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2024 SESSION
24101620DPatrons-- Cole, Anthony, Bennett-Parker, Carr, Clark, Convirs-Fowler, Cousins, Feggans, Gardner, Henson, Hernandez, Hope, Keys-Gamarra, Krizek, Laufer, LeVere Bolling, Lopez, Martinez, McClure, McQuinn, Mundon King, Price, Rasoul, Seibold, Sewell, Shin, Simon, Simonds, Thomas, Ward and Watts; Senators: Bagby, Ebbin, Favola, Hashmi and Williams Graves
WHEREAS, for more than 400 years of Virginia's history, Black women have shaped the Commonwealth's history, facing combined racial and gender barriers, often with little recognition; and
WHEREAS, the lives and contributions of Black women in Virginia, both historical and contemporary, should be honored and celebrated in the Commonwealth; and
WHEREAS, Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born into slavery, gained an education, and later served as a spy for the Union in the Confederate White House during the American Civil War; after the war, she worked as a teacher, educating the formerly enslaved in freedman's schools; and
WHEREAS, Rosa Dixon Bowser, born in 1855, was an educator, women's rights activist, and social reformer, who founded the first African American teachers association and co-founded the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs and the National Association of Colored Women; and
WHEREAS, Lucy Simms, born into slavery, began teaching as a teenager and continued teaching for 56 years, becoming a dedicated and beloved educator of three generations of Harrisonburg students; and
WHEREAS, Evelyn Thomas Butts, a civil rights activist and Democratic Party leader from Norfolk, successfully fought toward overturning Virginia's poll tax; she conduced voter registration campaigns and helped establish Concerned Citizens for Political Education and by the end of the 1970s was considered one of the most important Black political leaders in her region; and
WHEREAS, Barbara Rose Johns, at the age of 16, led the student strike at the racially segregated R.R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County in 1951, protesting the school's poor conditions, and setting in motion events that would lead to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case; and
WHEREAS, countless Black women throughout Virginia's history,
including, among many others, Elizabeth Keckley, Lucy Goode Brooks, Jennie
Serepta Dean, Maggie Lena Walker, Dorothy Irene Height,
Virginia Randolph, Virgie M. Binford, and Yvonne Miller, have had a hand in
shaping the Commonwealth's history, creating pathways amidst racial and gender
barriers for Black women,
and for all citizens of the
Commonwealth to follow and benefit from; and
WHEREAS, Black women in the Commonwealth continue to face inequities and injustices in the present day and continue to break barriers; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly designate April, in 2024 and in each succeeding year, as Black Women's History Month in Virginia; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates post the designation of this month on the General Assembly's website.