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Government and Law in the Path to Freedom, Justice and Racial Equality in Loudoun County

The courthouse is the symbol of the presence and power of the Commonwealth of Virginia in Loudoun County. . . . It was the state that could execute you, imprison you, or take your property -- all of that was done in that building. It was under Virginia's Constitution and the state laws it authorized that race was defined and segregation was mandated. . . . Justice, under state authority, was meted out--in unequal fashion -- in that courthouse to the black and white citizens of Loudoun County. [historian James Hershman ]

A report was prepared by the Loudoun Heritage Commission in its efforts to review for the Board of Supervisors the "full historic significance" of the Loudoun County Courthouse grounds and its statues, and to make recommendations on additional memorials “to fully reflect the history of the grounds and Loudoun County.”

Read the full report here.

In its nearly three century history, the Leesburg Courthouse has been the witness not only to acts of honor and bravery, justice and freedom, but also to acts of tyranny and injustice, humiliation and suffering, especially by African Americans.

The Courthouse represents the long path from the promise of “All Men Are Created Equal” in the Declaration of Independence read from its steps, to the delay of that promise through brutal acts of enslavement and punishment, to the horrors of a Civil War that pitted brother against brother, to the incomplete work of Reconstruction, to the restrictions and entanglements of Jim Crow segregation, and, finally, to events and actions moving us step-by-step toward the long overdue fulfillment of the Declaration’s promise of equal justice for all.

The report is not intended to be a complete history of the Loudoun County Courthouse, but contains a series of vignettes, representations of specific events and people, selected statistics, reprints of published articles, original articles by Commissioners, copies of historic documents and other materials that help illustrate its role in the almost three century struggle to find justice for all people in Loudoun County.

Overview

Time Line of Events in Loudoun County African American History

Brief History of the Courthouse and the Confederate Monument

I: The Period of Enslavement

II: The Civil War in Loudoun County

III: Reconstruction and the Era of Segregation

IV: The Civil Rights Movement