Virginia

Can Colonial Williamsburg Do Living History Better?

Historian Karin Wulf argues that the leadership of Colonial Williamsburg has steered an effective course through the conflicting imperatives of nostalgia, heroic storytelling, and the harsh inequalities of the colonial era.   

“Of the East India Breed …”: The First South Asians in British North America

by Brinda Charry

The known records of the first south Asian people in Virginia are not voluminous, but they direct our attention to the complexities of racial identity in early America and the global networks of trade and labor that would make the British Empire. 

Thomas Jefferson's Secret Plan to Whiten Virginia

by Timothy Messer-Kruse

After the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned from the Continental Congress to a seat in the Virginia legislature, where he undertook an ambitious effort to overhaul the laws. His work is an illuminating look at Jefferson's vision of the ideal American republic as a place purged of both slavery and of Black people. 

Restored Thomas Jefferson Estate Shows Handiwork of Enslaved Artisan John Hemings

The third president's house at Poplar Forest was restored based in part on archival correspondence between Jefferson and James Hemings detailing the finish carpentry to be completed. 

Portraits of 19th C. Black Charlottesville Show Life, Joy

The University of Virginia has begun to acknowledge the labors of enslaved people who built the campus. John Edwin Mason is curating an exhibition of photographs commissioned by Black Charlottesvillians showing how they saw themselves. 

Mystery Solved: Student Photographed Integrating Virginia High School in 1962 Identified

A photo used by the school district for years to mark its history didn't identify Robert Christian, then 12 years old, until now. 

New Resources Help Virginians Fill in Hidden Family Histories Including Enslaved Ancestors

“Researchers and librarians would say things like, 'That history just doesn’t exist.' Or, 'We just don’t have those records,'" Lydia Neuroth with the Library of Virginia explained. "But we are realizing we do. We just haven’t done a good job sharing it.”

Beneath the Surface of Virginia's History Standards

by Edward L. Ayers

Virginia's Department of Education has ignored the guidance of historians and educators in revising the state's K-12 history standards. The example of how political appointees treated the role of African Americans in driving the movement for abolition is a telling example of the inadequate history they want to teach.

Third Draft of Virginia History Standards Incorporates Responses to Some Criticisms

After appointees of Glen Younkin rejected the detailed standards developed in consultation with historians, educators and museum professionals in favor of a stripped-down document with little attention to the history minority groups, a new draft has explicitly mandated discussions of racism in the K-12 curriculum. 

Virginia's "Guiding Principles" are a Right-Wing Fantasy of History

by Alan J. Singer

Governor Youngkin's allies on Virginia's commission to review state social studies standards have hijacked the process to advance a right-wing vision of history education in the state that expunges "divisive concepts" from the curriculum. 

The Coles Family Land in Virginia Holds Incredible Uranium Wealth. Do Descendants of People Enslaved There Deserve a Share?

The uranium at Coles Hill is potentially worth billions of dollars. 

Virginia Proposes New Social Studies Standards; Experts Charge Political Motivation

Educators argue that the proposed standards are politically motivated and slant instruction toward right-wing ideological positions. 

New Virginia Governor's Mansion Tour Doesn't Mention Slavery

"In a shift from a multi-year effort to tell a more complete history of the mansion, visitors won’t be taken to a building next to the mansion where enslaved workers once slept and toiled. And in two tours on Friday, docents made no mention of slavery at all."

The Virginia History that Conservatives are Suppressing

by Kevin M. Levin

Conservatives appointed by Glenn Youngkin to the state Board of Education are ignoring the important history of the Readjusters—a biracial party that governed in the tumultuous era between the end of Reconstruction and the consolidation of Jim Crow. Students need to know about them. 

Alexandria, VA Freedom House Museum Reopens, Making Key Site of Slave Trade a Center for Black History

The building, once the headquarters of the Franklin and Armfield firm, once the largest domestic slave traders in the United States, now houses a reopened museum showing the DC area as a key site of Black history before and after emancipation. 

VA Governor Youngkin Faces Second Lawsuit over Tattle-On-A-Teacher Line

A suit filed by American Oversight seeks information from the governor's office about how it has used information from a tip line set up to allow Virginians to report teachers who raised "divisive" concepts in their classes. 

Youngkin's Neoconfederate Nominee to State Historical Board Resigns

Ann Hunter McLean resigned after facing controversy for her remarks about Confederate monuments and the causes of the Civil War. 

Youngkin's Appointee to VA Board of Historical Resources has Opinions about Robert E. Lee and Confederacy

Ann McLean called secession legally valid and compared the Union army to the Russian forces invading Ukraine, while lamenting that Confederate monuments would no longer "tell the true story of the American South to people 500 years from now." 

Teaching Black History in Virginia Just Got Tougher

Glenn Youngkin's attack on "divisive" history lessons clearly put the wishes of conservative whites at the center of the debate about curriculum. Now, a planned change to increase Black history in Virginia schools is on hold and Black students and families ask why their concerns are unheard. 

We Need a National Emancipation Monument at Point Comfort – Where American Slavery Began, and Began to End

by Steven T. Corneliussen

While parts of the site are honored as the Fort Monroe National Monument, Point Comfort should be made a national monument to emancipation.