March to a Different Drummer

A very brief history: Europeans arrived in Virginia in the 17th century to find a bountiful land occupied by indigenous peoples. Upper class Caucasian males soon came to dominate the land and profited in an agrarian environment that depended on indentured servants and slaves. And white males were a major source of the intellectual and passionate force that arose to create American independence and found modern democracy. Slavery, which helped to accrue power and wealth to upper class whites, was abolished only after a very bloody civil war, however this white class maneuvered second-class status to blacks economically, socially, and politically. Evangelical and fundamentalist Protestantism that had a distinct ingrained intolerance also heavily influenced Virginia’s culture. Government mandated discrimination or segregation of the races was eventually dismantled by the courts in the 1960’s; however, white upper class males with a long legacy of superior education, hereditary wealth,