by Tom Ewing
March 20, 2025
Fifty years ago, in March 1975, America celebrated the 200th anniversary of Patrick Henry’s most famous speech with dramatic readings and costumed re-enactments. This week, in March 2025, Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of this speech with dramatic readings and costumed re-enactments. The headline from the Richmond Times on March 24, 1975, “Yesterday’s Voice Stirs Today’s Minds,” effectively expresses the recurring goal of these commemorations — to use the language of the past to encourage thoughtful understanding in the present.
These commemorations recognize one of the key moments on the path to the American revolution, the fiery speech made by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775. This speech, which includes the famous phrase, “Give me liberty or give me death,” encouraged leading Virginians to further break away from the authority of the King’s representatives in the colonies.
Despite the continuity in planned observations, the last decade has seen an important shift in efforts to educate the public about Patrick Henry’s multiple roles in the revolutionary era. As documented extensively in recent years, Patrick Henry’s plantations included many enslaved people, including ten whose names were listed in plantation records at the family home, Scotchtown: Dinah, Beck, Jenny, Ben, Dick, Ben, Isaac, Pedro, Will and Tom. Many more generations of enslaved people lived and worked on lands owned by the Henry family before, during, and after the revolutionary era.
While relatively little is known about these women, men, and children, their position as enslaved people illustrates that Patrick Henry consistently claimed ownership over people who were denied the freedom and liberty that he demanded for himself and other white men in Virginia.
Recognizing the complex and contradictory ideas and practies associated with revolutionary leaders is central to several episodes of the Bike 76 podcast, including Jamestown (2), which explores three hundred years of legislative efforts to sustain white power, and Charlottesville (12), where two monuments represent efforts to remember and honor the contrasting trajectories of freedom and slavery.
The Transamerican Bicycle Route 76 passes directly by Scotchtown, where Henry lived at the time he made his famous speech. Scotchtown is located near the community of Beaverdam, as Route 76 passes through the very rural section between Richmond and Charlottesville. Cyclists riding across Virginia have the opportunity to ride an alternative route along the Capital Trail through downtown Richmond, which brings them within a few blocks of Historic St. John’s Church, where Henry delivered his speech. Patrick Henry Memorial Park across the street includes a historical marker detailing Henry’s life and contributions to the revolutionary movement. Less than a mile to the northwest along Broad Street, and just a few blocks from the Capital Trail, historical markers for Lumpkin’s Jail, where enslaved people were held in prison until they were sold at auction, and the Shockoe Hill African Burial Ground, a historical cemetery for African Americans destroyed by highway construction, provides further evidence of how closely the histories of liberty and slavery are connected in Virginia history and along Route 76.
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