Celebrating Black History Month: The Baskerville Series by Viola O. Baskerville

“A white woman has only one handicap to overcome—a great one, true, her sex: a colored woman faces two-her sex and her race.”

-Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954)

Ms. Terrell was an African American educator and woman rights activist who fought to help black women improve their own condition and that of their race.

Test your Knowledge of African-American Women from Virginia

Do you know the names of the following extraordinary Virginia African American women? Test your knowledge of some of Virginia’s well known African American women and check your responses against the answers next week.

1. I graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and became Chief Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee. Currently as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, I advise President Obama on healthcare, education and immigration issues.
2. Eleven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, I was arrested and jailed in Middlesex County, Virginia for violating Virginia’s segregation law. My arrest sparked a landmark 1946 United States Supreme Court case that struck down segregation in interstate transportation. I was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Clinton in 2001.
3. As a sixteen year old high school student, I lead a student strike protesting unequal school facilities in 1951. My call for equal facilities led to a famous Virginia court case that was consolidated with four other cases from other jurisdictions to form Brown v. the Board of Education in which the United States Supreme Court held separate but equal in education as unconstitutional. A memorial to this effort stands on the grounds of Virginia’s Capitol.
4. I was the first African American to head the Department of Energy. I directed the Federal Energy Administration’s Office of Consumer Affairs under President Gerald Ford and the Energy Department’s Economic Regulatory Administration under President Jimmy Carter. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Fisk University.
5. I have worked for over half my life in civil and human rights arenas. In the 1960s, I worked side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, A Philip Randolph and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Now I focus on rural poverty, educating the public about AIDS, discouraging teen pregnancy and promoting black family values. I have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and serve as chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women.
6. I started my career in vaudeville and later won a Tony Award and a Daytime Emmy Award. During World War II, I toured the country with the USO performing for American troops. In 1967, I headlined an all-black cast version of Hello, Dolly! with Cab Calloway. I was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and President Richard Nixon appointed me America’s “Ambassador of Love” in 1970.
7. I have been often called one of the first documented African American women architects. I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1895 and received my teacher’s certificate from Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute. I earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and taught art at Virginia State College for Negroes. There, I established the School of Fine Arts and focused my talents on architecture and interior design. My sisters and I designed a development of vacation homes for African Americans in Long Island. A Virginia historical highway marker honored me in 2008.
8. I was a teacher and entrepreneur. In 1921, I became a political candidate in Virginia by running as a “lily black” Republican for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I strongly believed in and advocated for black economic empowerment. I became the first female founder and president of a bank.
9. I am a former Poet Laureate of the United States and have received among many honors the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the Heinz Award and the 2008 Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, Governor Mark Warner appointed me to a two-year position as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth. To date, I have published nine volumes of poetry.
10. I am very engaged in the arts and was very active as an actress for almost thirty years.  I graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in interior design and architecture and was the first African American woman to be named the school’s Homecoming Queen and the first black woman on the cover of Glamour magazine.

Spring Statewide Farm Team Meeting

April 16-17

Lynchburg, VA

Stay tuned for further details.

Denial of Adoption Assistance based on Custody

HB443 – The “Brick Wall” bill that builds a wall, denying adoption assistance to families who are forced by DSS to take custody of foster children before the adoption is finalized.

Dear Friends,

I have heard stories all over Virginia about families who are denied adoption assistance for their special needs child because they were forced to take legal custody of their child before the adoption was complete. Frequently these are relatives, kinship care or foster families. This was the law in Virginia, but there is a crack, an opportunity for change.

Federal law does not allow special needs children to be defined based on custody. Due to that ruling this spring, Virginia Code is being changed now by HB443 (Sponsored by Del. Toscano) but with a few lines that will still allow this denial of assistance to families forced to take custody before their child’s adoption is complete. If we don’t tell our stories now, the bill will go through as written this week and continue to allow DSS employees to force families to choose between losing their child or agreeing to take custody and forfeiting any hope of adoption assistance.

You don’t have to understand the bill (but please follow the below link so you can read it) but please consider calling Del. Toscano to tell him your story. He understands the need for confidentiality and has agreed to respect it. He just needs to know this is really happening to families and he needs to know NOW, before the bill progresses any more.

Here is his contact information: Just a call or e-mail is all he needs – Today if possible!

• Del. David J. Toscano: 804-698-1057, deldtoscano@house.state.va.us
• Legislative Aide – Sarah A. Buckley, sarah@davidToscano.com

If you don’t feel comfortable contacting his office, please feel free to contact me. Please let me know you contacted his office with a story or your legislator with a request.

Del. Toscano is also specifically interested in knowing why the GAL’s and judges don’t stop this practice. I tried to explain families are truly afraid of losing their children if they complain about what is happening.

Del. Toscano knows my son’s story and knows this legislation will be too late to help my son at all. I am pushing this for all the other children and families that qualify for the services and assistance this bill will provide, but are being unfairly denied those services and assistance.(which apparently qualifies as “no fiscal impact” so it won’t stop the bill.) I can’t fix everything in this world, but I am determined to do this. I need your names, your faces, your stories. If we stand together this change will happen now.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might have a story to share or through any list-serves that adoptive families of special needs children might be on. Having just 5 more stories will change this bill, having 10 will make sure we never have to fight this battle again. (Bill progress & Status Updates)

Also feel free to contact your own representatives and let them know you support HB443 with changes that will prevent families forced to take custody from being denied adoption assistance. Click here to determine who your representative is.

Thanks,
Susan Lawrence
1748 Big HIll Rd.
Lexington, VA 24450
540-464-5797 – H
540-460-7055 – C
lawrences@rockbridge.net

If you don’t have a story, but just want to support changes in the bill because you know my son and our family or another family, please call your legislators and ask that the HB443 be fixed so families like us are not forced out of the group already qualifying for adoption assistance.This is why so many children in Virginia languish in foster care. This bill will not be considered to have a fiscal impact, even when it is fixed – because the children involved were already in the original pool to be served.
Contact your VA General Assembly Legislator!

Saluting Virginia’s African American Women Legislators

By The Honorable Viola Baskerville

Since 1968, the beginning of the modern political era of expanded voting rights for African Americans, fifteen of the forty Black Legislators who have served or who are currently serving in the Virginia General Assembly are women. These hardworking women represent diverse professional backgrounds from attorneys to educators to retired military as well as former locally elected officials. They have fought for legislation to assist small businesses, improve childcare, recognize equal pay for equal work, level the playing field for urban communities, promote better health outcomes for women and create competitive legislative districts among other issues. They are legislators who are also wives, mothers and grandmothers advocating tirelessly on behalf of their constituents.

Although African American women have served in both community and political arenas in Virginia throughout the 20^th Century, they did not serve in the General Assembly until 1984 with the election of educator Yvonne B. Miller of Norfolk to the Virginia House of Delegates.  Following her in 1986 to the House came respected educator Mary T. Christian, (D-Norfolk), affectionately called “Dr. C.” who served until 2003 and veteran corporate attorney Jean W. Cunningham (D-Richmond) who served until 1998 and was followed by former Richmond City Council Member, Viola O. Baskerville (D-Richmond) who served in the House until 2006 when she was named Secretary of Administration by Governor Timothy Kaine. In 2005, Delegate Baskerville became the first African American woman to run in the primary of a major party for statewide office. She was followed in the House by Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), a corporate attorney who is often mentioned as a “Rising Star” in the House and serves as Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Veteran educator Flora D. Crittenden (D-Newport News) served in the House from 1993 until 2003. A magnate middle school in Newport News was named in her honor.

From 2002-2003, Winsome Sears, (R-Norfolk) a former Marine served in the House as the first black Republican woman Delegate, but announced her intention not to seek reelection after two sessions of the General Assembly. She also ran unsuccessfully for the United States Congress in 2004.

In 2004, Mayme BaCote, (D-Newport News) an educator and Jeion A. Ward (D- Norfolk) a union negotiator and who currently serves as House Democratic Caucus Treasurer followed their trailblazing sisters into the Virginia House of Delegates. The next election cycle ushered in the former Mayor of the City of Petersburg and professional nurse, Rosalyn Dance (D-Petersburg) along with Roslyn C. Tyler who represents Emporia, Greenville, Sussex, Brunswick, Lunenburg, Southampton, and Franklin City.

In 2008, Charniele Herring, (D-Alexandria) an attorney and Delores L. McQuinn (D-Richmond), a former school board and city council member and who is a minister became members of the House of Delegates bringing the total number of African American women currently serving in the House of Delegates to seven. What a milestone since Yvonne Miller entered in 1984!

Virginia African American women Senators currently chair three of the eleven Senate committees. Senator Yvonne B. Miller, (D-Norfolk) is the first and longest serving African American woman elected to the Virginia General Assembly. She served from 1984-1987 in the House of Delegates and has served since 1988 in the Virginia Senate. She is currently Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. Senator L. Louise Lucas, (D-Portsmouth) an educator has served in the Virginia Senate since 1992 and currently chairs the Local Government Committee of the Senate. She also ran for the United States Congress in 2001. Senator Mamie E. Locke, (D-Hampton), is a formerly elected local official having served as the mayor of Hampton. As an educator, she serves as the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Hampton University in addition to her legislative duties. Senator Locke serves as Chair of the Senate General Laws and Technology Committee.

These fifteen African American women have made and are continuing to make their mark in the oldest longest continuously serving legislative body in the New World!!!!