he said, you went to the black school in petersburg virginia state, as though i could not go to that school. i'm like, what's up with this guy? that's why i sensed this former racism a little bit, someone not expecting you to have achieved certain things. i befriended katherine johnson when i was there, from hidden figures. katherine was always positive, and no matter what the situation, she would talk about how there is always a solution, you just have to work hard, you will figure it out. it was just this work ethic she had. she retired when i got there. that was a turning point for me, because i joined this group of african-american scientists and engineers. called the national technical association. i became the treasurer and worked with katherine and some other people. mary jackson was one of the members at the time. i did not know their stories at that time. it was not until the movie came out that i really understood truly the advances they made to nasa at the time. but i knew they were great people, smart and hard-working, and that helped me also have a trajectory of being ex

we see that in a place like petersburg virginia with the st. stevens church which is one of the first black episcopal churches in virginia. and it is founded in part by formally enslaved back woman from north carolina. she works with one of the ministers there in st. petersburg to start this church for formally in slate black folks. women are playing an important role in religious freedom as well. this woman reflects the women's natural women's convention of the baptist church. ultimately it emerges at the end of the 19th century. lastly, thinking of the question of what it meant to be free, is it a movement? harriet jacobs said there is no more need of hiding places to conceal slave mothers. she's referring to her own experience of hiding in her grandmother's attic in the small space. a small crawl space where she could barely stand. there is no need for that. now three people can go where they want. right? many do. many migrate to cities in search of their family members, just freedom. freedom to move their bodies, to go where the please. som

last year of the war, when grant was having to fight simultaneously on two fronts in virginia, along the richmond petersburg corridor and the s n valley, they provided information on the movement between lee's army. lee doesn't have many chess pieces left. van lew has insights into how he is moving them. when the underground able to report to grant, for example, the troops are leaving the richmond perimeter and being transferred to the valley, grant can strike blows at the richmond defenses, conversely when the union underground is able to say that divisions of earlies have arrived in richmond, they can strike blows. this is a set of tactical insights. it can't be emphasized enough that this was primitive enough. van lew knew men were moving back and forth because she had guys at the railroad station. when troops got on and off the cars, that was information she thought grant should have. van lew and her fellow unionists knew that grant relied on this information and that relied on them not only for military intelligence, but also for assessments of the political atmosphere and living conditions in the rebe

i want to talk about northern virginia's regional pace to ease restrictions, petersburg's water, the dmv and our elections. 9801 testsported yesterday, which is a great step as we work to ramp up testing. that has not shown up on the website yet but it will in the next day or two. now i want to give virginians an update on where we are with our data metrics. you saw these slides on friday and they are also available on the virginia department of health website. this is our confirmed positive cases. the blue bar represents the number of cases and the yellow line is the seven day moving average. while we have seen a slight dip in the past few days, largely these numbers are going up. that is what we expect to see. manygraph shows us how people are being tested each day in the blue bars. the yellow line represents a seven-day average. as you can see, both the number of tests and the average of tests performed has both been trending upward. there are dips where we have tested fewer people on the day, but overall it shows we are doing more testing. how many ofhows those tests come back po

today i want to talk about northern virginia regional pace to ease restrictions. petersburg's water, d&b and our elections here in the commonwealth. first we reported doing 9801 tests yesterday which is a great step as we work to ramp up testing. that has not shown up on the data's website yet but it will in the next day or two. now i want to give virginia's an update on where we are with our eta metrics. you saw these slides on friday they were all so available on the virginia department of health website. this is our confirmed positive cases by the date they were reported to the virginia department of health and the blue bar represents the number of cases and the yellow line is the seven-day moving average. while we have seen a slight dip in the past few days largely these numbers are going up and that is what we expect to see. this graph shows us how many people are being tested each day in the lubar's. the yellow line represents a seven day moving average of how many people we are testing. as you can see, both the number of tests and the average of tests performed have bot

virginia. this is the site he beholds. he did not see this personally because he was down in petersburg, but the confederates set the town fire when they were evacuating, when richmond fell. that is the virginia state capital, the old capital of the confederacy right there in the middle. leee days later, robert e is going to pull up at the river and look at the scene of desolation. he is not going to have a big calvert cave with them -- cavalcade with them. he is going to have one staff officer, his son, one wagon coming behind him stamped u.s. on the side. it served as his headquarters wagon. wagon and leeat on horseback or going to wind their way through the streets of richmond, up main street, and then turn onto franklin street. inerally they will come up the front of the house. it is 707 franklin street. believe it or not, that fire that had engulfed richmond had come right to the house next door, but that one had been saved. a crowd gathered. they wanted to touch lee as an icon or whatever. touch his boots. can you imagine us doing that today? in 1977.who died lee gets off his horse, bows gravely, and walk inside -- walk

virginia. and all of the confederate defenses north of the james river. longstreet has everything from bermuda 100 toward sycamore harmony. lee will take charge of the fences around petersburg itself. by march 29, the siege of petersburg has been going on since june 18, 1864 and lee's lines run 37 miles. his last link to the south, the south side railroad, is going to be controlled by confederate forces at five forks. by april 1 of 1865, troops were captured at five forks and cut lee's last rail link to the south and lee has no option but to evacuate richmond and petersburg. he sends word to longstreet to bring troops to petersburg. longstreet receives lee's orders by 7:00 that night and in two hours he had his first troops and trained for petersburg. longstreet decides to ride on his horse to petersburg. he arrived there before his troops got there on the trains. longstreet is going to meet with lee at edge hill. edge hill is to the right of the photograph. the marker you see is for ed ge hill. the main road is west washington street, route one, in petersburg. if you go down there, look for walgreens and you will find edge hill. [laughter] longstreet arrived at daylight at

petersburg front. now there's a chase on after lee. plan is to head for amelia courthouse. south super bowl, -- to parkville and to danville, virginia and to join jo johnson's army fighting against sherman. lee is hoping to combine force that they can defeat sherman, turnaround and defeat grant. it's a long shot, but it is all he has at this point. one of longstreet's staff hill at will ride to a the home of a friend of his from richmond. coxe who home of judge invites lee and longstreet and staff to supper. longstreet is still unable to use his right arm. longstreet has little to say on any topic. confederates cross between april 3 and april 4. longstreet says he took up a line on the south side to cover the crossing of the artillery. it was delayed going to the roads. 's command #thousand men. it is the largest and most effective division in lee's army. -- 5000 men. lee was hoping to find supplies at amelia courthouse, and he did. there was ammunition wedding but no food. -- ammunition awaiting but no food. 4 has to spend most of april sunday parties out to forage for food in the area. that is the best he can do. outside the court

virginia. his relentless grinding wilderness campaign and eventual siege of petersburg was driving the casualty rates of ungodly numbers. many northerners believed the deaths of so many soldiers were unacceptable. even mary lincoln believed this was so, telling her husband to fire grant, because grant was, quote, a butcher, unquote. lincoln received a message from august from his commanding general in which grant, who was well aware of the enormous pressure to fall back from the front lines and regroup, expressed his desire to keep pressing the enemy. i've seen your dispatch, expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are, lincoln replied. neither am i willing. hold on with a bulldog grip and chew and choke as much as possible. now, there are the two sides of abraham lincoln and his relationship with the war dead. two very different images. the lincoln sitting on the edge of his bed in his nightshirt, horrified at the body count, a man in a place that is worse than hell. but we also have the grimly determined, iron jawed lincoln defying everyone who tells him the human cost of g

petersburg front is seen here at the small line at williamsburg. the central work, fort mcgruder, oversees the intersection of two roads, the road from hampton, virginiaand the road from yorktown, virginia. so let's say you have 130,000 men, blue uniforms, and your objective is uniform, you might land your boats at fortress monroe. there is one road you must go down to travel east to west on the virginia peninsula. you know that today as the duke of gloucester street, which is why earthworks show up at williamsburg. of those earthworks, there are seven left. virginia transportation -- department of transportation moved one earthwork for the widening of interstate 64. let me tell you, i had the honor to go out there with the archaeologists from william and mary, and that earthwork told me more about the american civil war in williamsburg then i could have imagined. it was perfectly intact. archaeological layer was all there. it was beautiful. there are seven left today. -- you could write a report on it if you wanted to today. but there are seven left today. so in the spring of 1862, this premonition of union soldiers getting to the peninsula comes to

virginia and all of our zip codes. i think that's something that we'll really be able to look forward to. last week we talked about the fact that petersburg has some residents whose water had been shut off. i said then that it is unacceptable to have residents without access to running water when protection against this virus relies heavily on the ability to wash hands and other surfaces. so yesterday, dr. norm oliver, our health commissioner, issued a public health certification that prevents the city of petersburg from shutting off water service to any occupied dwelling and requires the city to restore service to 46 homes. restoring water service will help protect those households as well as the community. now moving to the department of motor vehicles. we closed our public facing d.m.v. offices early in this pandemic, i'm extending that closure for at least the next week. online services remain open. and i would remind virginians that this is a difficult time for our graduating seniors. they are not being able to enjoy a lot of the things that all of us have enjoyed. there are also some high school students who have met all the require

virginia and all of our zip codes. i think that is something we will really be able to look over to. last week, we talked about the fact that petersburgas some residents whose water had been shut off. that wasen unacceptable to have residents without access to running water when protection against this virus relies heavily on the ability to wash hands and other services. yesterday, our health commissioner, issued a public health certification that prevents the city of petersburg from shutting off water service to any occupied dwelling and requires the city to restore service to 46 homes. restoring water service will help protect those households as the community. closed ourhe dmv, we public facing dmv early in this pandemic. i am extending that closure for at least the next week. online services remain open. i would remind virginians that this is a difficult time for our graduating seniors. they are not being able to enjoy a lot of the things that a lot of us have enjoyed. there are also some high school students who have met all of the requirements to obtain their driver's licenses, and i remember how much i looked forward to getting