New Black History Memorials Rising In Virginia, Maryland

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Two monuments and one highway marker about Blacks are scheduled to be installed in Maryland and Virginia this year and next year.

Maryland recently approved the installation of a monument that will honor Black Revolutionary War soldiers at the State House, at a time when the Virginia Department of Historic Resources recently unveiled a state highway marker recognizing the Danville Riot of 1883.

Meanwhile, in Franklin County, Virginia, a monument of 70 Black Union military members who fought in the Civil War from 1863 to 1865 is scheduled to be completed by November 2025 and mounted on a hill by Franklin’s historic First Baptist Church by December 2025.

The monument approved by Maryland’s Board of Public Works is described as “the first memorial on any of the country’s 50 statehouse grounds that fought in the Revolutionary War.”

The statehouse monument will be erected in a space previously occupied by the statue of Roger Brooke Taney, the nation’s fifth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who wrote the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case, which ruled Black people – whether free or enslaved – could not be considered citizens of the United States. The monument’s completion date is July 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Maryland’s Lt. Governor Aruna Miller sat in for Gov. Wes Moore, and spoke briefly before the vote on the project was taken, according to WTOP News. Miller noted the monument would be placed on the grounds of the Maryland State House saying, “These are Black patriots who fought for freedom that they were denied.”

Miller said the project is “about justice long overdue.”

Danville’s highway marker was recently unveiled at a local ceremony at 332 Main St. in Danville.  The Danville Riot occurred on November 3, 1883 and started as a fight between a White man and two Black men.

Speakers included Danville City Councilman Bryant Hood, the Rev. Michael Pritchett of High Street Baptist Church, local Black historian and genealogist Karice Luck-Brimmer, and Latoya Gray-Sparks with DHR. Soloist Vanessa Adams sang at the ceremony.

The Black Union War soldiers project in Franklin County, Virginia describes the lives of 69 Black soldiers and one sailor in Rocky Mount in Franklin County, where the 69 soldiers and one sailor were born and attended church.

This third monument about Blacks in Virginia is scheduled to be completed by November 2025 and mounted on a hill by Franklin’s historic First Baptist Church by December 2025.

These soldiers, part of the U.S. Colored Troops, made up one-tenth of the fighting forces for the Union Army. It is part of the “Raising the Shade,” project. The Franklin County 1850-1910” project is one of nine projects sponsored by the Franklin County NAACP. It expands the work of researcher Glenna Moore, who started looking into Franklin County’s Black veterans in 2020.

In a March 2025 interview, Moore told ABC News that her research continued after she had only found three soldiers born in Franklin County, but later discovered 70 men who fought as part of the U.S. Colored Troops. She continued to conduct research. She consulted local residents who “started a new conversation.”