About the Speaker
Bessida Cauthorne White is a genealogist, community historian, and retired attorney. An activist for more than fifty years, her focus areas include African American, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights. She became the first Black woman to sit on the bench in Virginia when appointed a substitute judge of the General District Court of the City of Richmond in 1983.
White has been a genealogist for more than forty years. She is the family historian for nine families and manages DNA results for thirty-five people. She has presented at numerous state, regional, and national workshops and conferences, and teaches genealogy courses at Rappahannock Community College. White is co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society and is a founder of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. White is a founder of Virginia Association of Women Attorneys, Virginia Association of Black Women Attorneys, and Friends of African and African-American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is president of the board of the Rappahannock Industrial Academy Alumni Association, an entity that preserves the legacy of one of Virginia’s early twentieth-century Negro academies. In 2020, she was named by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture as one of Today’s Agents of Change.
She is the co-editor of two family cookbooks and a church cookbook: A Reunion of Recipes: The White Family Cookbook; 1st ed., 1990, 2nd ed., 2007; Help Yourself! There’s A God’s Mighty Plenty: A Treasury of Recipes from the Cauthorne & Brooks Families, 1st ed., 2000, 2nd ed., 2017; and Gather at the Welcome Table: The Angel Visit Baptist Church Sesquicentennial Cookbook, 2016.