Barbara Rose Johns Powell (1935-1991) was a civil
rights activist. She was the niece to one of the
fathers of the Civil Rights Movement named
Vernon Johns. At 16 years old, she led a strike
against racial injustice. She had 5 children, was an
excellent librarian, and loved freedom.
The Virginia Civil Rights Memorial was opened in 2008,
with Barbara Johns and several other students
prominently featured on one side with the quote: "It
seemed like reaching for the moon." The Library of
Virginia also honored Barbara Johns Powell in 2005 by
naming her one of their Virginia Women in History.
 Contents
1. The Introduction 2. Virginia’s Story 3. Virginia’s Story
Part 3: Part 4: Between the
Reconstruction, Two World Wars
The Gilded Age,
and the Progressive
Age
4. Virginia’s Story
Part 5: VA's Civil
Rights History
 THE INTRODUCTION
Within the span of one
hundred years from the end of
the U.S. Civil War to the
passage of the Voting Rights
Act, Virginia existed with its
imperfections and fights for
justice. It experienced the
paradox of being a state with
massive historical developments
and the existence of massive,
unjust oppression. After the
brutal Civil War, the landscape
of Virginia was free from
legalized slavery. That was great
news. Reconstruction was
birthed with HBCUs growing
and the continued fight for
equal rights among black
Americans. Native Americans
were in the state too. While
Reconstruction saw some
progress, the racist backlash
ended Reconstruction
completely. After
Reconstruction, Jim Crow
ruled the state government. Jim
Crow was basically state-
sponsored oppression that used
the poll tax, discrimination, and
terrorism against black people
in Virginia plus in America.
Railroad and industrial
technology grew in cities and
towns. New institutions and
educational systems
transformed the state of
Virginia in enumerable ways.
Francena McCorory is from
Hampton, Virginia, and she is an
Olympic champion from 2012
and 2016.
The time between World War
One and World War Two saw
more industries being
constructed and social
movements in abundance.
Cities like Norfolk, Richmond,
Hampton, etc. came into
further cultural development.
The NAACP and other civil
rights groups used great
sacrifice in defending the rights
of black Virginians. The Civil
Rights Movement in Virginia
wasn't made up of one person.
It was a history that included a
collection of dedicated heroic,
men and women including
children who desired freedom
for all people. From the
courageous actions of Evelyn
Butts to Irene Morgan, Virginia
was one large epicenter of the
Civil Rights Movement.
Malcolm X and Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. both visited
Norfolk, Virginia before.
Malcolm X traveled into
Norfolk in 1963, and Dr. King
visited Norfolk (at the Calvary
Baptist Church) in 1966. Ella
Baker was born in Virginia, and
she was one of the greatest civil
rights leaders in human history.
Despite efforts from the
reactionary Byrd Organization
to stop civil rights progressive
activism, new laws that
demanded racial justice existed.
Likewise, we have another
paradox of racial progress, but
we witness still racism,
discrimination, economic
deprivation, police brutality,
and other evils like yesteryear.
This is why we can't be
complacent or naive. The fight
for freedom continues in 2020.
This section of Virginia's story
will deal with Virginia's history
from Reconstruction to the
Civil Rights Movement of
Virginia. The struggle
continues, but victory is ours.
 Virginia’s Story Part 3: Reconstruction, The Gilded Age, and
the Progressive Age
From the era of Reconstruction to the time of World War 1, Virginia experienced monumental changes.
Black Americans were now free from overt legalized slavery after the American Civil War. History was
made in Reconstruction from Congressional seats earned by African Americans to new laws protecting
the rights of black Americans. Yet, the white racist backlash in Virginia would cause Jim Crow, racist,
terroristic violence against black people, and other forms of discriminatory policies. Industrialization grew
in Virginia during this time, and reality set in that Virginia would exist without West Virginia forever. The
end of this Reconstruction era saw a nightmare for many Virginians, while the privileged wealthy elites
gained a large amount of financial power. African Americans formed the Colored Monitor Union Club to
fight for the rights of citizenship for black Americans. It was created on April 4, 1865. Black people in
Hampton founded a Union League in March 1865, and Williamsburg residents founded a Colored Union
League in May. Richmond leaders did the same on May 9, 1865 to create the Colored Men’s Equal Rights
League of Richmond, which was an affiliate of the National Equal Rights League (that existed on 1864).
Black men fought for the right to vote as north as Alexandria, Virginia too. In Virginia, sharecropping was
commonplace. This was when freedmen, who were black people, and poor white farmers rented lands
from landowners by promising to pay the owners with a share of the crops. The problem was that
landowners didn’t pay the workers sufficient money, and some landowners lied about contracts. This
resulted in massive economic exploitation.

Virginia, during Reconstruction, saw devastation as a product of the U.S. Civil War. The Confederacy was
defeated once and for all. That was great. Also, Virginian infrastructure was in ruins (like railroads, roads,
buildings, and farmland). Plantations were burned out. Many people were without homes and without
jobs or foods. Supplies were scarce. That is why the Union Army came into Virginia to help reconstruct
the state. The Freedmen’s Bureau helped to newly freed African Americans. Many black people learned to
read, had educational services, and other means of developing their own lives. African American men and
women lobbied to have full rights as citizens. In Norfolk, VA by May of 1865, some black men cast their
votes for the first time. Local electoral boards refused to count them. Their votes were counted by the time
of the Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868. They elected African Americans. Some black Americans
were elected to the General Assembly in 1869, mostly as Republicans and later as part of the biracial
Readjuster Party. Black politicians advocated civil rights, access to free public school, and a financial
reform of the state’s large antebellum debt. African American women were leaders in the fight for black
civil rights as well.

The historian Mary Farmer-Kaiser reported that white landowners lied and said that freedwomen were
lazy and were unwilling to work in the fields. They wanted the Bureau to force them to sign labor
contracts. Later, many Bureau officials condemned the withdrawal of freedwomen from work force as
well as husbands who allowed it. The truth is that freedwomen have every right to decide for themselves
their own destinies period. While the Bureau did not force freedwomen to work, it did force freedmen to
work or be arrested as vagrants. Furthermore, agents urged poor unmarried mothers to give their older
children up as apprentices to work for white landowners. Farmer-Kaiser concludes that "Freedwomen
found both an ally and an enemy in the bureau." Virginia saw Reconstruction in three phases. They were:
wartime, presidential, and congressional. Immediately after the war, President Andrew Johnson
recognized the Francis Harrison Pierpont government as legitimate and restored local government. The
Virginia legislature passed the Black Codes. The Black Codes restricted the Freedmen’s mobility and rights.
Black people had only limited rights, and were not considered citizens. Black people couldn’t vote in 1865.
The state ratified the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. They revoked the 1861 ordinance of secession.
Johnson believed that Reconstruction was complete, which was a lie. Other Republicans in Congress
refused to seat the newly elected state delegation; the Radicals wanted better evidence that slavery and
similar methods of serfdom had been abolished, and that black Americans ought to be given equal rights.
They also were concerned that Virginia leaders had not renounced Confederate nationalism.

After winning large majorities in the 1866 national election, the Radical Republicans gained power in
Congress. They put Virginia (and nine other ex-Confederate states) under military rule. Virginia was
administered as the "First Military District" in 1867–69 under General John Schofield. Meanwhile, the
Freedmen became politically active by joining the pro-Republican Union League, holding conventions,
and demanding universal male suffrage and equal treatment under the law, as well as demanding
disfranchisement of ex-Confederates and the seizure of their plantations. Schofield was criticized by the
conservative whites for supporting the Radical Republican cause. He was criticized by Radical
Republicans for thinking that black suffrage was premature. There were splits in the Republican Party.
The moderates existed. The other progressive Republicans wanted to disfranchise a person if he was a
private in the Confederate army or had sold food to the Confederate government. They wanted land
reform. About 20,000 former Confederates were denied the right to vote in the 1867 election.

In 1867, Radical Republican James Hunnicutt (1814–1880), a white preacher, editor and Scalawag (or
white Southerners supporting Reconstruction) mobilized the black Republican vote by calling for the
confiscation of all plantations and turning the land over to Freedmen and poor whites. The moderate
Republicans, led by former Whigs, businessmen and planters, while supportive of black suffrage, drew the
line at property confiscation. A compromise was reached calling for confiscation if the planters tried to
intimidate black voters. Hunnicutt's coalition took control of the Republican Party, and began to demand
the permanent disfranchisement of all whites who had supported the Confederacy. The Virginia
Republican party became permanently split, and many moderate Republicans switched to the opposition
"Conservatives.” The Radical Republicans won the 1867 election for delegates to a constitutional
convention. The 1868 constitutional convention included 33 white Conservatives, and 72 Radicals (of
whom 24 were Black Americans, 23 Scalawag, and 21 Carpetbaggers). It was called the "Underwood
Constitution" after the presiding officer, the main accomplishment was to reform the tax system, and
create a system of free public schools for the first time in Virginia. After heated debates over disfranchising
Confederates, the Virginia legislature approved a Constitution that excluded ex-Confederates from
holding office, but allowed them to vote in state and federal elections.

Under pressure from national Republicans to be more moderate, General Schofield continued to
administer the state through the Army. He appointed a personal friend, Henry H. Wells as provisional
governor. Wells was a Carpetbagger and a former Union general. Schofield and Wells fought and defeated
Hunnicutt and the Scalawag Republicans. They took away contracts for state printing orders from
Hunnicutt's newspaper. The national government ordered elections in 1869 that included a vote on the
new Underwood constitution, a separate one on its two disfranchisement clauses that would have
permanently stripped the vote from most former rebels, and a separate vote for state officials. The Army
enrolled the Freedmen (ex-slaves) as voters but would not allow some 20,000 prominent whites to vote or
hold office. The Republicans nominated Wells for governor, as Hunnicutt and most Scalawags went over
to the opposition. The moderate Republicans were headed by the ex-Confederate William Mahone. He
was once a Confederate general. He wanted Conservatives to win races. He worked with some ex-
Democrats and others to form the Conservative Party. He wanted to allow ex-Confederates to vote. Later,
there was the new legislature that ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Virginia saw the end to Reconstruction by January of 1870. The Radical Republicans were ousted.
Virginia was the only southern state that did not elect a civilian government that represented more Radical
Republican principles. Many people had a hard time to adjust to new realities. The Radical Republicans
were defeated because of the massive racism of white citizens and the resistance to true black liberation.
People couldn’t stand former slaves being in positions of political power. The all-white Constitutional
Convention of 1901-1902 destroyed African American political activity in Virginia for decades. It ended
democratic reforms in the black community. It reintroduced the poll tax. Black voters reduced their
numbers as voters in Virginia as a product of these draconian measures. Republican voters fell to 35
percent of voters in 1904. The Democrats back then were
Virginia’s Population over the Decades
dominated by white supremacists who
Census Population %+-
dominated both houses of the General Assembly.
1940 2,677,773 10.6%
1950 3,318,680 23.9%
By the late 19th century with the Gilded Age, railroad and 1960 3,966,949 19.5%
industrial growth was common in Virginia. New railroads 1970 4,648,494 17.2%
continued to be developed after the Civil War. Collis P. 1980 5,346,818 15.0%
Huntington was a railroad baron who in 1868 allowed the 1990 6,187,358 15.7%
Virginia Central Railroad to be merged and transformed into 2000 7,078,515 14.4%
the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. By 1870, many railroads 2010 8,001,024 13.0%
were merged to form the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio
Railroad later to be renamed Norfolk and Western. The towpath of the now defunct James River and
Kanawha canal was transformed into the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad. Within a decade, it would
merge into the Chesapeake and Ohio. Other railroads would be the following: the Southern Railroad, the
Seaboard Air Line, and the Atlantic Coast Line; still others would eventually reach into Virginia, including
the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The rebuilt Richmond, Fredericksburg, and
Potomac Railroad eventually was linked to Washington, D.C. During the 1880’s, the Pocahontas Coalfield
opened up in the far southwest Virginia. Others came in the region too. It provided more demand for
railroad transportation. The Virginian Railway in 1909 opened more express action of hauling coal from
the mountains in West Virginia to the ports at Hampton Roads. The expansion of railroads caused the
creation of new towns and the rapid growth of others like Clifton Forge, Roanoke, Crew, and Victoria.
There were railroad crashes like the Wreck of Old 97 near Danville, Virginia in 1903 (which was
immortalized later by a popular ballad). With the invention of the cigarette rolling machine, and the great
increase in smoking in the early 20th century, cigarettes and other tobacco products became a major
industry in Richmond and Petersburg. Tobacco magnates such as Lewis Ginter funded a number of
public institutions.
Virginian politicians were divided by the time of the Progressive Era. There were those who wanted a
reduction of Virginia’s pre-war debt called the Readjusters and those who opposed those who felt Virginia
should repay its entire debt plus interest called Funders. Virginia's pre-war debt was primarily for
infrastructure improvements overseen by the Virginia Board of Public Works, much of which were
destroyed during the war or in the new State of West Virginia. Former Confederate General and railroad
executive William Mahone didn’t win the Democratic nomination for governor. He was the leader of the
Readjusters. This was coalition of conservative Democrats including some white plus black Republicans.
The Readjusters wanted to stop the power of wealth and privilege. They wanted to invest in public
education. They wanted to readjust the state debt in order to protect funding for newly established public
education and allocate a fair share to the new state of West Virginia. It proposed to repeal the poll tax and
increase funding for schools and other public facilities. This plan attracted biracial and cross party support.
Candidate William E. Cameron was governor of Virginia from 1882 to 1886. He was part of the Readjuster
Party. Mahone was in the U.S. Senator. Harrison H. Riddleberger was in the Senator too as a Readjuster.
Democrat Fitzhugh Lee was governor in 1885. In 1888, the exception to Readjuster and Democratic control
was John Mercer Langston, who was elected to Congress from the Petersburg area on the Republican
ticket. He was the first black man elected to Congress from the state, and the last for nearly a century. He
served one term. A talented and vigorous politician, he was an Oberlin College graduate. He had long
been active in the abolitionist cause in Ohio before the Civil War, had been president of the National
Equal Rights League from 1864 to 1868, and had headed and created the law department at Howard
University, and acted as president of the college. When elected, he was president of what became Virginia
State University. Virginia State University is a prominent HBCU.

While the Readjuster Party faded, the goal of public education remained strong, with institutions
established for the education of schoolteachers. In 1884, the state acquired a bankrupt women's college at
Farmville and opened it as a normal school. Growth of public education led to the need for additional
teachers. In 1908, two additional normal schools were established, one at Fredericksburg and one at
Harrisonburg, and in 1910, one at Radford. After the Readjuster Party disappeared, Virginia Democrats
rapidly passed legislation and constitutional amendments that effectively disfranchised African Americans
and many poor whites, through the use of poll taxes and literacy tests. They created white, one-party rule
under the Democratic Party for the next 80 years. White state legislators passed statutes that restored white
supremacy through imposition of Jim Crow segregation. In 1902, Virginia passed a new constitution that
reduced voter registration.

Norfolk State University Hampton University Virginia State University

Virginia Union University Virginia University of Lynchburg

William Harvey Carney (1840-
1908) was an African American
Union soldier during the
American Civil War (as part of
th
the heroic 54 Massachusetts
Volunteer Infantry). He was born
a slave and was awarded the
Medal of Honor in 1900 for
gallantry during the Battle of Fort
Wagner in 1863. William Carney
loved his wife and daughter. He
was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He
lived in New Bedford,
Massachusetts too. William
Carneys wife was Susannah
Williams and their daughter was
Clara Heronia.
John Mercer Langston (1829-
1897) was an abolitionist,
attorney, educator (he earned his
BA and MA from Oberlin
College), activist, diplomat, and
politician. He was the first
President of the HBU Virginia
State University. He was the first
dean of the law school at Howard
University. He was the member
of the U.S. House of
th
Representatives at Virginia's 4
district (as a lover of equality he
was the President of the National
Equal Rights League). He was
the great uncle of the poet
Langston Hughes. He was a
Republican as the Republican
party was the more progressive
party back then.
The image to the left
showed Ida B. Wells and
her children. From the
time of Reconstruction to
the early 20th century, Ida
B. Wells fought for our
freedom. We owe a debt of
gratitude to her sacrifice
for liberation.
Jane Serepta Dean (1843-1913)
was born into slavery and later
became free to be a great hero.
She worked in Northern Virginia
to be a founder of churches and
Sunday Schools for African
Americans in Northern Virginia.
Dean founded the Manassas
Industrial School for Colored
Youth, which for more than four
decades, was the only institution
of secondary education available
to African American youth in
Northern Virginia, and one of
only two in the state without overt
religious affiliation. The Library of
Virginia honored Dean in 2000
as one of its inaugural class of
Virginia Women in History, and in
2013 as part of its Strong Men
and Women series.
John Wesley Cromwell (1846-
1927) was born in Portsmouth,
Virginia. He was a teacher,
lawyer, journalist, historian, and
civil rights leader. Later, he
worked in Washington, D.C. as a
founder of the Bethel Literary
and Historical Society and the
American Negro Academy. He
was the first black lawyer to
appear before the Interstate
Commerce Commission. He was
once a slave. He taught many
people in Pennsylvania. In 1873
Cromwell married Lucy A.
McGuinn of Richmond and had
seven children with her. The
couple stressed the importance
of education for all their children,
who included Otelia, Mary E.,
Martha, Lucy, John Wesley Jr.,
and Brent. Otelia Cromwell, born
in 1874, became the first black
graduate of Smith College. She
was a teacher and professor at
Miners Teacher College, and
received a PhD from Yale in
1926. Mary E. Cromwell was
born in 1876 and taught
mathematics. John Wesley
Cromwell, Jr. was born in 1883
and taught mathematics,
German, and bookkeeping; he
became the first black certified
public accountant. After Lucy
passed away in 1892, Cromwell
married Annie E. Conn of
Pennsylvania.
The Progressive Era was the paradox of more reforms to modern Virginia along with Jim Crow oppressing
the lives of Black Americans. Reformers in the Progressive movement wanted to modernize the state,
increase efficiency, use scientific methods, promote education, and eliminate waste plus corruption. The
Democratic Governor Claude Swanson (1906-1910) had a coalition of reformers. They were in the
legislature. They build schools and highways. Teachers’ salaries increased, and new standards were
promoted in education. Virginia’s public health programs grew and funding for prisons persisted.
Swanson fought against child labor, lowered railroad rates, and raised corporate taxes. Modern
management techniques and systematizing state services developed. A new network of roads was done by
black convicts in chain gangs which was very demoralizing for many black people. After Swanson moved
to the U.S. Senate in 1910, he promoted Progressivism at the national level as a supporter of President
Woodrow Wilson, who had been born in Virginia. Swanson, as a power on naval affairs, promoted the
Norfolk Navy Yard, Newport News Ship Building, and Drydock Corporation. Swanson's statewide
organization evolved into the "Byrd Organization." The SCC or the State Corporation Commission was
formed as part of the 1902 Constitution over the opposition of the railroads to regulate railroad policies
and rates. The SCC was independent of parties, courts, and big businesses. It was designed to maximize
the public interest. It became an effective agency, which especially pleased local merchants by keeping rates
low.

Agricultural reformers existed in Virginia. The Progressive Era saw the rural areas dealt with many
reforms. Rural areas had declining populations, illiteracy, poor framing techniques, and debilitating
diseases among farm animals and human beings. Reformers wanted to upgrade the quality of elementary
education. There was federal help. This caused a county agent system called the Virginia Cooperative
Extension today. It taught farmers about the latest scientific methods to deal with tobacco and other
crops. Farm house wives learned how to maximize their efficiency in the kitchen and nursery. There were
upper class women like Lila Meade Valentine of Richmond, Virginia who promoted many progressive
reforms like kindergartens, teacher education, nursing programs, and vocation education for black people
including white people. The Prohibition movement was dominated by middle class white women too.
The women suffrage movement existed, and it had racial issues. Many white women were reluctant to
allow black women the black the right to vote. It was unable to broaden its base beyond middle class
whites mainly in Virginia. Virginia got the policy changed allowing women the right to vote in 1920 as a
result of a national constitutional amendment. In higher education, the key leader was Edwin A.
Alderman, president of the University of Virginia, 1904–31. His goal was the transformation of the
southern university into a force for state service, intellectual leadership, and educational utility. Alderman
successfully professionalized and modernized the state's system of higher education. He promoted
international standards of scholarship, and a statewide network of extension services. Joined by other
college presidents, he promoted the Virginia Education Commission, created in 1910. Alderman's crusade
encountered some resistance from traditionalists, and it never challenged the Jim Crow system of
segregated schooling.
Progressives promoted reforms. Also, some want to deal with the heritage and traditions of old Virginia.
There was the aristocratic First Families of Virginia (FFV). The Association for the Preservation of
Virginia Antiquities (APVA), founded in Williamsburg in 1889, emphasized patriotism in the name of
Virginia's 18th-century Founding Fathers. In 1907, the Jamestown Exposition was held near Norfolk to
celebrate the tricentennial of the arrival of the first English colonists and the founding of Jamestown.
Attended by numerous federal dignitaries, and serving as the launch point for the Great White Fleet, the
Jamestown Exposition also spurred interest in the military potential of the area. The site of the exposition
would later become, in 1917, the location of the Norfolk Naval Station. The proximity to Washington,
D.C., the moderate climate, and strategic location of a large harbor at the center of the Atlantic seaboard
made Virginia a key location during World War I for new military installations. These included Fort
Story, the Army Signal Corps station at Langley, Quantico Marine Base in Prince William County, Fort
Belvoir in Fairfax County, Fort Lee near Petersburg and Fort Eustis, in Warwick County (now Newport
News). At the same time, heavy shipping traffic made the area a target for U-boats, and a number of
merchant vessels were attacked or sunk off the Virginia coast.
 Virginia’s Story Part 4: Between the Two World Wars
Virginian history between World War 1 and the end of World War 2 was long. By 1912, Norfolk Terminal
Station or a railway station was opened in Downtown Norfolk. Booker T. Washington and Maury high
schools opened in 1911. Huntersville and Lambert’s Park became part of Norfolk in 1911. In 1917, the
Norfolk Naval Station opened. A Norfolk local NAACP branch was established in 1917. During the early
20th century, many people believed in temperance (or banning alcohol drinking). By 1916, the state
banned the sale and drinking of alcohol via referendum. This was overturned by 1933. The Attucks
Theater opened in the Norfolk, Virginia city by 1919 as the “Apollo Theater of the South.” Virginia Beach
opened in 1921 as its oceanfront was developed. The NorVA Theater opened in 1922. The Nansemond
Hotel opened in 1928. It was destroyed by fire in 1980. Colonial Williamsburg was formed in 1930 that
increased tourism in the state. The Shenandoah National Park was created from newly gathered land.
There was the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
developed the National Park including Pocahontas State Park. New highway bridges crossed the lower
Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers. This ended the steamboat service. Transportation
across the Chesapeake Bay area improved. Ferryboats continue today, but they rarely exist now.

The Byrd machine was one of the most powerful political machines in American history. Back then,
racism was shown in lynching, discrimination, Jim Crow, voter suppression, housing deprivation, and
other evil policies. The Byrd Machine promoted racial segregation and the status quo. Black people in
Virginia back then were a third of the population, but they had nearly no political power. The electorate
was small. The Byrd machine lasted from 1887 to 1966. Many people supported the right to vote. Others
didn’t. It would be until the 1960’s that federal civil rights legislation would be passed in 1964 and in 1965.
Foreman Field at ODU was created in 1936. The Norfolk Municipal Airport and Norfolk Azealia Garden
opened in 1938. By 1939, Granby High School opened. The Edgar Allan Poe Museum opened in 1922.
That is in Richmond, Virginia. In 1928, the Virginia World War I Memorial Carillon was created in 1928.
From June 27 to July 2, 1939, Richmond hosted the 30th annual conference of the NAACP at the location
called The Mosque. Mayor John Fulmer Bright welcomed them. Richmond’s NAACP President Jesse M.
Tinsley and the keynote address were made by William H. Hastle and Sam Colomon. The conference had
a in person appearance by Eleanor Roosevelt presenting the Spingarn Medal to Marian Anderson as it was
broadcast over NBC and CBS stations.

There is a long history involving Virginia and World War II. William T. O’Neill was from Virginia. He
was involved in D-Day where he was part of the members of the landing crafts that landed on the
Normandy beach. These crafts transported tanks and cargo. Major Thomas Dry Howie served as the
operations officer of the 3rd Battalion, 116th Regiment. These were called the Stonewall Brigade on D-
Day. He also taught at Stanton Military Academy. He fought the Nazis and died during a July 17, 1944
Nazi attack. His men took his body into the city of St. Lo. His body was covered with the American flag.
Howie was one character that inspired Tom Hanks’s Captain Miller character in the movie “Saving
Private Ryan.” Howie wrote to his wife, Elizabeth Payne Howie. Also, many African Americans were in
Virginia to fight the Nazis and participate in the military. Frederick Branch was the first African American
Commissioned 2nd Lt. His wife was Peggy Branch. Frederick Clinton Branch (1922-2005) was the first
African American officer of the United States Marine Corps. Having received a bachelor's degree in
physics from Temple in 1947, he taught at Dobbins High School in Philadelphia until he retired in 1988.
Captain Branch died on April 10, 2005 and was buried at Quantico National Cemetery in Quantico,
Virginia. The Virginian George Marshall helped to organize the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after
World War II. Europe was devastated after the Second World War. Cities were destroyed, and massive
homelessness transpired in European lands. The Marshall Plan allowed over $12 billion (or almost $100
billion in 2018 U.S. dollars) in economic assistance to rebuild Western European economies. There was a
catch. It was also used to not only modernize industry. It wanted to prevent the spread of Communism in
Europe. The Marshall Plan is not with its critics. Critics from the right didn’t like it, since it contradicted
laissez faire capitalism. Critics from the left viewed it was a slick economic imperialism to dominate
Western European societies and advance the power of transnational corporations. Back then, most
Americans, British, French, and Italians supported the Marshall Plan.

World War II transformed Virginia in many ways. The economic stimulus of World War II brought full
employment for workers, high wages, and high profits for farmers. Virginia sent 300,000 men and 4,000
women to the Armed services during World War II; Virginia expanded its industrial and naval economic
power. Northern Virginia is the site of the Pentagon (at Arlington, Virginia). In 1941, Fort A. P. Hill and
Fort Pickett opened. Fort Lee was reactivated. The Newport News shipyard expanded its labor force from
17,000 to 70,000 in 1943. This was when the Radford Arsenal had 22,000 workers making explosives.
Turnover was very high in one three month period the Newport News shipyard hired 8,400 new workers
as 8,300 others quit.

Always Honor the Brothers and the

Sisters who helped to defeat Fascism
during World War II.
 Virginia’s Story Part 5: VA's Civil Rights History
Virginia's Civil Rights history has been a long one, and it continues to this very day. From the slave revolts
to the modern era of social activism, black people have fought for civil rights. People of other colors and
backgrounds have done the same too. In 1944, Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat on an interstate
bus. She was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia. She was a courageous black woman. Virginia had
segregation laws. Morgan appealed her case to the Supreme Court. By 1948, she won the case of Irene
Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia. The ruling stuck down segregation among interstate buses.
Virginia continued to enforce interstate bus segregation, which violated the Supreme Court decision. In
1947, there was the Journey of Reconciliation movement. The movement had human beings who traveled
into Virginia and other states of the Upper South to use civil disobedience against Virginia's defiance of
the Supreme Court's ruling. There was another Supreme Court ruling involving Virginia. It was called
Boynton v. Virginia. It desegregated interstate bus terminals. Morgan, Boynton, and the Journey of
Reconciliation inspired the 1961 Freedom Rides that fought bus segregation in the Deep South. Along
with the bus desegregation cases, Virginia was a contestant in the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated
laws prohibiting interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia. The Loving v. Virginia decision came about in
1967. Many schools, and even an entire school system, were shut down in 1958 and 1959 in attempts by the
racist state government of Virginia to block integration, before both the Virginia Supreme Court and a
special three-judge panel of Federal District judges from the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting at Norfolk,
declared those policies unconstitutional.

Although, most of the laws created to implement massive resistance were overturned by state and federal
courts within a year, some aspects of the campaign against integrated public schools continued in Virginia
for many more years. The Byrd Organization was one of most racist, sophisticated political movements in
world history. Back in the day, conservative Democrats wanted to maintain legal and cultural racial
segregation in Virginia. Harry Flood Byrd Sr. lived from 1887 to 1966. He was once Governor of Virginia
and was a senior U.S. Senator after World War II. He was once a U.S. Senator after World War II. The
Byrd Organization was a political machine that used rural areas to promote their agenda. They never had a
strong political power in independent cities or suburban middle class areas.
 This is modern day Alexandra, Virginia.

Using legal challenges, by the 1940's, black attorneys who included Thurgood Marshall, Oliver W. Hill,
William H. Hastie, Spottswood W. Robinson III, and Leon A. Ransom were gradually winning civil
rights cases based upon federal constitutional challenges. Among these was the case of Davis v. County
School Board of Prince Edward County, which was actually initiated by students who stepped forward to
protest poor conditions at R. R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Their case became part of the
landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. That decision overturned Plessy
and declared that state laws which established separate public schools for black and white students denied
black children equal educational opportunities and were inherently unequal. As a result, de jure racial
segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thereby
paving the way for Desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement. After the Brown v. Board decision,
Byrd, then a U.S. Senator, was angry. He vowed to stop integration in Virginian schools. So, Byrd,
Governor Thomas B. Stanley, and Virginia Senator Garland Gray of rural Sussex County formed the Gray
Commission.

The Gray plan wanted to delay segregation policies. It wanted to allow the Governor to close schools
rather than allow their integration, to establish pupil assignment structures, and finally to provide
vouchers to parents who chose to enroll their children in segregated private schools. Virginia voters
approved the Gray Plan Amendment on January 9, 1956. So, Byrd used the Stanley Plan and the Southern
Manifesto to promote the agenda against racial integration. By the late 1950's, the NAACP filed lawsuits to
end school segregation in Norfolk, Arlington, Charlottesville and Newport News. To implement massive
resistance, in 1956, the Byrd Organization-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed a series of laws
known as the Stanley plan, after Governor Thomas Bahnson Stanley. One of these laws, passed on
September 21, 1956, forbade any integrated schools from receiving state funds, and authorized the governor
to order closed any such school. Another of these laws established a three-member Pupil Placement Board
that would determine which school a student would attend. The decision of these Boards was based
almost entirely on race. These laws also created tuition grant structures which could channel funds
formerly allocated to closed schools to students so they could attend private, segregated schools of their
choice. In practice, this caused the creation of the "segregation academies." Brown v. Board II came about
to promote desegregation by "all deliberate speed."

Evelyn Butts is the

woman on the left
who fought so hard
for our freedom in
Virginia and
throughout the world.

It is no secret that the Virginian state government orchestrated the racist, systematic resistance to federal
court orders that required the end of segregation. The state legislature even enacted a package of laws.
They were called the Stanley plan. These laws wanted to evade racial integration in public schools. Prince
Edward County even closed all of its public schools in an attempt to avoid racial integration. They
relented in the face of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The first black students attended the University of
Virginia School of Law in 1950 and Virginia Tech in 1953. The massive resistance movement was a strategy
declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia (along with his brother in law as the leader of the
Virginia General Assembly named Democrat Delegate James M. Thomson of Alexandria, Virginia). The
resistance plan was about uniting white politicians and leaders in Virginia to create new state laws and
policies to prevent public school desegregation. This came after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme
Court decision of 1954. People fought in the courts from 1957 to 1959. Attorney General James Lindsay
Almond Jr. was part of the Byrd Organization to succeed Stanley. Virginian authorities closed schools in
Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Warren County instead of promoting integration. Many people called for
Almond to reopen the schools. Edward R. Murrow aired a national TV documentary titled, "The Lost
Class of '59" that highlighted the Norfolk, Virginia situation. Nonetheless, Norfolk's government, led by
Mayor Duckworth, attempted to prevent the schools' reopening by financial maneuvering, until the same
3-judge federal panel found again for the plaintiffs. After the federal and state court decisions of January
19, 1959 struck down the new Virginia mandatory closing law, Arlington integrated its Stratford Junior
High School (now called H-B Woodlawn) on February 2, 1959, the same day as Norfolk integrated its
schools. Later, Almond wanted limited desegregation and leaving the burden on black parents (in desiring
"school choice").

Almond's legislative plan barely passed despite the Byrd Organization's opposition. This earned Senator
Byrd's wrath, and after Almond's term expired, Byrd tried to block Almond's appointment as a federal
judge by President John F. Kennedy. Although, Almond was confirmed and served on the U.S. Court of
Customs and Patent Appeals from June 1963 until his death in 1986. Almond followed the Perrow
Commission named after Mosby Perrow Jr. of Lynchburg. He would later be the President of the Virginia
State Board of Education. Prince Edward County schools were still segregated in the 1960's and the 1970's.
In 1986, the Prince Edward Academy accepted black students. It is now the Fuqua School. Public schools
in the Commonwealth's western counties, where there were fewer
black people, were integrated largely without incident in the early
1960's. Charlottesville's Lane High School and Venable Elementary
School both re-opened in February 1959. By the fall of 1960,
NAACP litigation had resulted in some desegregation in eleven
localities, and the number of at least partially desegregated districts
had slowly risen to 20 in the fall of 1961, 29 in the fall of 1962, and 55
(out of 130 school districts) in 1963. However, only 3,700 black
pupils or 1.6% attended school with whites even in 1963. In 1968, the Aline E. Black (1906-1974) was a
U.S. Supreme Court declared that massive resistance to integration civil rights activist and a teacher.
She graduated from Virginia State
was also illegal in Green v. County School Board of New Kent University. She also taught a
County. That decision laid the groundwork for desegregation Norfolk, Virginia’s Booker T.
busing plans that caused controversy in Virginia, but more famously Washington High School in 1924.
She sued in trying to gain a higher
in Boston. In Richmond, integration came about by 1970, while salary. She was once fired unjustly
many whites used white flight to go into schools of different and came back to teaching in 1941.
counties. In 1970, the Norfolk City Public Schools and several other Melvin O. Alston and other teachers
supported her. She taught science
Virginia communities were also subjected to busing schemes, also and worked in then Jacox Junior
returning to more or less neighborhood school plans some years High School. She was active in the
later. NAACP and the Educational
Association of Norfolk. She married
Frank A. Hicks and had one
In 1969, Virginians elected Republican A. Linwood Holton Jr. as daughter. She was buried in Calvary
Governor, who had opposed massive resistance and labeled it "the Cemetery at Norfolk.
state's pernicious anti-desegregation strategy," as governor. The
following year, Gov. Holton placed his children (including future
Virginia First Lady Anne Holton) in Richmond's mostly African-
American public schools, to considerable publicity. He also
increased the number of black human beings and women employed
in the state government and in 1973 created the Virginia Governor's
Schools Program. Furthermore, when Virginia revised its state
constitution in 1971, it included one of the strongest provisions
concerning public education of any state in the country. Vivian Carter Mason (1890-1982)
was born in Wilkes Barre,
Pennsylvania. She worked in
There are tons of civil rights heroes in Virginia. When Barbara Johns Norfolk, Virginia, NYC, and in other
was a teenager, she led a strike at Morton High School in Farmville, places of the world to fight for civil
rights and gender equality. She was
Virginia to promote justice. The Norfolk 17 was about 17 black the president of the NCNW or the
American students who were admitted to Norfolk, Virginia Public National Council of Negro Women
Schools on February 2, 1959. They came into Norview High School. from 1953 to 1957. She created the
Committee of 100 Women. It helped
Some of the Norfolk 17 earned doctorates. Some of their names were underprivileged children of color in
Alvarez Gonsouland and Andrew Heidelberg. Andrew Heidelberg New York City to attend summer
was selected as to serve a two year term as a member of the Brown v. camp for free. She fought for human
rights in Norfolk and Arlington,
Board of Education Scholarship Awards Committee. He was Virginia. She was on many boards
selected by Governor Mark Warner in 2005. He served 2 additional in NYC and Norfolk, Virginia too.
consecutive terms through 2011 by Governor Tim Kaine. He published his own book in 2006. The title of
the book is "The Norfolk 17: A Personal Narrative on Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia in 1958-1962." He
wrote a screenplay in 2009. It was based on the book "The Colored Halfback." He passed away on July 6,
2015 at the age of 71. The Richmond 34 refers to a group of Virginia Union University students who
participated in a nonviolent sit-in at the lunch counter of Thalhimers department store in downtown
Richmond, Virginia. The event was one of many sit-ins to occur throughout the civil rights movement in
the 1960's and was essential to helping desegregate the city of Richmond, Virginia. Evelyn Butts was a key
person in causing a ban of the poll tax in Virginia and nationwide by the 1960's. Butts became involved in
the civil rights movement in the 1950's. During her time as the Oakwood Civic League, she helped create
the Rosemont Middle School in her neighborhood so that children wouldn't have to ride the bus to the
segregated school. In 1960, she was involved in picketing the Be-Lo Supermarket for not employing black
people in higher-level positions. She also protested against black people being told to sit in certain parts of
the football stadium. Butts and her lawyer, Joseph A. Jordan Jr., sued the state of Virginia for requiring the
poll tax, filing in November of 1963. After Butts won the victory of eliminating the poll tax, she worked in
politics until her passing in 1993. In 2017, Butts' daughter, Charlene Butts Ligon, published a book about
her mother called "Fearless: How a Poor Virginia Seamstress Took on Jim Crow, Beat the Poll Tax and
Changed Her City Forever." The New Journal and Guide called the book "thoughtful and information-
filled."

On July 16, 2009, the Richmond Times-Dispatch apologized in an editorial for its role and the role of its
parent company and its sister newspaper, The Richmond News Leader, in championing massive resistance
to human rights, acknowledging that "the Times-Dispatch was complicit" in an "unworthy cause." The
newspaper further says that, "The record fills us with regret, which we have expressed before. Massive
Resistance inflicted pain then. Memories remain painful. Editorial enthusiasm for a dreadful doctrine still
affects attitudes toward the newspaper." In 1963, there were the events of Danville, Virginia. This was
when on May 31, 1963 when representatives of many in the black community protested for their human
rights. There was the Danville Christian Progressive Association. This assembly came into the municipal
building. They wanted desegregated facilities, equal employment opportunities, representation in city
government, and a biracial commission to evaluate racial progress. On June 10, 1963, 60 high school
students marched to the municipal building. The leaders were arrested, the children were assaulted with
high pressure hoses, and many of their clothes were blown off. Cops used nightsticks to arrest many
people. After students called their parents, the parents were unjustly arrested for "contributing to the
delinquency of a minor." The Danville protesters fought and later the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 existed to promote freedom against Jim Crow tyranny. With the events of
Charlottesville, Virginia of 2017, we have a long way to go. Yet, we came a long way from slavery and Jim
Crow too. So, we have to continue to work in the cause of equality, freedom, and justice for all. In 2008,
various actions of the Civil Rights Movement were commemorated by the Virginia's Civil Rights
Memorial in Richmond, Virginia. In this year of 2020, we are still here to proclaim to the inhabitants of
the world that liberty and justice is our goal.

By Timothy