http://encyclopediavirginia.org http://encyclopediavirginia.org/img/EV_Logo_sm.gif This is the url http://encyclopediavirginia.org The first and ultimate online reference work about the Commonwealth /Negro_Organization_Society Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:50 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Negro_Organization_Society Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:50 EST]]> /Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST]]> /Cox_Earnest_Sevier_1880-1966 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:10:34 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cox_Earnest_Sevier_1880-1966 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:10:34 EST]]> /Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST]]> /Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST]]> /Maggie_Lena_Walker_1864-1934 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:13:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Maggie_Lena_Walker_1864-1934 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:13:07 EST]]> /Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST]]> /Confederate_Battle_Flag Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:25:05 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Confederate_Battle_Flag Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:25:05 EST]]> /Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST]]> /Edmunds_Murrell_1898-1981 Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:53:31 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Edmunds_Murrell_1898-1981 Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:53:31 EST]]> /Racial_Integrity_Laws_of_the_1920s Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Racial_Integrity_Laws_of_the_1920s Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST]]> /Ku_Klux_Klan_in_Virginia Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:49:46 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Ku_Klux_Klan_in_Virginia Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:49:46 EST]]> /Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and president of Washington College in Lexington until his death in 1870, is one of the most revered figures in American history. Lee's place in history is complicated, however, and the way that he has been remembered has changed over time. During his own life, Lee modeled himself after the courtly and self-controlled George Washington and cultivated a sense of himself as a character in a drama and a prisoner of fate. After his death, Lee was less likely to be branded a traitor; instead, he became a symbol of the Lost Cause interpretation of the war, transformed into a crucial agent of sectional reconciliation. The Civil War, according to the Lost Cause, was not about slavery but about states' rights and, ultimately, the honor and bravery of white soldiers on both sides. In this regard, Lee served the needs of not just the Confederacy or of the South, but of all America. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged historians to engage a broader social and political canvas when writing about Lee, and this has led some scholars to challenge traditional conclusions about Lee's significance and meaning. Like Washington, Lee is the seminal figure in a transformational moment, but of a different sort. He is the symbol of a vision that failed, and yet also the redeemer of a cause that has lived a long and often tragic afterlife.
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST]]> /Antilynching_Law_of_1928 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:32:24 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Antilynching_Law_of_1928 The Virginia Anti-Lynching Law of 1928, signed by Virginia governor Harry Flood Byrd Sr. on March 14, 1928, was the first measure in the nation that defined lynching specifically as a state crime. The bill's enactment marked the culmination of a campaign waged by Louis Isaac Jaffé, the editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, who responded more forcefully than any other white Virginian to an increase in mob violence in the mid-1920s. Jaffé's efforts, however, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1929, came to fruition only after the state's political and business leadership recognized that mob violence was a threat to their efforts to attract business and industry. Ironically, no white person was ever convicted of lynching an African American under the law.
Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:32:24 EST]]> /Loving_v_Virginia_1967 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Loving_v_Virginia_1967 In the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning interracial marriages in the United States. At one time, as many as forty-one states had such prohibitions. Virginia's law had been passed in 1691 and, after being amended several times, reached its final version in the Racial Integrity Act, passed by the Virginia General Assembly on March 20, 1924. Although every state with such a law banned marriage between a white person and an African American, some laws, including Virginia's, went further and prohibited marriage between whites and other non-white ethnic groups such as Asians and Native Americans. Loving v. Virginia was a landmark case, both in the history of race relations in the United States and in the ongoing political and cultural dispute over the proper definition of marriage.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST]]> /Massive_Resistance Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance Massive Resistance was a policy adopted in 1956 by Virginia's state government to block the desegregation of public schools mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Advocated by U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., a conservative Democrat and former governor who coined the term, Massive Resistance reflected the racial views and fears of Byrd's power base in Southside Virginia as well as the senator's reflexive disdain for federal government intrusion into state affairs. When schools were shut down in Front Royal in Warren County , Charlottesville , and Norfolk to prevent desegregation, the courts stepped in and overturned the policy. In the end, Massive Resistance added more bitterness to race relations already strained by the resentments engendered by the caste system and delayed large-scale desegregation of Virginia's public schools for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Virginia's defiance served as an example for the states of the Lower South, and the legal vestiges of Massive Resistance lasted until early in the 1970s.
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST]]> /Harrison_Burton_Mrs_1843-1920 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Harrison_Burton_Mrs_1843-1920 Mrs. Burton Harrison, also known as Constance Cary Harrison, was a prolific American novelist late in the nineteenth century who came from a prominent Virginia family. As a young woman, she witnessed the destruction of the American Civil War (1861–1865) and nursed the Confederate wounded in Manassas and Richmond. After the war, Harrison toured Europe, eventually married, and settled down in New York City. She was active in elite New York society and produced a large body of work, much of it popular serialized fiction and sentimental romance, in which she recorded the social mores of her time. The author of more than fifty works, including short stories, articles and essays, children's books, and short plays, she is best known for her 1911 autobiography, Recollections Grave and Gay.
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST]]> /Danville_Civil_Rights_Demonstrations_of_1963 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Danville_Civil_Rights_Demonstrations_of_1963 The Danville civil rights demonstrations began peacefully late in May 1963 when local civil rights leaders organized demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches to protest segregation in all spheres, but especially in municipal government, employment, and public facilities. As protests accelerated, however, white authorities responded early in June with tough legal stratagems and violence, attacking demonstrators with clubs and fire hoses. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) all sent state and national leaders to Danville to assist the African American protesters, but to little avail. The legal resistance displayed by authorities—injunctions, ordinances, and court procedures condemned by the U.S. Justice Department—proved so effective and unyielding that protests were stymied, resulting in few immediate gains for African Americans.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST]]> /Wilson_Woodrow_1856-1924 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:26:12 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Wilson_Woodrow_1856-1924 Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University (1902–1910), governor of New Jersey (1911–1913), twenty-eighth president of the United States (1913–1921), and creator of the League of Nations. Although he was sometimes caricatured as a northern academic, Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, and considered himself to be southern. As such, he was the first southerner elected president since Zachary Taylor in 1848, and brought to the office a progressive zeal for reform, both economic and social, as well as the typical mindset of the southern white political class, which considered African Americans second-class citizens, that contributed to his decision strictly to segregate the federal workforce. He is perhaps best known for leading the United States into the World War I (1914–1918), despite an election vow to do otherwise, and for helping to negotiate the resulting Treaty of Versailles. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:26:12 EST]]> /Smith_Howard_Worth_1883-1976 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:43:49 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Smith_Howard_Worth_1883-1976 Howard W. Smith, a Virginia Democratic congressman, was one of America's most powerful politicians from the New Deal to the Great Society. A master obstructionist who chaired the House Rules Committee, he used his power to fight the liberal agendas of presidential administrations from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson. He was particularly concerned about the influence of Communists and wrote the Alien Registration Act of 1940, legislation that eventually paved the way for government targeting of radicals during the Cold War. He also saw Communism at the heart of the civil rights movement and attempted to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by introducing an amendment to include women under its provisions. Ironically, this helped the measure pass and stands as an important part of Smith's legacy.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:43:49 EST]]> /Muse_Benjamin_1898-1986 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:50:04 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Muse_Benjamin_1898-1986 Benjamin Muse, a journalist based in Manassas, Virginia, emerged as one of the state's most prominent white liberals during the period of the Massive Resistance movement, which opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregation in public schools, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Through a weekly column in the Washington Post, Muse criticized what he perceived to be the undemocratic practices of the Byrd Organization, the Virginia political machine led by U.S. senator and former governor Harry F. Byrd Sr., a Democrat. Muse also charged that Massive Resistance represented a desperate gamble by rural leaders to preserve the state's one-party system. Throughout the five-year crisis, Muse insisted that Virginia must comply with the Supreme Court's ruling, and he championed the efforts of white moderates and liberals from the cities and suburbs who opposed the state's plan, which amounted to abandoning public education rather than accepting any degree of racial integration. In 1959, after federal and state courts invalidated Virginia's school-closing scheme, Muse became the director of the Southern Leadership Project in order to spread the message of compliance with Brown to other states across the region.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:50:04 EST]]> /Morgan_v_Virginia Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Morgan_v_Virginia Morgan v. Virginia is an often-overlooked landmark case of the civil rights movement. Decided on June 3, 1946, nearly a decade before Rosa Parks challenged segregated seating on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case struck down Virginia's law requiring racial segregation in interstate public transportation.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST]]> /Hancock_Gordon_Blaine_1884-1970 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Hancock_Gordon_Blaine_1884-1970 Gordon Blaine Hancock was a professor at Virginia Union University, pastor of Moore Street Baptist church in Richmond , and a leading spokesman for African American equality in the generation before the civil rights movement. Hancock co-founded the Richmond chapter of the Urban League and wrote newspaper columns for the Associated Negro Press, advising his mostly black audience on how to get by in tough times while still taking principled stands against segregation. His work with the Virginia Interracial Commission and the Southern Regional Council also suggested his willingness to be both outspoken and pragmatic in the midst of the fight against segregation—a fight, he wrote, that must be won "if the Negro is to survive."
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST]]> /Desegregation_in_Higher_Education Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Desegregation_in_Higher_Education The desegregation of higher education in Virginia was the result of a long legal and social process that began after the American Civil War (1861–1865) and did not end before the 1970s. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public accommodations for blacks and whites were constitutional in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the court established a sturdy legal basis for segregation. This ruling encouraged the Jim Crow era of legalized discrimination against blacks in the south. But the terminology of "separate but equal" eventually also created an opening for African Americans to demand educational opportunities and facilities equal to those available to whites. Educational opportunities for blacks were vastly inferior to whites, and segregation in higher education was entrenched in Virginia through World War II (1941–1945). But during the 1950s and 1960s, the first black students entered various graduate programs at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary, then undergraduate engineering programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Virginia, and finally general undergraduate programs at all historically white colleges and universities. In 1935 Alice Jackson failed to win admission to a graduate program at the University of Virginia, but Gregory Swanson, with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a ruling from a federal court, gained admission to the university's law school in 1950. Admittance into programs did not mean an immediate end to unfair and unequal treatment on campus, but by 1972 black students were able to enroll in Virginia in any curriculum and also live and eat in campus facilities.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST]]> /Defenders_of_State_Sovereignty_and_Individual_Liberties Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Defenders_of_State_Sovereignty_and_Individual_Liberties Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST]]> /Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:33:43 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950 Luther Porter Jackson was an African American historian and one of Virginia's most important civil rights activists of the 1930s and 1940s. He was a professor of history at Virginia State College in Petersburg for nearly thirty years and authored Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860 (1942), research that challenged stereotypes of antebellum blacks. Jackson was perhaps most important, however, as a political and social activist. He helped found the Petersburg League of Negro Voters in 1935, wrote a weekly newspaper column titled "Rights and Duties in a Democracy," and worked to challenge segregation in Richmond's public transit system.
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