No Matter Where in The U.S., BlackCityInfo.com Know's What's Going On!

1. Virginia is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. Although traditionally conservative and historically part of the South, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population at 8,001,024.
   
   
2. The Virginia General Assembly is the oldest legislature in the Americas. The state government has been repeatedly ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States. It is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms.
   
   
3. Numerous individual manumissions were inspired by Quaker abolitionists and the revolution's principles. Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831 and John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 showed deep social discontent about slavery and its role in the plantation economy. By 1860, almost half a million people, roughly 31% of the total population of Virginia, were enslaved. This division contributed to the start of the American Civil War.
   
   
4. The populist Readjuster Party ran an inclusive coalition until the conservative white Democratic Party gained power after 1883. It passed segregationist Jim Crow laws and in 1902 rewrote the Constitution of Virginia to include a poll tax and other voter registration measures that effectively disfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites. Despite underfunding for segregated schools and services and a lack of political representation, African Americans still created vibrant communities and made progress.
   
   
5. Most African American Virginians have been descendants of enslaved Africans who worked on tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. These men, women and children were brought from west-central Africa, primarily from Angola and the Bight of Biafra. The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the single largest African group among slaves in Virginia. Though the black population was reduced by the Great Migration, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of blacks returning south.
   
   
6. The Civil Rights Movement gained many participants in the 1960s and achieved the moral force to gain national legislation for protection of suffrage and civil rights for African Americans. In 1964 the United States Supreme Court ordered Prince Edward County and others to integrate schools. In 1967, the Court also struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage. From 1969 to 1971, state legislators under Governor Mills Godwin rewrote the constitution, after goals such as the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been achieved. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States.
   
   
7. Virginia's economy is balanced, with diverse sources of income, including government and military, farming, and business. Virginia has 4.1 million civilian workers, and one-third of the jobs are in the service sector. The unemployment rate was 6.3% as of April 2011. In 2009, Forbes Magazine named Virginia the best state in the nation for business for the fourth year in a row, while CNBC named it the top state for business in 2007, 2009, and 2011. The Gross Domestic Product of Virginia was $363 billion in 2009.
   
   
8. Virginia's educational system consistently ranks in the top ten states on the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia students outperforming the average in all subject areas and grade levels tested. The 2011 Quality Counts report ranked Virginia's K–12 education fourth best in the country.
   
   
9. The climate of Virginia becomes increasingly warmer and more humid farther south and east. Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of 26 °F in January to average highs of 86 °F in July. The Atlantic ocean has a strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas of the state. Influenced by the Gulf Stream, coastal weather is subject to hurricanes, most pronouncedly near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.