A New Era in Building: Black Educational Activism in Goochland County, 1911–1932

Time Period
1877 to 1924
1925 to Today
Media Type
Video
Topics
Black History
Civil Rights
Education
Politics & Government
Presenter
Brian Daugherity and Alyce Miller

Join historians Brian Daugherity and Alyce Miller for a lecture about Black educational activism in Goochland County in the early twentieth century.

In this lecture, based on their award-winning 2020 article published in the Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Brian Daugherity and Alyce Miller will analyze community efforts to increase educational access and opportunity for African Americans in Goochland County, Virginia, in the early twentieth century, as well as the connections between this advocacy and other communities across the state and throughout the South. The story, told using various archival records and oral history interviews, demonstrates the power and agency of rural Black southern communities during the Jim Crow era. Recognizing and analyzing this advocacy helps expand our understanding of Black activism during the Jim Crow era, educational philanthropy, and southern educational history, as well as how this era of Black activism was linked to subsequent civil rights achievements.

Brian J. Daugherity is an associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of several books on the civil rights era in Virginia. Alyce Miller is a professor of history at Valencia College. Their article in the Virginia Magazine of History & Biography (vol. 128, no. 1) was awarded the William M. E. Rachal Award for Best Overall Article in the journal in 2020.

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The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

Want to listen to an audio-only version of this lecture? Listen now on Soundcloud.