A fresh attempt is being made to revive the biggest sporting event in Richmond — the Armstrong-Walker Classic.

City Hall is now backing a coalition of alumni from the city’s two former Black high schools, Armstrong and Maggie L. Walker, who are leading the charge to stage an event honoring and commemorating the storied Thanksgiving weekend football clash between the friendly rivals.

The hugely popular game drew 25,000 to 35,000 people to City Stadium and was held annually between 1939 and 1978 before Richmond Public Schools reorganized the city high schools, putting an end to the game.

Just as in the past, the new Armstrong-Walker Classic will be held the Saturday after Thanksgiving – this year on Saturday, Nov. 27. It also will feature a parade on Leigh Street, a youth football game and a tailgate party on the Virginia Union University campus.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney used the backdrop of the Black History Museum & Cultural Center in Jackson Ward to announce on Wednesday the effort “to bring back one of the great community traditions.”

He said the Armstrong-Walker Classic was “a cherished annual event that allowed the Black community to come together, share and celebrate education, self-determination, excellence ... It was an opportunity to show up and show out.”

Mayor Stoney said the importance of the game “was undervalued at the time by the powers that be. That was then, this is now.”

He said he has sought to use his role as a public servant “to right past wrongs. The Classic is another example and an opportunity to build on the legacy of the Black community and be proud of what we have built. We need to lift up the Black experience” and honor the trailblazers, activists, educators, professionals and political leaders who came from the two schools.

This is the second effort in recent years to create a remembrance event. Between 2009 and 2011, a nonprofit group led by Bernice Travers sought to stage an event featuring semi-pro football teams from Richmond and other cities wearing jerseys of the two high schools. But she said the event never attracted more than 5,000 people.

“All I can say is good luck to them,” Ms. Travers said after the announcement.

The mayor credited Huguenot High School alumnus Cary C. Mitchell, whose father, the late journalist and radio broadcaster John Thomas “Tiger Tom” Mitchell, was the announcer for the games at City Stadium, and Thomas Jefferson High School alumnus Reginald E. “Reggie” Gordon, the city’s deputy chief administrator for human services, for bringing the idea for a legacy event to him.

Mr. Mitchell’s brother, John H. Mitchell, also is credited with building the website, AWfootballclassic.com, which offers the details.

According to the website, a 15-member committee of graduates of the two schools is planning the legacy parade that will travel Leigh Street between 5th Street and Lombardy Street where the Maggie Walker building is located. It is now a regional governor’s school. The parade is to end on the adjacent Virginia Union University campus.

Dr. Howard Hopkins, a former athletic director and coach at Maggie Walker and a longtime city high school principal, and McDaniel Anderson, a former Armstrong quarterback, are co-chairing the parade initiative.

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a 1947 graduate of Armstrong High School, and football Hall of Famer Willie Lanier, a 1963 graduate of Maggie L. Walker High School, are the honorary co- chairs, just as they were for the event that Ms. Travers staged.

The city Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities will stage the youth football contest. The inaugural game, the Free Press was told, is to feature peewee teams – the Chiefs of the Powhatan Community Center in Fulton and the Ducks of the Southside Community Center.