Virginia Black History Archives

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, April 3, 1905. The Virginia Black History Archives (VBHA) Project attempts to help document the history of African Americans in the Richmond and central Virginia area. Begun in 1990, over 50 collections make up the VBHA. They include published and unpublished documents dating primarily from the 20th century. While most of these collections are housed in Special Collections and Archives, some were digitized in the early 1990s and are available either online or on CD-ROM. By providing access to previously unavailable materials, the VBHA Project hopes to provide insight to Virginia's diverse history.

Access the list of VBHA Collections which provides links to finding aids and online access to several digitized collections. Our latest online resources include Separate But Not Equal: Race, Education, and Prince Edward County, Virginia and The Virginia Civil Rights Movement Video Initiative-- streaming video of eleven oral histories of leaders of the Civil Rights movement in Virginia and the transcripts of those interviews.

For more information about the collections, or if you have any questions or comments, please email Special Collections and Archives.

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, 1905. [Click on the image for more information about the event.]




Instructors please click Here.



Index of VBHA Collections -
Includes finding aids/guides
and Online Access to Materials


African Americans at
VCU: A History
Through the Lens of Time:
Images of African Americans
from the Cook Collection
Links to African American
Internet Resources,
with an emphasis
on Virginia history


African American
Virginia Church History
The Virginia Civil Rights Movement
Video Initiative
-- Oral histories
with leaders of the Civil Rights
movement in Virginia.






Help us document
Virginia's African American History
.


Questions and Comments
Special Collections and Archives