History
Santa, maybe? Why we have different names for who ‘hurries down the chimney’ on Christmas
Everyone has heard of Santa Claus, that chubby, white-bearded, red-suited guy who delivers Christmas presents via a reindeer-powered sleigh. But have you never wondered how he became a man of so many names? From St. Nick to Santa to Kris Kringle, it’s a marvel that Rudolph isn’t completely confused about whom exactly he is working […]
Virginia panels begin investigating Black communities displaced by universities
A Newport News task force, one of two recently established groups in Virginia investigating the historic displacement of Black communities by the state’s public universities, is facing allegations that it has not been open about its operations. The six-member local government and university joint initiative, along with a separate nineteen-member statewide panel, is seeking potential […]
Who do you think you are? Ask the Library of Virginia.
We’re moving soon and our new house sits on land that’s been in my family for generations. Wanting a clearer picture of the ancestors who passed the property down to us, my husband and I asked my aunts, our family historians, to do some genealogical sleuthing. They identified our long-dead relatives who settled the land […]
It’s me again
Hello again, Mercury readers. I’m halfway through the first week of my new role as lead editor here but I’m not new to the Mercury at all. I first met you in 2018, when I began contributing reports and columns as a freelancer. Some of the best work of my career I wrote on assignment […]
To be or not to be, that is the new Shockoe Bottom memorial’s question
Twining unseen within the loamy soil of Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom are the stories of the enslaved who unwillingly traversed this low-lying land that once distinguished itself by the sheer volume of Black bodies it saw sold into slavery. Here, across 10 acres that rooted Richmond as the nation’s second-largest flesh market of the American slave […]
Virginia General Assembly votes to scrap Robert E. Lee license plate
Legislation that would end Virginia’s issuance of two license plates that honor Robert E. Lee as “The Virginia Gentleman” and spotlight the Sons of Confederate Veterans is headed to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk. The bill is the second attempt by Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William, to get rid of the Robert E. Lee plate, […]
United Daughters of the Confederacy’s tax breaks are on the chopping block. It’s about time.
In a move prompted by a persistent Virginia Beach teenager, the Virginia Senate this week advanced a bill to remove the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) from the list of nonprofit and charitable organizations exempt from real estate, deed recordation and personal property taxes in Virginia state code. Fantastic. As Lost Cause devotees and […]
Diversity must be more than skin deep in Virginia’s 2024 legislature
If you grew up in Virginia and attended schools here, like me, you’d likely agree with a fact that I picked up on before my elementary days were done: our state’s political and social origin stories always had white men as protagonists. From John Smith and the colonists who carved out the first permanent English […]
Biased lending is a major barrier to Black homeownership in Virginia, still
Homeownership is a key factor in building wealth and achieving the American dream but it has never been accessible to all Americans. Recent reports of racial disparities in mortgage loan lending at Navy Federal Credit Union – the largest credit union in America, based in Virginia – demonstrate the persistent challenges people of color face […]
Calendar exposes history of racial violence, degradation that can’t be ignored
Collected in a 2024 calendar, in brutal and excruciating detail, is a litany of violence and dehumanization against people of color spanning this nation’s existence. Some incidents aren’t even that old. Many state legislatures and governors (including Virginia’s) – howling diversionary terms like “critical race theory” and “wokeness” – wouldn’t want the information in the […]
Make it last forever: How Richmonders’ recollections build public knowledge
Richmond’s Main Library is home to the city’s branch of the Memory Lab, a series of spaces that have sprung up across the country as a way to give physical materials of personal and public significance new life as digital, accessible records. Since 2019, the lab has been contributing to the library’s repository of central […]
We celebrate one 1619 moment in history; another, we try to bury
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It’s a day that popular culture is quick to ascribe to early settlers who landed in Massachusetts sometime in the autumn or early winter of 1621. We see it in perennial promotions for the Black Friday shopping orgy manifest in cliché, cartoonish representations of pilgrim hats, square-toed shoes with big buckles and […]