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Article Set - Intro
General Orders No. 61
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On May 2, 1863, during the battle of Chancellorsville, friendly fire struck Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson while he and others rode amid the chaos of the still-forming Confederate lines. Thus began the series of events that led eventually to Robert E. Lee composing General Orders No. 61, which announced to his army the death of Jackson.
Article Set - Intro
Getting the Message Out: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from the Collection of Allen A. Frey
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Buttons and banners, ribbons and posters, coffee mugs and whiskey flasks, match books and mouse pads. For nearly 200 years, presidential candidates and their supporters have used almost every means available to attract votes.
Exhibition
John Marshall
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Highlighting objects like his Law Commonplace Notebook, spectacles and inkwell, writing desk, and even his hair, this...
Article Set - Intro
Lee and Grant
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By the end of the Civil War, most Americans considered either Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant to be a hero. The time has come for a reassessment of these two men, on whom fell the greatest responsibility for the survival or disintegration of the United States.
Article Set - Chapter
Massive Resistance
In 1954, the political organization of U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., controlled Virginia politics. Senator Byrd promoted
Article Set - Chapter
Memory
Which John Brown have Americans remembered? The crusader for abolition or the bloodthirsty terrorist? Brown was not forgotten
Exhibition
Mending Walls RVA
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This pop-up exhibition and community collaboration featured a diverse group of artists creating public artwork as a tool...
Article Set - Chapter
Ongoing Resistance to Desegregation
By 1964, five years after the end of Massive Resistance, only 5 percent of black students in Virginia were attending
Article Set - Chapter
Raid, Incarceration, and Execution
Although John Brown and his followers easily captured the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia
Article Set - Chapter
Reconciliation
After Appomattox, Ulysses S. Grant was the savior of the United States, while Robert E. Lee was the greatest hero of the Lost
Article Set - Chapter
Rising Black Consciousness
Part of the reasoning cited in the Brown decision was that discrimination greatly diminished Black pupils' self-esteem. As
Article Set - Chapter
School Busing
Because Black and white Virginians generally lived in segregated neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century, race-neutral
Article Set - Chapter
The Closing of Prince Edward County's Schools
After Virginia's school-closing law was ruled unconstitutional in January 1959, the General Assembly repealed the compulsory
Exhibition
The Commonwealth and the Great War
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This exhibition explored the role Virginians played in World War I and highlighted the stories of individual Virginians...
Article Set - Chapter
The Green Decision of 1968
By 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court had lost patience with the slow pace of school integration. In New Kent County, Virginia
Exhibition
The League of Wives
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Featuring artifacts, photographs, and oral histories, this exhibition illustrated the dramatic story of how the spouses...
Article Set - Chapter
The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a heroic episode in American history. It aimed to give African Americans the same citizenship rights that whites took for granted.
Article Set - Intro
The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory
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John Brown remains one of the most controversial figures in our history. To destroy the institution of slavery, he firmly believed there was only one possible course of action. He saw what he thought was the ultimate wrong and tried in the only way he could imagine to right it. Which John Brown should we remember? The crusader for abolition or the bloodthirsty terrorist? Is it possible to list him among the great pantheon of American heroes, or do we still recoil from the image of his attack on an American military installation, an action that can be described by no term other than treason?
Article Set - Chapter
The Weddells
Learn more about Alexander Weddell and Virginia Chase Steedman Weddell.
Article Set - Chapter
The World of Jim Crow
After the Civil War, Black Americans were no longer enslaved but they had not achieved equal status with whites in American