Henry Leander Marsh III — a civil rights attorney, longtime state senator and Richmond’s first Black mayor — died Friday. He was 91.
“My heart is heavy with grief and full of gratitude that I had the chance to know Henry Marsh—a truly exceptional person,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement Friday. “Any single one of Henry’s accomplishments would be enough cause to be proud, but he never stopped looking for new opportunities to serve. I’m honored to have called him a friend and mentor.”
Born in Richmond Dec. 10, 1933, Marsh graduated from Maggie L. Walker High School and Virginia Union University before receiving a law degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
In 1961, Marsh founded the Richmond law firm that eventually became Hill, Tucker and Marsh. Marsh worked on landmark civil rights cases including Quarles v. Philip Morris, the first U.S. legal case involving racial discrimination in employment.
He also fought against “Massive Resistance,” a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in which many Virginia school systems chose to close their doors rather than obey federal desegregation orders.
"It's going to be difficult to give him the honors that he deserves, because he did so much in so many different areas," U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott said Friday during a visit to the General Assembly. "It was his legal work that really transformed Virginia."
Most of the employment discrimination and school desegregation cases that shaped the commonwealth "probably have the name Hill, Tucker and Marsh on the lawsuit," Scott said.
Marsh was first elected to the Richmond City Council in 1966. Under the city’s old system of selecting a mayor, his colleagues chose him as vice mayor in 1970 and mayor in 1977 — making him the city’s first Black mayor despite an attempt by white city leaders to keep control of political power in the city by annexing part of Chesterfield County.
He served as mayor until 1982 and remained on the council until 1991, when was elected to the Virginia Senate to represent a district that covered the city of Petersburg, Dinwiddie County and parts of Chesterfield and Prince George counties and the city of Richmond.
He retired from the state Senate in 2014 and was appointed by then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe as a commissioner of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control board.
In a post on Bluesky, Virginia Senate Democrats called Marsh “an extraordinary individual who dedicated his life to the pursuit of justice, equality, and service to his community.”
A longtime resident of Church Hill North, he lived a few blocks from the elementary school that has been named for him since 2021.
Marsh is survived by his three children — son Dwayne and daughters Nadine Marsh-Carter and Sonya M. Craft — as well as six grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Diane Harris Marsh, who died in 2020.