Gov. Terry McAuliffe and other elected officials are scheduled to join Virginia Union University faculty, staff, students and community members on Thursday, April 9, at a series of rededication ceremonies at sites significant to the historically black institution’s history, university officials announced.

The ceremonies are a part of VUU’s 150th anniversary celebration. The university, led by President Claude G. Per- kins, has held a yearlong series of events to commemorate its history.

Virginia Union was founded by the American Baptist Home

Mission Society in 1865 to educate freed slaves.

Gov. McAuliffe and others will deliver remarks at 9:30 a.m. at the Lumpkin’s Jail site at 15th and Broad streets, near the

back of Main Street Station.

Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III, executive director of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, also is scheduled to pay tribute to the university’s founding fathers.

Other officials scheduled to attend include Levar Stoney, secretary of the commonwealth; state Sens. A. Donald McEachin of Henrico County and Rosalyn Dance of Petersburg; and state Delegates Jennifer McClellan and Delores L. McQuinn, both

of Richmond.

The group then will move to Ebenezer Baptist Church, 216 W.

Leigh Street in Jackson Ward, where the first classes were held for Hartshorn Memorial College, a school for African-American women that merged with VUU in 1932.

Following a prayer at Ebenezer, the group will proceed in a Rededication March to Coburn Hall on the VUU campus at 1500 N. Lombardy St.

Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of Virginia Union’s board of trustees, will deliver a rededication message outside Coburn Hall. — JOEY MATTHEWS