By Tom Ewing
February 20, 2025
The US Civil Rights Trail is a national effort to connect locations central to the history of efforts to end segregation and establish racial equality. In Virginia, Route 76 and the Civil Rights Trail intersect once, north of Richmond, as the north-south direction of the Civil Rights Trail runs perpendicular to the generally east-west direction of Route 76. Richmond and Farmville, two key sites along the Civil Rights Trail, are not far from Route 76 in central Virginia, while Danville, in southern Virginia, is just under 70 miles from where Route 76 enters the New River Valley.
Cyclists along Route 76 have many opportunities to encounter and observe key locations in the movement against segregation and for equal rights, thus fulfilling the purpose of the US Civil Rights trail. Several of these locations are featured in podcast episodes. Several episodes examine the ways that race shaped important dimensions of Virginia history, including the role of segregated cycling clubs in the evolution of transportation (Fort Chiswell), the segregation of education and the campaign for integration (Fluvanna and Christiansburg), the separation of patients into segregated public health facilities (Catawba), and the co-location of churches serving African American and white populations (Needstan Creek). Throughout Virginia’s history, systemic racism has been enforced through various means of suppression and intimidation, which are examined in terms of enslaved populations (Kimages and Charlottesville) and the use of violent means to enforce racial oppression in the Jim Crow era (Mill Creek).
The themes of these episodes are evident along Route 76 in ways that can be visible to cyclists as they ride across Virginia. In recent years, community groups in Albermarle county established a historical marker to commemorate the lynching of John Henry James in 1898. As described on the marker, James was arrested soon after he was accused of assaulting a young white woman near her home. Initially taken to the nearby town of Staunton in secret by law enforcement, James was returning to Charlottesville for his trial when the train was stopped, a mob of more than one hundred men forced him off the train, and he was hung and then his body was riddled by bullets. No one was ever arrested or tried for his murder. The Richmond Planet, Virginia’s leading Black newspaper, decried the lynching as “dastardly,” “heinous,” and “revolting.” After his death was forgotten for more than a century, deliberate and sustained efforts by local community members brought this history into public view at a time when the city of Charlottesville was still recovering from the white nationalist rally in August 2017. Some soil from the place of the murder was collected by community members, to be displayed by Equal Justice Institute’s Community Remembrance Project, and a historical marker was posted by the community, documenting this important story in Virginia’s history.
This moment in Virginia’s history has two connections to Route 76. Wood’s Crossing, the location where James was murdered, is along Route 76 between Charlottesville and Crozet. The Albermarle County Circuit Court building, where James was going to face charges and where the historical marker is now located, is just three blocks north of Route 76 in downtown Charlottesville.
Cyclists along Route 76 thus have opportunities to experience a version of the Civil Rights Trail, with the episodes of this podcast providing guides to important themes in this important history.
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