Riot in Richmond, May 11, 1867—The Soldiers Dispersing the Mob
Subject
African Americans, race relations, violence
Description
In the spring of 1867, Richmond was a city filled with tension and a fight between African Americans and city policemen, who were described as former Confederates, broke out on the afternoon of May 11. United States Army troops dispersed the crowds, which is the scene depicted in this engraving. Federal judge John C. Underwood and Horace Greeley urged calm in their remarks at First African Baptist Church the following day.
Like many white Southerners, white Virginians feared that African American support would lead to Radical Republican domination in state politics. Hostile whites described African American voters as easily manipulated by unscrupulous northerners (called carpetbaggers) and their rapacious local accomplices (called scalawags), but such beliefs were unwarranted, and many former slaves and free blacks achieved remarkable success considering the disadvantages under which they labored and the impediments that they often faced in the decades after emancipation.
Creator
James Wells Champney
Source
Illustration in Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division from Edward King, The Great South... (1875)
Southampton County Poll List, 2d Magisterial District, 1st Precinct
Subject
African Americans, suffrage
Description
For decades, Virginia localities kept separate registers for African American and white voters. These registers are for Southampton County and record the African Americans and whites who voted at the first precinct of the second magisterial district during the election held on July 6, 1869. That day 94 percent of white registered voters in Southampton turned out and overwhelmingly approved the new constitution and elected Conservative Party candidates to the legislature.
Source
Secretary of the Commonwealth, General Election Records, 1867, 1869, Southampton County, Accession 50706, State Government Records Collection,
This 1869 lithograph from the Richmond studio of lithographer Charles Ludwig illustrated one fear that white Virginians entertained after the Civil War, that unscrupulous politicians would use government jobs in the post office or federal customs houses to create powerful radical Republican political machines with the support of African American voters. Here, a slick politician is grinding out registered voters from a mill of the kind used to grind coffee beans. The date on this image, July 6, 1869, was the date on which Virginia voters ratified the new state constitution that granted the vote to black men.
Creator
Charles L. Ludwig
Source
Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division
Practical Illustration of the Virginia Constitution (So-Called)
Subject
African Americans, politics, race relations
Description
Opponents of the constitution produced this political broadside to frighten white Virginians into voting against ratification of the constitution by spreading fears that African Americans would be able to beat white children in the new public schools or serve as jurors in trials involving white ladies and gentlemen.
Source
Broadside 1867 P89 FF, Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division
Circular No. 4. Conservative Party State Committee
Subject
Politics, race relations
Description
While the convention called to rewrite Virginia's constitution was meeting, a large gathering of white men organized the Conservative Party on December 11
Creator
Raleigh Travers Daniel
Source
Broadside 1868 D18, Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division
Date
February 12, 1868
Contributor
Library of Virginia
Rights
CC BY-SA
Format
JPG
Type
Broadside
Identifier
07_1268_04
Coverage
Virginia
]]>https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/items/show/588Staunton Vindicator before the 1883 general election voiced the racial attitudes common among white Virginians at the time and fueled resentment at what many of them regarded, inaccurately and unfairly, as African American domination of Virginia's society and government. Danville's white residents appealed to people elsewhere in Virginia to vote for Democrats in order to defeat the Readjusters and end what they described as the "misrule of the radical or negro party."]]>2015-07-02T13:09:32+00:00
Early in the 1880s African Americans held public offices in the city of Danville. During this time, a biracial coalition known as the Readjuster Party had won control of the General Assembly and the statewide offices. A circular letter published with the Staunton Vindicator before the 1883 general election voiced the racial attitudes common among white Virginians at the time and fueled resentment at what many of them regarded, inaccurately and unfairly, as African American domination of Virginia's society and government. Danville's white residents appealed to people elsewhere in Virginia to vote for Democrats in order to defeat the Readjusters and end what they described as the "misrule of the radical or negro party."
Source
Special supplement to the Staunton Vindicator, Broadside 1882 S89 FF, Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs Division
Copy of Ed. H. Smith to Presiding Justices, Culpeper County Court, February 2, 1866, enclosed in T. Frank P. Crandon to Presiding Justices, Louisa County, March 3, 1866
Subject
African Americans, race relations
Description
Before the Civil War, white Virginians feared slave rebellions and thus exerted repressive control over enslaved people. After the war they feared retribution by the freedpeople and in some parts of the state they attempted to disarm African Americans and re-arm whites. Late in 1865, the Louisa County court ordered that patrols be established to "take from the freedmen any arms found in their possession." Similar patrols confiscated weapons in Culpeper County, prompting the Freedmen's Bureau to issue an order in January 1866 "that the taking of arms from Freedmen be stopped, at once, and that all arms so taken be promptly restored
Creator
Ed. H. Smith and T. Frank P. Crandon
Source
Executive Papers of Governor Francis F. Pierpont, 1865-1868, Accession 37024, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia.
Date
1866
Contributor
Library of Virginia
Rights
CC BY-SA
Relation
Finding aid to Executive Papers of Governor Francis F. Pierpont.
]]>https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/items/show/585True Southerner in Hampton (later moved to Norfolk). Operating with the motto "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal," he advocated the interests of Virginia's freedpeople. In this editorial, White responded to inaccurate accounts of a riot in Norfolk in which whites attacked a parade of African Americans celebrating the recent passage of a national civil rights act. He placed the blame on whites who "attacked the negroes without provocation," and posed the question whether loyal Virginians were to abandon celebrations "in our own country, lest we offend the enemy?"]]>2015-07-02T13:09:53+00:00
In 1865 David B. White, a former colonel of the New York 81st Infantry Volunteers, established the True Southerner in Hampton (later moved to Norfolk). Operating with the motto "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal," he advocated the interests of Virginia's freedpeople. In this editorial, White responded to inaccurate accounts of a riot in Norfolk in which whites attacked a parade of African Americans celebrating the recent passage of a national civil rights act. He placed the blame on whites who "attacked the negroes without provocation," and posed the question whether loyal Virginians were to abandon celebrations "in our own country, lest we offend the enemy?"
Petition of the Norfolk County Court to Col. Thomas F. Jackson, Norfolk
Subject
African Americans, race relations
Description
In November 1865, the Norfolk County Court petitioned the officer of the Freedmen's Bureau in Norfolk to take away the firearms belonging to African Americans. Local white residents had complained complained about African Americans "in the habit of bearing arms," whom they described as "prowling about during the hours of the night, plundering property and engaging in other unlawful acts prejudicial to the good order and interests of Society."
Creator
Norfolk County Court
Source
Norfolk County Court Correspondence with the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1866, Norfolk County Court Records, Local Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia