Category: Virginia

  • One man’s quest to preserve the haunting black history of Pocahontas Island The Washington Post 2016-09-26 Gregory S. Schneider POCAHONTAS ISLAND, Va. — He roams from house to house along the quiet streets of this little neighborhood, giving voice to its history and spirits. The collection of modest homes, tucked between an empty lumber factory…

  • The “Birther” Movement: Whites Defining Black Racism Review 2016-09-18 Dr. Terence Fitzgerald, Clinical Associate Professor University of Southern California Hallelujah I say, Hallelujah! Did you hear the news? Did ya? After sending a team of investigators to Hawaii, drawing the attention of the national and international media, and leading an almost six year charge of…

  • Virginia’s Indian tribes clear another hurdle toward federal recognition The Washington Post 2016-09-15 Jenna Portnoy, Reporter A House committee has advanced a bill that would give federal recognition to six Indian tribes in Virginia, bringing them one step closer to the end of a multi-year fight for acknowledgment of their place in the nation’s history.…

  • Historic recognition: Washington’s family tree is biracial U.S. News & World Report 2016-09-17 Matthew Barakat, Northern Virginia Correspondent The Associated Press ZSun-nee Miller-Matema poses for a portrait at Mount Vernon, the plantation home of former U.S. President George Washington, in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, July 18, 2016. Miller-Matema is a descendent of Caroline Branham, one…

  • The Strange and Ironic Fates of Jefferson’s Daughters The Daily Beast 2016-09-17 Sally Cabot Gunning Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast Martha Jefferson was Virginia elite. Her half-sister Harriet, though seven-eighths white, was deemed a slave at birth. No one could have predicted their fates. Martha Jefferson was born in 1772, just as Monticello…

  • The mystery of the Melungeons The Economist 2016-08-24 VARDY, TENNESSEE AND BIG STONE GAP, VIRGINIA The story of an Appalachian people offers a timely parable of the nuanced history of race in America HEAD into Sneedville from the Clinch River, turn left at the courthouse and crawl up Newman’s Ridge. Do not be distracted by…

  • Meet Edith Cumbo, Nation Builder Cumbo Family Website: Exploring Cumbo Family Roots and Branches across Generations 2016-07-24 Andre Kearns Washington, D.C. We celebrated our 2016 Cumbo Family Reunion last weekend July 15-17 in Williamsburg, Virginia. One of the reasons we chose Williamsburg was because Colonial Williamsburg features a historical figure – Edith Cumbo – who…

  • The Agonizing Collision Of Love And Slavery In ‘Thomas Jefferson’ Book Reviews National Public Radio 2016-04-06 Jean Zimmerman Did Thomas Jefferson dream of his enslaved concubine, Sally Hemings? No one knows. Jefferson himself never wrote a word about his constant companion of almost 40 years. But author Stephen O’Connor gives us a brave and wondrous…

  • For Independence Day, a Look at Thomas Jefferson’s Egregious Hypocrisy The Scientific American 2016-07-01 John Horgan “While many of his contemporaries, including George Washington, freed their slaves during and after the revolution—inspired, perhaps, by the words of the Declaration–Jefferson did not,” historian Paul Finkelman writes. “Jefferson also “dodged opportunities to undermine slavery or promote racial…

  • What You Didn’t Know About Loving v. Virginia TIME 2016-06-10 Arica L. Coleman The landmark civil rights Supreme Court case—which made it illegal to ban interracial marriage—was about more than black and white When the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case Loving v. the Commonwealth of Virginia, defendants Richard and Mildred Loving chose not…