Out of Virginia

The remarkable journey of a group of Black emigrants from the American South to Liberia after emancipation

In October 1865, six months after the Civil War ended, more than one hundred of the Black residents of Lynchburg, Virginia, left their homes to cross the ocean and begin their lives anew. Their destination was Liberia. They risked everything for the chance to live as full citizens, educate their children, own land, and make a good living—all of which they felt they stood a better chance to do outside the United States, despite their newfound freedom. Why did they leave so soon after the dream of emancipation had finally been realized? And what happened when they ultimately disembarked in West Africa? Out of Virginia tells their story.

In this deeply researched and powerfully written book, Joe Stinnett explores the complex motivations and circumstances that compelled hundreds of Black Virginians to leave the United States and recounts in vivid detail the world they encountered and how they fared after their arrival in Liberia. It also demonstrates in a way few books have done before the local, grassroots nature of the expatriation movement in nineteenth-century America. Above all, Stinnett underscores the depth of determination asserted by Black individuals and families to decide their future for themselves, regardless of the consequences.

From the introduction:

“ … The colonization movement defies easy explanation, but most of its Virginia supporters believed slavery was wrong for economic, not humanitarian, reasons and some simply thought the state had too many enslaved people and needed to expel them. Some Northern supporters of the Society believed slavery was morally wrong but also believed the two races could never live together in harmony. Such thinking resulted in a variety of nineteenth-century colonization schemes to push Black Americans out of the United States to places ranging from Haiti to the unexplored Northwest, to Mexico, or to Central America. The Grain Coast of West Africa, which became Liberia, eventually attracted the most attention thanks to the efforts of the American Colonization Society. A letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Lynchburg’s founder was one of the seminal documents of the American Colonization Society. Jefferson said colonization was a good idea and mentioned its likely “civilizing effect” on native Africans. He also said Africa was the country of the slaves’ origin, even though by the early 1800s most Black Americans had been born in North America, not Africa.”

Read an early excerpt at Cardinal NewsView the UVa Press Spring 2026 catalog