ection worried about Wells' whereabouts. As the march began, Wells came out of the crowd to stand beside Brooks and Squire in her rightful place with the suffragettes of Illinois.
West Hammond, Illinois
Brooks moved to West Hammond, IL with her mother after inheriting land valued at about $39,000 from her father. West Hammond was a village on the boarder of Illinois and Indiana, just south of Chicago. She noticed that the village was filled with an heavy immigrant population that was being taken advantage of by the village government. She worked to improve the living conditions of the village by working on behalf of those that could not work for themselves. She campaigned against the vice culture of West Hammond and attacked tavern owners, who ruled the village. Brooks was famously known as the "Joan of Arc" of West Hammond  for her efforts. One of her first moves in political activism was the campaign she held against the transition of the status of West Hammond from a village to a city in 1911. Brooks believed that the village needed to be clean of vice and corruption before it should be upgraded to a new style of government. She single-handedly tracked down the corrupt tavern-owners that were running the town and began her reform. Her slogan for reform was: "“Vote for a village. You can’t make an honest city out a dishonest village while the ring is in power. Clean up first.". The campaign was ultimately unsuccessful but the village became a shrine to her reform work as she worked day after day to make positive change. She ran for her first public office position in 1912 as president of the West Hammond Board of Education district 156 (otherwise known as the Sobieski district. She won the election on April 22, 1912.
West Hammond, IL became Calumet City, IL in 1923.
Brooks spoke across Indiana at different functions. In 1912, she was a principal speaker at the Equal Suffrage League in Indianapolis. Also in 1912, she spoke about her crusade for reform in Richmond, IN.
Late life and death
In her late life, Brooks traveled west towards Portland, Oregon with her son, Walter. She died on June 15, 1929 in Portland under her married name of Virginia Washburne and her remains lie at Wilhelm’s Portland Memorial cemetery.
- Brooks, Virginia (1914). Little Lost Sister. Gazzolo and Ricksen.
- Brooks, Virginia (1915). My Battles with Vice. Macaulay Co.
- Rouff, Ruth A. (2010). Ida B. Wells: A Woman of Courage. West Berlin, New Jersey: Townsend Press. pp. Chapter 20. ISBN 978-1-59194-218-4 – via Google Books.
- Bigott, Joseph (2001). From Cottage to Bungalow: Houses and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226048758.
- "Virginia Brooks: 20th century Joan of Arc". 1913. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
- "The Luyceumite and Talent, Volume 6". March 1913 – via Google Books.
- "The Lake County Times". February 1, 1911.
- "The Lake County Times". April 16, 1912.
- "The Hammond Times". April 23, 1912.
- "The Hammond Times". August 27, 1912.