Join RHS in April and May to explore the histories and experiences of some of the nearly 1,500 free Black people who lived in Rockbridge between its founding in 1778, and the arrival of Emancipation in 1865.
Check back here for more details on specific events, and related resources, as our series progresses!
Throughout the month of March, RHS welcomes Thomas Jefferson back to Rockbridge County: named for the geological wonder he owned for over 50 years … and where you can join us to celebrate his 283rd birthday, in April!!
March 10, 6PM: Revolutionary Films: ‘Bi-Focals on Jefferson’
March 11, 5PM: Jefferson@250 Lecture & Rare Book Showing
March 25, 6PM: Revolutionary Books: “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written”
🎂 April 11, 11AM-3PM: Family-Friendly Birthday Activities at Natural Bridge State Park
Read more about these varied and interactive events in our News-Gazette article: offering you different modes of engaging local history, while constellating around an iconic figure, and still-relevant and resonant themes. Thanks to our co-organizing partners:
The Rockbridge Historical Society’s annual Black History Month series turns to World War II this year: honoring a range of local African American servicemen and women; broader national and global war efforts to win the Double V campaign against fascism abroad, and Jim Crow at home; and the continued push to integrate American women into wider military roles.
Learn more about the month-long series in The News-Gazette article.
Revolutionary Films Screening
February 10, 2026, 6pm
Lexington Library
Local Black Histories from WWII
February 15, 2026, 3pm
Lylburn Downing Middle School
Eric Wilson, RHS Director: Slideshow Presentation + Community Roundtable & Open Mic: Sharing Family Histories
Revolutionary Books Discussion
February 25, 2026, 6pm
Lexington Library
Partnering with the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, the Rockbridge Regional Library System, and local veterans’ organizations: RHS is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of The Vietnam War with a statewide traveling exhibition, Virginia & The Vietnam War (through Dec. 14); a community roundtable and open microphone to share personal witness from the warfront and home front alike (Dec. 7); a film screening of the 1968 episode of Ken Burns’ documentary series, The Vietnam War (Dec. 17).
In January, a meeting of RHS’ Revolutionary Books, 1776-2026, will counterpoint Vietnam infantryman Tim O’Brien’s prizewinning memoir, The Things They Carried, with Beyond Vietnam, the 1967 speech by peace activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Jan. 13, 6 PM, Lexington Library).
The following night (Jan. 14, 6 PM, Lexington Library), RHS’ companion film series Revolutionary Films, 1776-2026 continues with selected scenes and directors’ interviews with Vietnam-themed featured films such as We Were Soldiers Once, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Heaven & Earth. For more about both the book and film series, click HERE.
Click HERE for links to the online readings, and film trailers. Click HERE to read the News-Gazette Feature describing our commemorative series about the Vietnam War, and associated local histories.
Click HERE to read more about the series of five events RHS and its regional partners in historic and environmental presentation have organized to celebrate the Appalachian Trail Centennial, in a variety of interactive ways: our “Revolutionary Reading Group” (Oct. 28, Nov. 17); an illustrated slideshow presentation at Natural Bridge State Park’s Visitor Center (Nov. 1); and a pair of guided, interpreted “History Hikes,” for curious hikers, each with different vistas, challenges, and interpretive content shared along the A.T. itself!
To read more about RHS’ leadership with local commemorations of VA250: American Revolutions — and related plans and programming ahead in the coming months – click HERE for the LIFESTYLE Feature in Lexington’s News-Gazette.
Wednesday, September 17
10AM-2PM: Lexington Visitor’s Center
3PM-5PM: Natural Bridge State Park
On Constitution Day, the national America250 Commission will bring its “Story-Mobile” to Lexington and Natural Bridge (one of only four localities chosen in Virginia) as part of its 50-state tour to record “the largest oral and visual collection in our country’s history.”
Inside the traveling studio, or more passingly at the self-recording kiosk outside, “everyday Americans” are invited to reflect and share distinctive stories about their own personal experiences, felt meanings of historic events, and visions of what our country has achieved, what it hasn’t yet, and what we might, ahead. Accessible via YouTube, the yearlong project will score these chords together into a diverse “American Symphony” that can lastingly speak to our current moment in time and place, just as the 1976 bicentennial did for earlier generations, 50 years ago.
Click here to read more about the project, opportunities to engage, or to contact RHS to record future stories for its own commemorative oral history archive, as we approach the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Lexington and Rockbridge County in 2028.
National Ride-a-Bike Day
Sunday, May 4, 2PM
Lylburn Downing Middle School
302 Diamond St., Lexington
Come learn about the bicentennial dream and community initiative that created a sustainable Bicycle trail that still runs across the nation, with 50 miles of US Bike Route 76 running right through Rockbridge. Virginia Tech Professor Tom Ewing has created a website and 30-episode podcast that tracks the route across Virginia, spotlighting local histories and distinctive cultural themes, including episodes on Natural Bridge, Irish Creek, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. After the program, enjoy the chance to talk with fellow cyclists, and get a free bike tune-up in the parking lot: thanks to the W&L Outing Club, and Andy Dunlap (Lexington Bike Repair LLC).
Read the full News-Gazette Bikecentennial feature HERE.
Click HERE to take a bike-and-road-themed ‘History Quiz.’ Email answers to Director@RockbridgeHistory.org by May 15. The top 10 responses get a free Rockbridge History Book!
The Rockbridge Historical Society will host a free public program titled “The Kerrs Creek Raids: Life & Death on the Rockbridge Frontier,” on Sunday, March 30, 2:00 PM, at New Monmouth Presbyterian Church.
A slideshow presentation will re-visit the deadly attacks of 1759 and 1763 in western Rockbridge County. It provides new contexts for their relationship to shifting patterns of local colonial settlement, and the accelerating conflicts between European and indigenous empires, a decade and a half before Rockbridge was founded during the Revolutionary War. The program concludes with an overview and tour of a neighboring cemetery, where some of those involved and their descendants were buried, now the site of a growing restoration project.
The News-Gazette feature on the program and histories is available online.
Friday, July 5, 11 AM – 4 PM
Natural Bridge State Park
On Friday, July 5, join RHS at Natural Bridge State Park to celebrate a very special 250th Anniversary: commemorating Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of The Natural Bridge from King George III, that same day in 1774.
11:00 AM ceremonies under the Bridge spotlight local history, and the perspectives of leading state officials. After a 4th-of-July-style cookout lunch by Cedar Creek, you can choose from an afternoon menu of related presentations on histories of Jefferson and Conservation; Artistic Depictions, and Tourism at the Bridge.
For the day’s full program, click HERE. For the News-Gazette feature and related backstories, click HERE.