As Richmond magazine marks its fourth decade, we step inside 1979 — and find its footprints on today.
The YWCA Battered Women's Project staff in 1979 (Photo courtesy Sheila Crowley)
BACKSTORY: Rape and domestic violence were emerging issues across the country and the world in 1979, says VCU social work professor Sheila Crowley (pictured above center, in white shirt). Then, laws really didn’t support women in any way. “Many people went back to their violent husbands and partners,” she says.
That year, a bill, sponsored by Ralph Lewis “Bill” Axselle Jr., was introduced, changing the question in courts from “Did the victim struggle to resist the attacker?” to “Did the assailant use force?”
And that same year, Crowley founded the Richmond YWCA’s sexual assault hotline and emergency shelter, one of the first in Virginia. Just out of graduate school, she researched other sexual assault hotline programs. A grant helped hire six people — four crisis counselors, an administrative assistant and a child-care coordinator.
“We started hearing from folks in immediate danger,” Crowley recalls. “We would arrange for them to come to the YWCA building. We had a day room, a place for them to be during the day. We had a whole network of families who we had evaluated and trained who could also provide shelter. If that wasn’t available and someone needed shelter, we had a contract with a hotel. After that, we started looking for a shelter.”
During the YWCA program’s first month, 53 women telephoned for help or simply appeared on the doorstep.
“Not a day went by when we didn’t have several women and children with us,” Crowley says of the hotline and shelter program’s beginnings.
Original volunteer Nikki Nicholau recalls, “We were young and energetic and creating this thing. It was a little heady. We were doing the right thing at the right time.”
TODAY: The YWCA Richmond serves 5,000 survivors of sexual violence each year as Richmond’s only 24-hour sexual assault center. YWCA clients also include men and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Regional hospital accompaniment and counseling are provided to those in need.
More Moments From 1979
Suing the Club
Then: African-American dentist and Salisbury resident Thomas Wright Jr. and his wife, Barbara, sued the Salisbury Country Club in Midlothian, claiming discriminatory practices, after being denied membership twice in 1977.
Now: A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1980 decided in favor of the Wrights, ruling that membership at Salisbury Country Club “is open to every white person within the geographic area, there being no selective element other than race.” The Wrights, according to a column written by their daughter and published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2016, never reapplied to join the club after the ruling.
Box vs. Dish
Then: Cable is available in parts of Henrico County through Continental Cablevision. Subscription T.V. Ltd. (STAR), a satellite service, provides 30 movies a month in Richmond and parts of Henrico. In July, STAR sues Continental, claiming a cable monopoly bid.
Now: One word: Netflix.
Photo via National Archives and Records Administration
Carter Drops In
Then: On April 7, when President Jimmy Carter spoke at the Virginia Democratic Party’s annual dinner, he predicted that oil company lobbyists would descend “like a chicken on a June bug” as he attempted to battle “unearned, excess profits.“
Now: Carter, 94, is our oldest living president.
Mining History
Then: Preservationists in Chesterfield County knew there was “gold” within the abandoned Mid-Lothian Mines site in terms of history lessons for the community. They banded together and began asking the county to turn the site into a park.
Now: It took 25 years, but one of the first major industrial sites in the United States opened as a 44-acre preserve called Mid-Lothian Mines Park in 2004.
