Virginia’s Civil Rights Hero Curtis W. Harris, Sr.

In 1924, the Virginia State Legislature passed the Racial Integrity Act.

The act banned interracial marriage down to a single drop of African blood. Just three months later, Curtis W. Harris was born in Dendron, Virginia. Harris was the sixth child of impoverished sharecroppers, living in a desolate outpost of the Commonwealth, but in time he would lead the fight against the Racial Integrity Act and many other racially restrictive laws. Despite being arrested multiple times and beaten, Rev. Harris would help reverse centuries of racial discrimination that began when slaves first arrived in Virginia in 1619.

Author William Paul Lazarus tells the story of Harris’ determination in the face of intense hostility, which took him to the forefront of America’s Civil Rights Movement, arm-in-arm with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.