Editing Virginia (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Virginia}}

=== Earliest inhabitants ===
{{Main|Native American tribes in Virginia}}
{{stack|float=right|margin=true|[[File:Pocahontas-14.jpg|thumb|The story of [[Pocahontas]] was simplified and romanticized by later artists and authors, including [[John Smith (explorer)|Smith]] himself, and promoted by her descendants, some of whom married into [[First Families of Virginia|elite colonial families]].<ref name=slate_pocahontas>{{cite news |url= http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/06/pocahontas_wedding_re_enactment_john_rolfe_john_smith_and_native_americans.html |title= Pocahontas: Fantasy and Reality |work= Slate Magazine |first= Laurie Gwen |last= Shapiro |date= June 22, 2014 |access-date= June 23, 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140623013337/http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/06/pocahontas_wedding_re_enactment_john_rolfe_john_smith_and_native_americans.html |archive-date= June 23, 2014 |url-status= live}}</ref>|alt=A simple drawing of a young dark-haired Native American woman speaking to two men in armor from the early 1600s. Several Native Americans look on from the right.]]}}
Nomadic hunters are [[Peopling of the Americas|estimated to have arrived]] in Virginia around 17,000 years ago. Evidence from [[Daugherty's Cave and Breeding Site|Daugherty's Cave]] shows it was regularly used as a [[rock shelter]] by 9,800 years ago.{{sfn|Egloff|Woodward|2006|pp=2–14}} During the late [[Woodland period]] (500–1000 [[Common Era|CE]]), tribes coalesced, and farming, first of corn and squash, began, with beans and tobacco arriving from [[Southwestern United States|the southwest]] and Mexico by the end of the period. [[Palisade]]d towns began to be built around 1200. The native population in the current boundaries of Virginia reached around 50,000 in the 1500s.{{sfn|Egloff|Woodward|2006|pp=5, 31–39}} Large groups in the area at that time included the [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] in the [[Tidewater region of Virginia|Tidewater region]], which they referred to as [[Tsenacommacah]], the [[Iroquoian languages|Iroquoian]]-speaking [[Nottoway Tribe|Nottoway]] and [[Meherrin]] to the north and south, and the [[Tutelo]], who spoke [[Siouan languages|Siouan]], to the west.<ref name=heinemann/>

In response to threats from these other groups to their trade network, thirty or so [[Powhatan language|Virginia Algonquian]]-speaking tribes consolidated during the 1570s under Wahunsenacawh, known in English as [[Chief Powhatan]].<ref name=heinemann>{{harvnb|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=4–11}}</ref> Powhatan controlled more than 150&nbsp;settlements that had a total population of around 15,000 in 1607.<ref>{{cite web|first=Sarah J.|last=Stebbins|date=August 20, 2020|title=Chronology of Powhatan Indian Activity|url=https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/chronology-of-powhatan-indian-activity.htm|access-date=February 14, 2022|publisher=National Park Service}}</ref> Three-fourths of the native population in Virginia, however, died from [[smallpox]] and other [[Old World diseases]] during that century,<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/220.html |title= 1700: Virginia Native peoples succumb to smallpox |website= National Institutes of Health |date= July 10, 2020 |access-date= June 11, 2021}}</ref> disrupting their [[oral tradition]]s and complicating research into earlier periods.<ref>{{cite journal |url= https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/1553 |title= How Cultural Factors Hastened the Population Decline of the Powhatan Indians
|first= Julia Ruth |last= Beckley |website= Virginia Commonwealth University Scholars Compass |date= May 2008 |doi= 10.25772/VWYX-2J21
|access-date= August 10, 2023}}</ref> Additionally, many primary sources, including those that mention Powhatan's daughter, [[Pocahontas]], were created by Europeans, who may have held biases or misunderstood native social structures and customs.<ref name=slate_pocahontas/><ref>{{cite web |url= https://states.aarp.org/virginia/virginia-treasures-pocahontas-her-real-world-versus-the-legend |title= Virginia Treasures: Pocahontas—Her Real World Versus the Legend |first= Myra |last= Basnight |website= AARP |date= June 7, 2022 |access-date= August 10, 2023}}</ref>

===Colony===
{{Main|Colony of Virginia}}
Several European expeditions, including a [[Ajacán Mission|group of Spanish Jesuits]], explored the [[Chesapeake Bay]] during the 16th century.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Glanville, Jim|url=http://www.holstonia.net/files/Conquistadors2.pdf|title=16th Century Spanish Invasions of Southwest Virginia|type=Reprint|journal=Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal|volume=XVII|issue=1|pages=34–42|year=2009|access-date=January 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212092301/http://www.holstonia.net/files/Conquistadors2.pdf|archive-date=December 12, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> To help counter [[Spanish West Indies|Spain's colonies in the Caribbean]], Queen [[Elizabeth I of England]] supported [[Walter Raleigh]]'s 1584 expedition to the [[East Coast of the United States|Atlantic coast of North America]].{{sfn|Wallenstein|2007|pp=8–9}}{{sfn|Moran|2007|p=8}} The name "Virginia" was used by Captain [[Arthur Barlowe]] in the expedition's report, and may have been suggested by Raleigh or Elizabeth (perhaps noting her status as the "Virgin Queen" or that they viewed the land as being untouched) or related to an [[Algonquin language|Algonquin]] phrase, ''Wingandacoa'' or ''Windgancon'', or leader's name, [[Wingina]], as heard by the expedition.{{sfn|Stewart|2008|p=22}}<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.pilotonline.com/history/article_bae82fca-f03f-5c5e-8770-89e925406801.html |title= What's in a name? |first= Elisabeth |last= Hulette |newspaper= The Virginian-Pilot |date= March 19, 2012 |access-date= June 30, 2021}}</ref> The name initially applied to the entire coastal region from [[South Carolina]] in the south to [[Maine]] in the north, along with the island of [[Bermuda]].{{sfn|Vollmann|2002|pp=695–696}} [[Roanoke Colony|Raleigh's colony]] failed, but the potential financial and strategic gains still captivated many English policymakers. In 1606, [[James I of England|King James I]] issued a [[First Virginia Charter|charter for a new colony]] to the [[London Company|Virginia Company of London]]. The group financed an expedition under [[Christopher Newport]] that established a settlement named [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] in 1607.{{sfn|Conlin|2009|pp=30–31}}

Though more settlers soon joined, many were ill-prepared for the dangers of the new settlement. As the colony's president, [[John Smith (explorer)|John Smith]] secured food for the colonists from nearby tribes, but after he left in 1609, this trade stopped and a [[Anglo-Powhatan Wars|series of ambush-style killings]] between colonists and natives under [[Powhatan (Native American leader)|Chief Powhatan]] and [[Opechancanough|his brother]] began, resulting in [[Starving Time (Jamestown)|mass starvation in the colony]] that winter.<ref>{{harvnb|Hoffer|2006|p=132}}; {{harvnb|Grizzard|Smith|2007|pp=128–133}}</ref> By the end of the colony's first fourteen years, over eighty percent of the roughly eight thousand settlers transported there had died.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=30}} [[Tobacco in the American Colonies|Demand for exported tobacco]], however, fueled the need for more workers.{{sfn|Wallenstein|2007|p=22}} Starting in 1618, the [[headright]] system tried to solve this by granting colonists farmland for their help attracting [[indentured servant]]s.{{sfn|Hashaw|2007|pp=76–77, 239–240}} Enslaved Africans [[First Africans in Virginia|were first sold in Virginia]] in 1619. Though other Africans arrived as indentured servants and could be freed after four to seven years, the basis for [[History of slavery in Virginia|lifelong slavery]] was developed in legal cases like those of [[John Punch (slave)|John Punch]] in 1640 and [[John Casor]] in 1655.<ref>{{Cite news |url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/horrible-fate-john-casor-180962352/ |title= The Horrible Fate of John Casor, The First Black Man to be Declared Slave for Life in America |first= Kat |last= Eschner |magazine= Smithsonian Magazine |date= March 8, 2017 |access-date= June 5, 2020}}</ref> Laws passed in Jamestown defined slavery as [[Race (human categorization)|race-based]] in 1661, as [[Partus sequitur ventrem|inherited maternally]] in 1662, and as enforceable by death in 1669.{{sfn|Hashaw|2007|pp=211–215}}

[[File:The Governor's Palace -- Williamsburg (VA) September 2012.jpg|thumb|left|In 1699, after the statehouse in [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] was destroyed by fire, the [[Colony of Virginia]]'s capitol was moved to [[Williamsburg, Virginia|Williamsburg]], where the [[College of William & Mary]] was founded six years earlier.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=76–77}}|alt=A three-story red brick colonial-style hall and its left and right wings during summer.]]
From the colony's start, residents agitated for greater local control, and in 1619, certain male colonists began electing representatives to an assembly, later called the [[House of Burgesses]], that negotiated issues with the [[Virginia Governor's Council|governing council]] appointed by the London Company.{{sfn|Gordon|2004|p=17}} Unhappy with this arrangement, the monarchy revoked the company's charter and began directly naming [[List of colonial governors of Virginia|governors]] and Council members in 1624. In 1635, colonists arrested [[John Harvey (Virginia governor)|a governor who ignored the assembly]] and sent him back to England against his will.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=32, 37}} [[William Berkeley (governor)|William Berkeley]] was named governor in 1642, just as the turmoil of the [[English Civil War]] and [[British Interregnum|Interregnum]] permitted the colony greater autonomy.<ref>{{cite book |last= Billings |first= Warren |title= A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century |location= Richmond |publisher= Library of Virginia |date= 2004 |pages= 30–35 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FQiGAAAAMAAJ |isbn= 978-0-88490-202-7}}</ref> As a supporter of the king, Berkeley welcomed other [[Virginia Cavaliers (historical)|Cavaliers]] who fled to Virginia. He surrendered to [[Roundhead|Parliamentarians]] in 1652, but after the 1660 [[Stuart Restoration|Restoration]] made him governor again, he blocked assembly elections and exacerbated the [[Class stratification|class divide]] by disenfranchising and restricting the movement of indentured servants, who made up around eighty percent of the workforce.{{sfn|Tarter|2020|pp=62}} On the colony's frontier, [[Native American tribes in Virginia|tribes]] like the [[Tutelo]] and [[Doeg people|Doeg]] were being squeezed by [[Seneca people|Seneca]] raiders from the north, leading to more confrontations with colonists. In 1676, several hundred working-class followers of [[Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist)|Nathaniel Bacon]], upset by Berkeley's refusal to retaliate against the tribes, burned Jamestown.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=51–59}}

[[Bacon's Rebellion]] forced the signing of [[Bacon's Laws]], which restored some of the colony's rights and sanctioned both attacks on native tribes and the enslavement of their people.{{sfn|Tarter|2020|pp=51–57}}<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/lowcountry_furthrdg1.htm |title= Work, Marriage, Christianity |website= National Park Service |date= April 20, 2022 |access-date= November 11, 2024}}</ref> The [[Treaty of 1677]] further reduced the independence of the tribes that signed it, and aided the colony's assimilation of their land in the years that followed.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=57}}{{sfn|Shefveland|2016|pp=59–62}} Colonists in the 1700s were pushing westward into the area held by the Seneca and their larger [[Iroquois|Iroquois Nation]], and in 1748, a group of wealthy speculators, backed by the British monarchy, formed the [[Ohio Company]] to start English settlement and trade in the [[Ohio Country]] west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]].{{sfn|Anderson|2000|p=23}} France, which claimed this area as part of [[New France]], viewed this as a threat, and in 1754 the [[French and Indian War]] engulfed England, France, the Iroquois, and other allied tribes on both sides. A militia from several British colonies, called the [[Virginia Regiment]], was led by Major [[George Washington]], himself one of the investors in the Ohio Company.{{sfn|Anderson|2000|pp=42–43}}

===Statehood===
{{see also|Virginia in the American Revolution}}
{{stack|float=right|margin=true|[[File:Patrick-Henry-by-Rothermel.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|In 1765, [[Patrick Henry]] led a [[Virginia Resolves|protest]] of the unpopular [[Stamp Act 1765|Stamp Act]] in the [[House of Burgesses]], later depicted in this portrait by [[Peter F. Rothermel]].|alt=Upper-class middle-aged man dressed in a bright red cloak speaks before an assembly of other angry men. The subject's right hand is raise high in gesture toward the balcony.]]}}
In the decade following the [[French and Indian War]], the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]] passed new taxes which were deeply unpopular in the colonies. In the [[House of Burgesses]], opposition to [[No taxation without representation|taxation without representation]] was led by [[Patrick Henry]] and [[Richard Henry Lee]], among others.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/declaration/bio26.htm|title=Signers of the Declaration (Richard Henry Lee)|publisher=[[National Park Service]]|date=April 13, 2006|access-date=February 2, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611071114/http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/declaration/bio26.htm|archive-date=June 11, 2008|url-status=live}}</ref> Virginians began to [[committee of correspondence|coordinate their actions]] with other colonies in 1773 and sent delegates to the [[Continental Congress]] the following year.{{sfn|Gutzman|2007|pp=24–29}} After the House of Burgesses was dissolved in 1774 by [[John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore|the royal governor]], Virginia's revolutionary leaders continued to govern via the [[Virginia Conventions]]. On May 15, 1776, the Convention declared Virginia's independence and adopted [[George Mason]]'s [[Virginia Declaration of Rights]], which was then included in a new constitution that designated Virginia as a [[commonwealth]].{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=125–133}} Another Virginian, [[Thomas Jefferson]], drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]].<ref name=mason>{{cite journal|last=Schwartz|first=Stephan A.|title=George Mason: Forgotten Founder, He Conceived the Bill of Rights|journal=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]|issue=2|page=142|date=May 2000|volume=31}}</ref>

After the [[American Revolutionary War]] began, [[George Washington]] was selected by the [[Second Continental Congress]] in [[Philadelphia]] to head the [[Continental Army]], and many [[Virginia Line|Virginians joined the army]] and revolutionary militias. Virginia was the first colony to ratify the [[Articles of Confederation]] in December 1777.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.politico.com/story/2010/11/articles-of-confederation-adopted-nov-15-1777-045100 |title= Articles of Confederation adopted, Nov. 15, 1777 |first= Andrew |last= Glass |website= Politico |date= November 15, 2010 |access-date= April 23, 2021}}</ref> In April 1780, the capital was moved to [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg's coastal location would make it vulnerable to British attack.{{sfn|Cooper|2007|p=58}} British forces under [[Benedict Arnold]] did take [[Portsmouth, Virginia|Portsmouth]] in December 1780, and [[Raid on Richmond|raided Richmond]] the following month.{{sfn|Ketchum|2014|pp=155}} The British army had over seven thousand soldiers and twenty-five warships stationed in Virginia at the beginning of 1781, but [[Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis|General Charles Cornwallis]] and his superiors were indecisive, and maneuvers by the three thousand soldiers under the [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Marquis de Lafayette]] and twenty-nine allied French warships together managed to [[Yorktown campaign|confine the British]] to a swampy area of the [[Virginia Peninsula]] in September. Around sixteen thousand soldiers under George Washington and [[Comte de Rochambeau]] quickly [[Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route|converged there]] and defeated Cornwallis in the [[siege of Yorktown]].{{sfn|Ketchum|2014|pp=126–131, 137–139, 296}} His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to [[Peace of Paris (1783)|peace negotiations in Paris]] and secured the independence of the colonies.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=131–133}}

Virginians were instrumental in writing the [[United States Constitution]]: [[James Madison]] drafted the [[Virginia Plan]] in 1787 and the [[United States Bill of Rights|Bill of Rights]] in 1789.<ref name=mason/> [[Virginia Ratifying Convention|Virginia ratified]] the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The [[three-fifths compromise]] ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had the largest bloc in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]]. Together with the [[Virginia dynasty]] of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. Virginia is called the "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states such as [[Kentucky]], and for the numbers of [[American pioneer]]s born in Virginia.<ref name=Robertson/>

===Civil War===
{{Main|Virginia in the American Civil War}}
[[File:Crowe-Slaves Waiting for Sale - Richmond, Virginia.jpg|thumb|[[Eyre Crowe (painter)|Eyre Crowe]]'s 1853 portrait, ''Slaves Waiting for Sale: Richmond, Virginia'', which he completed after visiting [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]]'s slave markets, where thousands were sold annually<ref>{{cite web |url= https://dsl.richmond.edu/civilwar/slavemarket_essay.html |title= Visualizing the Richmond Slave Trade |first1= Scott |last1= Nesbit |first2= Robert K. |last2= Nelson |first3= Maurie |last3= McInnis |publisher= American Studies Association |location= San Antonio |date= November 2010 |access-date= August 30, 2022}}</ref>|alt=A family of eight women and children sit on a bench behind a cylindrical metal heater, while one adult male sits on his own to the right.]]
Between 1790 and 1860, the number of [[History of slavery in Virginia|slaves in Virginia]] rose from around 290&nbsp;thousand to over 490&nbsp;thousand, roughly one-third of the state population, and the number of slave owners rose to over 50 thousand. Both of these numbers represented the most in the U.S.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/statistics_on_slavery.htm |title= Statistics on Slavery |first= Kathryn L. |last= MacKay |website= Weber State University |date= May 14, 2006 |access-date= July 23, 2022}}</ref>{{sfn|Morgan|1998|p=490}} The boom in [[Cotton Belt|Southern cotton production]] using [[cotton gin]]s increased the amount of labor needed for harvesting raw [[cotton]], but [[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves|new federal laws]] prohibited the importation of slaves. Decades of [[monoculture]] tobacco farming had also [[Land degradation|degraded]] Virginia's [[agricultural productivity]].<ref name=fischer/> Virginia plantations increasingly turned to [[Slave trade in the United States|exporting slaves]], which broke up countless families and made the [[Slave breeding in the United States|breeding of slaves]], often through rape, a profitable business.{{sfn|Bryson|2011|pp=466-467}}{{sfn|Jordan|1995|pp=119–122}} Slaves in the [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] area were also forced into industrial jobs, including mining and shipbuilding.{{sfn|Davis|2006|pp=125, 208–210}} The failed slave uprisings of [[Gabriel Prosser]] in 1800, [[George Boxley]] in 1815, and [[Nat Turner]] in 1831, however, marked the growing resistance to slavery. Afraid of further uprisings, Virginia's government in the 1830s encouraged free Blacks to migrate to [[Liberia]].<ref name=fischer>{{harvnb|Fischer|Kelly|2000|pp=202–208}}</ref>

On October 16, 1859, abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]] led a [[John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry|raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia]], in an attempt to start a slave revolt across the southern states. The polarized national response to his raid, capture, trial, and execution that December marked a tipping point for many who believed slavery would need to be ended by force.<ref>{{cite magazine |url= https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html |title= John Brown: America's First Terrorist? |magazine= Prologue Magazine |publisher= U.S. National Archives |date=Spring 2011 |volume= 43 |number= 1 |first= Paul |last= Finkelman |access-date= April 24, 2021}}</ref> [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s 1860 election further convinced many southern supporters of slavery that his opposition to its expansion would ultimately mean the end of slavery across the country. The [[Battle of Fort Sumter|seizure of Fort Sumter]] by [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] forces on April 14, 1861, prompted Lincoln to [[Proclamation 80|call for the federalization of 75,000 militiamen]].{{sfn|Jaffa|2000|pp=230-236, 357-358}}

[[File:Currier and Ives - The Fall of Richmond, Va. on the Night of April 2d. 1865 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|The [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] used [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] as their capital from May 1861 till April 1865, when they abandoned the city and set fire to [[Shockoe Slip|its downtown]].|alt=A color drawing of a city skyline in flames as a steady stream of people on horses or in horse-drawn carriages cross a long bridge over a river.]]
The [[Virginia Secession Convention of 1861]] voted on April 17 [[Ordinance of Secession|to secede]] on the condition it was approved in a referendum the next month. The convention voted to join the Confederacy, which named [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] its capital on May 20.<ref name=Robertson>{{harvnb|Robertson|1993|pp=8–12}}</ref> During the May 23 referendum, armed pro-Confederate groups prevented the casting and counting of votes from areas that opposed secession. Representatives from 27 of these northwestern counties instead began the [[Wheeling Convention]], which organized a government loyal to the [[Union (Civil War)|Union]] and led to the separation of [[West Virginia]] as a new state.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.wvgazettemail.com/west-by-secession-virginia-the-wheeling-conventions-legal-vs-illegal-separation/article_c29e90c7-1863-51bc-8fe8-ae5ccca42134.html |title= West (by secession!) Virginia: The Wheeling Conventions, legal vs. illegal separation |agency= Associated Press |date= June 22, 2011 |first= Greg |last= Carroll |newspaper= The Free Lance-Star |access-date= April 24, 2021}}</ref>

The armies of the Union and Confederacy first met on July 21, 1861, in [[First Battle of Bull Run|Battle of Bull Run]] near [[Manassas, Virginia]], a bloody Confederate victory. Union General [[George B. McClellan]] organized the [[Army of the Potomac]], which [[Peninsula campaign|landed on the Virginia Peninsula]] in March 1862 and reached the outskirts of Richmond that June. With Confederate General [[Joseph E. Johnston]] wounded in fighting outside the city, command of his [[Army of Northern Virginia]] fell to [[Robert E. Lee]]. Over the next month, Lee [[Seven Days Battles|drove the Union army back]], and starting that September led [[Maryland campaign|the first of several invasions]] into Union territory. During the next three years of war, more battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, including the battles of [[Battle of Fredericksburg|Fredericksburg]], [[Battle of Chancellorsville|Chancellorsville]], [[Battle of Spotsylvania Court House|Spotsylvania]], and the concluding [[Battle of Appomattox Court House]], where Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865.{{sfn|Goodwin|2012|pp=4}}

===Reconstruction and segregation===
[[File:War time view of Norfolk Va Navy Yard 1918 (49090133192).jpg|thumb|With nearly 800,000&nbsp;soldiers passing through, [[Hampton Roads]] was the second-largest port of embarkation during [[World War I]].<ref name=embarkation>{{cite news |url= https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-wwi-port-of-embarkation-20170729-story.html |title= On this day in 1917, a giant WWI port of embarkation began to transform Hampton Roads |first= Mark St. John |last= Erickson |newspaper= Virginia Daily Press |date= July 29, 2017 |access-date= August 10, 2022}}</ref>|alt=Several World War I ships line a port crowded with warehouses, with a city skyline behind them.]]
Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of the [[Committee of Nine]].{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=249–250}} During the post-war [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction era]], African Americans were able to unite in communities, particularly around [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], [[Danville, Virginia|Danville]], and the [[Tidewater (region)|Tidewater region]], and take a greater role in Virginia society; many achieved some land ownership during the 1870s.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Medford|first=Edna Greene|author-link=Edna Greene Medford|title=Land and Labor: The Quest for Black Economic Independence on Virginia's Lower Peninsula, 1865–1880|journal=Virginia Magazine of History and Biography|volume=100|issue=4|date=October 1992|jstor=4249314|pages=567–582|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4249314|access-date=May 21, 2021}}</ref>{{sfn|Davis|2006|pp=328–329}} Virginia [[Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868|adopted a constitution in 1868]] which guaranteed political, civil, and [[Voting rights in the United States|voting rights]], and provided for free public schools.{{sfn|Morgan|1992|pp=160–166}} However, with many railroad lines and other infrastructure destroyed during the Civil War, the Commonwealth was deeply in debt, and in the late 1870s redirected money from public schools to pay bondholders. The [[Readjuster Party]] formed in 1877 and won legislative power in 1879 by uniting Black and white Virginians behind a shared opposition to debt payments and the perceived [[planter class|plantation elites]].{{sfn|Dailey|Gilmore|Simon|2000|pp=90–96}}

The Readjusters focused on building up schools, like [[Virginia Tech]] and [[Virginia State University|Virginia State]], and successfully forced [[West Virginia]] to share in the pre-war debt.<ref>{{cite book |last= Tarter |first= Brent |title= A Saga of the New South: Race, Law, and Public Debt in Virginia |location= Charlottesville |publisher= University of Virginia Press |year= 2016 |pages= 14, 71 |isbn= 978-0-8139-3876-9 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=DJyBCwAAQBAJ}}</ref> But in 1883, they were divided by a proposed repeal of [[anti-miscegenation laws]], and days before that year's election, a [[Danville Massacre|riot in Danville]], involving armed policemen, left four Black men and one white man dead.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Dailey |first= Jane |title= Deference and Violence in the Postbellum Urban South: Manners and Massacres in Danville, Virginia |journal= The Journal of Southern History |volume= 63 |number= 3 |year= 1997 |pages= 553–590 |doi= 10.2307/2211650 |jstor= 2211650 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/2211650. |access-date= May 13, 2021 | issn = 0022-4642}}</ref> These events motivated a push by white supremacists to seize political power through [[Voter suppression in the United States|voter suppression]], and segregationists in the [[Democratic Party of Virginia|Democratic Party]] won the legislature that year and [[Solid South|maintained control]] for decades.{{sfn|Dailey|Gilmore|Simon|2000|pp=99–103}} They passed [[Jim Crow laws]] that established a [[Racial segregation in the United States|racially segregated society]], and in 1902 rewrote the [[Constitution of Virginia|state constitution]] to include a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] and other voter registration measures that effectively [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] most African Americans and many poor whites.{{sfn|Wallenstein|2007|pp=253–254}}

New economic forces meanwhile industrialized the Commonwealth. Virginian [[James Albert Bonsack]] invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880 leading to new large-scale production centered around Richmond. Railroad magnate [[Collis Potter Huntington]] founded [[Newport News Shipbuilding]] in 1886, which was responsible for building 38 warships for the [[U.S. Navy]] between 1907 and 1923.{{sfn|Styron|2011|pp=42–43}} During [[World War I]], German submarines attacked ships outside the port,{{sfn|Feuer|1999|pp=50–52}} which was a major site for transportation of soldiers and supplies.<ref name=embarkation/> After the war, a homecoming parade to honor African-American troops was [[1919 Norfolk race riot|attacked in July 1919]] by the city's police as part of a renewed white-supremacy movement, known as [[Red Summer]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-remembering-the-red-summer-of-1919/article_25cd5f5c-8588-58af-84c9-835d381df8ec.html |title= Editorial: Remembering the Red Summer of 1919 |newspaper= The Roanoke Times |date= July 21, 2019 |access-date= June 23, 2021}}</ref> The shipyard continued building warships in [[World War II]], and quadrupled its pre-war labor force to 70,000 by 1943. The [[Radford Army Ammunition Plant|Radford Arsenal]] outside [[Blacksburg, Virginia|Blacksburg]] also employed 22,000&nbsp;workers making explosives,<ref>{{cite magazine |first= Charles |last= Johnson |title= V for Virginia: The Commonwealth Goes to War |magazine= Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |volume= 100 |number= 3 |date= July 1992 |pages= 365–398 |jstor= 4249293 |url= https://www.jstor.org/pss/4249293}}</ref> while the [[Torpedo Factory Art Center|Torpedo Factory]] in [[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria]] had over 5,050.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/an-art-center-now-alexandrias-torpedo-factory-began-life-making-weapons/2014/08/30/31a55ec0-2e0f-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html |title= An art center now, Alexandria's Torpedo Factory began life making weapons |newspaper= The Washington Post |first= John |last= Kelly |date= August 30, 2014 |access-date= August 22, 2024}}</ref>

===Civil rights to present===
[[File:RVA 2020 MDPC (50041262732).jpg|thumb|Protests in 2020 focused on [[List of Confederate monuments and memorials in Virginia|Confederate monuments in the state]].|alt=A bronze statue of a man riding a horse on a tall pedestal that is covered in colorful graffiti.]]
High-school student [[Barbara Rose Johns]] started a strike in 1951 at her underfunded and segregated school in [[Prince Edward County, Virginia|Prince Edward County]]. The protests led [[Spottswood William Robinson III|Spottswood Robinson]] and [[Oliver Hill (attorney)|Oliver Hill]] to file [[Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County|a lawsuit against the county]]. Their case joined ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' at the Supreme Court, which rejected the doctrine of "[[separate but equal]]" in 1954. The segregationist establishment, led by Senator [[Harry F. Byrd]] and his [[Byrd Organization]], reacted with a strategy called "[[massive resistance]]", and the General Assembly passed [[Stanley Plan|a package of laws]] in 1956 that cut off funding to local schools that [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregated]], causing some to close. Courts ruled the strategy unconstitutional, and on February 2, 1959, Black students [[racial integration|integrated]] schools in [[Arlington County, Virginia|Arlington]] and [[Norfolk, Virginia|Norfolk]], where they were known as the [[Norfolk 17]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://boundarystones.weta.org/2013/02/02/it-happened-here-first-arlington-students-integrate-virginia-schools |title= It Happened Here First: Arlington Students Integrate Virginia Schools |date= February 2, 2013 |first= Mark |last= Jones |website= WETA |access-date= December 2, 2021}}</ref> Rather than integrate, county leaders in Prince Edward shut their school system in June 1959. When [[Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County|litigation again reached the Supreme Court]], it ordered the county to reopen and integrate its schools, which finally happened in September 1964.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/27/integration-public-schools-massive-resistance-virginia-1950s |title= In the 1950s, rather than integrate its public schools, Virginia closed them |newspaper= The Guardian |first1= Susan |last1= Smith-Richardson |first2= Lauren |last2= Burke |date= November 27, 2021 |access-date= December 2, 2021}}</ref>{{sfn|Wallenstein|2007|pp=340–341, 350–357}}

Federal passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]] (1964) and [[Voting Rights Act of 1965|Voting Rights Act]] (1965), and their later enforcement by the [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]], helped end racial segregation in Virginia and overturn [[Jim Crow laws]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://richmond.com/news/local/civil-rights-progress-in-va-but-barriers-remain/article_41f067ac-cb6f-5222-a666-298f5d72bac0.html |title= Civil rights progress in Va., but barriers remain |first= Michael Paul |last= Williams |newspaper= The Richmond Times-Dispatch |date= June 28, 2014 |access-date= October 1, 2021}}</ref> In 1967, the Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on [[Interracial marriage in the United States|interracial marriage]] with ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]''. In 1968, Governor [[Mills Godwin]] called a commission to rewrite the state constitution. The new constitution, which banned discrimination and removed articles that now violated federal law, [[1970 Virginia ballot measures|passed in a referendum]] and went into effect in 1971.<ref name=constitution_1970>{{cite news |url= https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/virginias-latest-constitution-turns-50/ |title= Virginia's latest constitution turns 50 |magazine= Virginia Business |date= June 30, 2021 |first= Mason |last= Adams |access-date= October 1, 2021}}</ref> In 1989, [[Douglas Wilder]] became the first African American elected as governor in the United States, and in 1992, [[Bobby Scott (politician)|Bobby Scott]] became the first Black congressman from Virginia since 1888.{{sfn|Heinemann|Kolp|Parent|Shade|2007|pp=359–366}}<ref>{{cite web |url= https://virginiahistory.org/learn/historical-book/chapter/voting-rights |title= Voting Rights |website= Virginia Museum of History & Culture |year= 2021 |access-date= May 13, 2021}}</ref>

The expansion of federal government offices into Northern Virginia's suburbs during the [[Cold War]] boosted the region's population and economy.{{sfn|Accordino|2000|pp=76–78}} The [[Central Intelligence Agency]] outgrew their offices in [[Foggy Bottom]] during the [[Korean War]], and moved to [[Langley, Virginia|Langley]] in 1961, in part due to a decision by the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] that the agency relocate outside the District of Columbia.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://ghostsofdc.org/2013/10/02/cia-langley-virginia/ |title= Three Things About the CIA's Langley Headquarters |website = Ghosts of D.C. |date= October 2, 2013 |access-date= December 2, 2021}}</ref> [[The Pentagon]], built in [[Arlington County, Virginia|Arlington]] during [[World War II]] as the headquarters of the Department of Defense, was struck by a hijacked plane in the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Caplan |first=David |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-releases-batch-911-pentagon-photos/story?id=46484696 |title=FBI re-releases 9/11 Pentagon photos |website= ABC News |date=March 31, 2017 |access-date=June 5, 2020}}</ref> Mass shootings at [[Virginia Tech shooting|Virginia Tech in 2007]] and in [[2019 Virginia Beach shooting|Virginia Beach in 2019]] led to passage of gun control measures in 2020.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.roanoke.com/news/local/northam-signs-history-making-batch-of-gun-control-bills/article_af8f9c9f-529f-502e-b225-b8c538036b69.html |title= Northam signs history-making batch of gun control bills |newspaper= The Roanoke Times |first= Amy |last= Friedenberger |date= April 10, 2020 |access-date= June 15, 2020}}</ref> Racial injustice and the presence of [[List of Confederate monuments and memorials in Virginia|Confederate monuments in Virginia]] have also led to large demonstrations, including in August 2017, when a white supremacist [[Charlottesville car attack|drove his car into protesters]], killing one, and in June 2020, when protests that were part of the larger [[Black Lives Matter]] movement brought about the [[Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials#Virginia|removal of Confederate statues]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/jeb-stuart-richmond/2020/07/07/bbfe4ff8-bfd3-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html |title= Gen. Robert E. Lee is the only Confederate icon still standing on a Richmond avenue forever changed |newspaper= The Washington Post |first1= Gregory S. |last1= Schneider |first2= Laura |last2= Vozzella |date= July 7, 2020 |access-date= July 7, 2020}}</ref>