The Readjusters

Michael Pope
Welcome to Transition Virginia, the podcast that usually examines the transition of power from Republican to Democrat. Although today, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to get in our time machine and go back to the 80s, the 1880s. I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman. Today on the pod, we're going to take a break from examining the transition from Republican to Democrat, and look at the transition from Bourbon to Readjuster.

Michael Pope
Wait, wait, Thomas, Thomas, did you just say bourbon?

Thomas Bowman
Yeah, but calm down. It's not what you think.

Michael Pope
Oh, okay. All right.

Thomas Bowman
All right. To help us navigate through the transition from Bourbon Democrat, to the biracial and radically progressive Readjuster Coalition, we have an amazing panel. Paul Levengood is the former President of the Virginia Historical Society. He's currently President of the George C. Marshall Foundation. Dr. Levengood, thank you for joining us.

Paul Levengood
Well, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Thomas Bowman
And we're also joined by Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Democrat from Henrico. As a member of the House of Delegates, he witnessed the transition of power from Republican to Democrat, but Delegate VanValkenburg isn't just a garden variety, Politico. He's also a civics teacher at Glen Allen High School, and he's about to take us to school. Delegate VanValkenburg, thank you for joining us.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Thank you for having me, guys, for having me on. And thank you for doing this topic. I think it's a really interesting one in Virginia history.

Michael Pope
It is a really interesting topic, admittedly, a bit quirky. But let's jump right into it. One of the reasons that this struck us as worth talking about and thinking about, is when the Democrats took power, recently, there was a lot of talk about it being the most progressive General Assembly in the history of Virginia, to which I was responding, "Wait a second, what about the 1880s? There was this group called The Reaadjusters, that had increases for public education, that repealed the poll tax, that increased taxes on corporations, that increased funding for state asylums, that had money for higher education, that abolished the whipping post." I mean, this is a by 1880s standards, extremely progressive, even radical. Dr. Levengood, I want to start by setting the scene here. So when the registers are formed, and take power in the General Assembly in 1879, give us the setting here. So this is like, we're not even talking about Reconstruction anymore. Reconstruction is like nine years passed. Give us a window of what was going on in the late 1870s that allowed all this to happen.

Paul Levengood
Well, I guess you're right to point out that Reconstruction was over. It ended in Virginia in 1870, when Virginia was readmitted to The Union, but there was kind of this interim period, and questions were being determined as to who was going to be allowed to hold power. You had enfranchised the states African American population, there were African Americans winning local offices. So the political, social kind of setting, was was really kind of a bit in flux. You know, and you had some politicians and figures from the pre-War era, returning and trying to get back into power, and you had new voices being heard. So there was just a lot of tummle at the time. And it created, I think, this unique situation in Virginia history where there was this void, and the void, in some ways, was really filled by, as you mentioned, the The Readjuster, what comes to be called The Readjuster Party. And I think also it is important to point out that one of the you know, the key debate in this entire period is a financial debate, this the Commonwealth finances are really hamstrung by the issue of pre-war debt, which sounds really boring, except this is, you know, we're talking about more than probably half of the state's budget is being paid in interest payments for the debt that is incurred in the Antebellum Period, mainly building things like roads, and railroads and canals, all sorts of internal improvements, which I'm sure Delegate VanValkenburg, you know, talks to his students about sometimes, and that, in that pre-War era, that era of improvements, Virginia had invested in these things, borrowed money to do it, and then of course, they're most of them are destroyed by the Civil War. And now they're left trying to figure out how they're going to pay this massive debt, this, these interest payments, and do everything else they need to do. And this question really lingers and hangs over the head of all this politics.

Michael Pope
We're gonna get to the legacy later on in the podcast, but Delegate VanValkenburg, I'm gonna sort of hint at that right now, at the top of the show, which is, how do we think about The Readjusters now, in the modern world? Like, what is their legacy, how do we think about this time period today?

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Yeah, that's a good question. And I think there's there's two things that I think we should address when we talk about it. I think, one thing we have to note is that the reason why they were even possible, is kind of the structure that allowed them to come into power. And so when you look back at kind of the history of Virginia politics, and look back at the history of Virginia governance, we you know, we've had many Constitutions. You had the Constitution of 1776, Constitution of 1830, the Constitution of 1851. And it's really only with the Constitution of 1869, which provided African Americans the right to vote, which at first, did not have a poll tax, one was added, it was then, by The Readjusters taken out. But it was only within the context of that, of that Constitution, that this moment could even rise. And I think that speaks to how important it is to have a constitution that facilitates Democratic participation, whether that's in the vote, or how you draw the lines. You know, Brent Tarter talks about the Great Gerrymander of 1830, which was basically baking into our Constitution, the legislative power for the Eastern part of the state, and what that did was gave slave owners the power in Virginia, all the way through until 18, you know, 1864, in 1869, with the kind of postwar Constitution. So I think that's one thing that's really important to note is how the fundamentals help lead to different policies and different politics. And then the second thing is, it is an interesting moment. And it's an interesting moment about what matters to people, you know, coming out of this, the debt was the important thing. And there's this huge conversation around school debt. So that, you know, in 1878, the General Assembly passes a school appropriations bill, and the Governor vetoes it. And when you look back at the language of his veto, and why he vetoed it, it's incredibly inflammatory. But it's basically talking about we're gonna pay off this debt and schools this optional thing. And then that kind of folds in, that leads to Mahone, the Confederate General turned egalitarian, who calls a conference, and says, "You know, this conference is for anybody who wants to come," and makes that kind of explicit call to people from both races. And out of that, you get this coalition that exists, and almost, you know, immediately after, once they're successful, the rug is kind of pulled out from under them, because the debt is no longer the important thing, and race kind of rises back to the forefront. And so I think it speaks to the contingency of politics as well, and how Coalition's will change. And you know, how, you know, you guys talk about the transition from Republican to Democratic power, and how maybe this General Assembly was the most progressive in history, and maybe it was, but you know, what that means in two years is going to be a lot different, because some of these issues have now been taken off the table, or have been, or maybe have been taken off the table. And what does that mean for politics in 2022, 2024, right? And so I think you...the lesson is both structural, but also the kind of day to day politics, and what issues drive people. In 1878, poor white folks and poor Black folks, were incredibly concerned about schools, and the debt issue didn't play. Five years later, everybody agreed that The Readjusters did the right thing on debt, or seemingly, right, they put it to bed, and then the issue became about race again. And so I think those are two kind of interesting lessons.

Paul Levengood
And I think what's telling, you know, and Michael, getting back to your question there, is how are The Readjusters remembered today? Well, they're not. I mean, they, they sort of vanish. They're this little, weird, interim period between Reconstruction and, you know, the reemergence of the Democratic Party and the, the, you know, essentially the machine Democratic politics that dominated Virginia from then you know, the 1890s until the 19. Well, apparently to the Civil Rights Movement, and probably you could argue at least until the 80s. So it really is this, whether it is conscious and deliberate or not, The Readjusters just vanish.

Michael Pope
You know, that's that's a really interesting point. In fact, that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast is because everything that we're about to talk about, actually challenges the narrative that people have in their head about how what happened in the 1800s. You know, like, I think, in the popular mind, okay, the Civil War happened, the Confederacy was vanquished, but almost immediately, white supremacists took power and started, you know, a government. And so they just sort of skip over this, brief, but radical period of time when Black people had power, and held political office, and were part of a coalition that did incredibly progressive things, and got rid of the poll tax, and did criminal justice reform, and had mental health reform.

Thomas Bowman
Creating public education.

Michael Pope
And I mean, there's all this...So it's really, it challenges the narrative that people have in their head, because it just doesn't make sense with what people think that they know about history. So, Dr. Levengood, let's talk about language for a little bit. So I think a lot of our listeners are going to say, "Readjuster? What the heck is a Readjuster?" And then bourbon, I made this at the script, at the top of the show, I made this joke about bourbon. Like what, explain to us the playing field in 1879. What is a bourbon? And what exactly is a readjuster? What do they want to readjust?

Paul Levengood
Well, The Readjusters are taking their the name from their attitude toward Virginia's public debt. And this notion that they thought that the debt that they were saddled with, was going to cripple the state, make it unable to fulfill its promises about public education, and all sorts of other things. And so their, you know, their sort of reason, their proximate reason for being, is to readjust that debt, to repudiate part of it, to adjust the interest rate downwards.

Michael Pope
Let me ask you a question about that. So the debt is huge. This is pre-war debt and war debt. And so, what was the debate, like if you want, if you supported paying off the debt, who were you and why, what was your motivation? If you did not want to support paying off the debt, who, what kind of group were you associated with? And what was the motivation there? Sort of? What's the debate about paying off the debt versus not paying off the debt?

Paul Levengood
Yeah, so I think, I mean, maybe overly simplistically, but those who wanted, the Funders, as they called themselves, they wanted to fully fund the debt, work more. The business class, the affluent, the the wealthy, the elite, the Bourbons, the Bourbons, you know, which comes from the the, the board bowl, the the European royal elite, sort of idea of what the Bourbon, not, not the, not the whiskey variety comes from. So that's kind of that, that class of people. And The Readjusters, as Schuyler just mentioned, were, you know, this kind of coalition of poor and working class Whites and Blacks. You know, it's a, some others thrown in, like, William Mahone, who we'll talk about I'm sure, he was a strange character, and quite, quite interesting. And, and so this notion that what they what they wanted to be able to do was fulfill the promise of all the things you mentioned, public education, you know, higher education, all these things that were to benefit a wider range of Virginians. And if you were paying more than half of your your state budget every year, paying more and half toward this interest, it was they're not going to allow you to do that. So it was going to continue to benefit that. The Funders, you know, they really had a couple of motivations, for people who wanted to pay the debt in full, you know, one, they kept talking about, "Oh, it's a matter of honor, it's honor to pay the debt, we need to fulfill our state's honor." Which, you know, it sounds good, I think. But let's also face facts. They were also worried that if the debt was repudiated, it would make Virginia kind of a pariah among moneyed interests, who might invest in Virginia again. So there was worry that if you repudiated the debt, you drive investment away. And I think that that, you know, those two things, both the honor of paying that debt in some ways, and the the business ramifications, were driving or driving them.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
And I would also add in there too, that you have to remember that in Virginia, and in much of the South, this kind of concept that the everyday person should be able to vote, or the everyday person should have access to education, was not kind of baked into the populace. The Funders, you know, when you look back to the 1878 veto message of Governor Holliday, he's basically saying, "Look, we have education for the people who need it, and they can go and get it. We don't need to fund education for all these folks." And so it's not just about funding the debt, although it certainly, I think, is the is the main thing, but there is also just an inherent belief that everyday people shouldn't have a say in elections, and don't need a public education, and that, that that lineage goes back to the founding fathers, and the kind of, you know, folks who were arguing in this kind of classical Republican philosophy, that it was the freeholders, and the people who had leisure time, who could get an education and then represent the kind of common good, whether that's the common good of Virginia, or the common good of the United States. And of course, that's butting up against the reality of Jacksonian America. It's butting up against the reality of the Reconstruction Amendments. And it's kind of, you've got these two worlds. And there's a great quote from one of the one of the African American men who came to the convention that Mahone called to create a new party, you know, The Readjusters. And he says, you know, it's this freed slave, he's from New Kent, he says, "As to the debt, we don't want to pay a cent of it. We think we paid our share of it by our long years of servitude." You know, and you think of kind of that argument, and you think of that language, and it's, it's, it's, it's true, and it's fascinating and it's horrifying.

Thomas Bowman
So, I have a question. How does a biracial political coalition, actually a whole political party in Virginia, which aspires to break the wealth and power of privilege, come to be led by a former Confederate General?

Paul Levengood
Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. And here's where maybe an opportunity to talk about William Mahone who, you know, really becomes the figurehead of the party. He's, he, as you mentioned, I mean, he is a Confederate General, he's actually involved in one of the more horrific events perpetrated by the Confederacy in 1864. If Petersburg, if you've ever visited the battlefield, and seen the crater that it was created, when Union Union miners dug under the Confederate lines, and blew up, tried to create a gap in the line. And what ended up happening was, as Union troops poured into that gap, they found they had actually pouring themselves into a, rather than a gap, really into a pit, a crater, where they were sitting ducks, and a lot of African American troops were involved in that, and were singled out to be massacred by, among other officers involved, William Mahone. So this is a guy with a really, I mean, bizarro backstory, if you were picking the leader of a biracial coalition coalition, which I do think lends some credence to the detractors who say, "He was really looking at this as a matter of political expediency, more than anything else." He had been, he'd been a Democrat, he came out of the the war, a member of what they called the Conservative Party, or a conservative faction, which were mainly pre-war Democrats, and, you know, he, I think he found, you know, he ran for he ran for Governor and lost. And I think he found this was a different, a different route to political power. I think Mahone's commitment to racial equality needs to be held in a great deal of question. And he certainly saw this as an opportunity. Now I don't maybe that's me not being completely fair to him. But he, you certainly have to at least ask that question. And one of the interesting things about Mahone, I heard this from someone a few years ago, you know, there's never been a great biography of Mahone. And which would also, you know, lend us maybe some some aid in deciding why did he do this. And the reason for that is the most prosaic reason I've ever heard. He has a massive collection of papers that he left to posterity, they're at Duke University. His handwriting is so bad, that people have people have tried to go in the papers to do a biography of this fascinating character, and they've given up, because they can't decipher his handwriting. So some of his motivations are lost, in some ways, just because the man had appalling penmanship.

Michael Pope
Wow, that's mind blowing. If you stop and think about it, like if this guy had better penmanship, how much more we would know about the 1800s in Virginia, but I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just think that-

Paul Levengood
No, no, no, no, it's fine.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
I would add too, you know, what I think what's interesting is, he comes about in a moment, and I think we should be cynical about the reasons why he did what he did. But I also think it's interesting, right? You're, he's he's a Confederate General, he was in the Conservative Party, and he splits off on this Readjuster issue. And you know, there's two ways politicians can go in this moment, and one is to kind of fully embrace the 1869 Constitution, voting rights for all, and to try to create a coalition, and the other path is to try to, you know, create an amendment to add a poll tax, which some folks did, and to try suppress the vote, which, you know, after Mahone, other white folks do, you know, they decide not to try to amend the Constitution. But you have two famous laws from 1884 and 1894, which essentially disenfranchised the entire African American community by creating these local electoral boards that Democrats could control, which kind of become the foundation for the bird machine. And he doesn't do that. And I think if we're going to give him credit, we give him credit there, which is that in a moment where he could have tried to weaponize the Constitution, or the General Assembly, as a form of suppressing the African American vote, instead, you know, when he dies, and you go to those papers, you can find a list of Black pastors that he frequently corresponded with, because he was engaging in an interracial alliance. And so I think we should be cynical about his, his reasoning, but at the end of the day, he ended up embracing more enfranchisement. And he ended up communicating and being in touch with and, and helping get patronage for the Black community. And I think that's a it's a really interesting story, because so many people in the South didn't do that.

Michael Pope
Yeah, so this guy is full of contradictions. Confederate General who later becomes a railroad president, he was president of a railroad. And that's actually how he got involved in politics, because he was trying to help himself financially, and then decides in 1879, to found a new political party. This is another really, in my mind, really bizarre. Part of this is the timeline, how quickly all of this comes together. So 1879, he has this convention that you mentioned, he forms the Readjuster Party, the same year, they take control of the General Assembly. They had 56 seats in the House, 56 out of 100 seats, they had 24 seats in the Senate, 24 out of 40 seats. So that's a pretty decisive win, for having formed the party that year. So 1879, they take control the General Assembly, 1881, they elect a governor. And then in 1882, they win 6 out of the 10 seats in Congress, House seats in the Congress. So in the course of just three years, The Readjusters capture the General Assembly, the Governor's Office, both seats in the U.S. Senate and the majority of the House seats. Dr. Levengood, how did that happen?

Paul Levengood
Well, yeah, I mean, I think you you category, you're sort of show the, the the meteoric rise, of course, there's an equally meteoric descent. I mean, it comes and it goes very, very quickly. You know, but I go back to what I said, to begin with, which was, there was really this, you know, kind of strange period after Virginia's readmitted, where the parties are still figuring themselves out. There were there's a foothold of Republicanism in, especially in the Western part of the state, you know, in the mountains and Valley, part of Virginia, you know, you have these free Blacks. So you have a, you have a really unsettled political situation, which I think allows for that rise to come so quickly, because you don't have, you know, you didn't return to this classic sort of dual party, you know, mind vying for control, or single party control, the way you did pre-war, you know, when the Whig Party went away in pre-war Virginia, the Democrats essentially had almost unrivaled electoral success. So you didn't really have the reestablishment of that, there's still a lot of clocks, which I think is why this, you know, why this party kind of is able to come about, and come together so quickly. And I think, clearly, it was also tapping into something that was of great interest to this biracial coalition of people who had long been, White and Black, kept out of the political process, that they had not been allowed to vote, and they had not had a say, economically, and socially in Virginia's direction.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
And I would add too to that, I think one of the reasons why, if you look at the coalition, the coalition is South Central and Southeast African Americans, where the African American population was at its greatest right, a lot of free slaves. And then it was cities where debt and public schools are more pressing issue, and then it was out in the West. And if you, if you look at the history of Antebellum America, it's the history of the West being disenfranchised. It's around the 1840s, where the Western part of the state becomes the kind of dominant population force, but the General Assembly reflects kind of slave owners in the East power, and I mean, the 1830 and the 1851 Constitutions, it's important to note that those those constitutionally gerrymander the General Assembly, to give the power to the Eastern part of the state. you know the 1830 Constitution broke Virginia into four regions, and then gave each region a certain number of delegates and senators, qnd it skewed to the East. And in the 1851 rewrite, the Senate skewed to the East, something by like 20 to 30 seats. And so you got a lot of folks in the West who, prior to 1851, can't vote because of the Freeholder requirements, who can't get anything passed, even through their representation, because of the skew in the General Assembly, and then all of a sudden, 1869, And that constitution kind of opens up all of that, right? It allows more people to vote, it allows for a little bit more regional, less disparity. And it's speaking to issues that directly relate to this kind of East/West divide, and who's paying taxes? And what are those taxes for? Remember, the Western part of the state has less slave owners, has less slaves, has historically not liked the slave power. And I think that creates a perfect storm. But of course, right, the flip right is it creates a perfect storm. And then as soon as that perfect storm is gone, it just as quickly goes away, because right, it's gone within three years.

Thomas Bowman
Well, let's take a quick break, because when we come back, we want to talk about what The Readjusters did during their time in power. Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg, Dr. Paul Levengood, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

Michael Pope
And we're back on Transition Virginia, we're not talking about the transition of power from Republican to Democrat. Instead, we're talking about the transition of power from Bourbon Democrat, conservative Democrat, to Readjuster, this almost today, unknown coalition, biracial coalition, of progressive politicians, that did all kinds of things. So, let's examine what they actually were able to accomplish when they were in power. I read this list at the top, and it's worth repeating, because it's just sort of mind blowing if you think about, this is the 1880s we're talking about. They increased funding for public education, they repealed the poll tax, they increased taxes on corporations, they increased funding for state asylums, they increased money for higher education, they abolished the whipping post. Dr. Levengood, talk about the whipping post, and the significance of abolishing the whipping post in the 1880s.

Paul Levengood
Well, if you think about public spectacle of criminal punishment, especially in times of slavery, the public whipping post is, perhaps the most, sort of, striking example of the the levers of control that white elite Virginians held over everyone else. And so you can imagine, if you were living in a, maybe a courthouse town, a county seat, very often there was a public whipping post, which could be used by for crimes committed by slaves, they can be brought to the Courthouse Square, and publicly flogged, masters who didn't want to do it themselves, could actually pay the local sheriff to do the same thing. And it was public spectacle, that was meant to reinforce the power structure very, very clearly to everyone. You know, obviously, whites could be flogged, too, but it was mostly, you know, mostly a punishment that was meant to keep an African American population in line. So I think for the African American Readjusters, both symbolically and in terms of, you know, modernizing the processes of criminal justice, abolishing the whipping post was an incredibly powerful symbol. And and I think probably, you know, there that's their, and they probably see their influence in the party's platform, as much as anything else, in that kind of a movement.

Michael Pope
I'm also kind of curious about the politics here of increasing taxes on Corporation. Increasing taxes on railroads, and then spending that money on public education and higher education. Delegate VanValkenburg, is this the beginning of tax and spend liberals?

Schuyler VanValkenburg
No, you know what I think this reflects, and as I was kind of thinking about this podcast, and thinking about what they did, I don't know that they would have explicitly said this, but it strikes me that this is an embodiment of a very cohesive kind of idea of, what I would call, the Frederick Douglass wing of the Republican Party at the time, which is the government being used, in order to create kind of an equality of opportunity. You know, you can just see, with the emphasis on education in, they wouldn't have called it K-12 at the time, right, but K-12 education, higher ed, the creation of Virginia State University, it's all founded on a sense of equality. It's the first mental assylums for African Americans, as well. And you know, once again, you go back to Antebellum America, and you look at the taxation in Virginia, and one of the big complaints of folks in the Western part of the state was that poor people were being taxed, and slave owners weren't. And I think what you're, what you're seeing is, you're seeing a foundation of equality of opportunity, of using the government to try to uplift all people. And I'll go back to the kind of education speeches they gave, you know, the, if people, I'm not going to read them, but if people go back and look at the 1878 veto of Governor Holliday, and then they go back and look at, forgetting the governor's name, the Readjuster governor, Cameron, you go back and read his statement about the value of public education, and just in the space of like a year, the difference in philosophy behind the two, the two speeches, I mean, it's stunning. And so I don't know, if it's the beginning of tax and spend liberal, but I do think it's the beginning of the idea that the government can be used as a force of good to create a kind of equality of opportunity, which is, of course, a thread that you see in that certain segment of the Republican Party in the Civil War and afterwards, which you see an FDR, right, which you see in the Lyndon Johnson, the great society in which I think you could argue you see, in Virginia Democrats today. So, you know, I don't think it's a perfect comparison. But I do think you can see a lineage.

Paul Levengood
Let me, I don't want to jump in with a, with a bit of cynicism here. But let's also remember that someone like Mahone, loses control of his railroad to outside interests. I mean, his railroads end up being held by a receivership of people in Philadelphia and elsewhere. And so taxing outside companies, making money in Virginia, is a real popular thing to be able to propose. So you know, you're, in some ways, you're also, that's the kind of something you see in modern politics, as well. It's, you know, this, this notion of, "Well, those who are getting, those who are making money off of doing business in Virginia, or doing business wherever, should also pay some price for the things we want to do in Virginia and for Virginia's people."

Schuyler VanValkenburg
That's true. And I'd also note, too, that if you actually look at their tax plan, taxes went down for the average Virginia taxpayer. So they decrease taxes on farmers, they decrease taxes on small businesses, and then the increased taxes on the railroads. And and, you know, so what happened is they raised substantially more revenue, but they actually brought down the tax bill for the average Virginian in those series of proposals, which I think ties back to that, cynically or not, I think probably both.

Thomas Bowman
One method, explicitly, that they use to restore Virginia's economic base, was rebuilding infrastructure, or at least that's what they campaigned on. Dr. Levengood, what did they rebuild when they came to power?

Paul Levengood
You know, the more notable developments The Readjusters are credited with are things like education. I don't I don't know that in their brief period, you can attribute an enormous amount of, you know, infrastructure improvement, and really where the where things like railroads come and make significant progress in Virginia, comes because you do have so much out of state and foreign investment in railroads, that penetrates the coal fields in Southwest Virginia, and so on in that kind of late 19th, early 20th century period.

Michael Pope
I want to talk about the racial part of the story, which is complicated and nuanced. So you had African American members of the General Assembly, forming a co- who are mainly Republicans, forming a coalition with The Readjusters, and there were African American Readjusters as well. And so I mean, just on its face, the coalition itself was biracial. But, it's worth pointing out, for the modern listener, that they were not in favor of desegregating anything, right? So, Dr. Levengood, talk about this nuanced, sort of, from our perspective, it's nuanced, racial element to this, where they're a biracial coalition that actually was not for integration.

Paul Levengood
Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't know on the, on the African American side, what the what the feeling was along these regards, but certainly, for white Readjusters, this was, you know, Black public schools and hite public schools. Black, I mean, Virginia, you mentioned Virginia State is founded, that's very deliberately a normal school, a school to create Black teachers, who can teach in Black schools. So this is not a moment of you know, coming together racially. It's, I think it is more, recognition that there are shared interests of the poor and working classes, of both races, that need to be met, that need to be satisfied. And no, it was not an overturning of that, of that order of the races. And remember, you know, this is not an enlightened period, racially, outside of Virginia. I mean, this is, sometimes it's easy to forget that the Civil War did not create, you know, an instant sort of racial utopia anywhere in the United States. It, it settled the question of slavery, but it did not settle the question of equality, even with the Reconstruction Acts, clearly. So that's, you know, it probably is not shouldn't surprise us that someone like William Mahone, who was a slave owner before the Civil War, fights for the Confederacy, does not then become the figurehead of a party that is looking to overturn the racial order, but is reflecting the reality that there is a block of Black political power now, and pent up Black desire for various services to be rendered by the government, that needs to be acknowledged and needs to be met. And it is a wing of this coalition, who has the power, and political clout, to demand this of their white partners.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
And also, one thing to add there too, to kind of even nuance it even more is, if you look at Mahone himself, he campaigned against the only Black Republican running for Congress in Virginia, during this time period. And so there was kind of, and we'll talk about this when we get to the downfall, among the white Readjusters, how far they were willing to go, is very limited, I think, you know, even arguably, at the time, but definitely by modern day comparisons. And so I think that's important to note as well.

Michael Pope
Another aspect of this is that it is, by many accounts, the first political machine in Virginia, which I know probably people have various perspectives on whether or not it was a machine. Dr. Levengood, did Mahone lead a political machine? Perhaps even you could say, Virginia's first political machine?

Paul Levengood
Well, certainly Mahone recognized the power of patronage, and recognized that there's an awful lot of grounds to be made as the leader of this party, in the political patronage that he can dole out of that leader. I mean, I, I guess, I mean, I mean, one man's machine is another man's system, right? I don't know whether I would describe the Readjuster machine as the first machine in Virginia politics, certainly, political patronage, played a part in Virginia politics going back to the colonial period. I mean, it's it's doling out favors, doling out positions, and sinecures has always gone on, I think Mahone might have been a little more blatant about it, in some ways. You know, Mahone is, in some ways, he's a classic, New South figure, in that, if you if you study that period, you know, he's a guy, certainly, on the come. I mean, he's all about, he's all about money, he's all about showing his own money, and showing his power. He's not, he's not doing it subtly, there's nothing, there's nothing really subtle about him. So maybe in some ways, it's the first sort of evident machine, or the first machine that doesn't try to, in any way, mask what it's doing, as a precursor to the Democratic machine of the of the 20th century. So I guess, in a way, it's the first machine, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't push that too far. Because it's, you know, it's just kind of a the logical evolution, I think of what of what had taken place before it.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Yeah. And I would say that I don't think it is, because I think when you talk about political machines, people talk about entrenching their own power. And, and while he did engage in behaviors that we would associate with a machine, you know, patronage, correspondence, and all these other things, they're out of power so quickly. I actually think, if you want to talk about the first machine, it's actually his railroad rival, John Barber, who kind of helps defeat The Readjusters, and creates the, the kind of modern day well, the reconstitutes, the Democratic Party, and creates the machine that will lead to the bird machine.

Michael Pope
Barber's campaign manager is a guy named Thomas Staples Martin, who created the Martin Machine, that of course, was a machine, by any standards. But you know, just because they only held power for a brief period of time, doesn't mean it wasn't a machine. It just wasn't a very successful machine at having longevity. And part of that, actually, is something that starts leading toward their downfall, which is their central organizing principle, was this thing about the debt, where they're in disagreement with the other party, because the other party wants to pay off the debt, at the expense of public education. And so they campaign on readjusting the debt and not paying it off, at the expense of public education. Well, guess what the other party says, "You know what? You're right. We shouldn't do that." Dr. Levengood, the other side essentially folds and says, "You're right." Right?

Paul Levengood
Yeah. And and they do repudiate the debt by about a third. They reduce the interest rate by half. So they really do succeed in this. And I think the Democrats or their opponents, I think, once this passes, I think then the pretense of well, this is about honor, and all this kind of stuff, kind of can fade away. And they recognize that this is actually freed, whoever follows the Readjusters, freed them up to do a number of different things that they wouldn't have been able to do if they had been fully funding that debt, the way they had claimed they wanted to. So, yeah, I mean, they managed to, they managed to do it. And I think it's one of those things, be careful, you know, be careful what you what you wish for, because I think they did create an environment for themselves where their reason for existing started to wane a little bit. I mean, when you're sort of almost a one issue, or one primary issue, party, and that issue goes away, to a degree, then you know, it's it is probably not the best thing for your, for your future success. If you can't redefine yourself.

Michael Pope
It's funny that you mention that, because I'm thinking about the Brexit Party, right? So like, once Brexit happens, what use is the Brexit party anymore?

Paul Levengood
Right? Yeah. And one thing that's fascinating, I did want to make sure that your listeners end up realizing too, is there's a little funny side piece of the debt, which is when a lot of this debt is incurred, Virginia, before the war, includes West Virginia. So West Virginia breaks away during the course of the Civil War, and there's a long and contentious fight between Virginia and West Virginia, as to what portion of that debt West Virginia should really be responsible for, because there are railroads and canals in West Virginia that were funded by this. And so it's actually, I don't think it's till 1915, or something, that it's finally established what dollar amount West Virginia owes toward retiring this debt, which is just kind of a little side note that I thought, it just fascinated me, at the time, to think that, you know, they had to take it to the Supreme Court to finally figure this all out.

Thomas Bowman
So Delegate VanValkenburg, can you put all of these reforms in the context of what's happening nationally? And the reason I asked that is because, now, just like then, Virginia's politics often parallels national politics in a lot of ways. So what's going on during this time?

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Well, I mean, you're seeing the end of Reconstruction. You see the North, the Northern population losing its will to continue it's involvement in the South. You see an economic panic in the mid 1870s, that causes kind of change in priorities. So you're seeing the Republican Party that goes from the party of Lincoln, kind of into the party of big business. And so the South is slowly getting its autonomy back, and you're getting this kind of slow drip drip that will lead to Jim Crow. And we were talking at the very beginning of this, about how people just kind of think it's, it's the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, but there's really this kind of drawn out period that's occurring, where there are these kind of possibilities that pop up around a moment, like The Readjusters. But as it starts to settle down, you start to move into the, you know, you start to move into the Gilded Age where big business is the thing, and in the South, you start to slowly settle into Jim Crow. And that's, you know, that's a 30 year kind of evolution into Jim Crow. I mean, if you look at Virginia, specifically, once The Readjusters are out, you know, you start to slowly get the electoral law change that disenfranchises African Americans, which, you know, that the machine uses for about 20 years until they don't think it's enough. And then you have the 1902 Constitution, where they kind of, the explicit goal is to disenfranchise African Americans. But you know, actually disenfranchises almost everybody. And so, I you know, I think Virginia, in many ways, it's kind of the story we've been telling, it's this brief moment of hope, where maybe something can happen. And I think in Virginia, it happens a little bit more than than in other Southern states. But as the realities of national politics kind of moves away from the South, you know, it's not about the Southern issues anymore. It's about big business, it's about global trade, it's about immigration in the Northeast, in the late 1800s. The South is really allowed to kind of become its own place, you know, and there's a lot of talk, you know, you can look through the history, you know, the solid South, the one party South, the South is different from the rest of the country, and it's in this time period, you know, around The Readjusters, and in Virginia, after The Readjusters, where we really start to see that truly happen.

Paul Levengood
And Thomas, if I could add, you know, nationally, this is really, you know, the between the end of Reconstruction and the first years of the 20th century, this is really an incredibly tumultuous moment. You know, The Readjuster movement in Virginia, is one example of poor people coming together. The same happens in the Midwest, the People's Party, the populist movement is a, you know, it's a farmers movements, and, you know, we're done being the pawns of big interests, we're going to stand up for the Yeoman farmer. And there's actually some of that in the South as well, and you've got labor unrest all across the country, as working people say, "You know, we're not going to sit there and just be dominated by management, by big business." So there's a, it's, in some ways, The Readjuster movement, with emphasis on, you know, the poor and working classes, is a part of a broader moment, that I think, finally, by the end of the 19th, very early 20th century, kind of gets quashed down, overall, and you do move into, what Schuyler's mentioning, the sort of, you know, the hegemony of big business, and the sort of linkage of big business and government, in a sort of a fairly tight way that really does make it difficult for popular movements to rise up like this again. But there but there is that period of a couple decades, where there seems to be maybe something else that's gonna, that's possible.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
And I'd also add too, that the Virginia trajectory of disenfranchising African Americans, and disenfranchising kind of poor voters, has a broader, is a broader American narrative. I'll go back to Frederick Douglass, he had this speech, in the kind of Reconstruction and Post Reconstruction world, that he would give frequently called, On Our Composite Nationality. And he was talking, the words he would use, and the things he was talking about, sound a lot like what John Lewis was talking about, right, and you know, who's in the news, you know, and the kind of message he had about a multiracial democracy of equality. And but the, On Composite Nationality speech is, is kind of one of out of pessimism, because what he's seeing is African Americans be disenfranchised in the South, but he's also seeing Asian Americans disenfranchised in the West, and the speech talks about that. And if you look at the the late 1800s, you've got white Southerners who are disenfranchising African Americans, and doing it to a degree that's different everywhere else, I do want to make sure we make that distinction. But then you also have Asian Americans in the West, you have Northeasterners who are making claims and magazines like the Atlantic, to limit the vote against the immigrant population, because you know, "They're not suitable to it," You got the mug won't reformers, the good government reformers who are, are really restrictionary on these issues. And so it's it is, there is a broader kind of moment here happening at the end of the 1800s. And, and some of our first truly restrictionary voting laws ccome during this period, where you see these kind of arbitrary voter registration laws, where you see these kind of arbitrary electoral boards, and how they act. You know, I'm from New York originally, and you want to talk about a state that had awful voting laws in the late 1800s, in some ways, does still today, go to New York, where they put in place these absolutely disenfranchising laws to ensure that Catholics and Jews and Eastern Europeans couldn't vote.

Thomas Bowman
Well, let's go ahead and take a break. We are talking with Dr. Paul Levengood, the former President of the Virginia Historical Society and current President of the George C. Marshall Foundation, and also our friend, Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg from Henrico.

Michael Pope
And we're back on Transition Virginia. We're now going to talk about the fall of The Readjusters. So this is a group, that we talked about earlier, had a meteoric rise to power. 1879, the party is founded in the early part of the year. By the election in November, they were able to gain a majority in both the House of Delegates, and the Senate. They had 56 out of the 100 seats in the House, 24 out of the 40 seats in the Senate, in the next election cycle, in 1881, they kept the General Assembly, and elected their own Governor, Governor Cameron, and then the next year in the congressional election, they had 6 out of the 10 House seats. Meanwhile, the General Assembly of course, at this time, is picking the U.S. Senators, so they picked Mahone, who went to the Senate, and ran the political machine from his U.S. Senate office. And they also picked the other U.S. Senator. So they had both seats of the U.S. Senate. They had six out of 10 House Representative seats. They had the House of Delegates. They had the State Senate, they had the Governor's Office, when that's all within three years, and then it all falls apart. Dr. Levengood, what happened to The Readjusters?

Paul Levengood
Yeah, that's a it's a really good question, Michael. I mean, I think we've we've touched on a little bit of this before, in that I think they certainly achieved some of their goals. And I don't know that they had, that they had great vision for what the what was going to be next. But I think they also, their successes, in some ways, really invigorated their rivals. You know, I think we were talking a little earlier, Schuyler was talking about the the Constitutions, and looking at what the Constitutions tell us about, certainly those who hold the levers of power. And if you look at the next Constitution of Virginia, which is 1901, it is, in some ways, almost a reaction, point by point, to The Readjusters and their platform. And I think what what really ends up happening is, as we just talked about a little bit before the break, but white Southerners get better at figuring out how the new landscape can be controlled to their advantage. How the limits of federal intervention in state matters such as this, the degree to which local control can be re-assumed, you know, that that period that we had, that we had talked about, the kind of, whatever you want to call it, between Reconstruction and the solidifying of the, you know, white control over a place like Virginia, you know, comes it comes to an end, not evenly, but it comes to an end, really, in that time, as much as anything else. Because I think white Southerners figure out, no way nothing's going to happen to us. If we reassert this, you know, whether it's the bargain that ends Reconstruction, whether it's, you know, the clear weariness of national Republicans to deal with, you know, how much energy do they have to keep up with the energy of, of certainly what motivated Reconstruction, which is to allow for African American voting and other rights. And I think that once they realized that they were not going to be, there's not going to be interference for long, that they became increasingly bold and aggressive about reversing course on this. And, you know, in Virginia, it doesn't, Virginia's way is not to be quite as, as in your face about it as some other Southern states. You know, you're not just driving Blacks away from the polls through, you know, night riding and guys in hoods running around, but it takes effect, you know, in some of the same, in some of the effects are somewhat similar, in that it does eventually, reassert itself. When you see that, you know, African Americans working in cities in, you know, tobacco companies in Richmond, well, suddenly, when those tobacco company owners and management can reassert themselves and say, "You know, we really think this is how things need to be. And we really think if you're going to exercise your franchise, you may not have a place to work here," that's a form of control that begins to take place. And eventually, it moves to just disenfranchisement within a couple of years. So I think it's just that, you know, it's it's that moment, there was this flash of a great deal of promise, and then the, the wielders of power before, realized that they can regain power, and there's probably not going to be consequences for their actions. And, you know, we've noted that before, too, but I mean, the issue that brought them together was settled. And after that was settled, it allowed the other party to play to racial fears. And, you know, it's a it's a sad continuum through history, that we can see even up to today with some of the ads in the presidential race, around urban protests. But you know, one of the big moments in that 1883 campaign, where The Readjusters lose the General Assembly....Over a perceived slight from African Americans to white people that were walking by them in the street, you know, some of these kind of cultural racial codes that were informal, that white people and Black people followed, but weren't equal, and and so that fight led to a huge amount of propaganda that allowed the opposition to win, you know, was one of the reasons that the opposition was able to win the election. And, and you see that playbook in George Wallace, you see that playbook and Richard Nixon, and you see that playbook right now. And so when racial issues were able to rise to the fore, kind of white conservatives were able to assert power. And I would note, one thing about that 1902 Constitution, 1901 or 2 Constitution, is that the members of that convention explicitly said, it was about rolling back racial voting rights. They had passed a series of laws in the late 1800s, that allowed them to disenfranchise voters, but they had to do it in a corrupt way. You know, they had to rig the ballot box, they had to open it a throw out legitimate ballots. And so when they came to that convention, you know, Carter Glass, who becomes a future senator says, explicitly, that the convention will inevitably cut from the existing electorate, 4/5ths of the Negro voters, and that was the purpose of the convention. That's a direct quote. And, and they actually cut greater than 50% of the white electorate, and greater than 90% of the Black electorate. And we became the state with the lowest proportion of adult voters through the early 20th century to the point where famous political scientists said that, by contrast, Mississippi is a hotbed of democracy.

Yeah. And Schuyler, I'm glad you mentioned Danville, because Danville was a, it almost, It almost created itself as an opportunity for white supremacist to come back and say, "This is what happens, right? Cause Danville, actually, elects the majority civic city council is Black in 1883." And so this incident, some call it a riot, some just called it a massacre. I mean, it was it was the details are not are not entirely clear, but it was it was custom made to show to white people say, "Look what happens. Look what happens when African Americans take control of a city. This is how white people get treated." And so they, you know, they used it sort of shamelessly in that regard.

Thomas Bowman
And this was an era of yellow journalism as well, right? And mirrored on an environment where you have the Democrats retaking control nationally, was it was a Grover Cleveland, who comes back into power? And, and so one point that people make, who say that Mahone was just a power broker in his own right, I guess, is that he started flipping patronage to Democrats. And does that, what kind of consequences does that have for The Readjuster Party in Virginia?

Michael Pope
You know, I actually, I think there's an interesting point here, which is once Grover Cleveland becomes president, that Senator Mahone no longer has the kind of patronage to dole out the way he used to. Right? So the I mean, sort of the change in the national scene, actually sort of was one of the things that sort of led to the demise. Right? And sort of the the patronage and the way they were able to distribute power.

Paul Levengood
Yeah, and, and Mahone. I mean, from the moment he gets to the Senate, he's very cagey about who he's going to Caucus with. I mean, he's certainly not rigidly adhering to some code of behavior. He's, he's looking to see which way the wind blows in a sense. And so it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be surprising, and realize, Mahone is, you know, he's, in some sense, almost a lame duck senator because, The Readjuster Party is falling from power. And he's still Senator until what, 1889? I think. So. Yeah. So the Party is essentially falls apart underneath him. And he's, he's still serving. So he kind of has to figure out, what do I do next? I'm not sure he was overly troubled by it, in some ways, but he did have to figure out, how do I kind of land this now that my party is basically gone?

Michael Pope
That's a good point. Because after he's no longer in the Senate, he runs for Hovernor. Right, and is unsuccessful. So I mean, the whole thing kind of falls apart, which leads us to an important question, which is what is the legacy of not just Mahone, but the larger Readjuster movement? One thing that I think could be significant, and worth mentioning, is this biracial coalition, which is kind of singular in the United States and the South. Right, Dr. Levengood? Like what's the significance of this biracial coalition that they put together in 1880s?

Paul Levengood
Yeah, I mean, it's I pointed earlier to, there's a moment when the People's Party, the populace, might have done something I mean, in sort of the, in North Carolina and, and, and a little bit in Georgia. But yeah, you're right, in that it's the only truly successful coalition, electoral coalition of Blacks and Whites, in the pre Civil Rights era. So I think the legacy of it, in that way, although it's perhaps not as remembered as it might be it, it is one of those counterpoints to this notion that somehow African Americans and whites couldn't work together, politically. And so I think it does be live that it does be live that myth, it obviously has some real, lasting legacies in, I think the strength of the public school movement in Virginia, certainly never goes back the direction that's some of The Readjusters enemies would have, would have had it ,had The Readjusters not come on the scene. So I think that becomes kind of enshrined in Virginia public life, and in electoral politics, obviously, things like State University funding, whether it's Virginia State, or the expansion of Virginia Tech, there's some real lasting things there. Even if some of the other things, the poll tax that they remove, gets reinstated. I mean, there are things that don't go away. And I think, you know, in some ways, when we look back on it, now, it's heartening, in a way, it kind of gives you some psychic income to realize that there was a point in history where Black and white Virginians came together, especially those who have a certain economic status and said, "Enough, we're going to assert our power," and there's some real, there's some real value in remembering that, and it's something that we really ought to remember and talk more about and know more about.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Yeah, and I think it represents the promise and the tragedy of Reconstruction, and how for as far as Reconstruction and those amendments went, they didn't go far enough. And I think it speaks, it speaks to, I'm going I'm gonna go back to John Lewis, kind of what he wrote in his op ed in the New York Times, that was published on the day of his of his funeral, his last words, if you will, he talks about democracy being an action. And democracy being a continuous movement, you can't give up. And I think they they kind of speak to the sense in which the vote is never enshrined, it could oh, he says in his op ed, it can always be taken away. And what we see is we see a brief moment where they're able to come together, they're able to get things accomplished, some of which, I agree, the education piece is long lasting, some of which isn't. But it speaks to the fact that if you don't continue to cultivate a healthy democracy, you will not get a healthy democracy. 30 years after The Readjusters, they're forgotten, they're buried, you have a convention explicitly meant to erase them, and the possibility of them from Virginia. And, and then you you know, you have the legacy after that of Jim Crow and the bird machine. And so I think it speaks to the promise, but it also speaks to the tenuousness of people being able to participate and continue to participate successfully in a democracy.

Thomas Bowman
Delegate VanValkenburg, what lessons learned are there for you, as a member of the General Assembly, that other members could take from this era of history?

Schuyler VanValkenburg
I'm not sure that there's a lot of lessons, policy wise, from what they do, I think, I think the lesson is ultimately, you can't take anything for granted. You have to continue to shape a coalition, you have to continue to shake things that are relevant to people's lives, you have to continue to argue for why a multiracial coalition is necessary. You have to continue to kind of stand against racial division. Some of their tax policy and some of their school policies are things that I think in Virginia, we could take a lesson from, to this day. Properly funding schools is, you know, a reason I originally ran, I would argue we don't do that. And I think that the lessons of how they got to that, make a whole lot of sense. But I do think the bigger lesson is the equality and democracy piece. And I think it's important to recognize that there's never an end point, it's never over. You've never achieved your goal, because in democracy, there's always tomorrow.

Michael Pope
Now, recently, in the Capitol building in Richmond, the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from the Old House Chamber. This is incidentally, the same House Chamber that The Readjusters once ruled, and Delegate VanValkenburg tweeted about this, about this particular statue. And he said, "Many of these statues, like that statue of Robert E. Lee, that used to be in the Old House Chamber, they were gifts from other Southern states, as recently the 1950s. VanValkenburg tweeted, let's celebrate The Readjusters, instead." What did you mean by that? And how do you think The Readjusters should be celebrated?

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Yeah, look, I mean, there's a difference between history and memory, right? We want to study history, the wars and all, because we need to know where we were, to know where we're going. And that's never going to change. But what we memorialize, and what we hold up to be true, I think should be shaped by what we think is important now and you have tour groups that go into that Old House Building for decades, and all they see is a shrine to the lost cause. You go in, and you look to your left, and there's a bust of Alexander Stephens, a Georgian, who was the Vice President of the Confederacy, that was gifted to us in 1952. You look to your right, you saw a bust of Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi man, who was the President of the Confederacy, that was gifted to us from Mississippi State Legislature in 1953. And I don't think that that rep, you know, we need to know that history, we need to know that that, that the Capital was used for the Confederacy, and we need to know the that we had a convention that asked us to secede from the Union. And we did, that we had former presidents in that convention weeping when we seated, tears of joy. We need to know that history. But we need to celebrate the moments where we reached our finest moments, right? Where we lived up to our values, lived up to our democracy. And in Virginia, I cannot think of a better moment. There's others, but I can't think of a better one, than The Readjusters and kind of what they stood for, because they weren't perfect. They don't live up to 2020 values. Mahone is a great example of that. I do think they transcended their moment to live up to constitutional values in a way that has been very rare in Virginia history. And I think that's worth teaching fourth graders.

Michael Pope
Dr. Levengood. Any final thoughts about the legacy of this group, that's now almost completely forgotten?

Paul Levengood
Yeah, I really like what Schuyler just had to say, I'm trying to think how you how you might physically memorialize that. I don't know that you want to put up a statue of Mahone. No although, it wouldn't take up much space. he was a very small guy....And just as an aside, I love the comment his wife had when she heard, during the Civil War that he had received a flesh wound in battle. And she said something like, "Well, now I know it must be very serious, because William doesn't have much flesh to begin with," which I just thought was a great, great, great comment. He's, he's really a small, cadaverous dude. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's hard to say, how you how you might spread this legacy a little more widely. You know, obviously, in the SOL's is one is one manner, that, and I'm speaking to an educator here, you know, that's, it's one way we kind of, you know, we kind of can say what we value as a, as a as a state, is what we decide we want to enshrine in the standards for all their warts and everything, the standards of learning are, at least one way to express that as a society. And I think that that's, you know, that's one way to do it, and to continue like this, to talk about them. And to make sure that, you know, when we have opportunities, we bring up this subject, and we let people know a little bit more about it. And I hope this podcast at least takes some tiny step toward raising a little bit more public awareness about a really interesting and significant, brief period in the Commonwealth history.

Schuyler VanValkenburg
Although I'm gonna step in one last thing to say is, you know, I think when we talk about statues, we typically talk about very important people, right, so we're talking about, should we have a statue of Mahone? You know, I'll leave you with this. I think we should do more memorializing of every day people, whether it's the Black Union soldiers, or as the average citizen who, you know, let's get that African American guy from New Kent, who was at the convention, who stood up and said, "You know what, I'm more of a Readjuster than half of you, because I'm all in on this." Because, it's the citizen like that, who leads to The Readjuster movement. And, and it's also, when you're a citizen, and you go to the citizens Capitol, you should understand your role. So this is maybe my call that we should, we should recognize the citizenry more than we do, because your democracy is only as healthy as the people who participate in it.

Thomas Bowman
Well, that's as good of a place as any to leave it. Dr. Paul Levengood, Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg, thank you so much for being on our podcast today. And thank you for listening to Transition Virginia. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or anywhere you like to get your podcasts. We're on Twitter @TransitionVA and as always, you can hear more at transitionvirginia.com.