Retro
ADDRESSING HISTORY: (above) In 1887, A.J. Oliver became the first Black person admitted to the bar in West Virginia, and two years later became what is believed to be the first barred Black attorney in Roanoke, Virginia.
THE CAMPUS OF VIRGINIA TECH IS populated with pine, sycamore, oak, and more. Nearly 150 years ago, Andrew Jackson Oliver, a former enslaved person who was Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College’s first Black employee, planted some of the original seeds. Oliver worked as a janitor on campus, where he lived with his family, but it was his landscaping leanings that led the school’s agriculturist to call him “a natural tree artist,” according to son A.J. Oliver Jr. Now, in a tribute to the Oliver family and to the local Black community, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors has named the plaza at the entrance of the College of Lib64 | HOKIE NATION | RETRO
eral Arts and Human Sciences building the Vaughn-Oliver Plaza. The site is adjacent to the Blacksburg neighborhood called New Town, which was home to many Black men and women who worked at the university between 1880 and 1960. Andrew Jackson Oliver was born in 1837, enslaved by members of the family for which the town of Blacksburg is named, according to research compiled by Juan Pacheco ’19. Oliver and Fannie Vaughn Oliver married in 1859 and had at least seven children, according to Pacheco’s research.
While Andrew Oliver broke a barrier as the first Black employee at Virginia Tech, one of the Oliver sons broke others. Andrew “A.J.” Oliver Jr. was educated at Christiansburg Industrial Institute, relocated to West Virginia, and within a decade he had trained to become a lawyer, according to Daniel Thorp, a history professor. In the 1880s, the Oliver family left Blacksburg for Iowa, but their Blacksburg roots can be felt beyond the plaza. Just look to the trees. Andrew G. Adkins is the marketing and communications specialist for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
COURTESY OF LESLIE KING, VIRGINIA TECH SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
VAUGHN-OLIVER PLAZA
