For sale is a 1950s era VIRGINIA BAND & ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION AWARD MEDAL. This vintage tan ribbon with a gold tone medal reads “Virginia Band & Orchestra Director’s Ass’n, Band & Orchestra, Grade 5”. The best part of the ribbon is the State of Virginia Seal which depicts a Lady standing on a fallen man’s neck with the Latin slogan “Sic Semper Tyrannis”. The Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia shows Virtue, spear in hand, with her foot on the prostrate form of Tyranny, whose crown lies nearby. This image explains why Virginia jokingly translates the Latin phrase as “Get your foot off my neck.”
“Sic semper tyrannis” is a Latin phrase meaning “thus always to tyrants”. Or put another way, bad outcomes should or eventually will befall tyrants. John Wilkes Booth wrote in his diary that he shouted “Sic semper tyrannis” after shooting U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
