The Pierce Street Renaissance Historic District

Pierce St. between 12th and 13th Sts.

Camp Davis, a Civil War mustering ground for Confederate troops from Virginia under the command of Col. Jubal A. Early, once occupied this area. At least 130 Southern soldiers died at the camp's own Pratt Hospital and were buried in Lynchburg's Old City Cemetery. The neighborhood's historically African American identity took shape during Reconstruction, when Camp Davis became an important refuge for freed slaves. Before being annexed by the city in 1870, it was the site of Federal military headquarters, the Freedmen's Bureau's Camp Davis School, headed by Jacob Eschbach Yoder, and a black Methodist Episcopal church. Q-6-29

1300 Pierce St.

Clarence William "Dick" Seay, who lived here, was principal of Dunbar High School, Lynchburg's secondary school for African Americans. A pioneer in the struggle for equal opportunities for blacks, for 30 years Seay shaped Dunbar High School into a school of academic excellence, holding that a “successful school and its community are inseparable.” He later became the first high school principal elected to the presidency of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. After his retirement in 1968, Seay taught at Lynchburg College and served two terms as Lynchburg’s first black city council member since the 1880s and the first black vice mayor.

1305 Pierce St.

Near this spot stood a small frame house known as Dorchester Home or Old Folks Home for impoverished former slave women. Established in 1897 by Hampton Institute graduate and Lynchburg public school principal Amelia Perry Pride (1857-1932), it provided shelter, fuel, clothing, and food for its residents until their deaths. Following Hampton Institute's principle of uplifting her race through self-help, Pride was a passionate advocate of African American and Virginia Indian education. In Lynchburg, she provided scholarships for many young women seeking higher education and established sewing and cooking schools for women and men entering vocational fields. Q-6-30

1306 Pierce St.

Chauncey E. Spencer, Sr., aviation pioneer and Civil Rights activist was born in Lynchburg on 5 Nov. 1906, the son of poet Anne Spencer. He moved to Chicago and by 1934 began pursuing his pilot's license. As a charter member of the National Airmen's Association of America, he and Dale L. White in 1939 made an aeronautical tour from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the inclusion of African Americans in the Army Air Corps. This included meeting Senator Harry S Truman. Spencer also worked for the U.S. Air Force and was a public servant in Michigan and California. He lived here from 1977 until his death on 21 Aug. 2002. Q-6-23

1313 Pierce St.

This was the home of Edward Alexander and Anne Bannister Spencer from 1903 until her death on July 25, 1975. Born on February 6, 1882, in Henry County, Va. Anne Spencer was to receive national and international recognition as a poet. Published extensively between 1920 and 1935, she belonged to the Harlem Renaissance school of writers. Q-6-20

near 1422 Pierce St.

The desegregation of tennis was due in large part to the efforts of Dr. Robert W. "Whirlwind" Johnson. The first African American to earn staff privileges at Lynchburg General Hospital, he also worked to overcome barriers keeping young African Americans out of tennis. As founder of the Junior Development Program of the American Tennis Association, Johnson sponsored African-American players from across the country in tournaments, and coached and mentored them on backyard courts here at his home. Among those he trained were Wimbledon Champions Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe. Johnson was posthumously inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009. Q-6-27

1422 Pierce St.

Frank Trigg was a leading black educator in Virginia. He was born into slavery in Richmond while his parents were personal servants of Virginia Governor John B. Floyd. After the Civil War he attended Hampton Institute, and began teaching in Abingdon before moving to Lynchburg in 1880. He was a teacher and principal here for 22 years and became the first black supervisorof Lynchburg's black public schools. He was co-founder of the Virginia Teachers' Association, and later was president of colleges in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. In 1926 he retired to Lynchburg and resided here. He is buried in Old City Cemetery. Q-6-26

1422 Pierce Street was home first to Trigg, then later to Dr. Robert Walter Johnson.