Tuesday, February 22, 2011 William Ferguson Reid (1925- ) was
the first African American elected to the General Assembly in
the twentieth century. A medical doctor and community leader in
the city of Richmond, Reid was one of the founders of the
Crusade for Voters, organized in 1955 and one of the most
formidable political organizations in the state. It lobbied for
voter registration among African Americans, conducted get-out-
the-vote drives, and enabled Reid to win a seat in the House of
Delegates from the city of Richmond in 1967 on his second try.
Reid served three terms in the assembly. Afterward he was a
regional medical officer for the United States Department of
State. Reid was the only African American in the General
Assembly when he took office in 1968. In 2000 there are fifteen.
Black History Month is a remembrance of the events in the
history of the African diaspora. Since 1976, it is celebrated
annually in the United States of America and Canada in February
and the United Kingdom in the month of O