Lost Stories – Rediscovering voices lost to time.
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Maggie L. Walker’s leadership in the St. Luke Order and her bank inspired Black communities across Virginia, including Blacksburg, promoting economic independence, civic engagement, and generational empowerment.
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Visiting Famous Performers – Blacksburg Connection
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Montgomery County had only one Green Book–listed lodging option: Christiansburg’s Eureka Hotel, run by the Morgan family from the 1930s through the 1970s. This raises an intriguing question: when stars like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington performed at Virginia Tech…
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A Safe Haven on the Road: The Eureka Hotel and Montgomery County’s Green Book Legacy
Green Book listings in Montgomery County were few, and Christiansburg’s Eureka Hotel—run by the Morgan family from 1930 into the 1970s—was the only advertised local lodging.
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Finding Enslaved Ancestors & Building an African American Family Tree: Why This Resource Matters—for You and for History
For too long, the stories of enslaved Africans and their descendants have been overlooked, forgotten, or lost in history’s gaps. These video offers a genuine lifeline—a structured, compassionate guide to begin rebuilding broken family trees, recovering names, lifeways, and legacies…
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Shining a Light: Public Records Between the Town of Blacksburg and the Blacksburg Museum
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in DocumentsDocuments Important to the legacy of the St Luke, Odd Fellows & Household of Ruth Hall, 203 Gilbert Street, Blacksburg, VA.
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Cooperative Economics: Maggie Lena Walker
Imagine your great grandmother crisscrossing the state with other women to collect “pennies, nickels, dimes,” for deposit at a Bank owned and operated by a Black woman. Those coins were not just money–it was a political act of defiance. It…
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Beatrice Freeman Walker & St Luke
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in Oral HistoryOn December 17, 2013, Ms. Beatrice Walker recorded an oral history for Virginia Tech’s University Special Collections at the St. Luke, Odd Fellows, and Household of Ruth Hall. As a key figure in preserving the building and a Trustee on…
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