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A public historical marker unveiling ceremony for Willis Augustus Hodges (1815-1890) will include a keynote address by Cassandra Newby-Alexander, professor of Virginia Black history and culture at Norfolk State University. The unveiling of the marker will be followed by a reception. There is no fee to attend.

Willis A. Hodges was born in Princess Anne County to Charles and Julia Hodges, free people of color. He moved between New York and Virginia before the Civil War and became an outspoken abolitionist, cofounding the weekly antislavery newspaper the Ram’s Horn in Brooklyn in 1847. In Princess Anne after the war, he opened a school and was a Republican Party leader. The first Black man to win an election in the county, he served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867-68, where he was among the most prominent of its 24 Black members and advocated racial equality. Hodges served two terms on the county Board of Supervisors and was a keeper of the Cape Henry Lighthouse.