{"id":44462,"date":"2018-10-24T10:41:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T17:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soulofamerica.com\/?page_id=44462"},"modified":"2020-11-08T19:36:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T03:36:02","slug":"richmond-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.soulofamerica.com\/us-cities\/richmond\/richmond-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Richmond History"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Maggie

Maggie Walker House, Richmond<\/strong>; (c) Soul Of America<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Richmond History<\/h2>\n

Richmond History is most notable as the “Birthplace of African American Entrpreneurism.\u201d The roots of their freedom began with more than 5,000 African Americans who fought for America\u2019s liberty from Great Britain, with many battlefields in Virginia. Winning the American Revolution extended the sentiment of liberty from many Anglo-Virginian slave owners who granted some, but not all slaves, freedom. Even freedom had limitations and was always subordinate to the economic interests of large slaveholders.<\/p>\n

Many slaves were led to uprise for freedom by Gabriel Prosser. He was a free man who stood all of six feet two inches with long hair like his idol, Samson. Equally notable, he dreamed of a Negro state in Virginia. A violent storm forced Prosser and 1,000 slaves to suspend their attack on Richmond until 30 August 1800, time enough for elaborate plan to be betrayed by two slaves. Prosser and fifteen others were hanged on 7 October 1800.<\/p>\n

Large slaveholders with political clout, fearing that newly freed blacks would lead more uprisings, passed a law in 1806 requiring newly freed slaves to leave Virginia within 12 months or forfeit freedom. Many did exactly that. European American society reacted similarly to Nat Turner’s Uprising in 1830 and the rise of the northern Abolitionist Movement when it passed a slate of reactionary laws restricting the freedom of all Blacks. <\/p>\n

Before the 1831 law, which placed limits on Negro preaching, free Blacks often prayed with and preached to whites and slaves in Protestant churches. Somehow in the midst of these trappings, free persons of color persevered and prospered in the tobacco and mill-based economy.<\/p>\n

As Richmond industrialized, the value of free Black labor increased, which supported many African American businesses and professionals in an integrated society of the 1840s and 1850s. Unfortunately, most southern whites steeped in the “Lost Cause” mythology, established Richmond as Capitol of the Confederacy in the 1850s. <\/p>\n

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