Story of Black Lucyville community lives through new historical marker

More than 100 people gathered Thursday morning to witness the unveiling of a state historical marker for Lucyville, a community founded in the late 19th century by a freed slave.

The Rev. Reuben T. Coleman was born into slavery, then freed in 1860. Lucyville is named after his daughter. Coleman owned a bank in the community, which in the 1890s also had a post office, a mineral springs resort and a newspaper.

In addition to serving as Lucyville’s postmaster, Coleman was the “president” of the Republican Party of Cumberland County during Reconstruction. He was appointed notary public by former Gov. James Hoge Tyler, and also served as justice of the peace.

Lucyville once sat within Cumberland County, about 1.5 miles from its marker placement next to Bear Creek Lake State Park and Cumberland State Forest.

Coleman was founding pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church, where remarks were delivered Thursday before the marker unveiling about 3 miles away.

Coleman’s descendants were in attendance, along with family members of Shed Dungee. Dungee represented Buckingham and Cumberland counties for two terms in the state House of Delegates in the late 1800s.

Virginia began placing highway markers in 1827, the first in the nation to start, Julie Langan, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, told the crowd.

Only three out of 700 markers made before 1930 focused on Black history. The number rose to nine by 1941, according to Langan.

The marker program originally spotlighted sites and topics surrounding presidents, military battles and buildings with architectural merit, she said.

There are now more than 2,600 historical markers throughout Virginia, and 451 of them highlight Black history. The number is still low, at 17%, though state officials have made a push in recent years.

“As the marker program nears its 100th birthday, there exists this undeniable imbalance that we are actively working to correct,” Langan said.

Marilyn White is Dungee’s great-granddaughter and Coleman’s great-grandniece. She wrote her dissertation on the Lucyville community and interviewed much of her extended family.

“He was in many respects larger than life,” White said about Coleman. “Often flouting or finding ways around the laws and social norms for Black folk in the late 1800s, and early 1900s, particularly in a rural Southern state.”

Dungee was also born into slavery in 1831 in Cumberland County. He married Mary Coleman, the reverend’s sister, following the Civil War.

Dungee, a Republican, was elected to his first term in 1879. In the General Assembly, he advocated for public education. The Democrats who controlled the House were closing schools to pay off the state debt. Dungee joined the Readjusters Party, which advocated to keep school funding.

The history of Lucyville

Students from Cumberland Middle School worked to get the Lucyville historical marker approved. Read more about their research in these four stories written by the students:

Part 1 looks at the origin of the community and scholar athlete Theodore T. Coleman .

Part 2 details the life of family of Shed Dungee, whose descendants included the first African American elected to the South Carolina state legislature in the 20th century and later the first African American state Supreme Court justice in that state .

Part 3 answers the question of how a Confederate veteran was laid to rest on a formerly enslaved man’s land.

Part 4 explores more of the history of the Dungee and Coleman families.

“The Readjusters lost, and Virginia neglected — indeed, intentionally underfunded — education for Black Virginians for generations to come,” said Edward Ayers, University of Richmond president emeritus and historian.

Two-thirds of African American educators in Virginia were women by 1900, according to Ayers.

“Telling the story of America, of Virginia, of Cumberland County, of Lucyville, is necessary for understanding America,” Ayers said. “The keys lie in local history.”

Dungee’s daughter, Nannie Dungee Finney, and son-in-law, Robert Finney, were both Cumberland-area educators.

Great-great-granddaughter Nikky Finney is an award-winning poet and professor at the University of South Carolina. She recited a poem about her family’s history at the church.

Finney said of her relatives, in part: “They knew one day we would read books. They knew one day we would pull them down and drink them in just like the water from the spiraling mineral springs.”

Lewis Longenecker teaches civics at Cumberland Middle School. Lucyville is the fourth historical marker his students have helped implement, and a fifth one was recently approved.

The students researched and created a video of Coleman and Dungee’s legacies and Lucyville’s history. The 6-minute video was presented at the church.

His students used historical documents and created overlay maps to complete the state DHR historical marker application requirements.

“Whether it’s research, whether it’s just finding out information, map skills — real-world skills apply to this,” Longenecker said.

The National Education Association Foundation paid for the Lucyville marker through a grant.

Community members, Longenecker’s students and Lucyville descendants trekked about 3 miles from the church for the unveiling of the marker.

The Cumberland Jazz Ensemble played music as the crowd arrived. CMS students and a Lucyville descendant gave the first reading of the historical marker.

Coleman was an outspoken critic of Jim Crow laws ushered after Reconstruction. Many Lucyville residents left during the Great Migration, though their history now stands marked alongside Trents Mill Road.

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