Search Results

• Medal of Honor

  … Cuzco, Cuba, on June 14, 1898, during the "Spanish-American War":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/527. The record … at a ceremony at the White House on May 14, 1970. He is the highest ranking African-American to receive the medal.

• Walter Dean Myers

  Author Walter Dean Myers (August 12, 1937-July 1, 2014), regarded as one of the most influential writers of juvenile fiction, was born Walter Milton Myers in Martinsburg. After his mother's death when he was three years old, he was raised by foster …

• Constitution of 1851

  By the time the census of 1840 was taken, the white population of Western Virginia exceeded that of the rest of the state. Westerners quickly pointed out that they had only 56 of the 134 delegates and 10 of the 29 senators in the Virginia General Assembly …

• The Constitution of West Virginia

  West Virginia has had two constitutions, one ratified in 1863 and a second in 1872. The 1863 constitution was drafted at a convention held in Wheeling between November 26, 1861, and February 18, 1862. The writing of a constitution was an essential step …

• Copperhead Movement

  In the colorful jargon of the Civil War, the ‘‘Copperheads’’ were Northern Democrats who supported the war, but with some reservations. They opposed what they considered to be unconstitutional attacks on states’ rights, including the outright " …

• Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins

  Aviator Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins (March 26, 1920-July 30, 2006) was the first Black woman to become a solo pilot in the Civilian Pilot Training Program at "West Virginia State College":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1106 (now University …

• Normal Schools

  Several West Virginia colleges originated as normal schools, whose purpose was to train primary and secondary school teachers. The need for normal schools was recognized early in our history as a state. On February 3, 1865, the legislature asked the …

• Northfork Blue Demons

  Northfork High School, located deep within the southern coalfields in "McDowell County":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1631, attracted national attention when its basketball team won a record-setting eight consecutive state championships …

• Oak Hill

  … the town’s first high school in 1902. In that year, James M. Ellis of Oak Hill became the second African-American elected to the West Virginia legislature. From 1954 to 1977, Oak Hill was home to the popular " …

• Medicine

  The practice of medicine in West Virginia is both specialized and generalized, urban and rural. Qualified physicians work in solo and group private practices, rural clinics, large and small hospitals, university health science centers, free clinics, …

• Mineral County

  … of "Henry Louis Gates Jr":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2087., of Harvard, a prominent African-American scholar. Piedmont once had a B&O roundhouse and machine shops. Ridgeley was a …

• Mingo County

  … /924, Russians, "Poles":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1892, Czechoslovakians, and "African-Americans":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/27, as well as "Jews":https:// …

• Pentecostalism

  … the world. Six years later, an intense outbreak of tongue speaking in Los Angeles, when an African-American disciple of Parham, William J. Seymour, led his church in a much larger and more influential exercise …

• Piedmont

  … the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, grew up in Piedmont. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, a …

• William Pierce

  White supremacist William Pierce (September 11, 1933-July 23, 2002) established his headquarters at a rural compound near Hillsboro in 1984. Pierce was born in Portland, Oregon. A former physics professor, Pierce was co-founder in 1974 of the National …

• Maceo Pinkard

  Musician Maceo Pinkard (June 27, 1897-July 21, 1962) was born in Bluefield. Educated at Bluefield Colored Institute (now "Bluefield State University":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/567), Pinkard became one of the most successful …

• Pocahontas County

  Pocahontas County is the third largest county in West Virginia, with 941.6 square miles, but among the least populous, with a 2020 population of 7,869, a nearly 10 percent decline from the 2010 Census. Elevations range from slightly under 2,000 feet to …

• Denmar Hospital

  The Legislature established the West Virginia State Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium on February 16, 1917, for the care of Black TB patients. Denmar, located on the Greenbrier River in "Pocahontas County":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/ …

• Marmaduke Dent

  Justice Marmaduke Herbert Dent (April 18, 1849-September 11, 1909) was born in Granville, "Monongalia County":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2022, and his childhood was framed by the tumultuous years of conflict over slavery, secession, …

• Dick Pointer

  On May 29, 1778, Dick Pointer, a black slave, helped to save about 60 settlers in the Greenbrier Valley. Warned that a band of "Shawnee Indians":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/383 had left the Ohio Valley with the intent of attacking the …

• Poles

  … . At that time, apart from native whites and African-Americans, only Italians and Hungarians were represented in the mines in greater numbers. … . Nevertheless, still vibrant strains of Polish-American culture remain, especially in the northern- …

• Diamond Department Store

  … many as 80,000 shoppers into the glamorously decorated emporium. The Diamond, however, barred African-Americans from its lunch counter and cafeteria for decades. African-American organizations waged a two-year boycott of the …

• Dickinson Family

  Colonel John Dickinson, a veteran of the "Battle of Point Pleasant":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1889 and resident of Bath County, Virginia, had two tracts of land along the Kanawha River surveyed in November 1784. A tract of 502 acres …

• Politics

  … did not. Moreover, our state ended Confederate disenfranchisement by 1871, and it never denied the vote to African-Americans. West Virginia also largely avoided the impact of both Populism, the ‘‘bottom-up’’ political …

• Potomac State College of WVU

  … /2087, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University; "John Kruk":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2437, …