The Virginia Department of Historical Resources (DHR) has approved 15 new historical highway markers, many of them focusing on African-American and women’s history in Virginia.
Five of the fifteen markers were proposed by students during a historical marker contest. One marker in Hampton commemorates Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, a mathematician who worked for NASA and was featured in Hidden Figures. Johnson died at 101 earlier this year. Another marker, in Lynchburg, honors Elizabeth Langhorne Lewis; who was “one of the most influential women’s suffrage activists in Virginia,” according to the proposed sign text.
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