Established in 2005 as The Richmond Defender, The Virginia Defender is a free community newspaper, published quarterly for the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. Print distribution is currently 12,000 and statewide. The online publication launched in Summer 2020.
On April 19, workers at five Starbucks coffee shops in the Richmond area voted overwhelmingly to join the Workers United union. We spoke to one of the organizers who are helping to turn Richmond into a union town.
LaToya Benton, the mother of a Black teenager fatally shot by Virginia State Police troopers, has filed a $60.35 million wrongful death lawsuit against the officers.
Following extensive renovations, the Virginia Museum of History and Culture is reopening to the public May 14 and 15 with free admission, live music and family activities.
As we go to press, city workers in Virginia Beach are preparing to hold a press conference and public speak-out before raising job-related demands April 20 at a city council budget hearing.
Some 350 years after being driven off their land by white settlers, the Rappahannock Tribe has regained ownership of more than 460 acres of ancestral homeland along its namesake river in the Northern Neck.
On April 15, Israel carried out a violent assault on Palestinians congregating at the al-Aqsa masjid in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site for followers of Islam. It was a Friday, the Muslim day of worship, in the holy month of Ramadan.
An organization called the Coalition to Save Historic Thoroughfare has announced plans to protest what it says is the ongoing desecration of Black and indigenous cemeteries in Thoroughfare, an unincorporated community in western Prince William County in Northern Virginia.
The Virginia Defender 