrested and dispersed protestors during a series of civil rights demonstrations led by local and national black…

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event of the Cold War that took place during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. In October 1962, a United States spy plane captured evidence of the Soviet Union (present day Russia) moving nuclear weapons into Cuba…

Between 1877 and the mid-1960s, authorities enforced racial segregation throughout Virginia. In 1902, the Virginia State Constitution, authorized by the Virginia General Assembly, instituted a poll tax in which all Black and persons of color would…

The 5-cent Battle of Gettysburg commemorative stamp is the third in a series of five stamps marking the Civil War Centennial from the U.S. Postal Service. Sales of the stamp began at the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania post office on July 1, 1963.According…

In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation did not violate the "equal protection of the laws" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Virginia and other southern states employed the doctrine of "separate…

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…

On October 16, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited Virginia during the commonwealth’s 350th anniversary celebration of the founding of Jamestown. The Queen’s visit prompted intense interest from citizens, government officials, and the…