Virginius Dabney; Editor, Historian

Virginius Dabney, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and author of several books on Virginia history, has died. He was 94.

Dabney, who died Thursday, won widespread recognition as a leading Southern moderate while serving as editor of the Times-Dispatch editorial page from 1934 until he retired in 1969. He was awarded the Pulitzer in 1947.

During the 1930s and 1940s, his editorials, magazine articles and books called for a federal anti-lynching law, desegregation of public transportation and repeal of the poll tax as a requirement to vote.

In the early 1970s, he produced histories of Virginia and Richmond that won him accolades for their blend of scholarship and style.

His “Virginia: The New Dominion” was published in 1971 and “Richmond: The Story of a City” in 1976. He also wrote “Virginia Commonwealth University: A Sesquicentennial History.”