Race and Place in Charlottesville
Listen to a Study Center tour of Charlottesville's history of race and racism interpreted through the streets, buildings, monuments, and spaces of Charlottesville’s university and downtown communities. Led by Study Center Board Chair and Professor of Architectural History, Louis Nelson, the series features interviews with local experts, public historians, and residents. This podcast is a production of the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, VA.
Episodes
Preview a tour of race and racism in Charlottesville led by former Study Center Board Chair and Architectural History professor at UVA Louis Nelson.
New episodes will be released each weekday in February. Stay tuned!
Motivated by Jesus' command in Scripture to love our neighbors, Louis Nelson begins his "Race and Place in Charlottesville" tour with this statement: "We cannot possibly love our neighbor if we don't know our neighbor or know our neighbor's story." Standing at the foot of UVA's Rotunda, Nelson (Board Chair at the Center for Christian Study and Architectural History Professor at UVA) brings to...
Thomas Jefferson has long been lauded as the architect of the University of Virginia's distinctive Academical Village. But what—or better, who—did it take to actually build it? See the Lawn with new eyes as we meet Sam McCarpenter, an enslaved black man, in episode 2 of "Race and Place in Charlottesville."
A production of the Center for Christian Study.
At surface level, the University of Virginia's Academical Village has always represented a landscape of opportunity, community, and academic possibility. Take a short flight of stairs from the Lawn, however, and you'll find a different story—the story of Lucy Cotrell—unveiled in the basements of UVA's famous Pavilions.
Listener discretion is advised.
The University of Virginia's serpentine walls that border its famous Gardens originally rose to an impressive eight feet tall. Learn more about the hard work that took place behind these walls during the university's early years... and the hard stories of the men and women who walked the alleys between them every day.
We welcome archaeologist Benjamin Ford of Rivanna Arch...
Take a break from the walking tour to sit down with archaeologist Benjamin Ford of Rivanna Archaeological Services, LLC, as he and Professor Nelson discuss what the University of Virginia's archaeological record has to tell us about the lives—and deaths—of its enslaved laborers.
Professor Nelson returns for the next stop of the "Race and Place in Charlottesville" tour: the site of the University of Virginia's Anatomical Theater. Once located near present-day Alderman Library, the Theater served as the stage for a 19th-century innovation in medical research—dissecting human cadavers for anatomical study. The demand for corpses lead to an increase in bodysnatchers, who pilfered the graves of e...
The "Race and Place in Charlottesville" tour leaves UVA Grounds to head toward the Downtown Mall. On the way there, stop at the base of the George R. Clark Monument, now standing at the intersection of West Main and Jefferson Park Ave. Discover the history of this statue, its unveiling, and the implications it continues to have for Charlottesville's African-American community.
Still standing at the base of the George R. Clark monument, Professor Nelson explores how the University of Virginia medical school in the 20th century embraced the scientific movement of the day: the race-based science later known as eugenics. With its emphasis on the inferiority of “the American negro,” eugenics served as the justification for laws that supported race-based segregation and sterilization of African-Americans.
The Drewary Brown Bridge, which crosses the train tracks above the Amtrak, is named for one of Charlottesville’s most important African-American Civil Rights leaders. On this stop of the tour, Professor Nelson introduces us to Charlottesville’s heroic “Bridge Builders” and their commitment to rising above the oppression of segregation to fight for the well-being of the entire city.
Journalist Jordy Yager joins Professor Nelson in the Study Center library to share his findings from research concerning Charlottesvillle's black citizens' access to property (and the power that comes with it) from the plantation era to today.
Following the Civil War, Reconstruction promised newly freed black citizens the opportunity for freedom and agency in a new, integrated society. The Compromise of 1877 lead to the shattering of these promises. The effect of the making—and breaking—of these promises to black Americans can be seen in the location of sacred buildings close to heart of their communities: their churches.
Hidden between West Main Street and Preston Avenue, Charlottesville’s Starr Hill neighborhood has long been home to a thriving black middle class. In this episode, longtime resident Pat Edwards reminisces on the history of her beloved neighborhood and her church, First Baptist on Main Street.
Welcome to Starr Hill, Charlottesville's city inside a city. In response to the conditions of segregation, residents of this historically black neighborhood developed an economy of their own, complete with medical care, a daycare, and its own bank system.
The landmark Supreme Court ruling Plessy v. Ferguson led to the state-sanctioned racial segregation of public facilities, as long as said facilities were "separate but equal." Today's stop on the tour explores the impact that segregation had on the schooling system in Charlottesville, revealing just how unequal conditions were between the city's black and white school.
In this episode we take a tour of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center with its director, Andrea Douglas, as she traces the process of integration in the Charlottesville schooling system. Then, we rejoin Pat Edwards on her porch as she reminisces on what the integration experience meant to her.
In this first episode of a two-part series, Professor Nelson explores the Vinegar Hill neighborhood: a once-vibrant African-American neighborhood located near Preston Avenue and Ridge/McIntire Road. Claimed by the Charlottesville government under eminent domain, the neighborhood was razed and left as a vacant scar in the city's landscape for 20 years before being rebuilt.
Professor Nelson continues to meditate on the history surrounding Charlottesville's Vinegar Hill neighborhood. As he stands in the parking lot that has come to replace the black-owned and -occupied homes and businesses, he expounds on the disenfranchising impact that loss of place has had on the city's black communities.
Standing in front of the Downtown Mall's Jefferson Theater, Professor Nelson explores the ways in which the white citizens of Charlottesville looked back with great fondness on the way of life of the antebellum South—slavery included—through social gatherings, re-enactments, and minstrelsy shows.
Professor Nelson expounds on three historical iterations of the Ku Klux Klan's presence in Charlottesville—including the August 11 and 12 rallies in 2017—and the impact the white supremacist group has had on the city's minority communities, including its African-American and Jewish citizens.
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