Accompanied by students from Colvin Run Elementary School in Fairfax County, Gov. Ralph Northam prepares to sign a proclamation recognizing the 2019 commemoration, American Evolution. (Photo by Taylor Mills)
On the steps of the Virginia State Capitol, Gov. Ralph Northam signed a proclamation Wednesday launching a yearlong series of events marking the 400th anniversary of important developments in the nation's history during 1619.
“It was the year of the first representative legislative assembly in the New World, the arrival of the first recorded African people in English North America, the recruitment of English women in significant numbers and the first official English Thanksgiving in North America,” he said.
Northam said the 2019 commemoration, called American Evolution, will honor the complex and diverse history of Virginia and the United States. Related events will include a Virginia Thanksgiving Festival at Berkeley Plantation, the Pocahontas Reframed Storytellers Film Festival at the Byrd Theatre, the dedication of the Emancipation Proclamation and Freedom Monument on Brown's Island and a new ballet from Dance Theater of Harlem, among many other others. There will also be special exhibitions and programs hosted by individuals and organizations throughout the state partnering with American Evolution. Among those will be "Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality," an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, and an "International Forum on the Future of Representative Democracy" at the College of William and Mary.
American Evolution also launched a mobile app, Virginia History Trails, which allows users to find historical sites around Virginia and learn the history that shaped the state.
Members of the Jamestown Settlement Honor Guard were on hand for the announcement of the 2019 commemoration, American Evolution. (Photo by Taylor Mills)