In this series, VMHC curatorial staff bring exclusive member-only programs to you on a variety of interesting topics. See upcoming events in this series.

Why do American judges wear black robes? And what does it mean in our modern court system? Hear what Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Clarence Thomas, as well as Virginia state and federal judges and justices, say it means to them.

On September 21, 2023, Viola Franziska Müller gave a virtual-only lecture about her book, Escape to the City: Fugitive Slaves in the Antebellum Urban South. Viola Franziska Müller examines runaways who camouflaged themselves among the free Black populations in Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, and, particularly discussed in this lecture, Richmond. In the urban South, they found shelter, work, and other survival networks that enabled them to live in slaveholding territory, shielded and supported by their host communities in an act of collective resistance to slavery.