2026 SESSION
ENROLLED
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 177
Celebrating the life of Barbara Radcliffe Grey.
Agreed to by the Senate, March 10, 2026
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, March 12, 2026
WHEREAS, Barbara Radcliffe Grey, an esteemed educator, respected art curator and preservationist, and beloved member of the Richmond community, died on June 7, 2025; and
WHEREAS, after graduating from Virginia Union University (VUU) in 1947, Barbara Grey began her career in education in a one-room schoolhouse in Buckingham County before teaching briefly in France and Germany in the early 1950s while her husband, Robert, was stationed in Europe with the military; and
WHEREAS, Barbara Grey joined Richmond Public Schools in the mid-1950s and devoted herself to her work, earning a master's degree in early childhood education from New York University in 1965; and
WHEREAS, by the time she retired from Richmond Public Schools in 1990, Barbara Grey had served as principal of several schools, including William Fox Elementary School, established a number of alternative schools, and contributed to the success and well-being of countless students and their families; and
WHEREAS, in 2006, Barbara Grey became the director of the VUU Museum Art Galleries, where she dedicated herself to preserving and sharing the priceless collection of African American and African art at the school's L. Douglas Wilder Library; and