John Mitchell Jr., was the determined and pioneering force behind the success of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Mitchell was born into slavery at Laburnum near Richmond on July 11, 1863. He was the son of John Mitchell and Rebecca Mitchell, who were…
The Richmond Planet was first published in 1882, seventeen years after the end of the Civil War. The thirteen founders (including James H. Hayes, James H. Johnston, E.R. Carter, Walter Fitzhugh, Henry Hucles, Albert V. Norrell, Benjamin A. Graves,…
John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, was the last royal governor of Virginia. Assuming office in September 1771, he won support during what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. Ostensibly to protect white settlers in the Ohio Valley region,…
On February 1, 1960 the “Greensboro Four” sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. By February 5th, hundreds of students had joined the movement to integrate the lunch counters. By the end of March, the movement had…
Before the end of slavery, free Black Virginians found their liberty in constant jeopardy because they were not considered citizens. After Gabriel's attempted slave rebellion in 1800, the General Assembly passed an act in 1801 requiring county…
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…
Black men in Virginia voted for the first time in October 1867, when they participated in the election on whether to hold a convention to rewrite the state's constitution as required by Congress after the Civil War. They also voted for delegates to…
On April 2, 1917, after pledging to keep the country out of the European conflict, President Woodrow Wilson stood before Congress and issued a declaration of war against Germany. "The world must be made safe for democracy," he stated, framing the war…
In 1801, following Gabriel's failed slave rebellion, the Virginia General Assembly decreed that county commissioners of the revenue were to return a complete list of all free Black men and women in their districts on an annual basis. The list was to…
In 1924, Virginia's General Assembly passed the Racial Integrity Act, which was designed to stop the “intermixture” of white and Black people. The act banned interracial marriage by requiring marriage applicants to identify their race as "white,"…