Virginia Beach will get a new highway marker to honor Willis Hodges, the first Black man elected to public office in Princess Anne County.
The city’s Office of Historic Preservation plans to unveil the marker Feb. 8 in the Kempsville area at the intersection of Singleton Way and South Witchduck Road. Hodges frequented the area as he ushered enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War.
“Willis Augustus Hodges exemplifies resilience and courage,” local historian Edna Hawkins-Hendrix wrote in a press release. “His relentless fight for justice and equality has inspired generations. This marker ensures that his story will never be forgotten.”
Hodges had a number of official achievements to his name, such as being one of 25 Black delegates elected to the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1867 and serving on the Princess Anne County Board of Supervisors starting in 1870.
He was also well-known in Virginia for his strong abolitionist beliefs and was harassed by white residents for them. In 1844, for example, he was arrested and later released with his brother, Charles E. Hodges, for “preaching anti-slavery sermons.”
Willis Hodges split his time between Virginia and New York because of the hostility he felt in the South.
According to the 2021 WHRO podcast, “The Secret War of Willis Hodges,” Hodges submitted an anti-slavery article in a white-owned newspaper in New York, which was published in one of the last pages of the edition.
“He’s irate, he confronts the publisher and the publisher says, ‘You want front page billing for this kind of abolitionist article? Start your own newspaper,’ which he amazingly does,” Brooklyn-based historian Geoffrey Cobb told WHRO. Hodges primarily lived in Brooklyn when he was in New York.
Hodges created The Ram’s Horn newspaper, putting him in touch with famous abolitionists such as John Brown.
Researchers including Hawkins-Hendrix said Brown gave Hodges details about the raid on Harper’s Ferry before it happened. But Hodges didn’t record details about it in his own journals and Hodges' wife destroyed letters between the two men once Brown was arrested.
Although Hodges was part of major historical events leading up to and after the Civil War, he’s often left out of official accounts, the city’s press release reads.
“His influence and legacy are deserving of our respect and acknowledgment,” the release reads. “The marker will document Willis Augustus Hodges's extraordinary life and legacy as a true trailblazer for racial equality — an essential figure both nationally and in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
