Legendary Henrico County educator Virginia Randolph made a difference during a career that spanned more than 50 years starting in the late 1890s and touched the lives of countless students and teachers alike. Today, her likeness stands with other Virginia women celebrated in “Voices from the Garden: The Virginia Women’s Monument” in Capitol Square. A new General Assembly building is going up behind her. Ms. Randolph is credited with upgrading education for black children in then-segregated public schools in Henrico County and influencing the teaching of black children across the South and in Africa with the Henrico Plan she wrote. In 1892, Ms. Randolph opened the Mountain Road School and went on to become the first Jeanes teacher in the United States, working to upgrade vocational training programs for black students at 23 schools. She started the first in-service training for black teachers and pushed hands-on training and community self-help programs. She also launched the first school-based Arbor Day program in Virginia and was influential in serving on state commissions on industrial education and public health. Her legacy lives on through the Southern Education Foundation, in the Henrico school that is named for her and in the Virginia Randolph Foundation that awards scholarships to high school students in the county.
