Jackson Ward

SA-74

Before the Civil War this neighborhood was home to free blacks and enslaved individuals, along with European immigrants and Jewish residents. The area served as a city electoral district (1871-1903) and is still called Jackson Ward. By the early 20th century it had become one of the premier centers of African American business, social, and residential life in the United States. Black-owned businesses such as the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, the Southern Aid Insurance Company, the Richmond Planet newspaper, and Miller's Hotel (later Eggleston Hotel) thrived during legalized racial segregation. In the 1950s the new interstate highway bisected Jackson Ward. In 1978 the area became a National Historic Landmark.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Dawn S. Bowen, "The Transformation of Richmond's Historic African American Commercial Corridor," Southeastern Geographer 43(Nov. 2003): 260-278; Michael B. Chesson, Richmond: After the War, 1865-1890 (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1981), 157; Jackson Ward Historic District (Richmond: Department of Planning and Community Development, 1978); Jackson Ward, National Historic Landmark Archives Files (127-237), Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond, Virginia; Calder Loth, ed., The Virginia Landmarks Register, 4th. ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 431; Marie Tyler-McGraw, At the Falls Richmond, Virginia and Its People(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 174, 227.