Edward Gibbon, who wrote “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” seemed to have a particularly sour outlook on his profession. He said that “history is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.” Maybe if you’re writing about the Sack of Rome, that is how you see the world.
Crimes, follies and the misfortunes of mankind are certainly part of history, but there seems no room in Gibbon’s definition for any kind of achievement or celebration of things in our past.
Here’s a more functional definition of history: Which parts of it have we chosen to remember? One way that we in Virginia answer that question is cast in aluminum — the more than 2,900 historical markers erected across Virginia.
For a long time, those markers told only part of our story — the white part. In recent years, Virginia has been on a marker binge to rectify that. In the last five years, 63% of all new markers approved by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources have dealt with Black historical figures. In 2019, the department published its “Guidebook to Virginia’s African American Historical Markers,” which dealt with 309 Black history markers across the state. Since then, Virginia has approved 142 more to bring the total to 451.
Among these are some that we’ve written about: Clifton Forge now has a marker to Roger Arliner Young, a native daughter who went on to become the first Black woman with a doctorate in zoology. Botetourt County has a marker to Norvel Lee, an Olympic gold medalist from the 1950s whose local connections had never been previously recognized in any formal way. Roanoke now has a marker to how the community college system — of which Virginia Western Community College was the first school — grew out of the business community’s opposition to Massive Resistance.
More markers, and more stories, are on the way.
Last week, on the first day of the month we recognize as Black History Month, Cardinal’s Grace Mamon looked at how Virginia is using historical markers to fill in some of those pages of our history that many of us weren’t taught about.
Today, let’s take a look at the markers Virginia doesn’t yet have — but should.
This is by no means a complete list, but it is a list — of 25 Black history markers that Virginia ought to have to tell a more complete version of our history. Most, you’ll see, are from Southwest and Southside since that’s what we cover, but I’ve added in some from other parts of the state that seem deserving. In compiling this list, I’m indebted to Julie Langan and her staff at the Department of Historic Resources for supplying some of these ideas. Also a shout-out to Roanoke historian Nelson Harris, who offered some suggestions that I incorporated.
1. Arthur Ashe
Richmond has a famous statue to the tennis star but, remarkably, no historical marker. Lynchburg can lay claim to Ashe’s legacy, as well. As a youth, he trained in Lynchburg under Walter “Whirlwind” Johnson, who is commemorated with a historical marker in the Hill City.
2. Bob Bowman
This may be my most obscure recommendation of all, but obscurity doesn’t mean he’s any less historic. Bowman was a longtime star in Black baseball leagues across the South, most famously with a barnstorming team known as the Ethiopian Clowns. He was said to have had a “devastating” sidearm delivery. By 1951, he was 45, well past his prime, but still had more zip on the ball than most. That spring, the Middlesboro Athletics, a minor-league team in Middlesboro, Kentucky, just over the mountain from the Cumberland Gap, was hurting for pitching, so much so that the team resorted to what amounted to desperation: They signed Bowman. Bowman was a hometown guy — he was born in Lee County, Virginia, but had grown up in Middlesboro. That meant he was “well-known to local white fans,” according to a historical account by Gary Joseph Cleradkowksi, which might have been a significant factor. On May 8, 1951, Middlesboro signed him just two hours before game time and sent him to the mound that night in relief against the Big Stone Gap Rebels. Word spread quickly and attendance that night was triple the usual gate. Bowman was greeted with “a nice round of applause” each time he struck out a batter. It no doubt helped that Bowman preserved a small lead, with Middlesboro going on to win the game 10-8. With those two innings, Bowman became the first Black player to play in a professional league in the South — assuming you consider Kentucky as part of the South. Kentucky certainly did. Kentucky can claim the event, but Virginia can claim Bowman’s birthplace.
3. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1351
The New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps was segregated. Company 1351 consisted of Black veterans of World War I. Organized at Langley Field in 1933, it was involved in helping to build the National Park Service’s Colonial National Historic Park that consists of the Jamestown settlement, the Yorktown battlefield and the Colonial Parkway that connects them, as well as the Appomattox Court House Historical Park where the Civil War ended. Jamestown, Yorktown, Appomattox — those are three of the biggest place names in American history, and the parks that commemorate them were all built by Black Americans.
4. Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868 and Constitution of 1869
After the Civil War, Congress required the Southern states to write new constitutions before they could be readmitted to the Union. The constitutional convention that met in Richmond in 1867-1868 was a sight Virginia had never seen before: Black men and white men serving together in the same elected body. Of the 104 delegates, 24 were Black, many of them enslaved until just a few years prior. Richmond’s white-owned newspapers ridiculed the body in unsavory terms. The constitution that voters approved was a landmark document: It mandated Virginia’s first public school system. It instituted democracy at the local level, by requiring that boards of supervisors be elected, rather than appointed. It granted Black men the right to vote, although the convention passed on expanding the franchise to women. That constitution became known as the Underwood Constitution, after federal Judge John Underwood, who presided over the convention. It lasted until 1902, when Virginia junked it in favor of a more repressive system of government.
5. The Constitution of 1902.
A brief experiment with a biracial government in the 1880s prompted a white backlash that installed white supremacists — that’s not hyperbole; the Democratic Party in the 1880s openly ran on a platform of white supremacy. After they regained control of the General Assembly in 1883, and the governorship in 1885, those conservative Democrats set about rolling back the civil rights measures of the day and began instituting what came to be called Jim Crow. The logical conclusion of that came in 1902, when the state rewrote its constitution for the express purpose of disenfranchising as many Black voters as possible. In the process, they also eliminated many white voters in Southwest Virginia, but since those voters often went Republican, that was considered an added benefit to the plan. After initially promising to allow voters to weigh in, the constitutional convention reneged on a referendum and simply declared the new constitution in effect. That new constitution had the effect of cutting the state’s electorate in half, and making it easier for a small clique of leaders — the future Byrd Machine — to control the state. That constitution lasted until 1971. Some legacies from that Constitution of 1902: the “constitutional oaks” that were planted in commemoration of the new document in many communities across the state.
6. The Danville Massacre of 1883
That was a pivotal year in Virginia. At the time, the General Assembly and the governorship were held by the Readjuster Party, a short-lived biracial party that had set the state on a path toward an early version of racial reconciliation. The Readjusters founded a Black university (Virginia State), appointed Black officeholders and abolished the whipping post and other laws that were used to target the state’s Black residents. All that racial reconciliation triggered a white backlash, which erupted violently in Danville just days before the 1883 legislative elections. Five people were killed, and the white militia was called out to patrol the streets, effectively preventing Black voters from going to the polls. Inflamed by the riot, voters turned out the Readjusters and set the state on a path that led to the imposition of Jim Crow. A congressional hearing blamed whites in Danville for the massacre but that had no effect; by then, Virginia had turned down the road toward more formal and oppressive segregation. I wrote a column about this event last year on its 140th anniversary.
7. Thomas Downing
Downing was one of the wealthiest people in New York City when he died in 1866; the more fascinating story is how he got that way. Downing was born on Chincoteague Island in 1791. His parents had been enslaved but were granted their freedom, apparently before Downing’s birth. Among other things, they harvested and sold seafood, including oysters. One of Downing’s tutors growing up was Henry Wise, a future governor of Virginia. Downing eventually joined the Army and wound up settling in New York, where he sold oysters on the street. At the time, oysters were considered a common food — and oyster cellars, as oyster bars were known, were notorious for their prostitutes. Downing turned oysters into a delicacy. Familiar with the oyster trade from his youth, he used that background to gain an advantage. He’d buy the best oysters from ship captains before other buyers had arrived. In 1825, he opened the Thomas Downing Oyster House, with fine linens and chandeliers. Situated in the business district, he catered to the city’s elite. An innovator, he added catering and mail orders to his service. In time, Downing became so famous that he was chosen to cater a dinner for the visiting British author Charles Dickens, and even shipped his oysters to Queen Victoria. She wrote him a personal thank you. Downing became a prominent abolitionist and took in runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. When the New York Herald was in danger of going under, Downing helped save it with a $10,000 loan. Downing was known as “the New York Oyster King,” but he was a son of Virginia and we should reclaim his legacy.
Not all Black Virginians before the Civil War were enslaved, as we saw by the example of the Downing family from Accomack County above. According to the 1860 census, only Maryland had more free Black residents than Virginia — there were 58,042 free Black Virginians. The single biggest number was in Dinwiddie County, but those 3,746 free Black residents had to be measured against the 12,774 who were still enslaved in that county. The more interesting county was Accomack, where 43% of the county’s Black residents lived free — 3,418 free and 4,507 enslaved. What made Accomack County unique? That’s worth more research but the basic facts alone merit some recognition.
9. The “maroons” of the Great Dismal Swamp
We remember Harriet Beecher Stowe for her impactful novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” We forget now another novel she wrote which sold even more copies at the time: “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.” Starting in the 1630s, some people escaped slavery in Virginia and made their way to the Great Dismal Swamp, where they set up free settlements in places where whites dared not tread. The fugitive slaves were called “maroons” and there were maroon settlements in isolated places across the South, typically in swamps. In Virginia, that swamp was the Great Dismal Swamp and it may have been the largest “maroonage” anywhere in the United States. By some accounts, maybe 2,000 people were living there. When Nat Turner led the slave rebellion in Southampton County in 1831 that bears his name, the goal was to lead freed slaves into the swamp. During the Civil War, Union troops went into the swamp to liberate the inhabitants. Those who didn’t leave then left after the war. In recent years, the Smithsonian has taken part in research into these settlements in the swamp, but there’s no historical marker.
10. James Hemings
We all know about Sally Hemings (who deserves her own marker); James was her older brother. Born into slavery in Charles City County, he was property of the Wayles family. He came into Thomas Jefferson’s possession through Jefferson’s marriage to Martha Wayles. When Jefferson went to Paris as a diplomat, he took James Hemings, then 19, along with the goal of turning him into a chef. Hemings thus became the first American to train as a chef in Paris, and prepared many of the dinners that Jefferson hosted there. Because France did not allow slavery, Jefferson paid Hemings, although he was always fearful that Hemings might realize he could use his French residency to seek his freedom. When Jefferson returned to the United States and was secretary of state, Hemings was the chef for the famous dinner in New York depicted in the musical “Hamilton” where archrivals Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton work out a deal — Jefferson agrees to Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume state debt while Hamilton agrees to locate the nation’s capital farther south, on the banks of the Potomac. When Jefferson resigned and moved back home, Hemings balked at going with him, so Jefferson agreed to a contract to grant Hemings his freedom after he had trained a replacement. Hemings is credited with introducing many European dishes to the United States, including one that’s usually credited to Jefferson: macaroni and cheese. Jefferson later offered Hemings a position in the White House kitchen, which he declined. Not long after, Hemings committed suicide.
11. Linwood Holton
Holton was the first Republican elected governor of Virginia — in 1969 — but, more importantly, was Virginia’s civil rights governor. He took office just 12 years after Massive Resistance and used his inaugural address to declare “the era of defiance is behind us.” Where another Southern governor had stood in the schoolhouse door to block integration, Holton made a point of escorting one of his daughters to an integrated school. He also became the first governor to appoint a Black adviser to his staff: Roanoke educator Bill Robertson. There are multiple places where a historical marker to Holton could go: in Big Stone Gap, where he was born; in Roanoke, where he practiced law and was living when he was elected governor; in Richmond, the site of the famous photo of him with his daughter. Or, perhaps, all three.
12. Sarah Garland Boyd Jones
She wasn’t simply the first Black woman to pass the state medical exam, she was the first woman to do so, period — and she did this in 1893. Born in Albemarle County just after the Civil War, she grew up in Richmond, where one of her classmates was the famed future banker Maggie Walker. She taught school for a while, married a future teacher and together they went to medical school and opened a hospital in Richmond. Jones is remembered with a statue as part of the women’s memorial on Capitol Square, but as of yet, has no historical marker.
13. Margie Jumper
We all know about Rosa Parks. Thirteen years before Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, Sarah Craig and Mary Walters did the same in Roanoke, in two separate incidents in February 1941. Walters was fined $10 and given a six-month suspended sentence, according to research by Roanoke minister and historian Nelson Harris. Craig’s case was taken under advisement and the charge later dismissed, he found. Neither inspired any larger protest. A more famous case occurred in Roanoke five years later, in 1946. That year Margie Jumper refused to give up her seat and was fined. The main difference between Jumper’s case and Parks’: Jumper’s defiance of segregation didn’t make national news. It did, however, prompt a local discussion about the inequities of the time.
14. Elizabeth Key
When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, they weren’t free, but the legal status of slaves remained murky for years. Key was born about 1630 in what was then Warwick County (and today is Newport News). Her father was a prominent white planter and member of the House of Burgesses, Thomas Key; her mother an African whom Thomas Key owned. At first, Thomas Key denied parentage of the girl, but he later relented, arranged for her baptism and supported her financially. In 1636, Key and his wife prepared to return to England; he arranged for fellow planter Humphrey Higginson to take charge of the girl for nine years (which would make her 15, generally considered the legal age for girls then) with two provisos. If Higginson returned to England during that time, he had to take Elizabeth with him and let her go free; if he died, the girl would also be granted her freedom. As events unfolded, Key himself died, Higginson returned to England but left Elizabeth behind, and she did not go free. She was transferred to another planter, John Mottrom of Northumberland County. Then Mottrom died in 1655, at which time Elizabeth was about 25, and a mother. As Mottrom’s estate was being settled, Elizabeth sued for her freedom, making her one of the first people of African descent to challenge their bondage in court. The local court ruled against her, so she appealed to the General Assembly, the process at the time. She cited two prevailing legal principles of the day: a child’s legal status was determined by that of the father, and no Englishman could enslave a Christian. The General Assembly ruled her in favor. That would seem a great victory except for this: It also helped inspire the legislature to more formally codify slavery, and declare that the mother’s status determined that of the child — and that baptism as a Christian did not free someone from slavery.
15. John Mercer Langston and the disputed election of 1888
He was the first president of Virginia State University and later the state’s first Black congressman, elected in 1888, long after Reconstruction had formally ended. Virginia already has a historical marker to Langston; it’s near his birthplace in Louisa County. What the state doesn’t have is a marker that goes into more detail about that election of 1888 in Southside Virginia — or, should we say, that disputed election. The present historical marker just says Langston was elected; there’s only so much room. There’s a lot more that can be said about that election, though. The Democratic candidate initially won and was seated, but House Republicans, then in the majority, later voted to unseat Ed Venable and seat Langston instead. It was, at the time, a major controversy.
16. Reuben Lawson
Lawson was a prominent civil rights lawyer in Roanoke in the 1950s and early ’60s. He was involved in lawsuits that forced six different localities in the western part of the state to adhere to the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and integrate: in Floyd County, Grayson County, Lynchburg, Pulaski County, Roanoke and Roanoke County. He also figured in a case of national importance: He was involved in forcing Roanoke to integrate Victory Stadium for an NFL preseason game in 1961, which brought an end to NFL teams playing before segregated crowds in the South. Former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick of Roanoke has called Lawson “a forgotten civil rights titan” and has pushed to rename the federal courthouse in Roanoke after him. U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both D-Virginia, have introduced legislation to do that, although the bill’s prospects in the House seem bleak. In any case, however you feel about renaming things, Lawson deserves a historical marker.
17. Norton Little League
Norton fielded its first Little League teams in 1951. What was historic is that they were integrated teams — the first integrated Little League in the South, four years before an Orlando team that mistakenly claims the honor. Later that summer, the Norton all-star team (which included two Black players) was set to play Charlottesville for the state championship. The game was supposed to be in Charlottesville, but Charlottesville refused to host an integrated team. The game got shifted to Norton instead, where the new home team trounced the visitors 12-3. A local historical marker to Norton’s landmark status was erected in 2022, but there’s still nothing like an official state historical marker.
18. Harry Penn
The Roanoke dentist was appointed to the Roanoke School Board in 1948, making him the first Black school board member in the state — and, by some accounts, the first in the South. He also founded a dressmaking company with the goal of providing more employment opportunities for Black women in Roanoke. At its height, the company hired 55 people, two-thirds of them Black, but later went under. Penn was also part of the biracial committee that quietly oversaw Roanoke’s integration. Penn Hall at Roanoke’s Patrick Henry High School is named in his honor.
19. Adam Clayton Powell Sr.
Those of a certain age may remember Powell’s son, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a prominent — and controversial — congressman from New York who served from 1945 to 1971. This isn’t him. This is his father, who was famous in his own right. This Powell was born in Franklin County less than a month after the end of the Civil War and went on to become pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York. For a time, it was the largest Protestant church in the United States, and Powell was a riveting minister of the gospel in the first third of the 1900s. One parishioner is said to have remarked: “When as a child I first saw him I thought he was God.” From that pulpit, Powell became a national figure for civil rights. He helped found the National Urban League and served on the trustee of several Black schools, including Virginia Union University.
Roanoke has a different integration story than many Southern cities. A committee of 14 prominent members of the community — seven white, seven Black — formed quietly and often met secretly. Together, they organized the integration of Roanoke. The white business leaders pressured certain businesses to integrate on certain dates; the Black leaders supplied people willing to be the first customers. The result: Roanoke integrated without the unrest that rocked many Southern cities. The full story of the committee’s work was not told until The Roanoke Times reported it in the early 1980s, two decades after the fact.
21. Bill Robertson
First a teacher in Roanoke and later a school administrator, Robertson is best known for being named to Gov. Linwood Holton’s staff in 1970 — the first Black adviser to a Virginia governor. In that role, he helped oversee the integration of state agencies that had previously resisted hiring Black employees; in particular, he recruited the state’s first Black state troopers. As he told the story in his memoir, Holton asked the state police commander why there were no Black troopers, and was told they had no qualified applicants. Robertson spent a month recruiting, and his first recruits passed the exam. Still, they weren’t hired. Holton asked why, and was told there were no openings. Holton made it clear that if those applicants weren’t hired immediately he’d be looking for a new state police commander.
Robertson went on to serve on a committee for mental disabilities under Richard Nixon, worked for the Peace Corps under presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, was deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Ronald Reagan, and co-chaired a task force under George H.W. Bush — five presidents in all. His memoir, “Lifting Every Voice,” was published in 2022 by the University of Virginia Press. The new city school administration building in Roanoke, the former Roanoke Times office, is now named after him.
22. Cesar Tarrant
Tarrant was born into slavery around 1740, probably in Hampton, and became skilled as a river pilot. When the American Revolution broke out, he wound up in Virginia’s small navy — one of at least 72 Black sailors, some enslaved, some free. Tarrant distinguished himself in battle, so much so that after the war the Virginia General Assembly purchased his freedom. Today, there’s a school in Hampton named after Tarrant. If his name sounds familiar, it’s likely because you read about him recently as part of our Cardinal 250 project on the lead-up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
23. and 24. Noel Taylor and Lawrence Davis
Roanoke remembers Taylor in two ways: as the city’s first Black mayor and also as a beloved figure whose name is now affixed to multiple civic buildings. What we often overlook is that the pastor of High Street Baptist Church wasn’t just Roanoke’s first Black mayor, he was Virginia’s first Black mayor (at least since Reconstruction; I can’t speak to that era). In 1970, Taylor — a Republican of the old mountain-valley Republican era — became the first Black candidate elected to the city council. He became so popular that by 1975 he was vice mayor. Then on Oct. 18 that year, Mayor Roy Webber died. That put Taylor in line to become mayor. The following year he was elected mayor in his own right in a white-majority city. Lawrence Davis of Fredericksburg was elected mayor at the same time in 1976, so together they became the first Black mayors elected in Virginia, so perhaps they both deserve markers, although Taylor was already in office. He went on to serve 17 years as mayor, 22 years in office altogether. He remains Roanoke’s longest-serving mayor.
25. Victory Stadium
In 1961, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Colts played a preseason game in Roanoke’s Victory Stadium (at a time when there were no NFL teams between Washington and Dallas, so the league often played preseason games in the South). Virginia law at the time required that seating be segregated. The Roanoke NAACP, represented by Roanoke attorney Reuben Lawson, filed suit but it sat in court, unheard. With the game approaching, the NAACP tried another tack: It sent telegrams to all the Black players and asked them to boycott the game if Victory Stadium wasn’t integrated. That precipitated a crisis that went all the way to the NFL’s new commissioner, Pete Rozelle. (I wrote about this when I was with The Roanoke Times, so I happily send you there for more background.) The short version: Roanoke agreed to look the other way and ignore state law, and the NFL never again played before a segregated crowd.
Finally, perhaps the most important of all: Most historical markers are nominated by outside groups and approved by the state with the expectation that some local group will raise the approximately $3,500 to pay for and erect the marker — so if you want to see some of these markers (or any others), it’s up to you to initiate the process, not the state.
