Our look at African-American Virginia History begins with two general surveys, “‘Don’t Grieve After Me’: The Black Experience in Virginia, 1619-1986” and the earlier WPA Virginia Writer’s Project reprint, “The Negro in Virginia”. Two complementary volumes on politics, both published by the UVA Press, but half a century apart follow, “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902”, and “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902-1965”. “Race Relations in Virginia, 1870-1902” examines political exclusion and segregation. “Blue Laws and Black Codes” explains Virginia’s legal challenges to segregation in the 20th century.
For other general surveys of Virginia and ethnic histories, see the Virginia Historian webpage on Virginia History Surveys.
“Don’t Grieve After Me”
“Don’t Grieve After Me”: The Black Experience in Virginia, 1619-1986 was edited by Philip D. Morgan in 1986. It is a collection of three chronological essays surveying“the black experience in Virginia”published by Hampton University.
Philip Morgan’s essay on “Early Virginia” covers 1619 through the 1700’s. Michael Hucles looks at the Nineteenth Century, and Sarah S. Hughes’s addresses events of the 20th century.
The volume contains many pictures from the travelling photographic exhibit “Don’t Grieve for Me” that toured Virginia February 1986-February 1987. They include cultural items of clothing and musical instruments, black labor across the state and portaits of families and individuals. Learn more to buy “Don’t Grieve for Me” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
The Negro in Virginia
The Negro in Virginia was written by the New Deal’s WPA Virginia Writer’s Project in 1940 and reprinted in 1994. It was the first narrative history of African-Americans in Virginia. Folklorist Charles L. Perdue wrote an introduction to the 1884 edition. The first chapters describe the arrival of first Africans, gradual evolution of slavery to the American Revolution. Twelve chapters describe Antebellum slave life including former slaves’ testimony.
Five chapters are devoted to the Civil War from the African-American point of view, Reconstruction reforms and the era of Jim Crow culminating in the Virginia Constitution of 1902. The last seven chapters discuss conditions in the first half of the 20th century, including the rise of African-American churches, schools and arts. Inequitable labor practices of the day are described. Learn more to buy “The Negro in Virginia” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902
The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902 (1919, 2016) by Richard Lee Morton views the “Negro” a failure at politics in Virginia, romanticizing Lincoln’s support of enfranchising only rich and literate Afro-Americans. A later volume by Andrew Buni treats the Afro-American Virginian as an active agent in Virginia politics (see review of “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902-1965” below).
Morton’s volume begins with the first Negro suffrage, 1861-1867 during Civil War Virginia and immediately after. Four chapters consider the next period, looking at the Radical Republican drawing the color line, the Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868 with twenty Afro-Americans delegates, the Committee of Nine negotiation a ballot provision allowing ex-Confederaes the vote, and the campaign to restore Virginia to the U.S. Congress.
The last four chapters address the Conservative party’s elimination of “Carpetbaggers” in the 1870s, the Readjuster Republican movement short lived triumph 1879-1883, and the subsequent racial friction of the 1880s and 1890s, followed by the disenfranchising Progressive dominated Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902. The book is available online at the Internet Archive. Learn more to buy “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1802-1965
The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902-1965 (1967) by Andrew Buni is a historyof Virginia in the first half of the 20th century. The first eleven chapters detail Virginian Afro-American non-involvement in politics following the disenfranchising Constitution of 1902, the poll tax, literary tests, the white-only Democratic primary, and lily-white state Republican policy. Democrats maintained a state-wide majority in part by injecting race relations into political campaigns by appealing to white fears and insecurities.
Afro-American voting behavior was generally apathetic, yielding politics to “the white man’s business” until after World War II. Most Virginian Negro vote that did exist was Republican until the 1930s when some began drifting into Democratic Party voting. By the 1950s and 1960s, the vote was split and vacillating. The final chapters of the book concentrate on the Presidential campaigns of 1960 and 1964. Learn more to buy “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902-1965” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Race Relations in Virginia
Race Relations in Virginia, 1870–1902 was written by Charles Wynes in 1961 and republished in 2012. It advances the notion that race relations worsened over this thirty year period, from relatively permissive “folkways” moderated by personal connections to legal enforcement of discriminatory exclusion of the African-American by “stateways”.
Conservatives in Virginia were less moderate than elsewhere in the South, drawing the color line as early as 1873. With the inclusive Readjusters tarred by accusations of “Negro domination”, by 1883 bi-racial politics was virtually ended ten years before the end of Populism elsewhere in the South.
Exclusion of African-Americans in Virginia’s political life was perfected in the disenfranchisement by the Virginia Constitution of 1902, a triumph of racial elites led by Southern Progressives that Wynes distinguishes from the common white worker. Learn more to buy “Race Relations in Virginia” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Blue Laws and Black Codes
Blue Laws and Black Codes: Conflict, Courts and Change in Twentieth-Century Virginia was written by Peter Wallenstein in 2004. It examines the law as a link between social and racial conflict and change from 1890 to 1970. The first three essays relate the social changes upheld by the Virginia State Courts involving the unpaid labor for road construction, Sunday closing laws and women choosing legal careers.
The next three essays focus on legal challenges to Virginia’s system of white supremacy. For these, Virginia courts upheld segregation into the 1960s, requiring plaintiffs to turn to the federal courts for relief. NAACP lawyers Oliver Hill and Samuel W. Tucker committed decades to challenging every aspect of Jim Crow discrimination. The Richmond sit-in movement contributed to integrating public places. Richard and Mildred Loving successfully challenged Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute.
The last chapter looks at the ways political power is wielded and public policy effected. These related to the one-man-one-vote apportionment in state and local elections and abolition of the poll tax. Learn more to buy “Blue Laws and Black Codes” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.