Browse Items (68 total)
Clara Robinson, Petition to Remain in Virginia, 1848
In 1806, Virginia's General Assembly passed a law that required enslaved people who had been freed after that date to leave the state within one year's time. Those who remained in the Commonwealth more than a year could be re-enslaved and sold.…
Parade Celebrating the Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation in Hampton Roads, 1944
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declared freedom to enslaved people within states that were in rebellion against the United States. All enslaved people in Virginia were to be free, but this could…
Headline from the Richmond Times Dispatch, April 17, 1904
In 1902, Louisiana became the first state to pass a statute requiring mandatory segregation of passengers on streetcars. Mississippi followed with similar legislation in 1904. Also in 1904, Virginia authorized, but did not require segregated…
Petition from Students at Lane High School to Reopen Schools, Charlottesville, September 1958
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…
Interposition and Massive Resistance, 1955
When the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, it declared that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The ruling overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine…
Governor Stanley's Address to Virginians after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education Decision, May 17, 1954
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…
J. Lindsay Almond School Integration Speech, January 20, 1959
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…
Letter from Ainslee B. and Alvin R.L. Dohme, Front Royal, 1959
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,…
Governor Douglas Wilder Taking the Oath of Office, Photograph, 1990
Lawrence Douglas Wilder (1931–) was sworn in as governor of Virginia on January 13, 1990. Wilder, a grandson of enslaved peoples, made history in 1985 when he became the first Black person elected to statewide office in Virginia.
Wilder was a…
Arthur Ashe, Richmond Invitational Tennis Tournament, Photograph, 1971
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…