The Letters of Oliver and Bernie Hill: The Making of a Legendary Civil Rights Lawyer

On February 6, 2014, Margaret Edds delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Letters of Oliver and Bernie Hill: The Making of a Legendary Civil Rights Lawyer." Author-journalist Margaret Edds discusses more than 200 letters written during the first years of the Hills’ marriage, while Oliver was struggling to launch a law practice in Roanoke and Bernie was teaching in Washington D.C. The 1934–36 letters illuminate Hill’s early association with the N.A.A.C.P. and the Virginia Teachers Association, work that led in future years to participation in historic court challenges to Jim Crow segregation. Margaret Edds is an author and retired journalist who is researching a book on Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.