This Week in Virginia History
Sure, Virginia history includes big moments, big battles, and big names. But the richer history is full of smaller events occurring in the fullness of time. The disenfranchised, the nonconformists, and just regular people making Virginia history. Week in, week out. This Week in Virginia History explores those stories, curated by Nathan Moore and culled from the vast archives at Encyclopedia Virginia.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 2 minutes
- Episodes
- 125
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2023
Week of June 15: Five black men petition President Andrew Johnson
Episode Notes
Fields Cook led the delegation of African American men up the White House stairs. He and four other men had come to Washington to deliver a list of grievances to President Andrew Johnso…
Week of June 8: The murder of a Founding Father
Episode Notes
George Wythe came down the stairs of his Richmond home to have some breakfast. Suddenly Wythe’s stomach cramped. His fingers and toes tingled. His heart palpitated. Wythe knew this wasn…
Week of June 1: A marriage changed U.S. law
Episode Notes
This week in 1958... It was a classic love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They get married. But in this story, the girl was Mildred Jeter, a Black woman. And her new husband …
Week of May 25: A dancing legend was born
Episode Notes
This week in 1878... Little Luther Robinson knew he had a bright future before him. Smiles grew on people’s faces as they threw pennies his way. Pennies for dancing in front of a Richmo…
Week of May 18: Major General Benjamin Butler feels his way into building Freedom’s Fortress
Episode Notes
This week in 1861... Civil War loomed in in America. South Carolina troops had fired on Charleston’s Fort Sumter. President Abraham Lincoln sent reinforcements to Fort Monroe in Hampton…
Week of May 11: England establishes its first permanent settlement in North America
Episode Notes
This week in 1607... A fleet of three ships carrying about 100 intrepid men sailed up the James River. The settlers were part of the Virginia Company chartered by King James I. Their mi…
Week of May 4: A former Confederate general puts on a US Army uniform
Episode Notes
Fitzhugh Lee boarded the last boat from Havana to Florida. The US was about to declare war on Spain. Americans speculated that Lee, a former Confederate cavalry officer and later govern…
Week of April 27: Disaster in the Virginia State Capitol
Episode Notes
This week in 1870… Hundreds of men crowded into the Supreme Court of Appeals, which was about to announce the verdict of the Richmond Mayoralty Case. The sagging floor of the second flo…
Week of April 20: Robert E. Lee resigns from the U.S. Army
Episode Notes
This week in 1861.. Robert E. Lee paced the room. Events proceeded quickly. And he knew his next decision would change everything for him, his family, and history.
A week ago, Confedera…
Week of April 13: Jefferson Society gives a speech advocating for emancipation
Episode Notes
Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 sparked a wave of anti-slavery advocacy in Virginia. At UVA, the Jefferson Society elected Merritt Robinson to deliver a speech at the Founder’s Day celeb…
Week of April 6: Washington family sells Mount Vernon
Episode Notes
This week in 1858… John Augustine Washington III paced the halls of Mount Vernon. What was he going to do with this place? The house was falling apart around him. And historical tourism…
Week of March 31: Seventeen people
Episode Notes
On a spring morning in 1819, seventeen people loaded two wagons with their luggage, tools, and provisions. They left their Rockfish plantation in Nelson County and travelled over Jarman…
Week of March 24: US Supreme Court strikes down the Virginia poll tax
Episode Notes
Picture one of your elderly neighbors or family members. Someone in their 80s. When they were a young adult, they had to pay a poll tax to vote in Virginia. Many southern states establi…
Week of March 17: Joseph Fossett finds out he will be freed
Episode Notes
Joseph Fossett worked at his blacksmith anvil late into the evening with a lot on his mind. Earlier that day, his master Thomas Jefferson had told him that he would be freed one year af…
Week of March 10: George Washington searches for his runaway enslaved cook Hercules
Episode Notes
While traveling from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, George Washington sat down to write a letter. He was angry. His enslaved chef Hercules had run away from Mount Vernon, and George want…
Week of March 3: Slavery ended in Charlottesville
Episode Notes
The Union army led by Custer -- yes, that Custer of Little Big Horn infamy – arrived in Charlottesville on March 3rd. Town and University officials met him at the bottom of Carr’s Hill …
Week of Feb 23: Professor Gordon Blaine Hancock argues against the Racial Integrity Act
Episode Notes
Four decades before Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech… Three decades before Brown versus Board of Education... Gordon Blaine Hancock was a leading spokesman for African American equality…
Week of Feb 16: Shadrach Minkins escapes from the clutches of the Fugitive Slave Act
Episode Notes
This week in 1851… Fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins was captured in Massachusetts... until a crowd of black activists broke into a Boston courtroom and freed him again.
Week of Feb 9: Restored Government of Virginia ratifies the 13th amendment
Episode Notes
The U.S. Census of 1860 reported that almost half a million Virginians lived in slavery. Five years later they were all free.
During the Civil War years, many enslaved people freed them…
Week of Feb 2: Making lynching a state crime in Virginia
Episode Notes
For the most part, Virginia's political leaders and business elites opposed lynching. Not out of respect for the rights of African Americans. More because the elites were trying to attr…