1. Virginia Harper was a civil rights activist known for her work against the rerouting of US Highway 61 through the Mexican-American and Black neighborhoods of Fort Madison, Iowa.
19 Facts About Virginia Harper
1. 2.
Virginia Harper was the oldest of five children of Lillie Harper, a science teacher, and Harry Harper Sr.
3.
Virginia Harper graduated from Fort Madison High School in 1946 and attended the University of Iowa in 1946.
4.
Virginia Harper attended the University of Iowa for three years and studied at Howard University.
5.
Virginia Harper completed her education at the College of Medical Technology in Minneapolis.
6.
Virginia Harper was employed as an x-ray technician and medical assistant at her father's medical clinic from 1952 until 1977.
7.
Virginia Harper's father was the longtime president of the local chapter of the NAACP.
8.
Virginia Harper resisted segregation where she encountered it, working with others to integrate the University of Iowa dorms.
9.
Virginia Harper joined the local branch of the NAACP in 1949 and was active there for the rest of her life.
10.
Virginia Harper was the organization's secretary in the 1960s, and served as president from 1978 until her death in 1997.
11.
Virginia Harper was the organization's newsletter editor in the 1960s and through it mounted a "selective buying campaign," encouraging people to patronize Black and Mexican American-owned businesses and boycott those businesses which continued to discriminate.
12.
Virginia Harper worked with the legal team at the national NAACP office and wrote letters, circulated petitions, spoke at public meetings until the Iowa State Highway Commission and the Iowa Department of Transportation abandoned the plan.
13.
Virginia Harper filed a legal complaint against the project, saying that it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act since the majority of those who would be displaced were members of minority populations.
14.
Virginia Harper was appointed to the State Board of Public Instruction in 1971 and to the Iowa Board of Parole in 1979, the first Black woman to serve on either board.
15.
Virginia Harper belonged to the Fort Madison Human Rights Commission and was president of thee Library Board of Trustees in the 1970s and 1980s.
16.
Virginia Harper was on the steering committee of the Iowa Black Network which lobbied politicians and area leaders about issues facing the Black community and to work for better jobs and committee positions for Black Iowans.
17.
Virginia Harper died on September 3,1997, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
18.
Virginia Harper was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1992.
19.
Virginia Harper's papers are held by the University of Iowa Libraries' Iowa Women's Archives collection.