Parade Celebrating the 81st Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation
African Americans, emancipation, celebrations
Sections of the 3166th Quartermaster Service Company, Color Guard and 3167th Quartermaster Service Company of Camp Hill, march down Jefferson Avenue, in Newport News, during a parade marking the 81st Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Shipyard workers' floats, Camp Hill Quartermaster Service Companies, and the Camp Hill Band also participated in the parade.
U.S. Army Signal Corps
U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection, Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs
December 31, 1944
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Photograph
SC-23-035 Newport News 1944
Newport News, Virginia
African M. E. Church and Parsonage, Portsmouth
African Americans, religion
African American Methodists in Portsmouth constructed their own church in 1857. The building was used by escaping slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. Required by Virginia law to have a white minister, the congregation called its first African American pastor, Rev. James A. Handy, in 1864. In 1871 the congregation affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became known as the Emanuel A.M.E. Church.
A. M. Turner
Edward Pollock, comp., <em>Sketch Book of Portsmouth, Va., Its People and its Trade</em> (Portsmouth, 1886), 157.
Portsmouth, Va.: Edward Pollock
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Engraving
15_1075_014
Portsmouth, Virginia
Wagner's Complete Map of Richmond, A.C. Wagner, 1927
Includes street index, electric car lines and bus routes. Includes surrounding streets in Henrico and Chesterfield Counties. Shows Richmond city limits, streets, railroads, interurban lines and ward boundaries. Scale [ca. 1:20,000].
A.C. Wagner Company
A.C. Wagner, "Wagner’s Complete Map of Richmond." Cincinnati : A.C. Wagner Co., c. 1927. Library of Virginia, Map Collection.
1927
G3884.R5 1927 .A3
Photo # 14-0977-001
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Notice. The Registration of the Voters
Suffrage
This printed broadside was circulated in Caroline County to notify men where and how to register to vote prior to the election for convention delegates in 1867, the first in which African American men were able to vote.
Alexander G. McKenney, James H. Terrill, John O'Dwyer
Broadside 1867 M25 FF, Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division
1867
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Broadside
14_0997_001(1867.M25 FF)
Caroline County, Virginia
Headquarters District of South Eastern Virginia, Circular No. 6
African Americans Freedmen's Bureau, labor
The Freedmen's Bureau also had responsibility for administering land (plantations) that white Southerners abandoned, although in Virginia that did not often happen. Nevertheless, many freedpeople believed that the property of their former owners would be confiscated and that each former slave would receive forty acres and a mule to enable them to become independent farmers. This notice that General Alfred H. Terry issued in November, 1865, was meant to counteract a belief that at the end of the year the Freedmen's Bureau would begin distributing free land to the freedpeople. Officers "will endeavor to meet and converse with those of the Freedmen who possess the greatest influence of their fellows" to correct the misunderstanding.
Alfred H. Terry
Norfolk County Court Correspondence with the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1866, Local Government Records Collection, Norfolk County Court Records, Library of Virginia.
November 9, 1865
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Circular
14_0705_001
Norfolk County; Southeastern Virginia
Freedman's Village-Greene Heights Arlington Va.
African Americans, self-emancipation
Throughout the Civil War thousands of enslaved men, women, and children attained their freedom by seeking refuge with United States troops as they moved across Virginia. They were declared "contraband of war" in May 1861 and Freedmen's Villages grew up in various locations, including this one near Robert E. Lee's home, Arlington House.
Alfred R. Waud
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LC-DIG-ppmsca-21425)
April 1864
Courtesy of Library of Congress
CC BY-SA
JPG
Drawing on paper
Freedmens Village Greene Heights_LC 21425v
Arlington, Virginia
Rebel Soldiers Taking the Oath of Allegiance, 1865
Confederates, military service, suffrage
After the Civil War many white Virginians could not vote because they had supported the Confederacy. In June 1865, the General Assembly restored voting rights to some of those white men, but the federal government required men who had supported the Confederacy to take an oath of allegiance to the United States or obtain a presidential pardon before they could regain the suffrage.
Alfred R. Waud
<em>Harper's Weekly</em>, June 17, 1865, p. 381
Harper and Brothers
1865
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Engraving
14_0479_001
Virginia
First Vote
African Americans, suffrage, politics
African Americans in several states, including Virginia, voted for the first time in the autumn of 1867. In this image, a white man is seen conducting the election. An old African American, probably a former slave and wearing patched clothes, deposits his ballot in the glass bowl. Behind him is a well-dressed man, who may have been free before the war, a soldier still in uniform, another man in work clothes, and still other men in line waiting to exercise their right to vote.
Alfred R. Waud
<em>Harper's Weekly</em>, November 16, 1867
Harper and Brothers
November 1867
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Engraving
01_1138_18
United States
The Freedman's Spelling-Book
African Americans, education
In 1865-1866 the American Tract Society printed several textbooks, including <em>The Freedman's Spelling-Book</em>, for use by freedpeople. In addition to teaching literacy, the spelling book illustrated words "in connection with important practical subjects; as occupations, domestic life, civil institutions, morals, education, and natural science" with the intent of providing "practical information . . . of great value to the freedmen in the new condition into which Providence has raised them." A reprint of this volume is found in <em>Freedmen's Schools and Textbooks</em>, published in 1980.
American Tract Society
<em>Freedmen's Schools and Textbooks: An AMS Reprint Series</em>, ed. and intro. Robert C. Morris (New York: AMS Press, 1980).
Boston, Mass.: American Tract Society
1865-1866
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
JPG
Book
14_1272_001, 14_1272_003
United States
Circular of the American Union Commission
African Americans, education, labor
The American Tract Society was one of many religious and charitable organizations that contributed to the education of freedpeople during and after the Civil War. This circular quotes its mission statement: "The American Union Commission is constituted for the purpose of aiding and co-operating with the people of those portions of the United States which have been desolated and impoverished by the war, in the restoration of their civil and social condition, upon the basis of industry, education, freedom, and Christian morality."
American Union Commission
Executive Papers of Governor Francis F. Pierpont, 1865-1868, Accession 37024, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia.
1865
Library of Virginia
CC BY-SA
<a title="Pierpont Papers" href="http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=lva/vi00006.xml" target="_blank">Finding aid</a> to Executive Papers of Governor Francis F. Pierpont.
JPG
Broadside
15_0707_008
Virginia