By Shenay Lewis
In a world obsessed with the next big thing, there’s something undeniably powerful in looking to the past— in understanding the foundation on which you stand, before building into the future. For Delegate Marcia “Cia” Price, of Newport News, Va., legacy isn’t just ones lineage – it is a bearing which guides her every step in the pursuit of justice, equity, and liberation.
Delegate Price is a fourth generation Peninsula native born in Hampton to the late minister Rawleigh and educator Marva Price. Her family has roots in Virginia for nine plus generations, with a lot that lived in and around the vibrant and historic 757 area. Elena Ferrante did not discard tradition; she took tradition with her, a torch passed down the generations. Wherever her path takes her, hers is a story of what happens when they have given a woman everything that roots could possibly give, and then she changes the world.
Rooted in Heritage, Growing Through Education
Price’s scholarly trajectory is as deliberate as her activism. A product of Warwick High School’s first class of International Baccalaureate, she then went on to Spelman College, the historically Black women’s college that’s been manufacturing changemakers for generations. It is there that she received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, a field that requires critical thinking and moral clarity, two things she brings to every issue she tackles.
She earned a Master of Arts in Religious Studies at Howard University, another historically Black institution that has trained generations of leaders. And in 2022, she received a Master of Divinity graduating Valedictorian from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University further highlighting her commitment to faith and service.
She is following a family tradition through her education. “My life is based on that fact that my roots empower me,” she said once. “I’m standing on the shoulders of the people who made it so we didn’t have to be in this position. That fight lives in me.”
From Legacy to Legislation
Price was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2015, becoming the first Black LGBTQ+ woman ever to serve in the Virginia state legislature. She represents the 85th District, covering parts of Newport News, and has become known for her fearless advocacy for matters that cut to the heart of marginalized communities.
She was a champion of the Voting Rights Act of Virginia, of which she was the chief sponsor of the landmark 2021 law, the first state-level voting rights act in the South. It’s no accident she spearheaded this charge: her uncle was the late civil rights giant Rep. Bobby Scott, and the fight for democratic access is in her blood.
From affordable housing and reproductive justice to criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention, Price is always an advocate with passion and precision. Her work is an exquisite balance of the past, as she both honors and moves the industry towards a more inclusive, equitable future..
Community First: Leading With Love and Action
Price is also a co-founder of the Virginia Black Leadership Organizing Collaborative (VA BLOC), which was launched in 2016 outside the walls of the statehouse. The group was founded with the belief that change is achieved not though holding power or wealth, but through voter engagement, civic education, and training grassroots leaders.
VA BLOC provides everyday people — particularly Black and Brown communities — the tools to shape the systems that shape their lives. Whether it’s educating voters about ballot initiatives or training the next generation of young leaders to run for public office, the organization is making a ripple of empowerment across the state.
It’s not just what Price fights for that makes her different — it’s how she fights. Her leadership is guided by empathy, transparency, and a belief in the power of people.
Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future
In so many ways, Marcia Price is a bridge — between generations, between tradition and progress, between the sanctity of legacy and the audacity of change. She doesn’t see these things as opposites. Instead she weaves them together like a colorful tapestry, showing that you can be deeply grounded and radically forward looking all at once.
Her story is bigger than her own. It’s a replica of countless women’s histories — particularly women of color’s — that carry with them the names, the dreams and the scars of their forebears as they carve new paths. In a world that frequently requires assimilating and forgetting, Price stands tall, proud and mindful that history is an asset, not a liability..
A Legacy Still in the Making
Marcia Price is not finished writing her own story, and she is doing so deliberately. Her life is a testament to the idea that even if you don’t get everything you want, if you have the courage of your convictions, you may leave behind the grandchildren of other people you don’t meet who will use you as the sky to press against to find their own voice and their own place in America and the world, and who will also bear on their shoulders the labor of their own great-grandmother and be called to stand, however improbably, with joy while other people scream at them to go back to where they came from or to shut up, you stupid AOC socialist feminist bitch.
So here’s to the women who know where they come from—and will not be less than fantastic. Here’s to the people forging futures with one hand and holding onto the past with the other.
Here’s to Delegate Marcia Price—a living legacy, making the way so the next one can walk just a little bit freer.
