Bill Text: VA HJR415 | 2020 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Celebrating the life of Dr. Reginald Dennin Butler.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2020-03-05 - Bill text as passed House and Senate (HJ415ER) [HJR415 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2020-HJR415-Introduced.html
WHEREAS, Dr. Reginald Dennin Butler, a professor of history at the University of Virginia and former director of the university's Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, died on July 5, 2019; and
WHEREAS as a young man, Reginald Butler was active in the struggle for social justice both in Washington state and nationally, joining the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and canvassing for voters in Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, Reginald Butler graduated from Western Washington University in 1969, earned a master's degree and a doctorate in African American colonial history from Johns Hopkins University in 1989, and joined the University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History in 1991 as a scholar of early African American history; and
WHEREAS, Reginald Butler served as director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies from 1996 to 2005, during which time he explored many emergent technologies for the study and dissemination of historical resources while also developing programs, research opportunities, and initiatives for students; and
WHEREAS, Reginald Butler conducted the Chesapeake Regional Seminar in Black Studies, organizing workshops and seminars focused on new directions in research and the teaching of African American studies; he also convened and coordinated the Central Virginia Social History Project, a group of area scholars examining race and ethnicity in Central Virginia from the 17th to the early 20th century; and
WHEREAS, Reginald Butler served on the Advisory Committee on African American Interpretation at Monticello, the Albemarle County home of Thomas Jefferson; and
WHEREAS, Reginald Butler will be fondly remembered and dearly missed by his children, Maya, Ishmael, Omar, and Alfred, and their families; his brother, Howard; his sister-in-law, Geri; and numerous other family members and friends; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly hereby note with great sadness the loss of Dr. Reginald Dennin Butler, a civil rights activist and treasured professor of history at the University of Virginia; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Dr. Reginald Dennin Butler as an expression of the General Assembly's respect for his memory.
