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Patrick Henry

Did Patrick Henry Really Say ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’?

The Virginia delegate may have spoken those words on March 23, 1775, but some historians doubt it.
A drawing of Confederate soldiers on horseback violently forcing Black people to walk south.

After Confederate Forces Took Their Children, These Black Mothers Fought to Reunite Their Families

Confederates kidnapped free Black people to sell into slavery. After the war, two women sought help from high places to track down their lost loved ones.
The State Capitol building in Richmond, Va.
partner

Debt Has Long Been a Tool for Limiting Black Freedom

In pre-Civil War Richmond, Black people were forced to literally pay for the mechanisms of white supremacy.
Ginger R. Stephens (center), a Virginia leader of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, joined other celebrants at a 2018 commemoration of Jefferson Davis’s birthday.

Yes, They’re Pro-Confederacy. But They’re Just the Nicest Ladies!

You can call the United Daughters of the Confederacy a lot of things. But racist? Why, some of their best friends…
Above view of residential areas in Richmond, Virginia.

How the Former Confederate Capital Slashed Black Voting Power, Overnight

Did Richmond violate the Voting Rights Act by adding thousands of White residents? The historic Supreme Court case foreshadowed today’s gerrymandering fights.
Women looting a bakery during the Richmond Bread Riot.

What Happened at the Richmond Bread Riot?

The Richmond Bread Riot broke out during the Civil War when working-class women in the South became fed up with food shortages.
The statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill was taken down Dec. 12. Hill’s remains beneath it are set to be relocated.

Richmond Takes Down Its Last Major City-Owned Confederate Memorial

Richmond's last major Confederate memorial on city property, a statue of Gen. A.P. Hill, was taken down Monday morning.
Railroad Station next to a single track

“For the Purpose of Appointing Vigilance Committees:” Fearing Abolitionists in Central Virginia

Newspaper announcements from 1859 reveal how some Richmond slaveholders organized to protect the institution of slavery.
Illustration of the shadow of Mary Lumpkin over the blueprint of Virginia Union University

The Enslaved Woman Who Liberated a Slave Jail and Transformed It Into an HBCU

Forced to bear her enslaver's children, Mary Lumpkin later forged her own path to freedom.
Vintage homepathic medicines

In the 1800s, Valentine’s Meant a Bottle of Meat Juice

An act of love in the form of a medicinal tonic.
partner

Burden of Richmond Evictions Weighs Heaviest in Black Neighborhoods

An eviction moratorium has slowed filings in cities like Richmond, but it hasn’t stopped them, and Black tenants are at highest risk.
A street in the 1940s with cars parked in front of a food market and a barber shop.

Planned Destruction

A brief history on land ownership, valuation and development in the City of Richmond and the maps used to destroy black communities.
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A Public Calamity

The ways that authorities in Richmond, Virginia, responded to the 1918 Flu offer a lens onto what – and who – was most valued by those in power there.

Richmond Rising

African Americans and the mobilization of the Confederate capital.
Open field by a highway.

The Departed and Dismissed of Richmond

Richmond has a long-forgotten graveyard that is the resting place for hundreds of slaves. Will a new railway be built over it?

The True History of the South Is Not Being Erased

Taking down Confederate monuments helps confront the past, not obscure it.

What Richmond Has Gotten Right About Interpreting its Confederate History

Why hasn't Richmond faced the same controversies as New Orleans or Charlottesville?

“Richmond Reoccupied by Men Who Wore the Gray”

In 1890, the former Confederate capital erected a monument to Robert E. Lee-and reasserted white supremacy.

George Floyd and the Writing of the Final Chapter of Richmond's Confederate Monuments

Do we as Americans have the strength to confront our complicated past?
An 1851 painting of Patrick Henry speaking to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Discover Patrick Henry’s Legacy, Beyond His Revolutionary ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ Speech

Delivered 250 years ago, the famous oration marked the Henry’s influence. The politician also served in key roles in Virginia’s state government.
Aerial view of big buildings, wide roads, open parking lots, and affordable housing from "Project One" in Newport, Virginia.

Urban Renewal in Virginia

Urban landscapes and communities all across the state of Virginia still bear the scars of urban renewal.
Political cartoon of Trump praying at the foot of a Jefferson Davis statue.

What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President

After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, was to be tried for treason. Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump?
Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust in 2009.

The Bleak, All But-Forgotten World of Segregated Virginia

Former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust’s extraordinary memoir recalls painful memories for her--and me.
original

Edgar Allan Poe’s America

Tracing the life of the author who seemed to be from both everywhere and nowhere.
Demonstrators hold Confederate flags near the monument for Confederacy President Jefferson Davis  in Richmond, Va., after it was spray-painted with the phrase "Black Lives Matter."

Confederate Monuments Caused Voting Decline In Black Areas

As Confederate monuments were erected, people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.
Illustration of Black fugitives fleeing slavery on the Underground Railroad

How Some Enslaved Black People Found Freedom in Southern Slaveholding States

Instead of using the Underground Railroad as a route north, thousands of enslaved Black people fled to communities in the South.
Portrait of Aaron Burr, an American politician and lawyer who was the third vice president of the United States, serving during Thomas Jefferson's first term (1801-1805).

A Former Vice President Was Tried For Treason For an Insurrection Plot

Aaron Burr was the highest-ranking official to stand trial for treason, which some people have invoked now amid probes into ex-president Donald Trump.
Lumpkin’s Jail; engraving from A History of the Richmond Theological Seminary, 1895

A Fable of Agency

Kristen Green’s "The Devil’s Half Acre" recounts the story of a fugitive slave jail, and the enslaved woman, Mary Lumpkin, who came to own it.
Henry James; illustration by James McMullan

Visions of Waste

"The American Scene" is Henry James’s indictment of what Americans had made of their land.
Vintage drawing of a rural area with snowfall. In the foreground, two horses are pulling a man in a cart on the snowy road.

Cox’s Snow and the Persistence of Weather Memory

One of the worst snowstorms recorded in Virginia’s history began on Sunday, January 17, 1857. It remained in Virginians' collective memories eighty years later.

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