Institution

<div>In the spring of 1951, Edwilda Allen (b. 1937) was a thirteen-year-old eighth-grade student at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville. Conditions at the all-Black school were abysmal, with inadequate facilities, outdated textbooks, and severe overcrowding that left many students attending classes in makeshift tar-paper shacks. On April 23, 1951, student Barbara Johns led a walkout of 400 students to protest the school's unequal facilities. Allen, one of the student leaders recruited by Johns, organized her eighth-grade classmates for the walkout. As a result of Allen's leadership role, her mother lost her state teaching license and was forced to find work in North Carolina. The walkout led to a lawsuit against Prince Edward County that became one of five cases incorporated into the landmark <i>Brown </i>v.<i> Board of Education</i> decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954.</div><div><br></div><div>After graduating from high school in 1955, Allen attended Wisconsin’s Alverno College, where she again blazed a trail as one of its few African American students. She taught music, married and raised a family, and eventually returned to Farmville. She became involved with the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, which helped spur the purchase of the Moton School from the county for designation as a National Historic Landmark and to establish the Robert Russa Moton Museum. In the decades since that fateful day in 1951, Edwilda Allen Isaac has educated and inspired students with her story of uncommon courage in fighting for the rights of African Americans.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Pamela Rockenbach Plahs on behalf her seventh-grade social studies students Madison Hofmann and Logan Gill, Swift Creek Middle School, Chesterfield County.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

Photograph of Edwilda Allen Isaac,  courtesy of Jill Anderson.

The Library of Virginia honored Edwilda Allen Isaac as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2016. 

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

Website

More Info

As a teenager, Edwilda Allen Isaac helped lead a walkout of students from R. R. Moton High School (now a museum) that contributed to ending school segregation in the United States.

Edwilda Gustava Allen Isaac

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Central Virginia region (not including the city of Richmond).

<div>After her debt-ridden husband committed suicide in 1777, Mary Willing Byrd (September 10, 1740-March 1814) faced the difficult task of satisfying his creditors while preserving an inheritance for her ten children. By selling off her husband's western lands, residences in Richmond and Williamsburg, and other property, she succeeded in keeping possession of Westover, the Byrd plantation in Charles City County.</div><div><br></div><div>Despite strong family ties to many serving the British cause (including Benedict Arnold), Byrd attempted to remain neutral during the American Revolution and thereby preserve her property for her children. Both British and patriot forces raided Westover early in 1781. Under a flag of truce Byrd tried to recover forty-nine slaves, three horses, and two ferryboats that Arnold’s British forces had seized. Her attempts led to formal charges that she was trading with the enemy.</div><div><br></div><div>To Governor Thomas Jefferson, Byrd defended herself eloquently against those who doubted her loyalty: "I wish well to all mankind, to America in particular. What am I but an American?" Her trial, scheduled for March 1781, never took place. In August 1781 she asked the governor for another flag of truce in order to continue her efforts to recover her property. During the final British withdrawal from the United States in 1783, Byrd appealed to the British commander to honor previous promises of restitution.</div><div><br></div><div>Byrd’s determination successfully preserved much of her property and the legacy of one of the great families of colonial Virginia. When she prepared her will in December 1813, she was still in possession of Westover and could provide for all of her children and grandchildren. Not until after her death was Westover sold outside of the Byrd family.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

After Mary Willing married William Byrd (1728-1777), she moved to Westover, the Georgian plantation home built by his father. She preserved the house and estate during the American Revolution, despite its occupation by British forces led by Benedict Arnold.

Mary Willing Byrd

Mary Randolph (August 9, 1762–January 23, 1828) wrote <i>The Virginia House-Wife</i> (1824), the first American regional cookbook. Her recipes used Virginia produce but also showed influences from African, American Indian, and European cultures, thereby creating a cuisine unique to Virginia and the South. Randolph's influential housekeeping book was an immediate success and went through many editions until the 1860s. It included both culinary instructions and advice on household supervision. Besides popularizing the use of more than forty vegetables, Randolph's book also introduced dishes from abroad, such as gazpacho, to the southern public. &nbsp;<br><br>Born at Ampthill, her family's Chesterfield County plantation, Mary Randolph learned how to run an orderly household. She married her cousin, David Meade Randolph, of Chesterfield County, in December 1780. Moldavia, their Richmond home, became a center of Federalist Party social activity. Financial reversals led Randolph in 1808 to open a Richmond boarding house, where she provided accommodations and excellent meals to an elite clientele. Later the Randolphs moved to Washington, D.C., where Mary Randolph began to compile a housekeeping book that provided management hints; directions for preparing sauces, vegetables, preserves, puddings, ice creams, soups, breads, meats, beverages, and cleaning products; and instructions on crafting a home refrigerator. <br><br>According to Randolph, "The prosperity and happiness of a family depend greatly on the order and regularity established in it." She was revising <i>The Virginia House-Wife</i> for a third edition at the time of her death. Randolph's younger sister Virginia Randolph Cary wrote the influential <i>Letters on Female Character, Addressed to a Young Lady, on the Death of Her Mother</i> (1828), the first advice book written by a southern woman for the women of her region.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br>

Mary Randolph, the author of the first American regional cookbook, was born at Ampthill plantation, where DuPont's Spruance Plant now stands (the house itself was later moved to a new location in the city of Richmond). Her work transformed cooking and household management in ways that continue to influence chefs and domestic supervisors today.

Mary Randolph

<div>Opossunoquonuske (died late in 1610) was a sister of Coquonasum, a weroance, or chief, of the Appamattuck Indians, one of several Powhatan tribes in league with the paramount chief, Powhatan. She was the weroansqua, or chief, of one of the Appamattuck towns near the mouth of the Appomattox River. The town was populous enough to put about twenty able fighting men into the field. Captain John Smith described her as young and comely.</div><div><br></div><div>Opossunoquonuske was one of the first Virginia Indian leaders the English met in 1607. Englishmen called her the queen of Appamattuck. On May 26, Captain Christopher Newport visited her at what Englishmen called "Queene Apumatecs bower." She made a majestic entrance with her attendants and would "permitt none to stand or sitt neere her." Dignified and dressed more elegantly than anyone else, she wore a copper crown, and other copper jewelry adorned her ears and encircled her neck. Her long Black hair hung down to the middle of her back. Gabriel Archer intended it as a compliment when he called her "a fatt lustie manly woman." Opossunoquonuske did not flinch, as other Indian leaders did, when at her request one of Newport’s men fired his gun.</div><div><br></div><div>The Appamattuck were wary of colonists who remained in their vicinity. In the summer of 1610 Opossunoquonuske invited several of the Englishmen to come unarmed to her town, where her men killed all but one, who escaped. In retaliation, the English burned her town and killed several people. Mortally wounded, she reportedly died in the winter. About Christmas 1611, Sir Thomas Dale raided the granaries of an Appamattuck town, killed or dispersed the people, and renamed the area Bermuda Hundred.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Opossunoquonuske, chief of an Appamattuck Indian town in the vicinity of R. Garland Dodd Park at Point of Rocks, near the mouth of the Appomattox River, was one of the first Indian leaders the English explorers met in 1607.

Opossunoquonuske

<div>Born in Jarratt, Undine Smith Moore (August 25, 1904–February 6, 1989) grew up in Petersburg, where she began piano lessons at about age seven. Juilliard Graduate School recognized her talent, awarding her its first scholarship to complete her study of music at Fisk University, from which she graduated with honors in 1926. She taught music in public schools at Goldsboro, North Carolina, and in 1927 joined the faculty of Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (later Virginia State University), where she remained until retiring in 1972. Her many notable students included jazz pianist Billy Taylor, opera singer Camilla Williams, and songwriter Phil Medley. In 1931 Moore received a master's degree from Columbia University. Shortly before her retirement she cofounded and codirected Virginia State's Black Music Center, which brought leading African American composers and artists to the Ettrick campus.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Moore began composing while at Fisk University and is best known for her choral works, including <i>Scenes from the Life of a Martyr</i>, based on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. More than two dozen of her works were published and several have appeared in anthologies. Moore credited her family and the close-knit African American communities in Jarratt and Petersburg for nurturing her love of music. She received numerous awards throughout her career, including the National Association of Negro Musicians' Distinguished Achievement Award in 1975 and the Governor's Award for the Arts in Virginia in 1985. In 1977 Moore was named music laureate of Virginia.&nbsp;</div><div><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Undine Smith Moore described herself as "a teacher who composes," while educating her students at nearby Virginia State University about music theory as well as the contributions of African Americans to American music and culture. During the 1950s she and her husband commissioned Frederick T. Hyland, a protoge of Frank Lloyd Wright, to design their home on River Road, in Ettrick.

Undine Anna Smith Moore

<div>In 1935 the City of Petersburg used funds from the Works Projects Administration to create a wildflower sanctuary in Lee Memorial Park. Under the direction of Mary Donald Claiborne Holden, women, Black and white, cleared paths; transplanted flowers, shrubs, and trees; and gathered specimens of plants in the park. In 1937 Holden asked her neighbor Bessie Niemeyer Marshall (December 25, 1884–February 14, 1960) to paint watercolors of the herbarium.</div><div><br></div><div>Sarah Elizabeth Niemeyer was born in Portsmouth. She married Myron Barraud Marshall, an Episcopal priest, on July 2, 1907. With nine children, Marshall had little time to pursue her interest in art, although she occasionally painted watercolors of plants and decorated household furniture and china. After serving parishes in the Philippines and in Virginia, the family settled in Petersburg in 1937.</div><div><br></div><div>Although she had no formal training in painting, Marshall used her powers of observation and her knowledge of plants (she was an avid gardener) to create detailed renderings. Her 238 watercolors demonstrate her skill in depicting the delicacy of a plant’s structure and the vibrancy of its colors. The commission brought much-needed money into the Marshall home. Her husband was disabled, and his pension was insufficient to support the large family. After the project ended, Marshall tried but had little success finding other commissions. After the deaths of her husband and grandson early in 1946, she returned to Portsmouth. Bessie Niemeyer Marshall died of a stroke in 1960.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The Petersburg Garden Club won the 1948 Garden Club of Virginia Massie Prize for the Lee Park Herbarium. Marshall's watercolors were featured in&nbsp;<i>With Paintbrush and Shovel: Preserving Virginia's Wildflowers&nbsp;</i>(2000). Lee Memorial Park is now on the National Register of Historic Places and undergoing restoration.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Virginia Rose Cherry, Richard Bland College, Petersburg.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

Bessie Niemeyer Marshall created detailed watercolors of plants as part of a WPA-funded project to create a wildflower and bird sanctuary at Lee Memorial Park, in Petersburg, during the Great Depression.

Bessie Niemeyer Marshall

<div>Growing up in rural Nottoway County, Cynthia E. Hudson (b. 1959)&nbsp;learned the importance of hard work and education in her close-knit family. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1981, she completed a law degree at the College of William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1987. She joined the Richmond firm McGuire, Woods, Battle &amp; Boothe (later McGuireWoods), but was drawn to public service and became deputy city attorney for Hampton in 1996. She was appointed Hampton's city attorney in 2006.</div><div><br></div><div>In December 2013 Virginia's attorney general–elect, Mark R. Herring, selected Hudson as the state's chief deputy attorney general. When she took office in January 2014 she became the first African American woman to hold that post. Hudson manages the day-to-day operations of the attorney general's office in providing legal assistance to state agencies, boards, commissions, and universities. She is especially proud of the work the attorney general's office has done in the areas of marriage equality, affordable higher education, and Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts.</div><div><br></div><div>Hudson shares her knowledge of state and local government law with the next generation of attorneys as an adjunct faculty member at William and Mary and the University of Richmond. She was elected president of the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia in 2013. In 2012 Virginia Lawyers Weekly named her one of its Influential Women in Virginia and in 2015 the Virginia Law Foundation named her a Fellow in recognition of her excellence in the law and public service.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div><div><br></div>

The first African American woman appointed chief deputy attorney general of Virginia, Cynthia Eppes Hudson grew up in the vicinity of Crewe, in Nottway County.

Cynthia Eppes Hudson

<div>Under the pen name Marion Harland, Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune (1830–1922) &nbsp;wrote more than seventy-five novels, memoirs, travel narratives, domestic manuals, etiquette books, and cookbooks in a career that spanned seventy-five years. She was born into a merchant family in Amelia County in 1830. Her parents, recognizing their daughter’s precociousness, hired tutors and briefly sent her to boarding school. In the mid-1840s the family moved to Richmond, where she attended a Presbyterian girls’ school and partook of the rich cultural life of the capital. In 1854 Hawes published her first novel, <i>Alone</i>, which received immediate public acclaim. She had written three more novels by 1860 and published stories in such national magazines as <i>Godey’s Lady’s Book</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1856 Hawes married Edward Payson Terhune, a Presbyterian minister. They moved to Newark, New Jersey, shortly before the Civil War. Terhune shared her Virginia upbringing and lessons learned as a housewife and mother in <i>Common Sense in the Household</i> (1871). Her down-to-earth narrative with easy-to-follow recipes and domestic advice was an immediate bestseller, the first of many books in which she espoused the honorable profession of homemaking. Terhune also emphasized the importance of education for women. Travel in Europe to improve her health led Terhune to record her experiences abroad. She also wrote on historical themes, including <i>The Story of Mary Washington</i> (1892), undertaken to help raise funds for an unfinished monument to the first president’s mother. Terhune completed her last book, a novel, at age eighty-eight in spite of blindness. She died in 1922 in New York City.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

A nationally known writer of novels, short stories, and domestic advice, Marion Harland (the pen name of Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune) was born early in the 19th century in the Amelia County community known as Dennisville (later Denaro).

Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune (Marion Harland)

<div>Eva Mae Fleming Scott (b. 1926) was the first woman elected to the Senate of Virginia. Born in Amelia County, where she has lived nearly all of her life, she attended Longwood College and the school of pharmacy at the Medical College of Virginia. She owned and operated a pharmacy in Amelia, where she married a businessman and had five children.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1971 Scott won election to the House of Delegates as an independent, even though she was from a Republican family. She was reelected three times and served four consecutive two-year terms. Soon after winning the first election she and her family moved to Dinwiddie County because a changed legislative district boundary temporarily put her Amelia County house in a different district. A champion of limited government and free enterprise, she opposed abortion and the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1979 Scott returned to Amelia County to run for a seat in the Senate of Virginia. Having gained the Republican nomination, she narrowly defeated the incumbent. Scott served one four-year term in the Senate and chose not to run for reelection in 1983 after major changes to the district boundaries made it more difficult for her to win. She thereafter worked in the family’s lumber business, and she continues to be active in conservative political organizations and in the Republican Party.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

In addition to being the first woman elected to the Senate of Virginia, Eva Fleming Scott owned and operated her own pharmacy on Washington Street in Amelia Court House during the middle of the 20th century.

Eva Mae Fleming Scott

<div>Lillian Lincoln Lambert (b. 1940) grew up on a Powhatan County farm. As a child she worked in the fields but had a thirst for knowledge and in her free time read any book available. She received a scholarship to Howard University, where she received a B.A. in 1966. The following year she entered the Harvard Business School, where her class included only about three dozen other women and eight African American men. Lambert helped establish the African American Student Union and assisted in recruiting other Black students. In 1969 she graduated as the first African American woman to earn an MBA from Harvard.</div><div><br></div><div>Lambert established her own janitorial services company in 1976 with an investment of several thousand dollars. She ran Centennial One, Inc., as chief executive officer and president until she sold it in 2001. By that time the company had grown to more than 1,200 employees and $20 million in sales.</div><div><br></div><div>Lambert received the Harvard Business School’s Alumni Achievement Award in 2003, and in 2010 <i>Enterprise Women Magazine</i> inducted her into its Enterprising Women Hall of Fame. She serves on the board of visitors of Virginia Commonwealth University and on the board of directors for the Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association.</div><div><br></div><div>Lambert travels the country telling her inspirational story and lecturing on entrepreneurship, women’s issues, race, self-improvement, and education. Her autobiography, <i>The Road to Someplace Better</i>, appeared in 2010. She lives in Mechanicsville and Sarasota, Florida.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

Lillian Lincoln Lambert grew up in the Ballsville community of Powhatan County, where she graduated from the segregated Pocahontas High School. She overcame racial and gender prejudices to become the first African American woman to earn an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Lillian Lincoln Lambert

<div>As founder and director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music, Judith Shatin (b. 1949) combines her musical training and her fascination with sounds, natural and built, to create works that expand the traditional definitions of music and composer. For Shatin, there is no distinction between acoustic and digital music. She uses combinations of instruments, electronic media, and even wild animal sounds. In an interview, Shatin said that she is "interested in creating perceptible rhythmic frameworks and in developing musical structures that invite both physical and intellectual response."</div><div><br></div><div>Shatin, a student of piano and flute, received degrees from Douglass College, The Juilliard School, and Princeton University. While at Princeton she studied under the composer Milton Babbitt, a pioneer in using computers to write music. In 1979 Shatin joined the faculty of the University of Virginia, where she is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Music and where in 1987 she established the Center for Computer Music. In addition to her tenure as president of American Women Composers, Inc. (1989–1993), she has served on the boards of the International Alliance for Women in Music, the American Composers Alliance, and the League of Composers/ISCM. Shatin has received four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as awards from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She is married to Michael Kubovy, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

A composer and sound artist, Judith Shatin champions music that blurs the line between acoustic and digital. She established the Center for Computer Music within the University of Virginia's music department housed in Old Cabell Hall, where she also teaches. 

Judith Shatin

<div>Raised in New Jersey, Debbie Ryan (b. 1952) graduated from Pennsylvania’s Ursinus College in 1975. She then arrived at the University of Virginia, serving as an assistant coach for the women's basketball and field hockey teams. In 1977 she became the basketball squad's head coach, seven years after the university became fully coeducational, armed with only one scholarship split between two players.</div><div><br></div><div>Ryan pushed hard for better facilities and resources. The Cavaliers reached postseason play for the first time in her third season. Ryan's teams reeled off eleven consecutive appearances in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen from 1987 to 1997, including three straight Final Four appearances. Ryan earned national coach of the year honors for the 1990–1991 season, when the Cavaliers racked up a 31–3 record and reached the NCAA final. She compiled a total of twenty-three seasons with at least twenty wins.</div><div><br></div><div>In August 2000, Ryan learned that she was suffering from pancreatic cancer, a disease with a survival rate under 10 percent. She became friends with Virginia state senator Emily Couric when both underwent treatment, and they focused on how they would design a patient-care facility and raise funds. Remarkably, Ryan finished treatment in six weeks. After Couric's death, Ryan continued to campaign for the facility they envisioned, and the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center was dedicated in 2011. That same year Ryan retired from coaching with 739 wins, then the tenth-highest number of all-time victories in NCAA women's basketball. The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inducted Ryan in 2008.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Debbie Ryan turned the University of Virginia women's basketball team into a national power and currently campaigns for research into pancreatic cancer. At University Hall, where UVA's women played until 2006, Ryan led her team to five perfect seasons in 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, and 1995.

Deborah A. "Debbie" Ryan

<div>Soon after moving to Virginia in 1977, the writer Felicia Warburg Rogan spent a day with her husband John Rogan picking grapes with friends at Lucie Morton's vineyard in King George County. Morton convinced the Rogans to press the grapes, put the juice in a glass container, and let it ferment into wine. Though Felicia Rogan judged the final product "terrible stuff," John Rogan enjoyed the project and helped her put in vines on his farm. The homegrown wines won awards, so she planted more grapes, and in 1983 with her husband’s help she established Oakencroft Vineyard and Winery Corporation. The company's early wines won more honors, and the enterprise expanded even further.</div><div><br></div><div>Virginians drank little wine when the New York–born Rogan arrived in the state and instead preferred hard liquor. She worked hard to promote and improve the quality of local viticulture and sought links with Thomas Jefferson, who felt that people should drink wine rather than stronger alcohol. Rogan started the Jeffersonian Wine Grape Growers Society and the Monticello Wine Festival to help develop local wine and pushed for the region around Charlottesville to become known as the Monticello Appellation. She served as the first chairman of the Virginia Wine Growers Advisory Board and promoted the industry in Taiwan with Governor Gerald L. Baliles, who named her "the First Lady of Virginia Wine." She also lectured in Dijon, France, and traveled with Governor L. Douglas Wilder to Asia.</div><div><br></div><div>When Rogan first developed her interest in a vineyard, Virginia featured six wineries, with only one remotely near Charlottesville. Today, the state boasts more than 150 wineries and 23 near Monticello. She closed Oakencroft in 2008, but continued as an ambassador for state wine.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

Felicia Warburg Rogan's efforts to promote Virginia's wine industry have earned her the title "the First Lady of Virginia Wine." In 2008 she closed her Oakencroft Winery, located west of Charlottesville on Oakencroft Lane, which had been producing wine for 25 years.

Felicia Warburg Rogan

<p>Growing up, Claudia Lane Dodson (August 31, 1941–August 18, 2007) loved to play sports, and she lettered in basketball, field hockey, and lacrosse while earning her degree in physical education at Westhampton College of the University of Richmond in 1963. After completing her master's degree at the University of Tennessee, she chaired the girls' physical education department at a Chesterfield County high school. In 1971 she became programs supervisor for girls' athletics for the Virginia High School League, which then sponsored only one statewide competition for girls.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dedicated to developing opportunities for girls' athletics, Dodson fought the perception that providing opportunities for girls meant decreasing those available for boys. She pushed for every high school to offer two sports for girls during each of three athletic seasons and to offer regional and state finals in all of them. The number of girls playing high school sports in Virginia increased from about 8,100 in 1972 to more than 30,000 in 1982. At the time of her retirement in 2002, the VHSL offered 31 state championships for girls. Dodson was one of the first two women appointed to the National Basketball Committee of the United States and Canada. In 1996 she helped found WinS (Women in Sports) to support and recognize female athletes in the Charlottesville area. </p><p><br /></p><p>The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association honored her contributions to high school sports with its Distinguished Service Award in 1996. The VHSL renamed its Sportsmanship, Ethics, and Integrity Award in Dodson's honor in 2007. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

As a programs supervisor for the Virginia High School League, headquartered in Charlottesville, Claudia L. Dodson was dedicated to developing opportunities for girls' athletics across the state.

Claudia L. Dodson

<div>As a child, Karenne Wood (b. 1960) grew up knowing that she was Indian, but because of the centuries of neglect and mistreatment endured by Virginia's native peoples, she did not fully understand what being Indian meant. She has spent her life answering this question. A member of the Monacan tribe, Wood is completing a doctoral degree in anthropology, for which she began an effort to document and revive the Monacan language. She has sat on the Monacan tribal council and served as tribal historian.</div><div><br></div><div>During the 2007 commemoration of Virginia's colonization, Wood and other Virginia Indians ensured that the history and culture of native Virginians were acknowledged. Wood edited <i>The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail</i> (2007), which includes tribal histories and interpretive site descriptions, and curated the exhibition <i>Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present, at the Virginia Museum of Natural History</i>. Her work on behalf of all Indians has included coordinating the return of sacred artifacts to native communities through the Association on American Indian Affairs.</div><div><br></div><div>A published poet, Wood earned an MFA in poetry from George Mason University. Her 2001 work <i>Markings on Earth</i> won the Diane Decorah Award for Poetry from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. Currently she serves as the director of the Virginia Indian Program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. By reaching out to educators, native communities, and the general public, Wood strives to recognize and highlight the experiences of the people who first shaped Virginia and who continue to shape the commonwealth today.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

As director of the Virginia Indian Program, Karenne Wood, who lives in the vicinity of the Fluvanna County community of Kents Store, ensures that the history, traditions, and contributions of Virginia's Indians are incorporated into Virginia's historical narrative.

Karenne Wood

<div>Ana Ines Barragan King (b. 1957), a native of Colombia, in South America, learned flamenco, jazz, and modern dance at an early age from her mother, a dancer and teacher. She attended the Instituto Departmental de Bellas Artes of Colombia, and earned a BFA in dance and choreography. She founded the Santander Jazz Ballet in Colombia and was its artistic director for a decade.</div><div><br></div><div>After her marriage, King came to Richmond, where she studied dance at Virginia Commonwealth University and later joined its faculty in the Department of Dance and Choreography. She began a dance company early in the 1990s and in 1997 established the Latin Ballet of Virginia. King refers to herself and her company as "ambassadors of dance and culture," because along with dance technique, they also teach its history as well as the culture of Latin America. She has developed educational programs to teach students Spanish and English through dance and to use dance as therapy for children with special needs. King's work has brought access to the arts to many low-income families and the Latin Ballet of Virginia has continued to thrive. Hundreds of students attend its classes at multiple locations each year. In addition to being the company's artistic director and administrator, King continues to teach and choreograph award-winning dance pieces, including the annual <i>Legend of the Poinsettia</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>King has received numerous honors, including the Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts (Dance) in 2011 and the YWCA of Richmond's Outstanding Women Award for Arts in 2015.</div><div><br></div><div>Ana King was the&nbsp;recipient of the VABPW Foundation Business Leadership Award for 2016.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

As founder and artistic director of the Latin Ballet of Virginia, headquartered at the Cultural Arts Center in Henrico County, Ana Ines King shares Latin American dance and culture with students and audiences across Virginia.

Ana Ines Barragan King

<div>The child of former slaves, Virginia Estelle Randolph (June 8, 1874–March 16, 1958) completed her education at the age of sixteen and took her first teaching job in Goochland County. In 1892 she began teaching at the Mountain Road School, in Henrico County. There she developed her unique approach to education by creating a successful formula based on practicality, creativity, and involvement from parents and the community. A firm believer in learning through doing, Randolph combined academic instruction with lessons on cooking, weaving, and gardening. Because of her innovative teaching style, in October 1908 she became the first Jeanes Supervisor Industrial Teacher, a position she held for more than forty years. Her work took her throughout the South and earned her a national and international reputation as a leader in education. <br><br>In 1915 a new high school for African Americans, the Virginia Randolph County Training School, was constructed in Randolph's honor. In 1930 a larger brick building replaced the original school after a fire destroyed it. In 1924 a girls' dormitory opened, located on three acres purchased by Randolph next to the school, to provide housing for thirty female students. Randolph also took students into her own home. The 1930 census lists fourteen "adopted" sons and daughters, ranging in age from eleven to nineteen, living in her household.</div><div><br></div><div>In recognition of her success, Randolph received a William E. Harmon Award in 1926. She retired in 1949 and died in 1958. In 1970 the Virginia Randolph School was dedicated as a museum, and in 1974 the Virginia Randolph Cottage became a National Historic Landmark.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Virginia Estelle Randolph's innovative teaching techniques at her school on Mountain Road became the model for African American education throughout the South early in the twentieth century. Henrico County currently operates the Academy at Virginia Randolph for academically challenged students and a museum at the Virginia Randolph Cottage. 

Virginia Women in History - Central Virginia Region

Edwilda Gustava Allen Isaac

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Additional Information