Browse Items (83 total)

Located in the Accomack County court records from 1758 is this advertisement for a fugitive enslaved person named Will. Prominent Richmond County planter Landon Carter placed the ad. Carter enslaved hundreds of adults and children on his plantation.…

Gerard Mercator (1512–1594) was born in Flanders, now known as Belgium. The son of a shoemaker, he graduated in 1532 from the University of Louvain, where he studied astronomy, geography, and mathematics. Afterwards he worked as a calligrapher,…

In December 1833, a group of about sixty Black and white men met in Philadelphia and organized the American Anti-Slavery Society to seek the immediate emancipation of enslaved people. The Society viewed slavery as a violation of the principle of…

By 1775, approximately half a million enslaved Americans were living in the thirteen colonies. Thousands of Black Americans participated in the American Revolution. Some joined the British while others fought with the Americans, depending on whom…

This application for a marriage license was used after Virginia's General Assembly passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924. On the form, individuals had to indicate that he or she was not "a habitual criminal, idiot, imbecile, hereditary epileptic or…

In March 1865, before the Civil War had ended, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (generally known as the Freedmen’s Bureau) to supervise matters related to freed people as well as to distribute land "abandoned" by…

Arthur Robert Ashe was one of the greatest tennis players in American history and a noted human rights activist. He was the first and to date is the only Black man to win the singles title in three Grand Slam tennis events--the U.S. Open (1968), the…

“At the Mercy of the Deluge” by artist George H, Ben Johnson was published in the Richmond Planet on July 19, 1919. A mail carrier and an artist, he began publishing editorial cartoons in the Richmond Planet in 1918. His cartoons appeared weekly in…

After the Civil War, Virginia and other Confederate states were required by Congress to write new state constitutions in order for their representatives to be seated in Congress. Virginia's convention met from December 3, 1867 to April 17, 1868, and…

After the Civil War, Black Virginians faced both opportunities and challenges. State law segregated public schools. As a result, a class of Black educators emerged to become leaders not only of their schools, but also of their communities whose…