Greetings,

I pursued this issue a bit when I was a graduate student.  In fact, an
article on
amusements in Richmond at this time -- including the issue of racial
segregation
and mentioning the fairs -- is forthcoming in the next . . . and, sadly,
last . . .
issue of the Virginia Cavalcade.

Here are a few things I found:

Blacks were mostly invisible in the white press coverage of fairs –
perhaps few
attended, perhaps the press avoided mentioning them.  Judging by other
evidence,
African-Americans were not made at all comfortable in such places (see
the Richmond Planet, May 11, 1907 on Jamestown Exposition, for
instance).  For its part, the Planet never mentions the State Fair in
this era, which I think is telling.

The special Exposition of 1888 in Richmond included a “colored
department” and
“colored day” when blacks could attend at half price (was it an accident
that
“colored day” also happened to be Halloween?).  Another aside, “colored
day” was
the day of highest attendance of the Exposition and perhaps was the
largest
concentration of African Americans in one spot in Richmond’s history to
that point.

There was no Virginia State Fair from 1896, in the midst of depression
and after
years of shortfalls, to 1906, when a revived (and moved – from where the
DMV is now to where the Diamond is now) State Fair began again.

Eddie Drummond, a black Richmond youth, attended the fair in 1910 and
1911
according to his diary in the Valentine Museum.  So at that point it was
not
segregated . . . or rather blacks could attend, but they MUST have been
forced to
use different, segregated bathrooms and eating/drinking facilities.  I
think that
is just a given.

There were also separate black fairs.  In July 1915 there was a
particularly large
Negro Historical and Industrial Exhibition, lauded by the white press
and
criticized by John Mitchell’s Planet.  Other black fairs were held in
1884, 1891,
and 1892 . . . and perhaps other years I did not find.

This is a very interesting issue – good luck pursuing it.


Michael Trotti
Ithaca College

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