Black History Museum of Va. To Premiere Film Of Virginia Union Civil Rights Protesters

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

If you want to learn more about the 34 Virginia Union University students who protested against segregation at Thalhimer’s department store, attend the Black-tie event that is raising funds for a documentary on March 23, beginning at 2 p.m., at Richmond’s Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.

Featured speakers include Virginia Union University professor Raymond Hylton, jazz musician James “Saxsmo” Gates and Phillip Brashear. Brashear is the son of Carl Brashear, the Navy’s first Black master diver whose story was portrayed in the film “Men of Honor.”

The event will premiere the documentary’s trailer. Attendees can meet the production team and cast members. DJ Stormin’ Norman will provide entertainment and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kimberly Matthews, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor, is releasing her new pictorial book, “The Richmond 34 and the Civil Rights Movement,”  this month to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the protests.

“The story kind of gets lost, but it was a huge deal at the time,” Matthews said, explaining why she wrote her book in a recent interview posted on VCU News. “And that’s the reason for the book, to chronicle that … The chapter on Virginia Union [describes how] Union has always been a place where students were able to express themselves and fight for rights. It wasn’t a surprise that the VUU students were a part of that, but then the story got lost. So that was really the catalyst for me wanting to work on this book and tell their story.”

“The Richmond 34,” which provides a pictorial history of developments that led to the arrests, is Matthews’ second book in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of Modern America series. Her first was “The Richmond Crusade for Voters.” Raymond Pierre Hylton, Ph.D., a history professor at Virginia Union University collaborated with Matthews on her new pictorial book.

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“The Richmond 34” were arrested on Feb. 22, 1960, while participating in a sit-in at the white-only lunch counter of Thalhimers department store. Eleven women and 23 men took part in the sit-in, in an effort to end segregation in the restaurant. They were charged with trespassing, convicted, and fined $20 each for simply trying to buy food at the most upscale department store in Richmond.

“The students would see their actions galvanize a community into effecting wide-ranging reforms in desegregation and play a significant role in ending the nearly 70-year grip on power of one of the nation’s strongest political machines,” the Association for the Study of African-American History and Culture noted on its website. “Bafflingly, their achievement faded into obscurity, and only in recent years has its importance been recognized,” added the organization that will host its 2025 Black History Month Luncheon on Feb. 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C., at the Westin Washington, DC Downtown. To obtain advertising, sponsorship or vendor info for the luncheon, please phone (202) 238-5914 or sponsorship@asalh.org.

One participant recalled the protest. “We grew up in a segregated south,” Dr. Leroy M. Bray Jr. said. “We had to ride in the back of the streetcars and the buses,” Bray told reporters at a 2018 press conference, after The Richmond 34 reunited for a chapel service and discussion at Virginia Union.

For nearly a year after they were arrested for simply trying to buy food at Thalhimer’s, Blacks organized boycotts and manned picket lines at stores with segregated facilities.

The economic impact on downtown business led to the integration of main floor lunch counters. By the end of 1960, Thalhimers had integrated its facilities. Almost a year after the Richmond 34 were arrested, the Richmond Room was desegregated. A group of the original protestors made a follow-up visit, to see if they would receive service. One of the protestors, Bray, recalled, “We were served, and it was over.” During its 50th anniversary celebration in February 2010, a memorial mile marker honoring the 34 was placed where Thalhimers once stood.

Richmond’s Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia is also offering several exhibits during Black History Month including “From Sunup to Sundown – but the Work Never Stops.” This exhibition, curated from the BHMVA’s archives, will serve as a survey of the history of labor in Virginia.

Another exhibit, “We are the Builders: Honoring the Contributions of Black Workers in Virginia,” runs from Jan. 29, 2025 to April 30, 2025 – 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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