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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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,…
Harry Flood Byrd served as governor of Virginia from 1926 to 1930 and as a United States senator from 1933 to 1965. Byrd headed a political organization, known as the Byrd Organization, that emphasized small government and fiscal conservatism. He…
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…