Founded in February 2005, The Virginia Defender is a statewide community newspaper published quarterly by the Richmond-based Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. We provide news and analysis of interest to poor and working-class people, with an emphasis on the Black community.

We print 15,000 copies, distributed to nearly 300 locations in 14 cities and counties by a network of volunteers.

The Virginia Defender is free and produced by an all-volunteer staff. (It is free to pick up, and subscriptions are free to Virginia prisoners. For more information about subscriptions, see the Donate/Subscribe page.) We finance the paper through paid advertising and donations. Our editor is Phil Wilayto and our editorial board members are Phil Wilayto and Ana Edwards.

The Virginia Defender newspaper is one project of the Defenders. We also sponsor the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and the Odessa Solidarity Campaign. We co-founded and affiliate with the Virginia Prison Justice Network.

Below is a statement of our principles, which we run on page 2 of every edition of the paper. If they resonate with you and you want to work with us, please get in touch: our contact info is available on the Contact page.

What We Believe

We believe in Freedom

We believe that all people must be free to develop to their full potential as human beings. We must be free from hunger, from preventable diseases, from homelessness, from ignorance. We must be free to work and to provide for ourselves and our families. We must be free from fear of the arbitrary use of police power and from the physical and cultural attacks of white-supremacist organizations. Women must be free from physical, cultural and emotional oppression. LGBTQ+ folks must be free from discrimination and oppression. Children must be free from dangers like lead poisoning, asthma and sexual exploitation. Our youths must be free both from police harassment and the mindless violence of the streets. We must all be free from unjust wars fought in the interest of the wealthy few at the expense of the struggling many.

We believe in Justice

We believe that every human being has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we believe that these rights are meaningless unless we also have the right to a job at a living wage, to decent housing, to adequate health care, to a meaningful education. We believe that all people have the right to stand equally before the law, to equal and fair treatment by the police, by the court system and in jails and prisons. And we believe that the death penalty is the ultimate exercise in injustice.

We believe in Equality

We live in the richest country in the world. But it’s a country that owes its tremendous wealth to the barbaric exploitation  of Black labor on a historic scale, genocidal wars against Indigenous peoples and the theft of their land, the cruel exploitation of Asian labor and the labor of waves of poor European immigrants.

This country does not belong to the wealthy few who has claimed it for their own. As human beings, we all have an equal right to its resources. As descendants of those whose blood, sweat and tears paid cruelly for its development, we have a right to collective reparations. And as people who struggle every day with ongoing inequality, we have the right to affirmative action.

We believe that for any one of us to be free, we must all be free. We believe that for any one of us to have justice, we must all have justice. We believe that equality for anyone is impossible without equality for everyone.

As members of the Defenders, we pledge ourselves to defend our community, its men, its women, and especially its children, from all forms of oppression.

We pledge to fight for a world where all people can live in dignity, freedom and peace.