An old-time musician from Giles County and a Nation of Islam leader from Danville are among the latest subjects of new state historical markers.
The Virginia Department of Historic Resources announced this week that it had approved seven new historical markers across the state, including ones about Harry Reed of Giles and Clarence Edward Smith of Danville, who rose to fame in the 1960s as Clarence 13X and a colleague of Malcolm X. Like Malcolm X, Clarence 13X was also assassinated in New York.
Also on the list are markers to an early settler of Rye Cove in Scott County and a lynching in Frederick County.
Here is the full list of markers and the language approved for each. As always, the department notes that markers are not intended to “honor” a subject but merely to recognize the person, place or event as historically noteworthy:
Henry Reed and Old-Time Music
The tunes played for generations in the mountains of Giles and nearby counties were foundational to the old-time music revival of the 1960s and 1970s. Glen Lyn resident James Henry Neel Reed (1884-1968), known primarily as a longbow-style fiddler, had learned hundreds of tunes beginning in his childhood and was part of a community of musicians who played locally and with family. Alan Jabbour, later the founding director of the American Folklife Center, learned tunes from Reed in the 1960s, played them widely with his string band, and deposited recordings of Reed in the Library of Congress, disseminating traditional Appalachian music and extending Reed’s influence to new generations.
Sponsor: Giles County
Locality: Giles County
Proposed location: Lurich Road at intersection with East River Mountain Road
Thomas Carter (1731-1803)
Thomas Carter, planter and patriot, was an early settler of Rye Cove, as were his brothers Joseph and Norris. He arrived here ca. 1773 and acquired about 1,600 acres. Gov. Patrick Henry appointed him a justice of the first Russell Co. court in 1786. Carter also became a lieutenant in the county militia that year, and his farm functioned as a garrison known as Carter’s Fort. Alongside Daniel Boone and others, he corresponded with the governor about frontier defense during a period of extended conflict with Native Americans after the Revolutionary War. He represented Russell in the House of Delegates from 1787 until 1791 and in the Virginia Convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788.
Sponsor: The Carter Society of Virginia
Locality: Scott County
Proposed location: Virginia 649 in Rye Cove
Thomas Day (ca. 1801-ca. 1861)
Thomas Day, a prominent furniture maker and businessman, was born to free Black parents in Dinwiddie County. His brother, John Day, was a founder of Liberia, and his grandfather, Dr. Thomas Stewart, was a free Black physician and entrepreneur. Day trained as a cabinetmaker under his father. In the 1820s, he opened a furniture shop in Milton, NC, that became the largest in the state, producing furnishings and interior woodwork of high artistic quality. Free Black, enslaved, and White artisans worked in the shop, where Day had adopted steam-powered tools by the 1850s. Day’s work has been exhibited widely, and he has won national recognition as an innovator in the furniture industry.
Sponsor: Rosa Allen
Locality: Dinwiddie County
Proposed location: 21015 Boydton Plank Road, McKenney
Clarence Smith (Allah) (1928-1969)
Clarence Edward Smith was born and raised in Danville. After serving as an infantryman in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he settled in New York and joined the Nation of Islam, adopting the name Clarence 13X. In the mid-1960s, he founded the Five Percent Nation and became known as Allah. He taught that each Black man is divine, and that a select five percent of people understand the truth of existence and must enlighten others. In Harlem, New York, in 1967, he established the Allah School in Mecca. His movement spread to cities across the United States, and his teachings had a significant influence on hip-hop culture and music across generations.
Sponsor: Dominant Village Outreach Program
Locality: City of Danville
Proposed Location: 834 Valley St.
The Lynching of William Shorter
On the morning of June 1893, African American teenager William Shorter was being transported under guard by train from Staunton to Winchester to stand trial for the alleged attempted rape of a White woman. At the Kernstown depot near here, 15-30 armed White men detained and boarded the train. They broke the chains that held Shorter to his seat, dragged him from the car, suspended him from a tree branch, and shot him to death. More than 4,000 lynchings took place in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950; more than 100 people, primarily African American men, were lynched in Virginia. As in most other racially motivated lynchings, no one was ever brought to justice for Shorter’s murder.
Sponsor: Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation/Long Road to Freedom Project
Locality: Frederick County
Proposed Location: U.S. 11, south of intersection with Apple Valley Road
Robert R. Moton (Rosenwald) School
Robert R. Moton, a nationally significant Black educator, began his teaching career in 1888 at Cotton Town School, which had close ties to nearby Cornerstone and Midway Baptist Churches. The school was replaced ca. 1917-1920 after Matilda M. Booker, Cumberland County’s Jeanes Fund supervisor of education for African Americans, campaigned for better facilities. Financial support came from the Black community, the county, and the Rosenwald Fund, established in 1917 after Booker T. Washington partnered with Julius Rosenwald to build schools for Black students. The school, renamed for Moton, stood 2,000 feet west of here. Rebuilt after a fire in 1930, it closed in 1964 and was later demolished.
Sponsor: Cumberland Middle School
Locality: Cumberland County
Proposed location: 837 Guinea Road
Community Life in Newsome Park
The federal government built Newsome Park during World War II to provide housing for newly arrived African American defense employees and their families. Continuing to thrive after the war, the close-knit neighborhood attracted residents from a wide range of occupations and income levels. It featured an elementary school, a community center, a semi-pro baseball team, and Black-owned businesses that generated economic growth. Notable residents included NASA mathematicians Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, first Black and first female mayor of Newport News Jessie Rattley, and renowned guitarist David Williams. The original houses, designed to be temporary, were demolished in the 1960s.
Sponsor: Marvin Q. Jones Jr.
Locality: City of Newport News
Proposed location: 4200 Marshall Ave.