Browse Items (69 total)

At the close of the Civil War and after the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, all male citizens, regardless of their race or previous status, were supposed to be able to vote.  However, many states, including Virginia, found ways to exclude Black…

Arthur Robert Ashe was a Black tennis player and human rights activist who became one of the greatest tennis players in American history. To date he is the first and only Black man to win the singles title in three of tennis' Grand Slam events, the…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In 1958, the members of the Lee- Jackson Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans drafted a resolution in which they suggested the Fourteenth Amendment was illegal as it, in their opinion, had not been properly ratified. The justification they used…

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…