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Photographs of Virginia Christian
Photograph of Virginia Christian probably taken on June 3, 1912, when she was transferred from Hampton to the Virginia Penitentiary Death House in Richmond.
"An Act to Incorporate the Normal and Collegiate Institute, and Provide for Support of the Same"
In 1882, the Virginia General Assembly, which then included thirteen African American members, created the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, the nation's first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for African…
"Act to Establish and Maintain a Uniform System of Public Free Schools"
Virginia's General Assembly passed an act to create the state's first public school system on July 11, 1870. Section 47 of the act required that "white and colored persons shall not be taught in the same school, but in separate schools, under the…
Map of Richmond, Department of Public Works, 1923
"Red indicates location of colored population."
Virginia Christian Petition for Commutation of Death Sentence to Life Imprisonment
Clemency petition of Virginia Christian, submitted in her behalf by her attorneys George W.Fields and J. Thomas Newsome.
Emancipation Oak, Hampton, Virginia
Standing near the entrance to Hampton University, the Emancipation Oak was the site of Mary Peake's first classroom for the many African Americans who escaped slavery to freedom at Fort Monroe in 1861. In 1863 African Americans gathered there to hear…
Slab-town at Hampton, Virginia
Throughout the Civil War thousands of enslaved men, women, and children attained their freedom by seeking refuge with United States troops as they moved across Virginia. They were declared "contraband of war" in May 1861 and Freedmen's Villages grew…
