Virginia’s forgotten civil rights warrior

A forgotten Black Virginian named Nathaniel Lee Hawthorne, known by friends as “Hawsie,” fearlessly fought for two decades of his adult life a dangerous and lonely battle for civil rights and social change in Southside Virginia, in an era when few if any blacks dared to resist the controlling white power structure.

Hawsie was born August 27, 1923, at Bagsley Mills in Lunenburg County, Virginia to the late John Sydnor and Otelia Hawthorne. He had three sisters and two brothers, who all received their education from Lunenburg County public schools. Hawsie also attended Booker T. Washington Memorial Trade School, where he learned radio and television engineering.

Hawsie remained in Lunenburg County his entire life except for serving in World War II from 1944 to 1946. While in the South Pacific he contracted malaria fighting, only to come home on military disability and endure racial discrimination. In 1953, he married Sarah Taylor Hawthorne and they eventually had three children.

Their situation was unique, in that Sarah worked full time, and they owned their own home, making them one of the very few Southside Black families not reliant on the area’s white upper classes for their livelihood.

In the early 1950s, Hawsie started a radio and television repair business in Kenbridge, Virginia, often doing…