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Virginia

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Virginia.

110Documented
2In custody
98Released
2Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Virginia

Where Virginia’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1800s 30 2010s 13 2000s 12 1910s 12 1970s 10 2020s 9

Documented cases

110 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

B
Barbara A. Thomas
Released
Barbara A. Thomas was a 21-year-old student at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College who served a 30-d...
G
Gillet Thorn
Released
Gillet Thorn, of Accomac County, Virginia, was an Eastern Shore citizen confined for blockade running. He was...
B
Bryce Tuller
Released
Bryce Tuller was a teenage son of former Commerce Department official Charles A. Tuller and a participant in h...
C
Charles A. Tuller
Released
Charles A. Tuller was a former U.S. Commerce Department official from the Washington suburbs who reinvented hi...
J
Jonathan Tuller
Released
Jonathan Tuller was a teenage son of former Commerce Department official Charles A. Tuller and a participant i...
G
Ghufran Ullah
Released
Ghufran Ullah, Pakistani citizen and crewmember of the dhow Yunus, was indicted August 7, 2024 in the Pahlawan...
J
Junius Underwood
Released
Junius "Boo Red" Underwood was a Black Panther Party member from Richmond, Virginia. Arrested at seventeen, he...
T
Thomas Wansley
Released
Thomas Wansley was a Black teenager arrested in 1962 in Lynchburg, Virginia at the age of 17 on a rape charge...
B
Burnham Wardwell
Released
Burnham Wardwell, a Maine-born ice dealer living in Richmond, was an outspoken Union sympathizer who quietly a...
E
Ernest D. Wells
Released
Ernest D. Wells, from Virginia, was a Christadelphian and objected to military service on religious grounds. H...
J
John Beery Wilson
Released
John Beery Wilson was a Church of the Brethren conscientious objector from Virginia imprisoned during World Wa...
S
Steve Woolford
Released
Steve Woolford was a Catholic Worker peace activist. He served six months in 2003 following a Pentagon blood-p...
A
Alexander Wright
Released
Alexander Wright was the Communist Party candidate for U.S. Senator arrested in Newport News, Virginia in 1934...
C
Charles Wright
Released
Charles Wright, of Accomac County, Virginia, was an Eastern Shore citizen confined for blockade running. He wa...

Institutions in Virginia

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Virginia that appear in the census’s case files.

Occoquan Workhouse
15 cases
FCI PetersburgHopewell, Virginia
11 cases
Occoquan Workhouse / DC JailLorton, Virginia
11 cases
Virginia State PenitentiaryRichmond, Virginia
8 cases
Charles Town Jail (Jefferson County)Charles Town, Virginia
7 cases
Castle GodwinRichmond, Virginia
3 cases
Federal Reformatory, PetersburgPetersburg, Virginia
3 cases
Norfolk Naval Station (USS Iowa) — Nuclear Navy Plowshares
2 cases