Category Archives: Virginia history

Colleges Falsely Claim Juneteenth Was ‘The Day Slavery Ended in the U.S.’

by Hans Bader

Many colleges and progressives are claiming that Juneteenth — June 19, 1865 — was “the day slavery ended” in the U.S. But slavery actually remained legal in Kentucky and Delaware until December 6, 1865, the day the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery went into effect.

Yale University has a web site titled, “Juneteenth: Remembering the day slavery ended in the U.S.” Similarly, Bill Nye, the self-proclaimed “science guy,” claimed that “the last” slaves “were not freed (officially) until June 19, 1865.”

These claims are not true. As the London Daily Mail notes, the last slaves were not legally freed until six months later, when “the 13th Amendment fully prohibited the owning of slaves, spurring states such as Kentucky and Delaware – where it had still been legal – to cease the practice.” Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only declared slaves free if they were held in areas that had been controlled by Confederate rebels, not in slave states that remained loyal to the union, such as Delaware and Kentucky.
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State Flags are Going Woke. Is Virginia’s Next?

by Anna Jankowski

In the midst of America’s ongoing culture war, it is widely recognized that the left comprehends (and exploits) the profound influence that American history, values and tradition exert on its citizens. Cancel culture has rapidly infiltrated public discourse, leaving state flags as its next target.

From Maine to Utah, left-leaning activists are spearheading efforts to redesign numerous state flags. In 2021, Mississippi removed Confederate imagery from its flag entirely, while Minnesota established an “emblem redesign commission” in May 2023 to eliminate depictions of Native Americans from its seal and flag. Furthermore, Massachusetts is considering a change in its flag to promote gender equality, contemplating replacing one of the two male figures with a female representation.

What charges could the left level against the Virginia state flag? The Virginia flag and seal were created in 1776 in the aftermath of the War for Independence but was not officially adopted as a flag until Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861. The seal has gone through minor changes in the 150 years since it was adopted, but the basic form of the flag remains constant.

The seal features an Amazon maiden (representing Virtue) standing triumphant over a fallen king. The motto “sic semper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants) and a decorative border complete the seal.

This imagery was an expression of the revolutionary spirit present during the War for Independence and later the Civil War. Jokingly, it was said that “sic semper tyrannis” could be translated as ‘get your foot off my neck.” Continue reading

Along the Back Roads –the Rise and Demise of a Town

Let’s take a break from DEI; the shortcomings of UVa, W&M and the rest of higher education; and all the other issues that get us riled up.

Virginia is an interesting state to travel and see.

I have always liked to travel the back roads.  It is slower than the interstates and the primary highways, but these byways can be so much more interesting.

I don’t know if this is true of other states, but throughout the countryside of Virginia there are a lot of official markers showing place names, but seemingly there is nothing there. Sometimes the markers appear on the state highway map distributed by the Virginia Department of Transportation; sometimes, not. These “named places” are not random and, if one is willing to dig a little, there is often a story behind them. They were used to designate distinct places in rural Virginia that nearby residents could use as a reference point and sometimes as a place to gather. The reference point could be a building, intersection, store, etc. Eventually, the names were used to denote the surrounding community and often are in use today. Continue reading

Ah, So That’s What That Was All About!

Leighty, Bill. Capitol Secrets: Leadership Wisdom from a Lifetime of Public Service.  Holon Publishing, 2023.

A review by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The public sees the result of policy development.  What the public does not see is the sometimes- messy process that produced that policy nor, more broadly, what goes on behind the scenes to make government work.

In his recently released memoir, Bill Leighty has drawn back the curtain a bit to reveal some of the inner workings behind some of the activities of Virginia state government during a recent 30-year period.

Bill Leighty is not a name widely known by the general public. However, he was, and, to some extent still is, known by legislators, lobbyists, reporters, Cabinet members, agency heads, and other denizens of Capitol Square.

Bill Leighty

Through the course of his career, Leighty cut a wide swath through state government. After a stint in the Marine Corps following high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mary Washington and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University and landed a job in 1978 with the Virginia Department of Taxation. The agency assigned him to a new unit established to prepare revenue forecasts. That unit also prepared fiscal impact statements on tax bills for the legislature. Continue reading

Arlington National Cemetery

U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery

by Robin Beres

Virginia is brimming with famous and consequential landmarks and tourist sites. From the Historic Triangle to St. John’s Church in Richmond, to great beaches, mountains, and countless old plantation homes, vineyards, and breweries, there is a lot to see and do in the commonwealth. It’s little wonder that Virginia is ranked No. 6 in most visited states in the U.S. according to the World Atlas.

While there is much to see in Virginia that is upbeat and fun, there are also solemn and sobering experiences to take in as well. Some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place in Spotsylvania Court House, the Wilderness, and Chancellorsville. Both Revolutionary War and Civil War victories happened in our beloved state.

It is important that we all take time to appreciate the sacrifices so many Americans serving in uniform have made to ensure our freedoms. That is the very reason we have this Memorial Day weekend.

While by no means a tourist site, Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) is one of the most visited places in Virginia. Located just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The national cemetery is built on the grounds of a plantation that once belonged to Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The family vacated the home shortly after the Civil War began. Continue reading

Saving a Piece of Virginia History

by Robin Beres

Chincoteague Island would probably be just another quiet little town on a quiet little barrier island overlooked by beachgoers and tourists if weren’t for a 1946 visit from children’s author Marguerite Henry. The writer arrived intending to pen a book about the wild ponies on nearby Assateague Island and the annual Chincoteague pony penning and auction.

During her stay, Henry met a rancher by the name of Clarence Beebe who invited her to visit his ranch. There she met his grandchildren, Maureen and Paul Beebe. She also met a young filly named Misty who stole her heart. The pony was the daughter of Phantom, one of Assateague’s wild ponies that the Beebe children had worked hard to purchase during a previous auction.

When Henry learned the story of Phantom and Misty, she wrote the book, Misty of Chincoteague. It instantly became a best seller and was recognized by the American Library Association as Newbery Honor Book. In 1961, the book was made into a movie, Misty.
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Mother’s Day: Meandering Through Virginia

A bridge of Madison County. (Virginia).

Regular readers of this space know that I am still seething over the actions America’s fascists embraced during Covid.

The fact that they haven’t apologized and admitted that stomping on Constitutional rights over a virus was a colossal mistake is infuriating. That said, Covid brought two very good things.

First: my daughter met the love of her life, a soldier who was stationed in Monterey in 2020.

He was invited to join an online game her old pals played almost nightly during the early days of the lockdowns. These two strangers on separate coasts quickly developed a bond through their shared life experiences, offbeat senses of humor and quick wits.

By the time they met in person, they were already in love. They married, had a baby a year ago and this weekend my son-in-law surprised his wife with a Mother’s Day “golden doodle” puppy to replace her beloved husky who died recently at 16.

The second marvelous thing that happened during covid was that we began a tradition of celebrating Mother’s Day by traveling with extended family to different parts of Virginia.

In fact, I’m writing this from a rustic table in a sprawling old farmhouse in Madison, Va., where 12 of us and our four dogs spent the weekend.

Back in the spring of 2020 we were already weary of hysterics screaming about masks and telling us not to gather with friends and family. Continue reading

The Virginia Way

by Robin Beres

Politicians and pundits have invoked the “Virginia Way” in speeches and writings since colonial times. The phrase is used by partisans to evoke sentiments of decency and honor (and votes) in residents of the Old Dominion. In 1926, Douglas Southall Freeman wrote in an editorial for The Richmond News Leader that the Virginia way is not one of contention, but of understanding, not the making of humiliating laws, but the establishment of just, acceptable usage. Public sentiment can be trusted now, as always, to find the best ‘Virginia way.’”

In January 2019, writing in Bearing Drift, Brian Schoeneman described how the “Virginia way” used to work in the legislature: “Republicans and Democrats would fight hard and long during the campaign season, and when the fighting was over, both sides would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and govern effectively for all Virginians. The bitter invective and the accusations went away.”

Unfortunately, if the childish, vindictive sign seen today in a Richmond front yard is any indication of today’s political atmosphere, the Virginia Way is in big trouble.

Were Confederates “Traitors to their Country”?

It is often said by commenters of this blog — and elsewhere — that Robert E. Lee and others serving in the Confederate army were “traitors” to their country. Whatever contributions they made to national reconciliation or the public welfare later in life, they deserve no public honor or recognition in the form of statues, names on buildings or other memorials. In the column below Lloyd Garnett, an amateur Virginia historian, argues that the “treason” label is an anachronism based upon a faulty understanding of the evolution of the nation’s identity. — JAB


by Lloyd Garnett

Supporters of the Erasure & Destruction Commission, aka Renaming Commission, are fond of displaying their ignorance regarding the legal framework of the United States under the Constitution. Never is their misguided misapprehension more evident than when they declare that the Confederates were “traitors.”

The charge is so unarguably counterfactual as to be absurd. While forgiveness (not forgetfulness) should be our Christian impulse, it is our duty to our birthright to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – which is to say, our individual and political sovereignty under God – to firmly set the record straight.

Setting the historical record straight is not a matter of rehashing bygones, which ought to be left as bygones. Rather, understanding the important Constitutional arguments involved then, is critical to grasping the political and social arguments now. As the current arguments by the ignorant and the malevolent, have today devolved into riotous violence, injury and destruction of property, iconic art and symbolic reminders of our worthy heritage, it should be obvious that appreciation for the concept of “government by consent of the governed” is at stake. Continue reading

Allen Litten, 1935-2023

by Joe Fitzgerald

Someone else held the title, but Allen Litten was really the assistant when I was city editor at the Daily News-Record. I knew the police scanner was in the darkroom, but sometimes I thought it must be imbedded in his cheekbone. One story sums up all he was for me, and I concede some folks may have heard it before.

He came rushing up to my desk one day in 1992 to tell me about the fire he’d covered the night before. He’d taken a photo of a fireman carrying someone out of the building, and it was the same building, he told me, where we’d had that other picture of a fireman and a rescue.

I didn’t remember the shot, and after searching my memory and not turning anything up, I finally asked him when the photo had run.

“1961,” he said, “and we ran the pictures side-by-side, with Jeremy Nafziger’s interviews with both firemen, if memory serves.”

Allen Litten in Court Square Harrisonburg, Sept. 2022
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Let The People In

Dr. Judith Brooks-Buck, Suffolk City School Board

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The Virginia Supreme Court has again ruled against a local government for violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The case arose as a result of Deborah Wahlstrom deciding to attend a day-long retreat of the Suffolk City School Board focused on board training and strategic planning. The meeting was publicly advertised and was to be held in a city school. At some point after she arrived and took a seat in the room in which the meeting was to be held, she was told that members of the public could not be in the room and could only view a video feed of the meeting from another room. She remained in her seat. Board Chair Judith Brooks-Buck then approached her and told her that she couldn’t be there because “this is a closed meeting.” Subsequently, she and the Superintendent of Schools John Gordon told her to exit the room and return to the lobby. She refused, citing her legal right to be present in the room.

As the discussion continued and got a little more heated, the superintendent threatened to call the police. Wahlstrom remained in the room. The police were called and the superintendent explained to the police that Wahlstrom was “an enemy of the school division.” The police officer escorted Wahlstrom out of the building and told her she had to leave the property entirely. She was not even allowed to view the meeting virtually. Continue reading

The Unsettled State of Lee Chapel

by Kenneth G. Everett

“Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”

— William E. Gladstone, British Statesman

The respect with which a civilization honors its dead has long been a gauge of its adherence to the duties of humane behavior and the cultivation of virtue in its citizens. That respect has found expression in the veneration of deceased persons of exemplary character and achievement, and in the enduring gratitude tendered to those of past generations whose labors laid the foundation of a society’s prosperity and moral strength. From the pyramids of Egypt, to the tombs of ancient Greece and Rome, to the monuments to the dead of more recent times, we find inspiring evidence of the homage paid by great civilizations to their dead — homage extending from the towering monuments that honor national heroes to the simplest graves of common peasants.

And it bears remembering that none of these honored dead have been without spot. Each suffered some flaw of character or lapse of right conduct, however great or small. Nevertheless, in developed societies it has been the tradition that funeral panegyrics on the dead praise and celebrate the goodness of a life rather than defaming it, so that flaws and missteps in the person eulogized have been commonly abridged or passed over without mention. The same tradition comprehends the epitaphs engraved on tombs of the dead, be they in Westminster Abbey or in humble country churchyards. A survey of funerary epitaphs reveals a uniformity of praise for whatever was worthy in the entombed, with intent to ensure that the record of their good works and virtues of character might live on to become an inspiration and support to those who follow. The arc of an enduring civilization rises upon the best in its historical heritage of individual and collective merit — wherever in its history, and in whatever circumstances, that merit is found.
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RVA History: Merging Manchester

by Jon Baliles

I often joke with people when I am asked about Manchester that it was an independent city until 1910 when they merged with Richmond — and they have probably regretted it ever since.

Em Holter has a nice piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the merger of the city nicknamed “Dogtown” that is worth the read.

On the day of the vote in 1910, pro-merger pamphlets were distributed that promised lower taxes, better infrastructure, and free passage into Virginia’s capital city (no more toll on the bridge). Opponents cautioned that annexation would mean increased taxes and inferior services. History can certainly be ironic. Continue reading

Restoring Trust in Institutions

Created by Microsoft Image Creator

by Matt Hurt

Over the last several years, it has become widely accepted that trust in our institutions has declined. Ultra-tribalism has infected almost every aspect of public discourse, which has certainly enriched the war chests of our politicians on both sides of the aisle. On April 20, 2023, the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) provided a wonderful example of how this trend can be reversed.

The VBOE has been in the process of updating Virginia’s history Standards of Learning for over two years. Unfortunately, history is the subject which has become targeted by different political/ideological factions.  Some argued that certain versions of the standards were intended to promote a specific ideology.  Others argued that other versions attempted to whitewash history. This work has drawn fire from both progressives and conservatives, and it is doubtful that either side will be satisfied with the end result. Continue reading

Ezekiel Statute to Move from Arlington to New Market?

As controversy rages over the fate of the Moses Ezekiel statue at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, The Cadet student newspaper at Virginia Military Institute quotes anonymous sources that the statue might be moved to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at the New Market battlefield site. — JAB