Virginia Statehood

Virginians were instrumental in writing the United States Constitution. James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789. Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia initially had the largest bloc in the House of Representatives, which with the Virginia dynasty of presidents gave the commonwealth national importance. In 1790, both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, though in 1847 the Virginian area was retroceded. Virginia is sometimes called "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into several mid-western states.

Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831 and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 showed deep social discontent over the issue of slavery in Virginia and its role in the plantation economy. Besides agriculture, slave labor was also increasingly used in mining, shipbuilding and other industries. By 1860, almost half a million people, roughly thirty-one percent of the total population of Virginia, were enslaved.

Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861 after the Battle of Fort Sumter. Virginia turned over its military and ratified the Confederate States of America (CSA) constitution in June 1861. The CSA then moved its capitol to Richmond. In 1863 forty-eight counties in the northwest of the state separated from Virginia to form the State of West Virginia. Virginia in the American Civil War saw more battles fought than anywhere else, including the Battles of Bull Run, the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. After the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capitol was moved to Danville, Virginia. With the work of the Committee of Nine during post-war Reconstruction, Virginia formally rejoined the Union on January 26, 1870, and adopted a constitution which should have provided for Negro suffrage, a system of free public schools, and guarantee civil and political rights.
The Virginia Civil Rights Memorial was erected in 2008 to commemorate the protests which led to school desegregation.
The Virginia Civil Rights Memorial was erected in 2008 to commemorate the protests which led to school desegregation.

However during the culmination of the Jim Crow era, legislators rewrote the Constitution of Virginia to include a poll tax and other measures on voter registration that effectively disfranchised African Americans, leading to underfunding for segregated schools and services, and a lack of representation. African Americans still created vibrant communities and made progress. The first black students attended the University of Virginia School of Law in 1950, and Virginia Tech in 1953. Protests in Farmville started by Barbara Rose Johns led to the lawsuit Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County by Richmond natives Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill. This case was decided with Brown v. Board of Education. Virginia however declared in 1958 that desegregated schools would not receive state funding, under the policy of "massive resistance" spearheaded by the powerful segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd. In 1959 Prince Edward County closed their schools rather than integrate them.

The Civil Rights Movement gained many participants in the 1960s and achieved the moral force to gain national legislation for protection of suffrage and civil rights for African Americans. In 1971, state legislators rewrote the constitution, after goals such as legal integration and the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been achieved. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States.

In 1926, Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, rector of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church, began restoration of colonial era buildings in the historic district with financial backing of John D. Rockefeller Jr. resulting in Colonial Williamsburg. World War II and the Cold War led to massive expansion of government programs in the areas near Washington. The Pentagon in Northern Virginia, was targeted in the September 11, 2001 attacks. In that attack, one hundred and eighty-five people died. Tragedy again struck Virginia in 2007 when thirty-two students were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre.