On Display: Now – Until August 30th
Description: For most of the 20th century, the fight for civil rights in Virginia ran through courtrooms, legislative bodies, and community meetings. In Richmond, VA, the Honorable Roland J. “Duke” Ealey spent his whole life relentlessly in those spaces, arguing cases before the Supreme Court, organizing his neighbors to vote, running for office when Black candidates were nearly unheard of, and showing up — reliably, quietly — wherever he was needed. He was the kind of man who took cases pro bono, sat on planning boards, taught Sunday school, and prioritized his family, church, and community. Ealey argued one of the most significant desegregation rulings of the civil rights era. Richmond knew him as Duke — today we remember him as a lawyer, legislator, organizer, and neighbor. Governor L. Doug Wilder called Duke: “the essence of a citizen politician.”
