Virginia will soon be erecting new roadside history markers for sites involving the state’s African American people. You can read the full list here.
Here is what the Civil War/Reconstruction markers will say as well as their sponsors and locations:
Charlotte Harris Lynched, 6 March 1878
Sponsor: Northeast Neighborhood Association (NENA)
Locality: Harrisonburg
Proposed Location: Court Square
Charlotte Harris Lynched, 6 March 1878, City of Harrisonburg
About a dozen disguised people took Charlotte Harris from the custody of jailers in eastern Rockingham County on the night of 6 March 1878 and hanged her from a tree approximately 13 miles southeast of here. This is the only documented lynching of an African American woman in Virginia, and it received nationwide attention. A grand jury that met here failed to identify any of the lynchers. Harris had been accused of inciting a young African American man to burn the barn
of a white farmer. This man was later acquitted on all charges. More than 4,000 lynchings took place in the United States between 1877 and 1950; more than 100 people, primarily African American men, were lynched in Virginia.
Bristow
Sponsor: Jim Caldwell
Locality: Clarke County
Proposed Location: Near intersection of Shepherds Mill and Castleman Roads
Bristow, Clarke County
The African American community of Bristow originated in 1869 when Brister (or Bristol) Holmes purchased land near here. A public school (ca. 1883) and Bethel Baptist Church (ca. 1928) became centers of community life. Emancipated African Americans, exercising their newfound autonomy, established or settled in nearly 20 villages across Clarke County after the Civil War. Almost half of Clarke’s population had been enslaved in 1860, a much higher percentage than in other Shenandoah Valley counties, reflecting this area’s Tidewater-style plantation economy. Freedom for African Americans therefore led to a substantial reconfiguration of the county’s settlement patterns and built environment.
Spy Hill African American Cemetery
Sponsor: Blanche M. Simmons
Locality: King George County
Proposed Location: Rte. 218
Spy Hill African American Cemetery, King George County
John Washington, great-grandfather of George Washington, acquired the plantation later known as Spy Hill by 1675 and left it to his son Lawrence, grandfather of the president. The property passed from the Washington family to Col. Thomas B. B. Baber in 1828. Enslaved African Americans who labored at Spy Hill were buried in a cemetery established here by the mid-19th century. After emancipation, the black community continued to use the cemetery until the mid20th century. Although more than a hundred people are interred here, including members of the Gray, Jackson, Lucas, Peyton, Thompson, and Washington families, few grave markers survive.
Sunset Hill School
Sponsor: Queen Street-Sunset Hill Alumni
Locality: Town of Strasburg
Proposed Location: 348 Sunset Street, Strasburg
Sunset Hill School, Town of Strasburg
The Queen Street School, one of the first schools in Shenandoah County for African Americans, had opened in Strasburg by 1875. After a fire in 1929, a new school known as Sunset Hill was built here ca. 1930 to serve grades 1-7. Because the county had no high school for African American students, graduates had to go elsewhere to attend higher grades. African American residents petitioned for better facilities, and the school board considered building a new segregated elementary school as late as 1962, eight years after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that public school segregation was unconstitutional. Sunset Hill closed in 1964 when Shenandoah County schools were fully desegregated.
Central Lunatic Asylum
Sponsor: Central State Hospital
Locality: City of Richmond
Proposed Location: Corner of Fairmount and 20th Street
Central Lunatic Asylum, City of Richmond Howard’s Grove was a 19th-century recreational retreat near Richmond before becoming a Confederate hospital in 1862. After the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau operated a hospital
here for African Americans suffering from mental disorders, ill health, or homelessness. In Dec. 1869 the federal government transferred the facility to the state as an asylum exclusively for the “colored insane,” making it the nation’s first stand-alone mental hospital for black patients. Organized as a state institution in 1870, the Central Lunatic Asylum moved to Dinwiddie County in 1885, was renamed Central State Hospital in 1894, and was desegregated in 1967.
Central State Hospital Cemetery
Sponsor: Central State Hospital
Locality: Dinwiddie County
Proposed Location: Seventh Avenue, on the campus of Central State Hospital
Central State Hospital Cemetery, Dinwiddie County
This cemetery is the final resting place for thousands of patients treated at the nation’s first stand-alone psychiatric hospital for African Americans, originally known as the Central Lunatic Asylum and later renamed Central State Hospital. The asylum, which became a state institution in 1870, moved here from a location near Richmond in 1885. Deceased patients were interred in this burial ground from the mid-1880s until a new cemetery opened a short distance southeast of here in 1939. In some years during this period, more than 10 percent of the hospital’s patients
died. Graves were originally marked with small stones that deteriorated over time.
Little Zion Baptist Church
Sponsor: Little Zion Baptist Church
Locality: Orange County
Proposed Location: 15116 Tomahawk Creek Road
Little Zion Baptist Church, Orange County
At the end of the Civil War, African Americans constituted a majority of the congregation at the white-led Zion Baptist Church, organized nearby in 1813. Exercising newfound autonomy after emancipation, black members withdrew and established Little Zion Baptist Church ca. 1870. The congregation first met in members’ houses and then worshiped under a brush arbor before building a frame sanctuary on land donated by the Rev. Allen Banks, the church’s second pastor.
Many of the early members resided in Goffney Town, Little Egypt, and Little Zion, communities of freedpeople in this vicinity. The congregation moved into a new sanctuary here, 0.3 mile north of the old church, in 2001.
Stingray Point Contraband
Sponsor: Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Virginia
Locality: Middlesex County
Proposed Location: Route 33, 1.8 miles west of the original Stingray Point Lighthouse
Stingray Point Contraband, Middlesex County
Six enslaved men (Alexander Franklin, David Harris, John Hunter, Miles Hunter, Peter Hunter, and Samuel Hunter), fearing impressment into Confederate service, sought refuge in the Stingray Point Lighthouse near here on 15 July 1861 and hailed the USS Mount Vernon. Similar escapes followed. The U.S. Secretary of the Navy, following the contraband theory established at Fort Monroe, authorized the employment of self-emancipated men and, in Sept. 1861, approved their enlistment in the U.S. Navy, nearly a year before black men could enlist in the U.S. Army. After
serving in the Navy, Harris is the only one of the six men known to have returned to this community, where he had been enslaved.
The African Preacher (ca. 1746-1843)
Sponsor: James Larry Williamson
Locality: Nottoway County
Proposed Location: Route 630, just south of intersection with Route 615, Crewe
The African Preacher (ca. 1746-1843), Nottaway County
Nearby lived John Stewart, also known as Jack, the African Preacher, who won renown as a minister and biblical scholar. Kidnapped from Africa as a child, he was brought to Nottoway County as a slave in the mid-18th century. The preaching of Presbyterian clergymen drew him to Christianity. Taught to read by his owner’s children, he immersed himself in the Bible and became a licensed Baptist preacher. His wisdom and oratory made him a leader of the black community and so impressed his white neighbors that they contributed toward the purchase of
his freedom. Prominent religious journals published stories about Stewart, and he was the subject of a biography titled The African Preacher (1849).
Westwood Baptist Church
Sponsor: Westwood Baptist Church
Locality: City of Richmond
Proposed Location: Patterson Avenue at intersection with Glenburnie Road
Westwood Baptist Church, City of Richmond
This church traces its origins to 1872, when a group of formerly enslaved African Americans began meeting for Bible study at the home of Robert Pemberton. In 1876, the congregation’s trustees purchased a half-acre lot here for $25 for the Westwood Colored Baptist Church. The Rev. George Daggett, first pastor, served for two decades. Early baptisms took place in nearby Jordan’s Branch. A vibrant African American community, originally in Henrico County and later annexed by the City of Richmond, developed around the church. Many 20th-century pastors graduated from the Virginia Union University seminary. Their oratorical skills and political
leadership fostered a thriving church.
Sgt. William H. Carney (1840-1908)
Sponsor: Governor
Locality: City of Norfolk
Proposed Location: TBD
Sgt. William H. Carney (1840-1908)
William Carney, born into slavery in Norfolk, gained his freedom and settled in New Bedford, MA, ca. 1856. He enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Vol. Infantry Regt. in Feb. 1863, shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation authorized African American men to serve in combat in the U.S. Army, and was soon promoted to sergeant. On 18 July 1863, as the 54th led an attack on Fort Wagner near Charleston, SC, Carney retrieved the American flag from the regiment’s wounded color guard. Under heavy fire, he carried the flag to the fort’s parapet and then, despite serious wounds, withdrew it when his unit was pushed back. For this action Carney received the Medal of Honor on 23 May 1900
Here is the full text of all of the signs.
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