African Americans in Virginia

African Americans are the largest racial minority in Virginia. According to the 2010 Census, more than 1.5 million, or one in five Virginians is "Black or African American". African Americans were enslaved in the state.^[3] As of the 2020 U.S. Census, African Americans were 18.6% of the state's population.^[4]

Black Virginians

Total population
1,607,581[1]
Languages
Southern American English, African American English
Religion
Historically Black Protestant[2]

History

Slave auction in Virginia, 1861

Further information: History of Virginia

The first twenty African slaves from Angola landed in Virginia in 1619 on a Portuguese slave ship.^[5] Lynchings, racial segregation and white supremacy were prevalent in Virginia.^[6] The first African slaves arrived in the British colony Jamestown, Virginia and were then bought by English colonists.^[7]

Great Dismal Swamp maroons were people who fled to swamps in Virginia to escape slavery, circa 1700s until 1860s.^[8]

Education

The Laurel Grove Colored School and Church was a congregation founded by former enslaved African Americans in the 1880s in Franconia, Virginia.^[9] The school was active in the education of Black students from the early 1880s until 1932. The school building is now a living museum of a 1920s African American one room school; the site contains a cemetery; and the church operates as the Laurel Grove Baptist Church.^[10]

Notable people

• William T. Amiger (1870–1929), college president, educator, Baptist minister^[11]
• Chris Brown (born 1989), singer^[12]
• Missy Elliott (born 1971), rapper
• Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), educator, author, orator and adviser^[13]
• Pharrell Williams (born 1973), musician, singer
• Trey Songz (born 1984, né Tremaine Aldon Neverson), singer^[14]
• Wanda Sykes (born 1964), comedian and actress^[15]
• Plaxico Burress (born 1977), football player

See also

• Virginia portal

• Great Dismal Swamp maroons
• Black Southerners
• First Africans in Virginia
• History of slavery in Virginia
• Demographics of Virginia
• List of African-American newspapers in Virginia