
One woman picketed outside of the department store during her lunch hour, while another got arrested for protesting, a third woman helped open doors in the workplace for others behind her.
Such heroic gestures, but for Hilda Warden, Elizabeth Johnson Rice, and Ora P. Lomax, these actions were an everyday occurrence during the civil rights movement.
These women told their stories to a crowd of Richmonders and VCU students at the “
The event, a VCU Libraries Lecture, was sponsored by VCU Friends of the Library for Black History Month.
Rice was an 18-year-old
“It was George Washinton’s birthday, and I talked it over with my parents, Rice said.
“My dad said, ‘Just don’t get hurt,’ and I replied, ‘Well, I’ll just be a spectator.”
Rice had planned to go to classes that day, but got caught up in the moment and joined some 200 other students who planned to picket Thalhimer’s.
With their protest, the students aimed high.
“Thalhimer’s was a mecca of a story, so we said, ‘If we choose a store, we we would rob a big bank instead of a little bank,’” Rice said.
“All of a sudden though, someone said, ‘let’s go in.’”
Approximately 34 of the 200 students went inside, and Rice followed a smaller group of the 34 to the lunch counter.
At the lunch counter, the white patrons spat and dumped hot coffee into the students’ laps.
Rice and the other students were undaunted.
“Martin Luther King had made [a few] visits to VUU, and I remember being taught about nonviolence,” Rice said. “We turned the other cheek.”
Rice and the other students were eventually arrested but later were released to fanfare.
“As we came out of jail, we heard this noise, we heard this clapping, and we heard all these sounds being made,” Rice said. “People lined the streets, cars lined up, people [were] giving us high fives.”
They were whisked off to the Eggleston Hotel, which at the time in
“There were all these people just clapping, telling us what we did was wonderful,” Rice said. “I saw my parents in the crowd, and both of them smiled.”
“I knew then what I did was OK.”
Hilda Warden also picketed Thalhimer’s, but didn’t have the luxury of free time as Rice did.
Warden worked in the Social Services Bureau for the city, and her supervisor dictated in a memo that anyone who picketed during work hours would likely be fired.
“Nobody was going to pay us to take action against a system that has been dehumanizing us for years,” Warden said. “So we realized that we don’t get paid for our lunch hour, and we made it a point after that to go picket every day during lunch.”
Wadren eventually would help desegregate the restrooms at her workplace in the city government.
“The highest level supervisor said it was the law that the bathrooms were segregated,” Warden said. “I found out from a lawyer friend that it wasn’t the law, it was simply custom.”
Warden, at the age of 33, also became one of the first of five black students to be accepted to Richmond Professional Institute in 1951, which is now known as VCU.
While Warden and Rice protested and fought publicly for change, Ora P. Lomax fought a private battle for blacks to give them opportunities in department stores throughout
Lomax grew up in
Even when she was young, Lomax tested the barriers of segregation.
“I got caught getting water from a ‘white’ water fountain,” Lomax said. “I wanted to taste what ‘white’ water was like.”
Lomax moved to
“They need to benefit from the department stores, and they need to be hired,” Lomax said. “They need to be managers and employees in order to reap these benefits.”
Raylass Department Store, which first hired Lomax, had low expectations for her, she said.
“They put me in the worst part of the store, only showed me how to fold the clotes, and the store was very dirty,” Lomax said. “But still, you have to start from somewhere, right?”
Lomax bounced from store to store, always given the worst departments to work in and manage.
Yet, she managed to revitalize every store in which she worked.
Her work ethic at each store made lasting impression on management, prompting them to hire more black people.
Lomax had one secret to beating the discrimination she and other blacks faced.
“You have to beat them at their own game.”