After two UVA fraternity brothers decided to express themselves by donning blackface and tennis dresses to portray Venus and Serena Williams at a recent Halloween party, it became clear that many people—on and off Grounds—know little about the region’s painful past regarding race relations and other social issues. Corey D. B. Walker aims to fix that problem and prevent such incidents from happening again.
Walker is the director of the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge, which, as part of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at UVA, was formally established on November 14 with an inaugural lecture and seminar. And while the center didn’t directly tackle the blackface incident (“It’s really the entire University’s responsibility to educate about issues of diversity, race and cultural unity,” Walker says), it’s a recent example of the kind of racial, gender and cultural conflicts Walker will explore.
And according to Walker, there’s lots to explore. “This is a unique opportunity,” says the former Harvard student who earned a Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary in 2001. “In this area you have a major research university, an area that was home to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, as well as a large enslaved population and a plethora of indigenous groups. So it becomes a cultural site for researching the context of the development of the American nation. That’s crucial when considering who we are as Americans.”
Of particular interest to Walker and the center are the contradictions implicit in several of the fathers of American democracy also owning slaves. One of initial projects, “Monticello’s Diaspora,” has Walker and his associates rethinking Jefferson’s estate by removing it from its familiar historical context. He wants to examine “Monticello as a place, as Jefferson’s retreat, but also as a labor camp, one of the top slave plantations in Central Virginia. Look at in terms of slavery and the ideas of freedom being born in Central Virginia,” he says.
“We need to look at this place as as being the home of American democracy, but it is a complicated site. Take his relationship with Sally Hemings, for instance. What does that mean for ideas of the site, and how do we rethink it?”
Such ethical probing is but part of the mission of the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge. The research institute has already participated with the Albemarle Historical Society on an October genealogy seminar and Walker plans to tackle modern-day local issues too, including health and environmental issues, and their implications on race, gender and ethnicity in Central Virginia. “We’re looking at things historically, but leveraging that historical knowledge with contemporary issues,” he says.
The center’s 10 fellows and numerous associates range from more traditional academics to lay scholars, like Bob Vernon, a local archaeologist. “We’re looking for people with great knowledge in and around the area,” Walker says. “We look at these non-academics as integral parts in our research model, and look for more everyday people who have insights into the projects we wish to develop.”
Walker has insights into Central Virginia himself. Born in Norfolk, he lived in Charlottesville from 1993 to 1997, when he worked at State Farm Insurance and served as an assistant minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church and at First Baptist Church on Park Street. He even briefly considered running for a Delegate’s in the 58th district. He hasn’t ruled out running for office in the future.
For now, though, he’s concentrating on his new position at UVA and the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge. “The greatest hope we have for the center is it will transform relationships of knowledge and power,” Walker says. “We want to change the concept of scholarship to incorporate new research methods, more relevant questions that include voices not normally included in academia.”