Hello, beautiful people! Happy Black History Month to all my skin folk out there! I hope you all are doing well. For this month, I’ve decided to bring it close to home by highlighting some important figures and places not only in my home county but most of the Tidewater region. Today, we’ll start with Middlesex County, The Town of West Point, and Gloucester County.
Irene Morgan Kirkaldy (April 1917 – August 2007)
Middlesex County, Virginia
In July of 1944, Irene Morgan Kirkaldy was leaving Gloucester, Virginia on a full Greyhound bus
when the driver demanded that she and her seatmate move to the colored section to make the seats available to the white passengers who’d just got on.
Morgan refused, arguing that since the Greyhound was on the interstate, VA law, stating that bus segregation was legal, did not apply.
She was driven to the Saluda County jail where she would be charged and plead guilty to resisting arrest but not the segregation offense.
June of 1945, she would lose her case at the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
This led her and her team to appeal to the US Supreme Court in Morgan vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia, where they ruled in her favor on the basis that the VA law was unconstitutional.
Kirkaldy was the first to protest bus segregation in this way, even before Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin (both a few months apart in 1955).
To read more, please visit the following links: https://www.middlesexmuseum.com/post/morgan-v-virginia-1946
https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshallfame/html/kirkaldy.html
Beverly Allen School
Town of West Point, Virginia
Beverly Allen Jr. was born enslaved in August 1859 in King and Queen County, VA. After emancipation, he and his family moved to West Point, where he worked as a fisherman and oysterman.
On January 11th, 1870, Allen paid $130 for a lot at the intersection of what is now Lee and Third Streets. There, he built the first house owned by a former enslaved person in the community.
This house would become a school for Black children, taught by two white women from Boston who already lived there with them. Children attended during the day, and adults went at night.
The school would move several times to bigger locations because of overcrowding.
It would eventually end up at its current location on 13th Street, just across from what is now known as the WestRock factory.
When the school closed in 1952, African American students were forced to attend school outside of West Point in King William County, VA since the combined high school and elementary school did not want to integrate.
This led to the court case Dobbins v. Commonwealth and the rise of the West Point 29, comprised of 29 students and 8 parents.
I’ll be honest and say that I couldn’t find a complete history of the school, but I still wanted to highlight it. As of 2019, the school and the land it is on were sold to West Rock. If you visit the link below, you’ll see that they’ve been quiet, aside from one comment stating that they plan to restore the school and preserve it. No known updates since then.
To read more visit these links:
https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Allen_Beverly
Thomas “TC” Calhoun Walker (June 16, 1862 – 1953)
Gloucester County, VA
Born enslaved June 16, 1862 in Gloucester County.
With no formal education before the age of 10, Walker was inspired to obtain higher education when his Sunday school gave him a spelling book called, “John’s Common Book.”
He saved 92 cents and went to Hampton Institute. He was denied admission but was able to convince the founder, General Samuel J. Armstrong, to accept him under two conditions: he would work on campus during the day and attend class at night.
He began studying law in 1883, studying under former Confederate General William B. Taliaferro began in 1887. The same year, he was admitted to the Virginia Bar.
He was elected to the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors from 1891 to 1895.
In 1896, he was appointed as Virginia’s first black Collector of Customs by President William McKinley.
In 1934, President Roosevelt appointed him as the advisor and consultant of Negro affairs for the Virginia Emergency Relief Administration, gaining the nickname “Black Governor” of Virginia.
He also ventured into different areas, such as becoming superintendent of Gloucester Negro Schools, placement programs for orphaned Blacks, and persuading the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Writers’ Project to include writings from former slaves.
He passed away in Gloucester County in 1953 at 91 years old.
Learn more here:
https://www.nps.gov/people/tcwalker.htm
https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Walker_Thomas_Calhoun
Please visit all of the links I provided above to learn more about these courageous leaders. We must learn our history so it can never be taken away from us.
If you’re interested in learning more you can return next week for some more Tidewater Black History.
Also, you can read some of my most recent blog post here: How To: New Years Resolutions!
Thank you for spending some time with me today,
with love always,
Minajhadore <3
