Freedom: A Work in Progress — Experience Fredericksburg’s Civil Rights Trail

Fredericksburg, Virginia’s new Civil Rights Trail titled “Freedom, A Work in Progress,” offers unique insights into the area’s Black History. This free self-guided journey includes 21 stops around Fredericksburg and the University of Mary Washington. It traces African Americans’ fight for equality from the Civil War to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Walking Through History and Honoring African Americans

Victoria Matthews, tourism sales manager for Visit Fredericksburg, led us on a walking tour of part one of the tour. We began at the Fredericksburg Visitor Center, where visitors stop to pick up trail maps and learn about the trail.

Our first stop was a critically important site, Shiloh Baptist Church, which includes an old site and a new site. The old church along the riverside collapsed during a flood. Half the congregation wanted to stay on the same site, and half the congregation wanted to move away from the river, which is why there is Shiloh Baptist Church’s new site. The church served as a place to hold training sessions for the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders bus movements.

One trail site highlights the Green Book. Fredericksburg had two hotels listed in the Green Book: Hotel McGuire and Hotel Rappahannock. Both hotels are gone now, but their importance remains.

The 500-600 blocks of Princess Anne were a Black neighborhood at the time. There were Black-owned businesses, and the city’s first black police officer, Charles Dyson. Although Officer Dyson had this beat, he couldn’t arrest white people and held very limited power. Charles Dyson later fought in Vietnam, where he lost his life. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery. His brother, Jimmy Dyson, is still alive and was present at the unveiling of Fredericksburg’s Civil Rights Trail.  The local baseball team, the FredNats, also attended and asked Jimmy Dyson to come to the ballpark and throw out the first pitch over home plate. An interesting side note,  for the 2025 season home games, the FredNats called themselves the Fredericksburg Frogs, in honor of the African American team that played in downtown Fredericksburg from 1919 through the late 30s.

Freedom Riders

Another important site is the fire department, which was once the Greyhound and Trailways bus depot in Fredericksburg. When the Freedom Riders came out of Washington, D.C., this was their first stop on May 4, 1961.

The Freedom Riders, led by James Farmer, arrived by bus that day to test whether Blacks could use the white side of the bus station and whether white people could use the Blacks’ side. Dr. Farmer later came to Fredericksburg and became a professor at the University of Mary Washington.

The Brave Walker Grant Black High School Class of 1950

Another trail stop commemorates an event that happened on June 7, 1950. The Walker Grant Black High School had 27 graduates that year. The school wasn’t big enough for the graduation ceremony, so some students approached the city and said, “We’d like to use the community center because we have 27 graduates and all their families. We physically cannot fit in our own building. We’d love to use the community center.”

The city denied the application simply because they were Black. The student association president rejected the city’s response, stating, “Our parents pay taxes, so we technically have paid for part of that building.” The city replied, “You’ve got a good point. You can use it, but you can only use the side door.”

On the day of their graduation, the students chose to protest at the community center. Police were there and did not interfere as the students, in their caps and gowns, marched from this building down to Shiloh Baptist Church, where they held their graduation.

Surprisingly, the police didn’t touch them. Remember, this was 1950 in the South. The protest pre-dated the Montgomery bus boycott. It pre-dated the murder of Emmett Till, and it pre-dated the Selma protests. For 18-year-olds, this was a very brave protest.

William Lowell and Roger Williams, two of the last remaining graduates of the class of 1950, also attended the opening of Fredericksburg’s Civil Rights Trail, where they unveiled the history panel that depicts their experience.

More Notable Sites on the Civil Rights Trail

Our next stop was the jail. The bottom floor of this jail building is the original pre-1924 jail, and the upper floor is post-1924. There were two known lynchings here.

The Fredericksburg Area Museum provides an excellent exhibit about Civil Rights. They also display the former slave auction block that once stood at a city corner.

One of the last stops on our tour proved to be one of the most impressive. Robert Christian was a young boy who integrated Fredericksburg’s middle school. Our guide shared a 1962 photograph of young Robert, standing alone and looking over his shoulder at the photographer who was not supposed to be taking his photo. He stood outside the previously all-white Maury Middle School. As we stood in the former school viewing this photo, an audiotape of Christian’s adult remembrance of his terrifying experience as the only Black student played in the background.

Our tour ended at Foode Restaurant. In 1865, John Washington was enslaved in the home upstairs. As General Ambrose’s Union army battled General Lee’s Confederate forces in Fredericksburg, Washington self-emancipated himself and crossed over from his owner’s home to Union lines. Having learned to read and write from his mother, in later years, Washington published his autobiography, telling of his life as a slave.

More Stories to Share

Part two of the tour is a 9-mile driving tour of the University of Mary Washington campus. The tour includes the James Farmer Memorial, landmarks such as Shiloh Cemetery, and the Dorothy Hart Community Center.

Freedom: A Work in Progress is exactly that. As more stories unfold, Fredericksburg’s Civil Rights Trail will continue to expand. Learn more about this important exhibition at fxbg.com/civil-rights-trail/.

 

 

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