The Commonwealth of Virginia v. Virginia Christian: Southern Black Women, Crime, and Punishment in Progressive-Era Virginia

In 1912, sixteen year-old Hampton, Virginia resident and laundress Virginia Christian killed her white employer: fifty-one year-old widow Ida Belote. Contributing to the expanding historical scholarship on African American female criminality, this study employs Virginia Christian’s life as a window into the lived experiences of some southern working-class African American women during the Nadir. It interrogates Christian’s experiences as a household laborer, her murder trial and execution, and her use of lethal violence as a survival and resistance strategy against white aggression and brutality. Additionally, this essay investigates a diverse yet significant group of African American and white Progressive era political activists’ and newspaper editors’ efforts to save Christian from capital punishment.