News, events, and press for Out of Virginia.
By Joe Stinnett
I was honored to see Out of Virginia: Black Americans' Search for Freedom in 19th-Century Liberia, as an official submission of the University of Virginia Press to the 2026 Museum of African American History's Stone Book Award judging.…
By Joe Stinnett
I've been asked how and why I wrote Out of Virginia: Black Americans' Search for Freedom in 19th Century. Here are two answers. How: patience, years of research, and many years of factual editing and reporting experience. Why: How could I…
By Joe Stinnett
Despite sending mixed messages on slavery, Thomas Jefferson, third president of the U.S. and author of the Declaration of Independence, could not maintain his Monticello lifestyle without it and owned a second slave plantation surrounding…
By Joe Stinnett
Juneteenth should resonate in Lynchburg, because the city was founded by Quakers who owned slaves but freed them in the 1780s when the faith banned enslavers from membership. Some of the former Quakers here soon became Methodists, who…
By Joe Stinnett
The Brownsburg Museum is a small museum in tiny Brownsburg, Virginia, a historic community near Raphine in the Shenandoah Valley. I was invited for a private tour and it is world-class. I was blown away by the quality of the displays and…
By Joe Stinnett
I hosted a cookout lunch for my hiking group, the BG Hilltrippers, at Holliday Lake State Park in Appomattox County, to thank them for all their interest and support for my Liberia project over the years I’ve been working on it and talking…
